The Gorkhaland gridlock

Sudeep Chakravarti, livemint.com, Oct 10 2013. The tripartite meeting in New Delhi later this month is designed to open the Gorkhaland political gridlock.

Will Gorkhaland soon emerge in the Darjeeling hill districts? Is it likely that it will no longer remain a fief of West Bengal, its time done as the dulled jewel in that state’s increasingly dented crown?

Certainly the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) hopes so. It has since the beginning of the year pushed for a separate state, further encouraged by the imminent division of Andhra Pradesh into Telangana and Seemandhra. The GJM expects that tripartite talks in a couple of weeks with the ministry of home affairs and the West Bengal government will provide a clearer indication. In anticipation of this meeting on 23 October, it has suspended a long and economically ruinous agitation that has impacted both tourism and tea, the lifeblood of this hilly region in northern Bengal.

The problem has festered since the 1980s, when the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) led by Subhash Ghising rode popular resentment against what was widely perceived as the colonial rule of the West Bengal government. The state’s favourite holiday destination was made destitute in nearly everything but an identity born of anger. This sentiment was fuelled by leaders of Nepali origin, people who had emerged as the majority ethnic group in the three administrative subdivisions of Darjeeling, Kurseong, Kalimpong, and some parts of Siliguri. (This coincidentally diminished the identities of the region’s indigenous communities, the Lepchas and Bhutias.)

The increasingly violent, often thuggish agitation for the state of Gorkhaland, fuelled by reaction of the Communist-led state government, finally led to the compromise creation of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC) in 1988, headed by Ghising. The mercurial Ghising agreed to drop the demand for Gorkhaland as a separate state as part of the deal.

From available indications, the subsided movement quickly settled into a familiar pattern of sloth born of political patronage and entitlement, variously enriching leaders, but not the led. The decades-long rot was questioned by emerging leaders, especially those like Bimal Gurung, who rode popular disenchantment to float the rival GJM in 2007, and revive the agitation for Gorkhaland as a separate state.

This movement, supported by several major political parties, including the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Trinamool Congress, gradually snowballed into a GJM-led agitation that demanded Ghising’s ouster and dissolution of the DGHC. As before, the Darjeeling hills were repeatedly brought to a standstill. Violence also grew among various Gorkha political groups.

Things calmed when the Trinamool Congress won the West Bengal state elections in 2011. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee went on an uncharacteristic charm offensive and, with the agreement of New Delhi, gave in to the GJM’s demand of scrapping the hill council. It was in September 2011 replaced by the semi-autonomous Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA). Aided by political finessing, including the withdrawal of candidates by the Trinamool Congress, the GJM won handsomely in elections to GTA’s council in mid-2012.

Since then, Banerjee’s famous “Darjeeling is smiling” boast has faded. The GJM has refused to roll over and play diminished. It has upped the ante for statehood, realizing that running GTA is not the same thing as running the Darjeeling hills—West Bengal still controls the purse strings, police and politics. Given the additional ingredient that Banerjee doesn’t take kindly to her authority being questioned, the matter of identity and politics has also become a matter of prestige.

To counter the GJM’s increasingly belligerent stand since early 2013, Banerjee adopted several lateral moves. These include ordering roadworks and the urgent repair of the broken highway up from Sevoke near Siliguri, the artery that connects the Darjeeling hills, Sikkim and Bhutan to the plains. In early September she arrived in Kalimpong, soaking up accolades from the Lepcha community for forming the Lepcha Development Board, clearly a challenge to GTA’s Nepali-centric approach. She also berated GTA for extended shutdowns and pointed to several hundred crore rupees meant for development in the hills lying unspent on account of GTA’s inaction.

Such moves have won covert support from business. Both the tea and tourism trades have been severely hit. This past summer I had a taste of it on a visit to the Darjeeling hills. I was stranded on account of a shutdown called by the GJM, after it accused the GNLF of attacking its workers at a public function in nearby Mirik; and even accused local police of playing a part. Accusations that Banerjee was encouraging the GNLF were naturally not far behind.

The tripartite meeting in New Delhi later this month is designed to open this political gridlock. My bet is that it won’t go far without a reduction of West Bengal’s influence in the Darjeeling hills.

Sudeep Chakravarti is the author of Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country and Highway 39: Journeys through a Fractured Land. This column focuses on conflict situations in South Asia that directly affect business.