by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Kalimpong : Citing the unprecedented violence, agitation and a prolonged shutdown in the northern West Bengal hills last year over the demands for separate state of Gorkhaland, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday urged locals to forget the past and “work together like a family” for the betterment of the people.
Claiming that the 104-day long complete shutdown in the hills of Darjeeling from mid-June to September last year had critically impacted the development and economy of the region, she said the state government and the local administrative boards like Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) have to work hand in hand to recover the lost ground.
“Whatever has happened, has happened. I want to forget that. I want that if there was any mistake from my part, we can work towards rectifying that mistake. It is important to work for the betterment of people with an honest heart to bring about the ‘Acche Din’ (better days),” Banerjee said at a public meeting in Darjeeling district’s hill town Kalimpong.
“I want the hills to make progress. If some leaders call strike for six to eight months in the hills, the people here suffer immensely. Unemployment goes up and the developmental projects of the government come to a halt…Whichever board does better work, I will help them more. I will help the GTA too. Let’s stay together like a family and work together for the betterment of hills,” she said.
Congratulating the Darjeeling hills for the tourist inflow this year, the Chief Minister encouraged more numbers of tourist sectors, home stays and industries in the region. She also pointed out that special stress should be given on agriculture, horticulture and food processing.
However, the Trinamool Congress supremo asked the local developmental boards to spend the government aid properly and maintain a clean financial record.
“We gave Rs 3,804.17 crore to the previous GTA board. After the new board was formed, we have handed them Rs 705.58 crore for doing the work. Total Rs 4,509.75 crore has been given. We want the GTA and all the other boards to properly utilise the money and keep their financial records clean,” Banerjee said.
She also said the state government wants to build an educational hub in Darjeeling and the process of building a state university in Mongpu under Kurseong sub-division has started.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
By Milinda Ghosh Roy,
Darjeeling : Through much of 2017, the picturesque Darjeeling Hills — once a dreamy tourist gateway — simmered with violence over the revived demand for a separate Gorkhaland state.
The agitation that started against the alleged imposition of Bengali language on the locals snowballed into an intense movement for statehood, triggering widespread arson and vandalism, massive clashes, multiple casualties, political blame games and the longest-ever shutdown of 104 days that brought the entire northern West Bengal hills to a standstill.
During the May civic body polls, Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM), the leading political force in the hills for over a decade, retained its supremacy by winning the Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong municipalities, but suffered a crushing defeat in Mirik Notified Area, where the Trinamool Congress gained a two-thirds majority. The Trinamool also significantly upped its vote share in Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong.
Elated with her party making inroads in the region, West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee called it the beginning of a new era.
However, her jubilation soon turned to concern as the Gorkha locals hit the streets in early June against the West Bengal government’s three-language policy in the state schools and accused it of imposing Bengali on them.
Banerjee, in turn, accused the GJM of spreading lies to divide the Bengali and Nepali communities and vowed to take action against the board members of the GJM-run hill development body, Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), if a special audit ordered by her government unearthed financial irregularities.
The very next day, GJM activists burnt the Chief Minister’s effigies and rallied, demanding the state government publish a written circular about not making Bengali compulsory in the hills.
GJM Chief Bimal Gurung and his followers seemed determined to revive the century-old demand for a separate Gorkhaland. The fight would continue till death, Gurung declared.
Violence erupted in the heart of Darjeeling on June 8, the day the state cabinet held its first meeting there in 45 years, when hundreds of GJM activists went on a rampage, breaking police barricades, pelting stones and torching a police outpost. By evening, the army had to be called in to stop the situation from spiralling out of control.
The GJM called a 12-hour shutdown in the hills complaining of police atrocities on their workers, even as nearly 4,500 tourists were stranded in different parts of Darjeeling and Kalimpong. Within two days of the strike, the GJM called an indefinite shutdown from June 12.
