Smell of Gorkhaland agitation swamps in Dooars ..... GJM plasters posters demanding inclusion in proposed Gorkhaland

Vivek Ghatani,KalimNews, Jalpaiguri / Birpara, 11August 2013: Sanjana Sharma, a student who trudges 10 kms everyday from Bhutan turning near Jaigaon fears that the on going agitation for Gorkhaland in the hills of Darjeeling would soon reach the Dooars region. 

Though, she is well aware that Gorkhaland is an issue which is much related to her too much for being a Gorkha daughter.

“Gorkhaland is as much important to me like my friends in the hills. But I have seen the agitation in the past not in the hills but in the Dooars during which my studies had got hampered extensively. Despite that the Dooars had to face betrayal. With Darjeeling boiling once again I fear the agitation will reach here very soon and disturbances would follow,” Sharma told enroute to Birpara in a bus.

Minute after Sharma and her friends dropped themselves at Birpara where their school is stationed, the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), probably charged with the agitation in the hills, put up posters all the Nepali pockets like Birpara, Kalchini, Bagrakote demanding these areas to be included in the Gorkhaland state.

The move, said leaders from the Dooars, was taken without the consensus of the Hills leaders. “We have always backed the Gorkhaland stir and being a central committee member, I thought it right to re-launch the movement at this time when our brothers in Darjeeling are intensifying their movement,” said Madhukar Thapa, a GJM central committee member from the Dooars.

Thapa said candlelight rallies, torch rallies and meetings across the Dooars especially in the Nepali pockets will be held soon.    

“Our leaders have demanded 198 mouzas in the Dooars and 200 mouzas in the Terai. We don’t know what the leaders in Terai are doing, but we are not ready to miss this opportunity to launch the movement,” said Thapa. “We will carry out the movement in a peaceful and democratic manner. We have a population of over 4 lakh in these 198 mouzas which justifies our demand of inclusion of the areas under Gorkhaland,” he added.

The decision of the GJM Dooars unit has irked the anti-GJM organizations. While the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parshad (ABAVP) has termed the stir as an irresponsible move which might hamper communal harmony, some Bengali chauvinist outfits have threatened to come down on the GJM supporters if they dared to take out rallies and put up posters demanding inclusion of the areas under a separate state.

Under the banner of Dooars Terai Joint Action Committee, the anti-GJM outfits (including Bangla O Bangla Bhasa

Bachao Committee, Jana Jagaran, Jana Chetana and Nagarik Mancha) have submitted a memorandum to the Bengal CM and served copies of it to all administrative officials asking them to take steps if GJM tried to re-launch its movement in the Dooars and Terai.       

 “If they start a movement in the Dooars, people of Dooars will never accept that and will oppose it with all their might. The region has already witnessed violence in 2008 and this time we don’t want that. It is therefore we have asked the administration to step into before people take over the control. Otherwise Dooars will witness another blood spill,” said Tez Kumar Toppo, secretary of ABAVP’s Bengal chapter.

“Every time there has been a demand in Darjeeling, the Nepalis living in the plains demand inclusion of the region in Gorkhaland. This is very childish. We will never allow them carry out any sort of movement in the plains. And if they do, they will have to face the consequences,” said Mukunda Mazumdar of Bangla O Bangla Bhasa Bachao Committee.