Darjeeling Unlimited

Struggle for Gorkhaland

Sergeant Dip Prasad Pun

by Corinne Zurfluh, February 2008

The Himalayan foothills of Darjeeling are boiling again after 20 years of relative calm. Residents there have taken to the streets in the quest for independence from West Bengal and a separate state, Gorkhaland, within the framework of the Indian Constitution. As with other low-intensity conflicts in India, such as Jharkhand and Uttarakhand, the Gorkhas seek independence from the state, but not the country. Within many Indian states, one ethnic group often dominates a number of linguistic, ethnic or religious minorities. This holds true for majority-Bengali West Bengal.

Separatist leaders have used complaints from the Gorkhas of neglect and domination by the Bengalis to mobilize the Nepali-speaking minority of the Darjeeling hills, emphasizing their common Gorkha identity. Yet, that very identity is controversial, and there is a lack of agreement among the locals on what "Gorkha" means.

The Gorkhas, an ethnic group originally from Nepal, migrated to India during and after British rule. Many were recruited for service in the colonial army. In today's Darjeeling, however, the term Gorkha tends to be applied to all Nepali-speaking people. It is a political rather than an ethnic label to embrace a multi-ethnic group consisting of indigenous tribes of the area and Nepali immigrants with Indian citizenship. What unites them all is probably their common aversion to the Bengali majority.

The Bengalis own most places of business in the hills' main towns. The Nepali-speaking locals, however, often perform menial jobs and resent the success of the Bengalis, whom they consider outsiders in the hills. Moreover, they blame the government of West Bengal for their underdevelopment.

But the Gorkhas are all but united. While the four-month-old Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJMM) party and its leader Bimal Gurung want nothing less than an independent Gorkhaland within India, the former radical Subash Ghisingh has dropped that idea in favor of a more viable solution: greater autonomy.

Ghisingh and his Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) led a violent two-year conflict in the 1980s for a separate state. In 1988 he accepted a political settlement, signing a tripartite agreement with the governments in Kolkata and New Delhi that gave a great deal of autonomy to the newly founded Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC), the governing body for the district of Darjeeling. Ghisingh has been the chairman of the DGHC since its inception.

In 2005, the same parties signed another tripartite in-principle memorandum of settlement to include Darjeeling in the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, which addresses administration of tribal areas. In the agreement, the DGHC would be granted more power. A standing committee in New Delhi is currently hearing arguments for and against the proposed constitutional amendment. For the opposition parties, especially the GJMM and its leader Bimal Gurung, the Sixth Schedule solution is a betrayal to Gorkhaland. In fact, the sudden rise and appeal of a party like the GJMM is only possible in the light of the deep dissatisfaction of the Gorkhas of Darjeeling. In spite of Ghisingh's many promises, not much has improved for the hill people in the last 20 years: Unemployment is high, towns face water shortages every summer and road conditions deteriorate with every monsoon and landslide.

While many are quick to blame the West Bengal government for neglecting the hills, others claim that it is as much the fault of the local administration and the ruling GNLF itself. They accuse the DGHC of siphoning funds and claim that some GNLF functionaries, including Ghisingh, have amassed personal fortunes with money allocated for development. These accusations have sparked strong anti-GNLF sentiments in Darjeeling and the surrounding villages.

Yet, many locals fear that neither autonomy nor independence will change their fate. They refer to the state of Jharkhand, where the tribal population was successful in gaining independence from the state of Bihar in 2000, as an example. Today, Jharkhand is still as dominated by Biharis as it was eight years ago.

New Delhi and Kolkata do not face an easy task. Scholars speculate about a "balkanization" of India, with minorities in other states being likely to follow the Gorkhas if India deems their area a separate state. If India denies the request, the conflict will likely turn violent. The autonomy granted to Darjeeling within the DGHC in 1988 was seen as a clever move on the part of the central government. Granting even more autonomy with the Sixth Schedule status seems a viable appeasement strategy. However, one should keep in mind that the Sixth Schedule is designed for the administration of tribal areas. It is therefore of utmost importance for the Gorkhaland movement to actually come to terms with their "tribal" identity.

A total shutdown called by the GJMM on 20 February has disrupted normal life in Darjeeling. GJMM supporters have also resumed a hunger strike that had been suspended for meeting with the state government. Since the parties have not reached an agreement, the GJMM announced that they will continue their protests until Subash Ghisingh is removed from power and the imposition of Sixth Schedule status dropped.

Gorkhaland for Sale

by Charles Bara, June 2011

The newly elected Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, announced on 7 June that the West Bengal state government has come to an agreement with the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), the party leading the agitation for a separate Gorkha state since 2007. Gorkhaland was supposed to be carved out of West Bengal in India and encompass the current district of Darjeeling in the Himalayan foothills.

Darjeeling district is culturally distinct from the rest of the state by its primary language (Nepali instead of Bengali) and its character as a melting pot of religions and ethnicities (various indigenous tribes and immigrants from Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan). Now the leaders of the GJM have dropped the demand for a separate state and instead reached an agreement with the West Bengal government to form a new hill council with elected representatives to govern in a semi-autonomous fashion.

It seems that history has just repeated itself. The demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland is not new. In the 1980s, Subhas Ghisingh and his Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) led a violent two-year conflict for a separate Gorkhaland state. In 1988 Ghisingh accepted a political settlement, signing a tripartite agreement with the governments in Kolkata and New Delhi that gave partial autonomy to the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGCH), the governing body for the district of Darjeeling.

The 2007-2010 agitation was directed as much against the West Bengal government as it was against the leaders of the GNLF. The GJM accused the hill council of siphoning funds and claim that some GNLF functionaries, including Ghisingh, have amassed personal fortunes with money allocated for development. In short: the opposition parties like the GJM were not satisfied with the autonomy granted in the 1980s as it did nothing to improve the living conditions in the region (high unemployment, water shortages, road conditions that deteriorate every monsoon, and landslides). Since the second agitation started, there were frequent strikes affecting government offices, schools and transportation.

Recall: Gurung declared that he will shoot himself dead if he fails to achieve Gorkhaland by March 10, 2010. Now he has dropped the demand for Gorkhaland and thus repeated what his adversary Ghisingh did more than 20 years ago. No wonder that some Gorkhaland supporters discussing on Facebook and on the community blog The Himalayan Beacon feel betrayed by the GJM leadership. "Sold to the Goondas" (thugs) and "sold in exchange for chair, money and power" are just two of the many comments by disappointed activists, and one has to understand that when they say "sold", they mean that quite literally.

Considering the Indian context, it is not unlikely that the demand for a separate state was suppressed in exchange for money behind the curtains. The stakeholders - speak GJM leadership - might well have been promised political power and developmental packages, needless to say for their personal financial gains. According to the general secretary of the Communist Party of Revolutionary Marxists, Taramoni Rai, "the GJM has fooled the people of the hills by leaving out the demand of separate statehood for the Gorkhas during the meeting with the government on 6 June 2011. It is now clear that the GJM used Gorkhaland as a platform to win the assembly elections. With the polls over, they have abandoned the issue."

Chief Minister Banerjee did nothing to silence these rumors. When asked whether a financial package will be given to Darjeeling, she retorted, "Shall I attend a wedding without a gift? We love the people of Darjeeling." It can only be hoped that the gift will be given to the people of Darjeeling, and not just to their leaders.

Original Text at: http://isnblog.ethz.ch; Photo Credit: Ministry of Defence, United Kingdom