As the shutdown started, pro-Gorkhaland rallies, picketing, vandalism in government offices and clashes between the agitators and security forces became regular happenings. The situation deteriorated after three local activists were killed during clashes with police in Darjeeling and Sonada on July 7. The incensed locals held the state administration responsible for the deaths and resorted to widespread violence and arson that compelled the government to deploy the army — the second time in exactly a month.
The constant police raids at several GJM leaders’ residences, including party chief Gurung, further infuriated the hill parties. Setting aside their differences with GJM, prominent hill outfits like the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) and the Jana Andolan Party (JAP) supported the cause of Gorkhaland.
By the first month of the indefinite shutdown, thousands participated in pro-Gorkhaland rallies every day. The GJM announced a fast-unto-death while several Gorkha intellectuals including singers, filmmakers and poets registered their protest by returning awards received from state government.
On August 19, two separate bomb blasts within 24 hours in Darjeeling and Kalimpong rocked the hills. One civic volunteer was killed while two security personnel were injured in the Kalimpong explosion.
The police raids were intensified and a lookout notice was issued against Gurung and his associates under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, forcing him to abscond.
The West Bengal government’s attempt to call truce with the agitators was futile as all the prominent hill outfits and opposition political parties boycotted the first two state-convened all-party meetings and formed the Gorkhaland Movement Coordination Committee to supervise the agitation.
However, as the shutdown continued without any positive outcome for the Gorkhaland demand, cracks emerged within the hill parties and even among the GJM leadership. The JAP openly questioned the relevance of the shutdown while the GNLF said it was ready to discuss the Gorkhaland issue with the state govrnment, defying GJM’s decision that only tripartite talks between the Centre, the state and hill parties would be allowed.
But the GJM infighting came out in the open after its general secretary, Binay Tamang, and leader Anit Thapa were ousted from the party for announcing a partial withdrawal of the shutdown. The leaders, however, called the expulsion “unconstitutional” and, with Gurung still in hiding, strengthened their hold on the party.
Seizing the opportunity, Banerjee announced sops for people of the hills and appointed Tamang as the head of the Board of Administrators for carrying out development activities in the hills. After a series of seemingly “positive talks” between the two parties and an appeal from Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, the shutdown was called off after 104 days.
As the year draws to a close, an uneasy calm prevails in the hills, with police on the hunt for Gurung, who continues to send chilling audio messages from his hideout.
(Milinda Ghosh Roy can be contacted at milinda.r@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions
By Saeed Naqvi,
Darjeeling, Thimphu, Gangtok and Siliguri are a tight cluster on any map even in a large Atlas. Because of the recent standoff with China over Doklam, the strategic importance of the area, the saliency of the Siliguri corridor, cannot be overlooked. Is New Delhi taking an interest in the demand for a Gorkha homeland from this perspective?
My taxi has to wait outside Kurseong Toy Train station, on the way from Siliguri to Darjeeling, because a march by agitating Gorkha women will not let us pass. Violence in this sensitive area could be very unsettling. Angry women bang on the bonnet of my car and jeer at the Gorkha driver: “Have you joined the Bengalis?” It is a threatening query.
Similar bandhs and marches have brought life to a grinding halt for the past three months — and continuing. There are, of course, cunning leakages — a few chicken being sold here, some vegetables there. But this private enterprise disappears at the sight of approaching marchers.
Contrary to what one might imagine, this sporadic enterprise does not demonstrate a weakening of the popular will. In fact it helps people a bit and enables them to bear the suffering a little longer. It supplements the agitation.
Clearly, Gorkhaland is not likely to be conceded in a hurry. What then have the leaders of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) promised the people? What spell have they cast on them because of which the people have diligently pursued these marches, street-corner meetings and picketing outside offices in an atmosphere of total bandh (bar the contrived leakages). Schools, hotels, restaurants and shops are shut and labourers on all the 88 tea plantations have struck work and are, therefore, beginning to depend on packets of food some well meaning people are arranging.
No one quite knows the preferred game plans of the plantation owners. The gossip is that they would now like the strike to continue till December and so they are not obliged to pay the workers three months’ wages (for the period when the plantations have been closed) plus bonus for puja holidays.
