This sensitive geography of the country with
three international borders – Bhutan in the east, Nepal to the west and
Bangladesh in the south and also China a little further to the north – cannot continue
to remain fragile.
By Mahendra P Lama
The deployment of police, paramilitary forces
and army in Darjeeling to quell the historic demand for a separate state is
alarming. Peace-loving and highly tolerant hill folk do not deserve this
vicious state led repression at all. Four backdrops could be built to this huge
instability in the “chicken neck corridor”.
Firstly, the demand for Gorkhaland is now 110
years old. Such repressions have taken place several times in the past in the
Queen of the Hills. A large number of people have been killed, disrespecting
basic human and constitutional rights. Who can forget the brutal assault on the
Gorkha ex-servicemen in Siliguri in 2009. No one has ever been held accountable
for making Darjeeling a killing field. The last and only inquiry commission’s
report (Bhattacharya Commission) on the police firing in 1981 is yet to be made
public even after 36 years.
The state government has always tried to
douse the fire of the statehood demand, without realising that there is a fire
inside the fire. This fire inside actually represents the demand for justice,
correction of historical wrongs, emancipation from Bengal’s exploitative
institutions, respect for geo-politics and national security of our motherland
and recognition of the contribution of the Indian Gorkhas in the making of
modern India.
Second, in post independent India, in order
to suppress this demand, all kinds of political and parochial manipulations
have been practised by the State. This ranges from treating Darjeeling as a
bastion of internal colonialism; depriving it of its British India status of
‘partially excluded area’; misrepresentation in the State Reorganisation
Committee and Act of 1956, misdirection in the Mandal Commission Report in
early 1980s and playing with statistics and development indicators.
Not content with all these, the Bengal
government manipulated the delimitation of Darjeeling and Dooars parliamentary
and state assembly constituencies; and gave a communal colour and
‘anti-national’ tag to the demand for state hood. It consciously and
systematically changed the demographic character and balance in the terai and
plain areas of this district with unprecedented migrant influx.
Much later, it demolished the three-tier
Panchayati Raj; injected never imagined caste-based and communal divisions in
the hills in the name of Development Boards, and is now desperate to link
statehood demands with ‘insurgents’ and ‘foreign countries’. This is another
new hegemonic narrative the Bengal government is trying to spread.
Ignoring the 1961 language resolution passed
by the West Bengal Assembly to implement Nepali language in the Darjeeling
district, Bengali was nearly foisted by the present Government . Nepali is
enshrined in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution of India. In a vibrant
democracy like ours, food, language, culture, clothing, religion, ideology and
political affiliations are at their best when they are left to voluntary
adoption and adaptation.
And finally Darjeeling used to be one of the
most prosperous and productive geographies of India. It has produced freedom
fighters, national leaders, eight Olympic players, intellectuals and widely
recognised professionals in the field of national security, music, arts,
technology, media, literature and sports. There has been systematic plunder of
all its natural resources and national heritage including forest and water,
tea, cinchona and historical institutions and the Jelep la trade route to
Tibet.
Both the arrangements and experimentations
triggered by tripartite agreements viz., Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (1988)
and Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (2011) failed miserably causing
incalculable harm to two generations of local people. Both the political
parties – Gorkha National Liberation Front and Gorkha Janmukti Morcha – have
been corrupt and directionless. Other than the total leadership failure in both
these autonomous bodies, the core actor in these failed models has been the
State Government. Its actions have been too small and thinking too frugal; and
that has kept Darjeeling constantly boiling in low intensity conflicts.
And finally Darjeeling used to be one of the
most prosperous and productive geographies of India. It has produced freedom
fighters, national leaders, eight Olympic players, intellectuals and widely
recognised professionals in the field of national security, music, arts,
technology, media, literature and sports. There has been systematic plunder of
all its natural resources and national heritage including forest and water,
tea, cinchona and historical institutions and the Jelep la trade route to
Tibet.
Both the arrangements and experimentations
triggered by tripartite agreements viz., Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (1988)
and Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (2011) failed miserably causing
incalculable harm to two generations of local people. Both the political
parties – Gorkha National Liberation Front and Gorkha Janmukti Morcha – have
been corrupt and directionless. Other than the total leadership failure in both
these autonomous bodies, the core actor in these failed models has been the
State Government. Its actions have been too small and thinking too frugal; and
that has kept Darjeeling constantly boiling in low intensity conflicts.
The Union Governments, regardless of their
political backgrounds, do accept the security and greater ramifications of
instability in the cultural ecology of Darjeeling. But again remain constrained
by the larger dynamics of vote banks in West Bengal. However, this sensitive
geography of the country with three international borders – Bhutan in the east,
Nepal to the west and Bangladesh in the south and also China a little further
to the north – cannot continue to remain fragile. The entire connectivity to
the North East region of India passes through the ‘chicken neck corridor’ in
this district which actually provides the inter-connectivity to these three
countries. The sub-regional transport agreement BBIN signed in 2015 is a strong
testimony to it. India’s Act East policy physically starts from this point.
Therefore, the Darjeeling parliamentary
constituency comprising of Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts, plains of Chopra
and Islampur and adjoining Dooars region, have to be brought under the purview
of the Union Government and administration. And a timeline for carving out a
separate state in this region must be set in motion. This is the only way
forward to bring durable peace and prosperity and ensure national security.
Mahendra P Lama is founding vice chancellor,
Central University of Sikkim and former member, National Security Advisory
Board .
The views expressed are personal.
