Exclusive-inclusive dilemma in Gorkha psyche

Romit Bagchi, SNS, 21 October 2013, Siliguri:One major upshot of the swift-paced developments occurring in the bosom of the Darjeeling Hills since end-July is that the Gorkhaland-centric politics that remained almost like an obsession for years is yielding place to politics of integration vis-a-vis the mainstream of the state. 

It is supposed that the emotive statehood issue having usurped the political space of the Hills since the GNLF movement under charismatic Subash Ghising caught the imagination of the people in 1980s thwarted the process of the integration. Before that, though the AIGL remained the dominant voice the CPI-M and, to a lesser extent, the CPI and the Congress had bases. Now, with the hope that Gorkhaland can be conjured up having received a decisive beating, it is possible that the ruling party of the state, Trinamul Congress can carve a space for itself in the subjectively befuddled Hills with its stress on development and peace. 

But things would not prove as easy as the party might think. True, it would be difficult for any party now to play on the emotive issue politically. But it is just a fancy that the people can be cajoled along the development lines to the absolute exclusion of the paramount issue. 

The success of the ruling party depends on how the people there would negotiate the inclusive-exclusive dilemma vis-à-vis the question of their ethnic identity and integration with the rest of Bengal. The dilemma has been there since Gorkha people attained political consciousness founded on the corner-stone of cultural separateness. Both the trends ~ one championing an exclusive propensity and the other not dismissing an inclusive possibility ~ are powerful realities of their collective mind. 

It must be remembered that home-rule aspirations once roused can hardly die down permanently. Whatever ground-swell of support the Left parties had enjoyed previously started evaporating once the demand for self-rule stormed its way into the political space. True, things are changing now as disillusionment with the emotive politics is fast setting in. Yet, the reality of the subjective dilemma can hardly be wished away. 

The only hope for the ruling party apart from the factor of disillusionment with the futile statehood-mongering is the persona of Chief Minister Miss Mamata Banerjee. 

Her empathy with the people, frantically looking for development and peace, is striking a chord. The GJMM and other Hill-based parties remaining in a bind, running out of options, so to say, might add to the ruling party’s advantage. 

But how things would unfold depends on the people, on whether they would opt for all-out integration with the state’s mainstream or would like to cling to their subjective separateness or would like to remain bogged in their exclusive-inclusive dilemma.