The inordinate extension of the bandh is causing all the leaders of the Gorkha Movement Coordination Committee to miss heart beats with alarming frequency.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is always inclined to see agitations, however legitimate, as an affront to her, has slapped countless cases against leaders, including Bimal Gurung, President of GJM, the main political party.
This has given him a respectable reason to run away from Darjeeling and hide in Sikkim. The cases, in other words, are a godsend. Had there been no cases, how would the leaders escape the wrath of the people who are on this occasion truly mobilised? They must be shown some movement towards Gorkhaland. This “movement” is proving elusive even by inches, leave alone feet and yards.
Since all leaders in the coordination committee were pushed from the precipice into a total bandh by the GJM leader Bimal Gurung, they are privately cursing him but are unable to publicly say anything that would make their resolve for Gorkhaland look weaker. But some of them are keeping a sly eye on any escape route which they can sell to the agitating populace as an advance towards their cause.
The situation is custom made for Mamata Banerjee, who is desperate to fill whatever political spaces she can with her TMC before the BJP does. If she can divide the leadership with promises of development plus a dialogue with the Centre on “the people’s demand”, perhaps a “dissident” faction can then be mobilised as a vehicle for the TMC.
There is a very big “perhaps”. Why would West Bengal politicians and bureaucrats ever loosen their grip on the hill station, the toy train which their children enjoy so much during the summer vacation. There is nothing more popular internationally and which Bengal claims as its own — Tagore and Darjeeling tea.
New Delhi habitually goes into a freeze when confronted with something new, particularly where strategic concerns are involved. Gorkha/Nepali speaking people from Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan are already keeping New Delhi busy. Gorkhaland would be a new distraction.
A strong card the Gorkhas can play concerns the military. There are thousands of Gorkhas in the Army. It is not uncommon to run into a soldier with heroic stories of the Kargil war. These soldiers would be perfectly justified in seeking home leave to see the families who have suffered a bandh for three months. Thousands seeking leave at once? It is a sensitive pressure point.
The straightforward political game the BJP can play to endear themselves to the Gorkhas is by opening up debate on something less than Gorkhaland — say, a Union Territory. Gorkhas would accept it. Darjeeling would come directly under New Delhi. Mamata would of course throw a ginger fit.
After a meeting of Gorkha leaders with Mamata on August 29, Vinay Tamang, Joint Secretary of the Morcha, and Anit Thapa, member of the Executive Committee, took the leaders and the agitators by surprise by asking them to end the bandh because positive but unidentifiable developments were expected by September 12. By that time the next round of meetings with Rajnath Singh and Mamata would have been held, they said. Well, September 12 too has come and gone and there is no sight of the bandh coming to an end.
Little wonder most of the Gorkha leaders, Bimal Gurung, Vinay Tamang, Anit Thapa, are on a rapidly declining popularity graph.
Bimal Gurung’s political career was launched by his opening numerous fan clubs for a Gorkha singing sensation, Prashant Tamang, who won the 2007 Indian Idol, a reality show. Prashant won in the third week of September. On October 7, Bimal Gurung had launched the GJM.
Impulsively, he leapt into the bandh when Mamata wanted Bengali to be inserted in the three language formula. Later she withdrew her word. But by that time the GJM and the coordination committee of other Hill parties were fairly advanced on a high-wire act. An endless bandh was on.
The leader whose graph is up is R.B. Rai, twice MP, President of the Communist Party of Revolutionary Marxist, Central Committee. He is universally accepted as politically savvy and an incorruptible and respected leader. He believes “tripartite talks” are a promising enough outcome to end the bandh. Apparently, Rajnath Singh has dropped hints that New Delhi-Kolkata- Darjeeling tripartite talks on Gorkhaland are possible. But will Mamata agree?
