Joel Rai
An indefinite bandh in Darjeeling has fixed the focus once again on the issue of Gorkhaland. Joel Rai explains what’s behind the demand for a separate state and how the current demand differs from previous ones
There is an indefinite bandh in Darjeeling and tourists have been stranded. What is happening there?
The three hill subdivisions of Darjeeling district—Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong—have been closed down for an indefinite period by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) as part of their agitation for the formation of a separate state of Gorkhaland. The GJM, formed late in 2007, has revived the demand for Gorkhaland and has been holding protests and rallies in support of a state that is to be carved out of West Bengal.
•What is the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha and who is leading it?
The GJM was formed by Bimal Gurung, earlier a councillor of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council. He was a close associate of Subhas Ghising, president of the Gorkha National Liberation Force (GNLF). The two fell out in 2007 over the attempt to extend 6th Schedule status to Darjeeling. Under the 6th Schedule of the Indian Constitution, certain tribal-majority areas are given autonomy in administration. While the GNLF wanted the 6th Schedule status with enhanced powers for the Hill Council, the GJM desired full statehood. The Centre introduced the 6th Schedule to the Constitution Amendment Bills in Parliament in December 2007 but it was shelved.
•So where is Subhas Ghising and what has happened to the GNLF?
While the GNLF exists as a political organisation, almost its entire support base has moved to the GJM. After a visit to Kolkata in March this year, Ghising was barred from entering Darjeeling by the GJM until he resigned as caretaker administrator of the Hill Council. The term of the last Hill Council expired in 2004, and no elections were held thereafter. The West Bengal Government appointed Ghising as caretaker administrator, extending his term every six months until his resignation in March. Thereafter, Ghising has remained confined to his home in Darjeeling.
•What is behind the demand for Gorkhaland?
The demand for a separate administrative set-up for Gorkhas of India was first voiced in 1907, when the premier civil-society body of the Gorkhas, the Hillmen’s Association, asked the British for an administrative set-up separate from Bengal. In 1946, the then undivided Communist Party of India demanded that the Darjeeling areas be constituted in an entity called Gorkhastan. The GNLF took up the issue in a big way from 1986. All these demands considered the ethnic, cultural and linguistic distinctions between the populations of Darjeeling and the rest of West Bengal. Under the West Bengal administration, feel the Gorkhas, Darjeeling has not developed despite being a world-renowned centre for tea, tourism and education.
•What is different from this current demand for Gorkhaland and the one led by the GNLF?
There are two major turns that the current demand for a separate state has taken that distinguishes it from the earlier demand.
First, the map for the current Gorkhaland envisages not only the three hills subdivisions of Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong, but also Siliguri and parts of the Dooars that fall in Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri districts in North Bengal, extending up to the River Sunkosh on the border with Bhutan. While the GNLF had included Dooars in its programme, it did not push for their inclusion in their map of Gorkhaland, a result of which was that when the DGHC formed only the hill subdivisions were included in it, leaving out chunks of the plains where large populations of Gorkhas reside. The GJM has managed not only to garner the support of Gorkhas in the plains, but also of the Adivasis, who form a substantial percentage of the population of the Dooars. This has created tensions between the Bengalis of Siliguri and the Gorkhas. The Bengali resistance to Siliguri’s inclusion in the agitation plans of GJM is lead by its local MLA and West Bengal Minister of Municipal Affairs Asok Bhattacharya. The Siliguri Municipality has already passed a resolution that it will fight all attempts to include Siliguri in the proposed state.
Second, unlike earlier, there is an intellectual push to the current demand for Gorkhaland. One of the impetus for a separate state of Gorkhas would be securing of their identity as Indians. Indian Gorkhas have long been misidentified as being citizens of Nepal and they feel that a state of their own will root them to India. The Gorkhaland of their imagination, therefore, does not only secure the economic development of the Darjeeling area but also the political identity of the over one crore Indian Gorkhas across the country.
• So are the Indian Gorkhas migrants from Nepal or where have they come from?
Indian Gorkhas have been residents of India for centuries. Under the Treaty of Sugauli in 1815, Nepal ceded an area of 18,000 sq km to the British. This territory constitutes what are today parts of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Darjeeling district. A treaty with Bhutan in 1860 brought the current Dooars areas in Bengal and Assam into British possession. The Gorkha population resident in these territories became part of British India then. The Gorkhas participated in the Freedom Movement with Gandhiji and also joined the Azad Hind Fauj in big numbers. The tune of India’s national anthem Jana Gana Mana was taken from an original composition by Captain Ram Singh Thakur, a Gorkha in the INA. Two Gorkhas, Damber Singh Gurung and Ari Bahadur Gurung were members of the Constituent Assembly. Ari Bahadur Gurung was a member of the drafting committee. He is a signatory to the first Constitution of India.
However, there are two groups of Gorkhas in India, the Indian Gorkhas and those who have come to India under the provisions of the 1950 India-Nepal Treaty of Friendship that allows Nepalese citizens to come and work, buy property and settle in India without permits. Their presence in India has led to confusion about the nationality of Indian Gorkhas and they are often misidentified as Nepalese citizens. A separate state of Gorkhaland, they feel, will help seal their identity as Indians.
•What happens now?
