[The search for identity among
Indian Nepalis took a fortuitous turn with the selection of a participant from
Darjeeling in the TV show “Indian Idol 3” in 2007. Prashant Tamang, an employee
of the West Bengal government police force and an ethnic Gorkhali from
Darjeeling, became the new poster boy for a new Nepalese identity movement. The
entire population of the Darjeeling hill areas and Nepalese speakers across
India mobilized to gather support for Mr. Tamang because Gorkhalis believed
that his victory would be another step toward their goal of being recognized as
Indians.]
By Satyabrat Sinha
 |
Diptendu Dutta/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Supporters of the Gorkha People’s Liberation Front,
shouting slogans, as they
pay tribute to Mangal Singh Rajput, a Gorkha leader
who self immolated on
July 30. and died three days later
|
KOLKATA, West Bengal— Mangal Singh Rajput, a 45-year-old father of
two, died in a hospital in Siliguri, West Bengal, on Aug. 3, three days after he set himself on
fire while shouting, “We want Gorkhaland!” Mr. Rajput’s self-immolation occurred
on July 30, the day New Delhi set into motion the process for the creation of
the state of Telangana, which will be carved out of the southern state of
Andhra Pradesh. Mr. Rajput’s cry joins a clamor of pending statehood demands
all over India, fueled by the central government’s announcement about
Telangana.
The constitution declares India a
“union of states.” But experts liken India to a quasi-federation or a unitary
state with subsidiary federal features, saying that the adoption of unitary
features was to focus on the challenges of state formation and nation building.
Indian National Congress’s harnessed the emotive power of diverse linguistic
identities during the Indian independence movement, but the violent partition
of British India in 1947 infused a fear of balkanization in the new
nation-state. Independent India avoided the division of provinces on linguistic
lines for the fear of such balkanization.
Yet the demands for linguistic
reorganization continued, and in 1952, Potti Sriramulu, a political activist, began
a fast unto death in appealing for a state for Telugu-speaking people. Mr.
Sriramulu’s death led to the creation of the state of Andhra Pradesh, and the
Indian government formed a States Reorganization Commission in 1953.
Sixty one years later, Mr. Rajput’s
self-immolation and death are symbolic of the passion of the people who desire
to see a separate province of Gorkhaland for the Nepalese-speaking population
in West Bengal’s Darjeeling district, which sits at the narrow stretch of land
that connects the northeastern states to the rest of the country.
Darjeeling covers 3,150 square
kilometers (1,200 square miles) and has a population of 1.8 million in West
Bengal, which is identified as a state of Bengali speakers and largely flat
plains. By contrast, Darjeeling district can be neatly divided into three
subdivisions of hills and one subdivision of foothills, called the Doars. The
hilly areas of Darjeeling, which are the center of the Gorkhaland movement, are
Nepalese speaking. Even in foothills of
Darjeeling, a Nepalese-speaking
population is found. The city of Siliguri, which is also in the foothills,
has a population of 500,000 and contains
a concentration of Bengali speakers.
A large number of Nepalese
speakers also live in the northeastern states of Sikkim, Assam, Meghalaya,
Mizoram and Manipur, where they have in the past faced discrimination and
threats of eviction. The ethnicity-driven movements of northeast India
categorize Nepalese speakers as outsiders and add to the community’s anxieties.
The Nepalese inhabitants of the
Darjeeling hills have been viewed as migrants from Nepal and therefore
“foreigners,” even though their history in the area long predates an
independent India. The shared border with Nepal, the policies of the British
colonial empire and a treaty between free India and Nepal that grants nationals
of both countries the right to reside in either country have led to the
migration of Nepalese nationals into India over the past two centuries.
Historically, Darjeeling was not
a part of Bengal and was leased by the British from the kingdom of Sikkim in
1835. The allegation of being “foreigners,” used by those opposed to the demand
for a separate state, paradoxically feeds the insecurity of the Indian Nepalis
and strengthens their statehood movement. The current movement constantly
reaffirms its patriotism to India while demanding a separate province in the
slogan of “Jai Hind, Jai Gorkha.”
The earliest demand for a
separate province is traced to 1907 but the first mass movement calling for a
separate Gorkhaland state, led by the Subhas Ghising of the Gorkha National
Liberation Front, took place in 1986-88. Around 1,500-2,000 people were killed
in the violent agitation for the cause. The movement came to an end with a
semi-autonomous governing body known as the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council
being created in 1988.
The Gorkha National Liberation
Front’s lasting and perhaps most creative contribution to the movement lay in
its efforts to distinguish Indian Nepalis from the country of Nepal by adopting
the term “Gorkhali” to describe themselves, and hence, the demand for a land
for the Gorkhas called Gorkhaland.
There are three generally
accepted principles to determine the legitimacy of contemporary statehood
demands in India: a different ethnic/linguistic identity, a separate history,
and economic disparity. The demand for Gorkhaland scores on almost all these
counts except on economic disparity.
