As we went up the Hill Cart Road to Darjeeling, wondering when the monsoon would arrive, a fellow traveller reminded us: the weather and the politics in the hills can change in an instant. And even though it was hard to miss the underlying tension, with posters of “Gorkhaland Banam Bangal” (Gorkhaland versus Bengal) along the picturesque road, on the surface there seemed to be a semblance of normalcy.
After the violence on June 8 that happened even as the West Bengal government held its Cabinet meeting, there was a call by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) to boycott government offices. Shops and commercial establishments, however, were still open, with tourists freely moving. Things took a turn for the worse after June 15 when the GJM, angered by the raid on its chief Bimal Gurung’s house, called for an indefinite shutdown.
But more than the chronology of events that led to the deadlock, Darjeeling presented images, sounds and anecdotes that gave a sense of the anger brewing in the hills.
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The most haunting of all were images of smoke billowing from burnt police vehicles on Lebong Cart Road; bloodstains that could not be washed away after brief spells of rain; and men and young boys with faces covered taking on the security forces with slings and stones.
There were other sights and sounds too: the slogans in support of a separate State renting the air at Chowk Bazar, suggesting it was no manufactured display of organisational might but a spontaneous outpouring of anger; boys from reputed Darjeeling boarding schools narrating how from the school windows they saw a man being stabbed and describing the burning sensation in their eyes after tear-gas shells were fired; the courage and determination of a young journalist, in her mid-twenties, who refused to leave though the car she was travelling in and most of her video equipment were set on fire; public offices, being torched, and reduced to embers. Older folks in Darjeeling talked of how the situation had been in the 1980s and why they were now ready to face the ordeal of another shutdown, provided a “real solution” emerged.
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We heard a young police officer explaining to a group of journalists how society gets the police it deserves, pointing to the injuries sustained by women constables in a violent stand-off.
When we were leaving the hills, the roads were deserted; only a few people, mostly daily wage earners, were trudging down the 70 km stretch from Darjeeling to Siliguri. Suddenly, we saw a vehicle with a local licence number. The wind-shield was smashed. The owners said they did not plan to have it repaired, at least not till peace returned.