West Bengal CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has said that there will be no official talks with the GJM so long as they continue to demand Gorkhaland. On its part, the GJM says it’s a separate state or nothing. The 1980s agitation saw violence that took a toll of 1,200 lives. Dialogue between the political organisations and the state and Centre looks like the only way out. (Indian Express)
The three hill subdivisions of Darjeeling district—Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong—have been closed down for an indefinite period by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) as part of their agitation for the formation of a separate state of Gorkhaland. The GJM, formed late in 2007, has revived the demand for Gorkhaland and has been holding protests and rallies in support of a state that is to be carved out of West Bengal.
•What is the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha and who is leading it?
The GJM was formed by Bimal Gurung, earlier a councillor of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council. He was a close associate of Subhas Ghising, president of the Gorkha National Liberation Force (GNLF). The two fell out in 2007 over the attempt to extend 6th Schedule status to Darjeeling. Under the 6th Schedule of the Indian Constitution, certain tribal-majority areas are given autonomy in administration. While the GNLF wanted the 6th Schedule status with enhanced powers for the Hill Council, the GJM desired full statehood. The Centre introduced the 6th Schedule to the Constitution Amendment Bills in Parliament in December 2007 but it was shelved.
•So where is Subhas Ghising and what has happened to the GNLF?
While the GNLF exists as a political organisation, almost its entire support base has moved to the GJM. After a visit to Kolkata in March this year, Ghising was barred from entering Darjeeling by the GJM until he resigned as caretaker administrator of the Hill Council. The term of the last Hill Council expired in 2004, and no elections were held thereafter. The West Bengal Government appointed Ghising as caretaker administrator, extending his term every six months until his resignation in March. Thereafter, Ghising has remained confined to his home in Darjeeling.
•What is behind the demand for Gorkhaland?
The demand for a separate administrative set-up for Gorkhas of India was first voiced in 1907, when the premier civil-society body of the Gorkhas, the Hillmen’s Association, asked the British for an administrative set-up separate from Bengal. In 1946, the then undivided Communist Party of India demanded that the Darjeeling areas be constituted in an entity called Gorkhastan. The GNLF took up the issue in a big way from 1986. All these demands considered the ethnic, cultural and linguistic distinctions between the populations of Darjeeling and the rest of West Bengal. Under the West Bengal administration, feel the Gorkhas, Darjeeling has not developed despite being a world-renowned centre for tea, tourism and education.
•What is different from this current demand for Gorkhaland and the one led by the GNLF?
There are two major turns that the current demand for a separate state has taken that distinguishes it from the earlier demand.
First, the map for the current Gorkhaland envisages not only the three hills subdivisions of Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong, but also Siliguri and parts of the Dooars that fall in Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri districts in North Bengal, extending up to the River Sunkosh on the border with Bhutan. While the GNLF had included Dooars in its programme, it did not push for their inclusion in their map of Gorkhaland, a result of which was that when the DGHC formed only the hill subdivisions were included in it, leaving out chunks of the plains where large populations of Gorkhas reside. The GJM has managed not only to garner the support of Gorkhas in the plains, but also of the Adivasis, who form a substantial percentage of the population of the Dooars. This has created tensions between the Bengalis of Siliguri and the Gorkhas. The Bengali resistance to Siliguri’s inclusion in the agitation plans of GJM is lead by its local MLA and West Bengal Minister of Municipal Affairs Asok Bhattacharya. The Siliguri Municipality has already passed a resolution that it will fight all attempts to include Siliguri in the proposed state.
Second, unlike earlier, there is an intellectual push to the current demand for Gorkhaland. One of the impetus for a separate state of Gorkhas would be securing of their identity as Indians. Indian Gorkhas have long been misidentified as being citizens of Nepal and they feel that a state of their own will root them to India. The Gorkhaland of their imagination, therefore, does not only secure the economic development of the Darjeeling area but also the political identity of the over one crore Indian Gorkhas across the country.
• So are the Indian Gorkhas migrants from Nepal or where have they come from?
Indian Gorkhas have been residents of India for centuries. Under the Treaty of Sugauli in 1815, Nepal ceded an area of 18,000 sq km to the British. This territory constitutes what are today parts of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Darjeeling district. A treaty with Bhutan in 1860 brought the current Dooars areas in Bengal and Assam into British possession. The Gorkha population resident in these territories became part of British India then. The Gorkhas participated in the Freedom Movement with Gandhiji and also joined the Azad Hind Fauj in big numbers. The tune of India’s national anthem Jana Gana Mana was taken from an original composition by Captain Ram Singh Thakur, a Gorkha in the INA. Two Gorkhas, Damber Singh Gurung and Ari Bahadur Gurung were members of the Constituent Assembly. Ari Bahadur Gurung was a member of the drafting committee. He is a signatory to the first Constitution of India.
However, there are two groups of Gorkhas in India, the Indian Gorkhas and those who have come to India under the provisions of the 1950 India-Nepal Treaty of Friendship that allows Nepalese citizens to come and work, buy property and settle in India without permits. Their presence in India has led to confusion about the nationality of Indian Gorkhas and they are often misidentified as Nepalese citizens. A separate state of Gorkhaland, they feel, will help seal their identity as Indians.
•What happens now?
West Bengal CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has said that there will be no official talks with the GJM so long as they continue to demand Gorkhaland. On its part, the GJM says it’s a separate state or nothing. The 1980s agitation saw violence that took a toll of 1,200 lives. Dialogue between the political organisations and the state and Centre looks like the only way out. (Indian Express)
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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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