Rai is cross with the amateurishness of Bimal Gurung for playing “the ultimate card of a total bandh without having a back-up plan. We should have started with Mohalla marches, struck work for a few hours, tested the political reaction in Kolkata and New Delhi, planned jail bharo andolans, gauged the plantation workers capacity to survive long strikes without wages. And so on.”
There was no plan, he laments. It is a fruitless bandh but it can only be called off when people see some real promise, he says.
So, until God comes riding a thunderbolt by way of a solution, Gorkha leaders are condemned to remain suspended on the last rung of a very high staircase leading to nowhere.
(Saeed Naqvi is a commentator on political and diplomatic affairs. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached on saeednaqvi@hotmail.com)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Kolkata/Darjeeling : West Bengal Tourism Minister Goutam Deb accused Sikkim Chief Minister Pawan Kumar Chamling of “patronising and protecting” Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) chief Bimal Gurung, who was “allowed to flee” when Bengal police went to the neighbouring state to arrest him.
The GJM leadership, however, asserted that it would press for the “one-point agenda of creation of separate state of Gorkhaland” in the September 12 all-party meeting convened by the state government in agitation-hit north Bengal.
“Sikkim Chief Minister Pawan Kumar Chamling has been patronising and giving protection to Bimal Gurung. Yesterday (on Friday), Bengal Police went there to arrest a person (Gurung) who was accused of unlawful activities under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Bengal Police had given prior intimation to the Sikkim Police,” Goutam Deb said on Saturday.
“Instead, Gurung was cordoned by the Sikkim Police and allowed to flee. It was unfortunate. We strongly condemn this. West Bengal government will take steps according to the Constitution,” Deb said.
The Trinamool Congress leader’s comments come a day after West Bengal Police arrested at least nine GJM leaders during a raid in south Sikkim’s Namchi on Friday where the party had held its central committee meeting during the day.
West Bengal CID’s Special Superintendent of Police, North, Ajay Prasad on Thursday had sought police assistance for the proposed raid at Namchi to South Sikkim’s Superintendent of Police.
“There is credible source of information and input that several accused wanted….who are absconding, are available under your jurisdiction. Kindly render necessary police assistance during raid under your jurisdiction to apprehend Bimal Gurung, Prakash Gurung, D.K. Pradhan and others…,” Prasad said in the letter, a copy of which is with IANS.
However, Sikkim police has said its Bengal counterparts “did not produce any documents” which led them to “prevent the arrests”.
“It’s not that we did not help them… they did not produce any documents, neither did they have arrest warrants nor any FIR copy. A case was registered against Bengal Police,” said an official from Namchi police station.
Meanwhile, Deb charged Chamling with interfering in Bengal’s internal matter on a previous occasion too.
“Chamling had sent letter to the Central government supporting GJM’s demand for separate state of Gokhaland and in view of that resolutions were taken twice in the Sikkim Assembly earlier,” he said.
Deb also reminded Bengal is the lifeline of Sikkim and it protects the small Himalayan state.
The West Bengal Police’s CID on Friday issued look out notices against three GJM leaders, including Gurung, as tension mounted in the northern West Bengal hills following a rift within the Morcha leadership over temporary withdrawal of the indefinite shutdown in the region.
At its central committee meeting in Sikkim on Friday, the GJM expelled its Joint Secretary Binay Tamang and senior party leader Anit Thapa, accusing them of conspiring to derail the Gorkhaland movement.
At the conclusion of the meeting, the party leadership said some of the GJM leaders would be present at the September 12 all-party meeting convened by the state government in north Bengal.
The party on Saturday reiterated its stand but underlined the delegation attending the meeting will “discuss the one-point agenda of creation of separate state of Gorkhaland”.
“The names of delegation members who will attend the meeting will be announced soon. All the members present unanimously agreed that the delegation attending the meeting will discuss the one-point agenda of creation of separate state of Gorkhaland,” the party said in a statement.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has decided to hold a second round of all-party meeting in the north Bengal branch of state Secretariat — Uttarkanya — after finding the first leg of meeting in Kolkata “satisfactory”.
—IANS
