The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) celebrated the signing of the agreement for the setting up of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) with much fanfare in Darjeeling on Thursday even as its leadership asserted that this was only the “semi-final.”
The implication was clear. Formation of the GTA is being considered the “semi-final”; the “final” being the creation of a separate Gorkhaland State - what the GJM has been claiming to be its main agenda.
“We have entered the semi-final stage,” GJM's assistant general secretary Benoy Tamang told The Hindu over telephone from Darjeeling district.
“People from different walks of life joined in the celebrations with a great deal of enthusiasm. There was dancing and the overall mood was one of gaiety. Victory processions were taken out, and one converged at Chowrasta where our president Bimal Gurung addressed our supporters,” he added.
“Similar celebrations have also been planned at Kurseong, Kalimpong and Mirik in the coming days,” Mr. Tamang said. They are expected to be occasions when the GJM leadership will elaborate on its political position in the backdrop of the GTA agreement and on the future of its movement for a separate State.
The GJM had made clear its resolve to keep its demand for Statehood alive when Mr. Gurung, while addressing party activists of its units in the Terai and the Dooars a day after the signing of the tripartite agreement on July 18, pointed out that the memorandum of agreement contained a mention of the fact that it had not dropped its Gorkhaland demand.
But even as the celebrations were being held in Darjeeling, leaders of the non-GJM regional parties were critical of the GJM for “betraying the cause of Gorkhaland” and “hoodwinking the people”.
“It has been a betrayal of the Statehood cause, on the strength of which the GJM had won more than 80 per cent of the popular vote in the Assembly elections. Now, having settled for GTA, which is just another body like the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (which had been set up in 1988 and is to be replaced by the GTA), it seems to be following the route taken by Subhas Ghising (president of the Gorkha National Liberation Front),” said Gobind Chettri, spokesman of the Communist Party of Revolutionary Marxists – arguably the largest non-GJM regional party.
“The GJM is celebrating because it considers what it has achieved [GTA] a victory. But how can being served with ‘thukpa' [a local soupy noodles dish] when it was spaghetti that was asked for, be reason for celebration,” asked Dawa Sherpa, convener of the Democratic Front, an anti-GJM political conglomerate in the hills.
