Mouza demand a political bubble : For Delhi, a friendly Indo-Bhutan relation is the priority to keep China at bay

This time round, the time does not seem to be opportune to raise such a demand. The reason why the demand has been revived seems to be political. 

Editorial, EOI, 29 February 2024 : The demand by Gorkha Terai Dooars Sanyukta Samiti that 398 mouzas in the Terai and the Dooars in north Bengal be brought under the jurisdiction of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration reopens a chapter in the chequered history of the Darjeeling hills, a chapter that had been closed years ago. 

This time round, the time does not seem to be opportune to raise such a demand. The reason why the demand has been revived seems to be political. 

The objective situations are not favourable for such a demand to make any headway either.

The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha under the leadership of Bimal Gurung had demanded that 199 mouzas in the Darjeeling district and 199 in the Jalpaiguri district be included in the GTA as these were Gorkha-dominated. 

The Justice Shyamal Sen Committee, appointed by the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal, in its report tabled in2012 found only five mouzas eligible for inclusion in the GTA; three in the Darjeeling district and two in the Jalpaiguri district. 

The nine-member independent committee headed by Justice Shyamal Sen had recommended the inclusion of these five mouzas in the GTA after taking into account contiguity, compactness and ground level conditions. Out of the 199 mouzas in the Jalpaiguri district the GJM had demanded for inclusion in the GTA, 149 had been left out of consideration by the high-power committee for their geographical contiguity to eastern Bhutan. 

Three of the remaining 50 were incomplete mouzas. Out of the rest, only 10 were Gorkha-dominated. Among them, three did not have direct links with the hill council area. 

A tea garden intervened. Of the seven others, four had to be left out for sundry reasons; with only three found eligible to be brought under the jurisdiction of the GTA. Of the 199 mouzas in question in the Darjeeling district, only 11 had been found to be Gorkha-dominated and eight could not be included in the hill council area because of ground level situation and other considerations. 

There is no reason to believe that the objective situation has undergone any change since 2012 when the Justice Shyamal Sen Committee submitted its report or that if a committee is formed now it will recommend something different.

Bhutan will continue to have reservations against geographical areas contiguous to the Indo-Bhutan border being brought under the jurisdiction of the GTA in view of the disturbances in southern Bhutan in the 1980s. 

For Delhi, a friendly Indo-Bhutan relation is the priority to keep China at bay. 

The China factor works in other ways also against any possibility of merging large areas of north Bengal with the hills under one political entity. With the merger of Darjeeling with Sikkim understood to be still under consideration as one of the possible permanent political solutions to the problems of the hills, Delhi may not like to merge the strategic Siliguri corridor with the hills in view of the long India – China border in Sikkim.

Most significantly, this time the demand has not been raised by the party in power in the GTA; the Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha, led by Anit Thapa who has excellent relations with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who again will be the last person to agree for the inclusion of large tracts in the Terai and the Dooars with the GTA. 

A separate state of Gorkhaland, too, seems to be a distant dream now. Anit Thapa has many political detractors in the hills, however, and the demand may have been instigated by some of his detractors to put the GTA Chief Executive in discomfiture.