Ten years ago, Prashant Tamang, a constable in the West Bengal police, and an ethnic Gorkhali from Darjeeling, won the television show ‘Indian Idol Season 3’, no mean feat for a young man from a perennially neglected region. Mr. Tamang got additional votes after an appeal to the police force by Zulfiqar Hasan, a joint commissioner in the Kolkata Police, and now an operations chief of the Central Reserve Police Force in Kashmir.
On realising that the Bengal Police were batting for a Nepali singer, many approached the undisputed leader of Darjeeling, Subhash Ghising, to back Mr. Tamang. Ghising’s lack of enthusiasm was a boon for his former aide, Bimal Gurung, who soon appealed for votes for Mr. Tamang. Millions of Nepalis voted believing that it would be a step forward to being recognised as Indian and not Nepali. Sitting in a sprawling apartment on Hailey Road in Delhi, Mr. Gurung, who heads the main party, the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) in Darjeeling said, in 2009 that backing Mr. Tamang was perhaps his “wisest political move.” Mr Gurung followed up Mr. Tamang’s success by launching the GJM.
A repeated demand
If Prashant Tamang brought the issue of the Nepali identity and nationality back in focus in Darjeeling’s politics in the last decade, it was Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who has triggered the issue in 2017. Her government announced that Bengali would be “mandatory” in schools. Though she withdrew the “mandatory” bit, the damage was done.
However, the decision is only the effect of a cause rooted elsewhere. Between 1907 and 1987, demands for a separate Darjeeling were raised on “at least on 15 occasions”, notes Tapash Mukherjee, a veteran journalist who has covered Darjeeling.
Sikkim gifted Darjeeling to the East India Company in 1835 and Ghisingh referred to this transfer of land when he demanded the detachment of Darjeeling. The stand of the GJM on Gorkhaland remains “largely unchanged in 2017”, says the key ideologue of the GJM, Amar Singh Rai, in a recent interview to The Hindu . However, many have questioned Ghisingh’s position over the years.
But the demand to treat Darjeeling as a “separate unit” has often returned. Historian Subhas Ranjan Chakraborty, who has stayed and worked in Darjeeling for many years, noted that in 1907 “on behalf of the hill people” of Darjeeling, “a separate administrative unit” was demanded. In 1930, a representation to Sir Samuel Hoare, Secretary of State for India, said that “Darjeeling …should be excluded from Bengal.” So, some say that the argument that imposing Bengali acted as a trigger in 2017 may be too severe, as something or the other has kept the homeland movement alive.
Simmering within
In Darjeeling, many civil society representatives have argued that the 2017 movement was “simmering inside”. It was an anti-GJM movement but not for the reasons as perceived by the government. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) argued that the GJM was losing the people’s mandate on account of mismanagement of funds.
In his blog, TMC MP Derek O’Brien has argued that the GJM-run Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) “received” ₹1,500 crore from the State and the Central governments in the last five years but refused to file the accounts. As the TMC asked for a “special audit”, it “rattled” the GJM, the MP said. Moreover, he said that the developmental projects of Ms. Banerjee had resulted in the TMC’s victory in recent civic polls which “stunned” the GJM. The TMC is “widely expected to do well” in the forthcoming GTA elections as the Chief Minister’s presence has created a “buzz” in Darjeeling and the TMC is committed to work hard, Mr. O’Brien added. However, the question in Darjeeling is not about how committed the TMC is, but why?
Once again, civil society argues that creating a “buzz” — from community board formation to targeting GJM leaders using unparliamentary language — was an attempt to squash the Nepali identity question. Many within the GJM have argued that the party was “reprimanded” in the civic polls — not necessarily for corruption — but for settling for too little autonomy by signing the GTA agreement, 2011. The call for development — and the “buzz” — is thus seen to be an attempt to dilute the Gorkhaland issue.
Bimal Gurung realised that this “simmering” angst could have led to him being replaced had the GJM not relaunched the Gorkhaland movement. He needed an issue and this was when the issue of the imposition of Bengali cropped up. However, the question is this: how will Ms. Banerjee deal with the situation, given that most Bengalis are against the division of the State? Thus for Ms. Banerjee, there is little option but to quell it. Whether she does it with diplomacy or coercion remains to be seen.
suvojit.bagchi@thehindu.co.in
