Gorkha Bhela in New Delhi: Memorandum presented to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

PR, KalimNews, New Delhi, December 19: The two-day Rashtriya Gorkha Bhela, convened by the Bharatiya Gorkha Parisangh in New Delhi, concluded amid high drama on December 19, 2013. Gorkhas from various parts of India had congregated at Jantar Mantar to press for the creation of Gorkhaland. 

The gathering was addressed by political leaders and social leaders and was attended by many social organisations, besides all state units of the Bharatiya Gorkha Parisangh. Hundreds of people raised pro-statehood slogans and berated the current state of affairs in Darjeeling, where the movement for Gorkhaland had been compromised by the formation of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration. 

The crowd later braved police action to take to Parliament Street in order to press the Prime Minister and the Home Minister into taking action to create the state of Gorkhaland. While the PMO inititially refused to accept the memorandum being presented by the Bharatiya Gorkha Parisangh, the vociferous demand of the Gorkhas at Parliament Street forced the PMO to relent and send a vehicle to take a four-member delegation to the Prime Minister's Office at South Block. There, Shri CP Giri (Working President), Shri Arun Upadhyaya (Vice president), Shri Munish Tamang (General Secretary Operations) and Shri Guman Limbu (Secretary, CPC) presented a memorandum, copies of which were also given Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde and Congress President Sonia Gandhi.

The memorandum decried the attitude of the Central government in ignoring the constant demand for a separate state by the Gorkhas of India. It accused the government of political expediency at a time when it had created Telangana for political dividends.  It said, "The government has sidelined the demand for the creation of a state under Article 3 of the Constitution by setting up ineffective and misconceived agencies like the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council and the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, all of which has failed to satisfy the Gorkha people, and, in fact, which have only strengthened the feeling among the community that the Central Government does not regard their wishes as of any consequence."

The memorandum added: "We, as a community, are regarded, by virtue of a cruel interplay between history and geography, of being settlers in India from a neighbouring country, a stigma that has had a bearing on the Gorkhas being precluded in policies and development schemes in states where they are resident in India. To remedy this falsity, the Gorkhas have been demanding a separate state that establishes them in the minds of their fellow citizens as people of India, as stakeholders in the nation’s progress and history."

It also asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to immediately take steps to start the process of creating the state of Gorkhaland.