Hilly Gorkhaland
be set up when there’s an elected autonomous territorial administration formed through a tripartite agreement between the state, the Centre and the GJM, reasoned Gurung’s outfit.
For Gurung, the latest Trinamool inroads represent more than just vote-bank politics. He considers them a direct attack on Gorkha identity. The Mamata effect is most evident in Kalimpong, where Trinamool flags and posters of Didi are everywhere. It hurt more as there were rumours that Chhetri, an intellectual icon of the Gorkha hills, a man fluent in Nepali, Hindi, English and Bengali, may soon join hands with Banerjee. In fact on September 30, when Gurung was addressing the rally in Kalimpong, Chhetri was in Kolkata.
Chhetri and his followers started organising small rallies from September 10, demanding district status for Kalimpong subdivision — a counter to Gurung’s statehood demand.
When these correspondents reached the Kalimpong rally site, poets were regaling the audience with sarcasm and, of course, how the Gorkhas had been suppressed since 1962 when then chief minister Bidhan Chandra Roy argued that the Nepalis were not in a majority in the hills as their language was not spoken by all the hill people.
The people were hooting, laughing and roaring. But no one left his or her seat. No one rushed to the dais where the leaders were seated. The reason: samarpan, anushasan, ekta (surrender, discipline and unity).
Most of the cadres, however, are not bothered that there’s no space for democracy, though. But that’s the reason, people think, Gurung’s two MLAs Chettri and Dewan, have left him.
And when Gurung rose to speak, the decibel level was almost unbearable. The next half an hour was a lesson on how to control the crowd with just words, camaraderie and threats to the government. The rider was: “Our movement will be peaceful. We’re from the land of Gandhi.”
But the possibility of violence is always alive in the hills. GNLF general secretary Mahindra Chhetri confirmed later in Siliguri that his party was preparing for a violent showdown with Gurung, and that the next election would see the return of the Ghising clan to the hills.
Mann, Ghising’s son and the GNLF president, kept smiling awkwardly when the GNLF general secretary, a former CPI(M) leader, kept on blazing away against the GJM, and not, interestingly, so much against Banerjee.
After the Kalimpong rally, these correspondents met Gurung at a hotel on a remote hilltop outside Kalimpong. There’s only one potholed approach road to the hotel and every car that took that road was being monitored. There were cadres everywhere, fanned out to spot any trouble.
We found him at the lobby of the hotel, surrounded by his aides, friends, supporters and, of course, favour-seekers. We waited till he managed to shoo them away and led us to a room to tell us about his life — the story of a boy from the tea gardens.
Gurung speaks plainly, but beneath all that bonhomie and good-natured banters, one can sense the simmering violence. The GJM is waiting, prepared for ambushes from the plains.