MY GORKHALAND Headline Animator
Friday, May 16, 2008
Tamang blames immigration policy for infiltration
Statesman News Service DARJEELING, May 15: The All India Gorkha League president Mr Madan Tamang today blamed the immigration policy of India for the infiltration of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, which has reduced the Gorkhas to an insignificant minority. “This is the strategy of the CPI-M-led Left Front government to increase their vote bank in north Bengal by sneaking in Bangladeshi migrants and providing them with ration cards and voter cards,” Mr Tamang said.Speaking on the occasion of the 65th raising day of the party, the AIGL leader accused the Bengal government of bringing a “demographic change” in north Bengal. “We can challenge the policy in the court. It is necessary to set a cut-off layer to curb the random infiltration,” he said. Condemning the label of “communal” on the Gorkhaland demand, Mr Tamang stressed that Gorkhali is a “way of life” rather than a community. “Gorkha transcends all caste, creed and religion. Everybody residing in the Darjeeling Hills is a Gorkha irrespective of community,” he said adding that the fight of the Gorkhas is not against the Bengali community but against the Bengal government.The AIGL leadership also cautioned that the Centre and the state government are trying to re-introduce the Sixth Schedule Bill, which everybody thinks has been scrapped. “The UPA and Left Front government are looking for the right opportunity to implement the bill. They will rename the DGHC as Gorkhaland Autonomous Council which equates to nothing,” he alleged. The AIGL will fight tooth and nail to prevent such a development and will accept nothing less than statehood, he added. Tamang warns GJMMThe All India Gorkha League president, Mr Madan Tamang today cautioned the GJMM of its friendship with the Kamptapur Progressive Party (KPO) alleging that the KPO president Mr Atul Roy had submitted a memorandum to the Union Home Ministry in 2005 stating that the Gorkhas were “not Indians”. “The GJMM should learn to differentiate between enemies and friends. Under such circumstances I can only advise them to sever ties with their allies,” said Mr Tamang.The memorandum addressed to home minister Mr Shivraj Patil in 2005 opposes the conference of the Sixth Schedule status on the Gorkhas. “The memorandum clearly states that the Gorkhas were brought by the British to work as labourers in the tea plantations of Darjeeling,” said Mr Tamang. The development comes at a time when the GJMM has formed an alliance with the pro-Kamtapuris - the Progressive and the Greater Cooch Behar Democratic Party for their respective demands of Kamtapur/Greater Cooch Behar and Gorkhaland. Following their joint campaigns the parties had also organised joint meetings at Dinhata, Cooch Behar and Siliguri. Countering Mr Tamang's statement, Mr Atul Roy said that the memorandum sent by his organisation was based on the White Paper issued by the West Bengal government during the Gorkhaland agitation, which terms the Gorkhas as non-Indians. “I totally support the demand of the Gorkhas of Indian origin for separate state,” he said alleging that Mr Tamang was trying to break their alliance with the GJMM.However, the GJMM leadership claimed that it was not aware of any such memorandum forwarded by the KPO. “We do not know of any memorandum submitted by the KPO,” responded Mr Roshan Giri, general secretary of the GJMM to Mr Tamang’s statement.
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Don’t sympathise with Gorkhaland
In the summer of 1966, Hope Cooke, the American socialite-turned-Gyalmo, or Queen Consort of the ill-fated 12th Chogyal of Sikkim, created a furore in New Delhi by contesting, in an article published in the Namgyal Institute of Tibetology’s bulletin, India’s possession of Darjeeling that was ‘gifted’ to East India Company by Tsugphud Namgyal. In his book, Smash and Grab: Annexation of Sikkim, Pioneer columnist and former editor of The Statesman Sunanda K Datta-Ray recounts how she argued that “no Sikkimese monarch was empowered to alienate territory”. According to Hope Cooke, Tsugphud Namgyal’s gift to the Company was “in the traditional context of a grant for usufructage only; ultimate jurisdiction, authority and the right to resume the land being implicitly retained”. She claimed Darjeeling’s cession was the “gift of a certain tract for a certain purpose and does not imply the transfer of sovereign rights”. The immediate context of the Gyalmo’s assertion of the Chogyal’s indivisible rights was the web of deceit that was being spun, with more than a little help from the Kazi and other local players, by New Delhi to bring Gangtok within the orbit of its absolute control, converting India’s suzerainty into sovereignty over Sikkim. What happened subsequently is well known: Sikkim was annexed and made a part of the Union of India; the Chogyal was stripped of all powers and died a broken man; and, Hope Cooke, after separating from the Chogyal, returned to the US where she now lives in Brooklyn Heights, New York. These details are inconsequential today. What, however, is relevant is the history of Darjeeling, which is once again in the news, this time because Gorkha settlers are asserting their right to set up a homeland in the three hill divisions — Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Kurseong — apart from Siliguri and the Dooars, which they want to re-christen Gorkhaland.
History tells us how Sikkim’s borders once stretched up to eastern Nepal; how Prithvi Narayan Shah, who welded feuding clans and warring regions into a sprawling kingdom, grabbed Darjeeling; and, how General Ochterlony’s campaign against the Gorkhas resulted in the Treaty of Sugauli (also spelt Segouli) in 1816 when Nepal ceded 10,000 sq km of territory, including Darjeeling, to the East India Company. That’s where history begins and ends for the Gokhas both in Nepal and in India who are clamouring for Gorkhaland: Darjeeling was Nepali territory ceded to the British and, therefore, must now revert back to the Gorkhas.
