Kolkata: The steaming pot of Darjeeling tea is turning out to be a sizzler for the Mamata Banerjee-government in West Bengal and the opposition BJP in the state, ahead of next year's crucial Assembly polls.
Trouble started brewing after a relative lull of nearly three years in the Hills and the Terai region with the sudden, dramatic and mysterious reappearance of former Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) chief Bimal Gurung, who had vanished from public view in 2017 following a slew of cases filed by the state police against him, some under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and other non-bailable sections of the Indian Penal Code.
Gurung was charged with masterminding and unleashing violent protests in the Hills, which had eventually led to the death of 11 anti-government protesters allegedly in police firing, and one assistant sub-inspector. Gurung had been reportedly hiding in New Delhi, Sikkim, Nepal and Jharkhand and was rarely spotted in the open.
Legalese apart, Gurung's reappearance on October 21 had one more twist. His open support for Mamata Banerjee and public denouncement of the BJP. The same BJP, which he had been supporting since 2007 and which has helped the saffron party win the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat three times in a row since 2009. Now Gurung accuses the BJP of failing to live up to its promise in regards to Darjeeling and its separate statehood aspiration.
The complexities and how it all started
The UPA government’s decision to split Andhra Pradesh and create a separate state of Telangana had opened a Pandora’s Box. Pouring out from it were the renewed demands of Seemandhra, Bodoland, Bundelkhand, Vidarbha and Harit Pradesh. Of all, Gorkhaland always remained different. First, because of its historical perspective and second, due to its violent past.
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The demand for a separate state is over a century old for the Gorkhas of North Bengal. The first note of discontent resonated in 1907 in the Darjeeling Hills with the Hillmen's Association of Darjeeling (HAD) submitting a memorandum to the Morley-Minto Reforms Commission demanding a separate administrative set up for the Hills.
The demand was renewed in 1917 with the HAD submitting a fresh memorandum to the Bengal government, the Secretary State of India and the Viceroy, for a separate administrative unit comprising Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri.
The British never took the petitions seriously and the Gorkhas never stopped pushing. Coming back at regular intervals – in 1929 before the Simon Commission, in 1930 and in 1941, when the demand of exclusion of Darjeeling from the Bengal province and making it a Chief Commissioner’s Province gained wind, to 1952; when the Akhil Bharatiya Gorkha League met then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in Kalimpong, demanding economic independence and a larger identity for the Gorkha ethnic group as well as separation from Bengal – the petitions and representations never stopped.
But, they were all non-violent and were essentially a lull before the storm.
Violence as means of aspiration
Violence broke out over the demand of a separate state of Gorkhaland in the 1980s. Blood trickled down the Hills of Darjeeling first on April 5, 1980 as the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) led by Subash Ghising initiated a bloody campaign that eventually ended on August 22, 1988 with the formation of an autonomous body - the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC). But, not before the bleary silence of the Hills was blown to smithereens by the heavy boots of central paramilitary forces and the violence claimed as many as 1,200 lives.
Subash Ghising became the caretaker of the Council and DGHC, the supreme authority in the Hills. But, like all identity politics, the DGHC leadership never fully let the separate statehood issue die down. They kept it simmering and in 2004 Ghising demanded the Council area be brought under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution
Sixth Schedule or something more?
Constitution experts, as well as political watchers, widely agree that the Sixth Schedule provisions of the Constitution was the best alternative and a distinctive step towards realising the Gorkhas' aspirations of self-governance and was also mitigating the chance of any insurgency, as has been the case with the Bodoland Territorial Council in Assam.
For the Gorkhas, the move could have been a compromise of sorts for their statehood demand, but nowhere in the Constitution, it is written that an area governed under the Sixth Schedule can’t ever become a full-fledged state at a later stage.
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What went wrong?
At one end Ghising was demanding Sixth Schedule for the Hills and on the other, his political rivals started protesting as they misinterpreted the Constitutional provisions. Eventually, the Centre shelved the idea.
The deadlock, coupled with Ghising’s dictatorial style of functioning, dismal road conditions, drinking water shortage and sanitation and drainage system woes, made people disillusioned with the DGHC. Several Council members started differing with Ghising and by 2007 a split in the GNLF was evident.
A TV reality show and the rise of Bimal Gurung
Within the GNLF, the person who emerged as the front-runner was one of Ghising’s trusted lieutenants, Bimal Gurung.
Interestingly it was no political move that catapulted Gurung's elevation, but a TV reality show! People in the Darjeeling Hills rallied behind Gurung after he secured massive support for a local crooner Prashant Tamang for the reality show, Indian Idol.
Tamang won the title, GNLF split and Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) came into existence with Bimal Gurung as its leader. The same Bimal Gurung, who should have been sharing the blame along with Ghising for the incompetencies of the DGHC because as a DGHC councillor Gurung was equally responsible. But, history has its own ways of turning tides.
