Modesty outside dictionaries of both Mamata & Gurung
One reason why the bruising political deadlock persists in Darjeeling and north Bengal hill districts is that both adversaries – the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) – indulge in unbridled political opportunism.
Both parties are led by two individuals who, despite their present visceral hatred towards each other, have more in common than they would care to admit. It also needs stressing they were the closest of allies until 2012-13. GJM Chief. Bimal Gurung had rhapsodized Mamata Banerjee as ‘our mother’, at a large public rally, even as the beaming Bengal Chief Minister declared that ‘Bengalis and Gorkhas are brothers’ and that ‘my hills are smiling’.
“I have solved the problems of my hills in 17 days,” added Ms Banerjee, the new ‘mother of the hills.’ Only days before the bonhomie and mutual back-patting, prior to the formation of the autonomous GTA (Gorkha Territorial Administration) Gurung had warned, ’I have the power to break Bengal.’ Talk about roller coaster political alignments!
For both leaders, readers please note the common binding thread – the unabashed use of the first person singular mode in their political messaging. ‘Modesty’, a commentator had noted wryly, ‘has no takers these days, among politicos.’
There can be no denying that West Bengal Government has not exactly made it easy for the GTA to function effectively. Kolkata, however, alleges that from the state the GTA authorities received Rs 900 crore during the past five years of its innings, which ends now. The Centre plugged in with another Rs 600 crore, without asking too many questions.
As TMC MP Derek rightly asks, just where has all the money gone? Why there has not occurred the kind of development that the so-called Gorkha ’leaders’ heading the GTA had promised? Where are the new Gorkha jobs the new assets have created on the ground?
And why are GJM leaders now quitting the GTA like rats deserting a sinking ship, now that the state has asked for an audited account of the GTA”s expenditure ?
The point is, the TMC had been actively undermining the GTA’s powers. During the last five years, in a clear bid to whittle away the Gorkhas’ domination of the GTA, the state government set up no fewer than16 autonomous Boards and announced special funds for them. This pleased smaller ethnic and tribal groups like the Bhutiyas, Lepchas, Tawangs and Limbus no end. And thereby hangs a tale.
The fact is Gorkhas are only one of the ethnic groups settled in and around Darjeeling. They are by no means the oldest entity either, never mind forcible claims now being made from Tiger hills to Kathmandu or Gangtok. Especially most of the Gorkhas living in and around Darjeeling are ‘settlers’ who were thrown out of Bhutan, accused of creating law and order problems. Worse, their ranks have swollen over the years with similar people who were forced to leave Meghalaya, Assam and other Northeastern States, not having proper citizenship papers.
Driven by their vote bank compulsions, the Congress, the CPI(M) and later the TMC instead of keeping a check on the intra regional influx, encouraged their settlement at a sensitive region close to the troubled Nepal border.
In private conversations, people of older communities even question the so-described patriotism of the Gorkhas. They refer to the firing on Jalianwalabagh crowds by the Gorkhas, the atrocities committed by the Gorkhas in the Garhwal region, the loyalty of the Gorkhas to the British during 1857 mutiny ….. bitter ethnic memories die hard.
Fearing they would be overwhelmed by hordes of aggressive Darjeeling-based Gorkhas, the smaller ethnic groups responded warmly to the TMC”s autonomous schemes seeking to protect their identity.
But positive as the move to save their identities was, clearly Kolkatabased rulers should have kept the GTA leaders on board in such matters. They did not. Instead, the Chief Minister seemed to provoke the GTA leaders deliberately, not even bothering to inform them on major administrative changes in the GTA area where she held administrative meetings and functions.
On one occasion Gurung struck a sympathetic chord even among Bengalis when he said,,’Our chief minister is even attending small village functions which very junior GTA functionaries usually handle!’
No wonder the GJM felt sidelined. Leaders complained they lacked ‘real’ powers. Not wholly true, except for the police and other security-related matters, the GTA enjoyed a wide ambit of powers.
It is debatable whether the real motive of the TMC in setting up smaller autonomous boards was only to help the smaller communities survive in the face if the rolling Gorkha juggernaut. GJM leaders were selectively helped and aided by groups and leaders in Sikkim and Nepal. Gurung and other leaders visit Nepal regularly ‘to meet friends and relatives only’ according to some reports! Significant also is the out-of-turn support expressed for Gorkhland by Sikkim Chief Minister Pawan Chamling.
In consonance with her barely concealed agenda of freeing Bengal from all political opposition from the hills to the Bay of Bengal, Ms Banerjee wanted to prop up the TMC as a serious challenge to hillbased parties, especially targeting the GJM, the mainstay behind the GTA: ‘Nepali expansionism meets concealed Bengali chauvinism,’ says one analyst. No wonder the GJM resents what it feels the ‘cultural domination’ from Kolkata and reacts in the only way Gorkhas know – physically, on the streets!
Significantly, state leaders of all opposition parties, ranging from the BJP, to the Congress and the CPI(M), have strongly blamed the TMC for the present situation in the hills and condemned its sidelining of the GJM. But for the TMC, there have been dividends: it has won 35 percent of the popular votes in recent civic polls in Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Kurseong and Mirik sub divisions .
While the GJM expectedly won in most areas, the TMC did win the Mirik civic polls, a first for a party from the plains! Gurung and his GJM followers could see the writing on the walls, as now the 2017 GTA elections are round the corner. What better way to divert peoples’ attention from local corruption and poor governance, than violently reviving the Gorkhaland agitation?