But history also tells us, much to the discomfort of the champions of Gorkhaland, that the Treaty of Sugauli was followed by the Treaty of Titlya in 1817, whereby the British restored the land between Mechi and Teesta rivers to Sikkim, to which it legitimately belonged. Eighteen years later, the then Chogyal leased Darjeeling to the British who wanted to set up a sanatorium in its soothing, sylvan climes. In the brief lease agreement signed on February 1, 1835, the Chogyal is referred to as the ‘Sikkimputtee Rajah’. The Bengal Gazeteer informs us that in 1841 the East India Company granted the Chogyal a compensation of Rs 3,000; it was later raised to Rs 6,000.
This is how Darjeeling, till then an uninhabited mountain region, came to be inhabited. The British administrators needed ‘natives’ to first build and then maintain the picture postcard town that came up in Darjeeling. Some Bhutias and Lepchas were already there, others came from Sikkim. The demand for labour increased after planters cleared forests for tea gardens and Darjeeling Tea became a source of enormous revenue. The Gorkhas came, as did tribals from what is now Jharkhand, to work as ‘coolies’ in the gardens, plucking leaves and working shifts in the tea-curing and packaging factories. Bengalis sought and found employment as babus (clerks) in the tea gardens, in the municipal administration and other establishments, for example schools set up by missionaries primarily for the children of Anglo-Indian families.
In 1907, the Hillmen’s Association petitioned the British for a separate administrative set-up free from Bengal; the petition was contemptuously ignored, and rightly so. After independence and the reorganisation of States, Darjeeling, along with the Dooars, became a part of West Bengal. Darjeeling has since been designated a separate district, Siliguri is part of Jalpaiguri district in the foothills, and the Dooars are part of Cooch Behar district. The Gorkhas who came and settled in Darjeeling, Siliguri and the Dooars became citizens of India in 1950; a separate Gazette notification was issued to settle this point and remove any doubts about their citizenship.
The status of Darjeeling may have been considered a settled issue by Kolkata and New Delhi, and after Sikkim’s annexation, Gangtok, but not by the Gorkha settlers. In 1986 Mr Subash Ghising launched a violent agitation to press the Gorkha National Liberation Front’s demand for a separate Gorkhaland, citing West Bengal’s “step-motherly” treatment of Darjeeling and “exploitation” of its residents. He was clearly motivated by dreams of helping re-establish ‘Greater Nepal’ by creating a bridge between Nepal and Sikkim. The agitation ended with the signing of an agreement, which resulted in the setting up of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council, an elected and empowered body that would look after development-related issues. Mr Ghising failed to deliver and became a Sagina Mahato, putty in the hands of the West Bengal Government and happy to have his snout in the trough.
Cut to 2008: Mr Bimal Gurung, a former associate of Mr Ghising, has parted company with the GNLF and floated his own separatist organisation, the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha, and revived the demand for Gorkhaland. He has audaciously staked claim to the three hill divisions of Darjeeling as well as Siliguri and the Dooars. The revival of the agitation coincides with Maoists — who hope to re-establish the frontiers of Prithvi Narayan Shah’s ‘Greater Nepal’ — coming to power in Kathmandu. Mr Gurung’s agitation has little to do with “local aspirations” of Gorkhas; it is as insidious and dangerous as the assertion of ‘Kashmiriyat’ in Kashmir Valley.
Those who are “sympathetic” to the demand for Gorkhaland would do well to bear in mind that ‘Greater Nepal’ is not only about Nepal expanding its territory in the east up to Teesta, but also recovering the land ceded by Prithvi Narayan Shah which stretches up to Sutlej. If we concede the demand for Gorkhaland, we should be prepared to concede vast tracts of land in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. If the latter is not acceptable, then a third partition of Bengal is equally unacceptable.
BIGGEST QUESTION
The biggest question that romps on the current political situation is that whither goes Darjeeling? Will the state and the Centre ever allow the separation of West Bengal and creation of a new state? If so, at whose cost and for what reason? If not, what will be Gurung’s strategy? Will he follow the path of Ghising for a blood shedding movement? And even if Darjeeling gains its separate statehood, how will it run without having a strong economic backup?
It is anybody’s guess that the Centre will not bow down to the demands of the GJM, considering the demand on ethnic issues. Once the claim is approved,
• ethnic issues in other states too will gain momentum and that will be horrible to tackle. This will be a very costly proposition because the base of the movement lies in separatism - the most vulnerable danger before the central government.
• Another issue, which is more important, is the demographic situation of Darjeeling. Being a northern border area, Darjeeling has always posed threat of foreign aggression. Leave aside the immigration issues, largely related with illegal intrusion. This threat will mount manifold if Sikkim joins the movement because Sikkim is close to China. China has already claimed a part of Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.
• The claim of Gorkhaland with the inclusion of the Terai and dooars region is a a foolish proposition because this will give birth to serious political trouble and ethnic issues. Communal clashes are also not overruled. Is it believable that the Bengali and Adihibasi population of the Terai and Dooars region who are majorities will accept the rule of the Gorkhas to remain as second class citizens?
There is a danger that if the Gorkhaland demand is conceded, the next step would be to ask for merger with Nepal. We can not support a separate state for a million people based on ethnicity. However, more autonomy can be give to their local affairs by the state government. Delhi alone has a populaton of 150 million. Till how long will you keep carving new states whenever a million people get together and ask for one?
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