Taking a plunge in politics and desperately trying to consolidate his fledgling position, Gurung's GJM supported BJP's Jaswant Singh from Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat in the 2009 general elections.
Singh won, but NDA lost the polls. And along with it fizzled out the renewed aspirations for a separate Gorkha state. The West Bengal Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution against any division of the state. Left with fewer options and the Assembly elections closing in, Gurung resorted to what he knew best – violence.
Return of violence to the Hills
In February 2011, police opened fire on agitating GJM supporters when they tried to enter Jalpaiguri during a ‘long march’ led by Gurung from Gorubathan to Jaigaon. Violence broke out in the Hills and was followed by a nine-day long bandh.
The 2011 Assembly polls saw the exit of the Left Front in Bengal and Mamata Banerjee was at the hustings. GJM won all three Hill seats – Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong and was firmly placed in the state legislature. In July 2011, a memorandum of agreement was signed between the GJM, West Bengal government and the Centre for formation of a semi-autonomous administrative body – the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA). The state Assembly passed the GTA bill in September and in 2012 when elections to GTA office bearers were held, GJM won 17 and bagged the rest 28 seats unopposed. It was the honeymoon period for Gurung and the Mamata Banerjee-government. But, like always, this was not to last for long.
The politician in Mamata knew she had to make her mark in the plains and the Terai-Dooars region after the GJM wins or else she was risking losing more grounds. Though the GTA was the ultimate authority in all health and educational institutions across its command area as per the bill, yet Mamata placed two of her ministers to oversee the governing bodies of some of them. In another parallel move, she created separate development boards for 15 ethnic groups, many of whom speak Nepali, and distributed funds among them. The infusion of funds has been a regular affair. Gurung also knew if Mamata's Trinamool Congress gained grounds in the Darjeeling Hills, it will only be at the cost of the GJM. The honeymoon was over and Gurung resigned from the GTA.
The Teesta has been flowing fast since then. In 2016, Mamata won her second term to the hustings and Trinamool emerged victorious in the civic body polls of Mirik in the Darjeeling foothills, right from under the nose of GJM. And when on June 8, 2017 Mamata decided to hold a state cabinet meeting in Darjeeling, all hell broke loose.
Bimal Gurung, the fugitive
The West Bengal government floated a proposal to make Bengali language compulsory in state-run schools across the state, including Darjeeling, where the majority of people are Nepalese. It acted as a spark in the waiting ambers and Gurung called for an indefinite shut down in the Hills and Terai-Dooars region.
Mamata acted tough and sent in her police to control the unrest. The result was a bloody showdown and a shutdown for 104-days leading to loss of lives and property, both government and private. The precious Second Flush of the world-famous Darjeeling Tea was literally destroyed in the gardens with workers refusing to join duties. Multiple cases were slapped against Gurung and his close aides, forcing them and other GJM supporters to flee.
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GJM split and in a re-visit of history, Gurung's trusted man in the outfit, Binay Tamang, emerged as the front runner of one of the factions. Tamag, along with another former Gurung loyalist, Anit Thapa, are running the GTA now. It was during the agitation that Tamang held out an olive branch to the Mamata government, entered into a dialogue and eventually ended the agitation.
What now?
Will Bimal Gurung's decision to support Mamata Banerjee be a game-changer for TMC in the Hills? Will the two warring factions of GJM – the Gurung faction and the Tamang faction, mend ties? If both the Gurung and Tamang factions come together and GJM allies with TMC, what happens to the Gorkha aspirations and whom will the people of the Darjeeling Hills and Terai align with? With both factions now turning pro-Mamata, will it mean an end of GJM and the people of the Hills will have to wait for a new formation to rekindle the Gorkhaland demand? What happens to the BJP in the Hills?
Many such questions are doing rounds along the winding roads leading from Siliguri to Darjeeling, but most have no answers as of now. It is more of a waiting game at this time as it will be interesting to note how the BJP government at the Centre reacts to Gurung's move ahead of the West Bengal Assembly elections.
When Franklin Prestage first laid the railway tracks in Darjeeling in 1879 for the heritage Darjeeling Himalayan Railways, he devised a unique concept called the ‘Z-reverse’ to scale the heights. In the process the train first climbs up a slope, stops and then moving backwards climbs a steeper incline and reaches the other end higher up, resuming its onward journey to the next level. The main idea behind the ‘Z-reverse’ concept is – when moving forward is not possible, it is always better to retreat and find a new way ahead.
For all stakeholders in Darjeeling and Terai, this 'Z-reverse' concept could be an eye-opener. It is time that they understand that politics is seldom a straight drive.