The Nepalese identity is an
umbrella term for the various Mongoloid and Indo-Aryan groups and castes, like
animists, Buddhists and Hindus, bound together by their linguistic identity
tied to the Nepali language. The eighth schedule of the Indian constitution
lists 22 recognized languages, of which Nepali and Bodo (spoken by a minority
group in Assam) are the two language groups without their own province. Both
the Bodos and the Nepali-speaking Gorkhas are staking a claim for statehood.
The area the proponents of
Gorkhaland claimed for their prospective state is biodiverse and rich. The
primary employment is dependent on tea and tourism, and the area is home to
century-old schools run by Christian missionaries. Building hydroelectric power
stations on its mountain river could generate more revenue. The statehood
movement asserts that the West Bengal government has neglected and ruined
productive economic activity in the region over the years and is also
discriminatory.
The number of lawmakers an Indian
state can send to the Indian Parliament depends on its population and a state’s
bargaining power in a federal coalition government. Such electoral calculations
determine how both the federal and state governments respond to popular demands.
The sheer asymmetry in population also ensures that more federal and state
funding flows to the more populated regions and the majority community. West
Bengal sends 42 members to the lower house of the Parliament, including a
single lawmaker from Darjeeling. In the West Bengal state assembly, which has
294 legislators, Darjeeling sends a mere three members.
The sparse populations of several
northeastern states translate into a small number of representatives in
parliament. The northeastern region of India also feels discriminated against
because it is racially different. While Darjeeling is not included in northeast
India, it is culturally and racially similar to the region. One of the
government’s approaches to dealing with the restiveness of the northeast region
is to let a local outfit control it, and then the government controls the local
leader by offering autonomy and financial aid and also through arrests,
impounding of passports, among other punitive measures when needed. The approach was followed in Darjeeling,
where the former rebel Mr. Ghising of the Gorkha National Liberation Front was
co-opted by the West Bengal government and turned into a local autocrat, who
kept the demands for autonomy in check for two decades.
The search for identity among
Indian Nepalis took a fortuitous turn with the selection of a participant from
Darjeeling in the TV show “Indian Idol 3” in 2007. Prashant Tamang, an employee
of the West Bengal government police force and an ethnic Gorkhali from
Darjeeling, became the new poster boy for a new Nepalese identity movement. The
entire population of the Darjeeling hill areas and Nepalese speakers across
India mobilized to gather support for Mr. Tamang because Gorkhalis believed
that his victory would be another step toward their goal of being recognized as
Indians.
Mr. Ghising’s lack of enthusiasm
for Mr. Tamang provided the catalyst for some members of the Gorkha National
Liberation Front to break away. Bimal Gurung, the leader of the breakaway
group, led a campaign to support for Mr. Tamang, who won the singing
competition. Mr. Gurung followed it up by forming a new political outfit called
the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha to continue the fight for the state of Gorkhaland,
which his mentor, Mr. Ghising had given up.
The movement led by Gorkha
Janmukti Morcha exiled Subhas Ghising
and then entered into an electoral alliance with the Trinamool Congress, then
the leading opposition party in West Bengal.
In the elections to the state assembly held in 2011, when the Trinamool
Congress came to power, they created a new body for the hills called the Gorkha
Territorial Administration. In accepting the new arrangements, Mr Gurung
clarified that participating in the G.T.A. did not mean the end of the demand
for a state of Gorkhaland but merely another step towards it. Mr. Gurung
resigned from the G.T.A. after the creation of Telengana was announced on July
30, 2013, so that he could continue the
battle for Gorkhaland.
The more serious challenge to the
Gorkhaland movement is the presence of minorities in the Darjeeling hills. The
area claimed for a putative Gorkhaland is home to several other ethnic
minorities, who settled there during the British rule and even earlier.
The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha and
other Gorkha social organizations contend that the state of Gorkhaland is not
only for Darjeeling, but for about 4 million to 10 million Gorkhas estimated to
reside across India. The Gorkhas’ demand for an ethnic state does raise
insecurities among the small ethnic groups living in the area claimed as
Gorkhaland. Yet the the abysmal neglect of the area has made several non-Gorkha
residents of the area to identify with the demand for a separate state. Mr.
Rajput, who sacrificed himself for the movement, was not an ethnic Gorkha but a
Bihari Gorkha, as the minorities who support the movement refer to themselves.
Although there is skepticism
about the credibility of the Gorkhas’ political leadership, the popular
sentiment in Darjeeling is overwhelmingly in favor of a separate Gorkhaland
state. The Gorkhas routinely face racist discrimination in the Indian cities,
where they seek education and employment.
India needs to work out
mechanisms to consider the aspirations of statehood within smaller communities
like the Gorkhas, while providing legal protection to minorities within such
states. The inefficiency of India’s largest states provides another reason to
consider creation of a set of smaller, more manageable states.
Satyabrat Sinha is an Assistant
Professor of Political Science at Presidency College, Kolkata.
