Gorkhaland Movement: Banerjee’s ‘Foreign Hand’ Charge Has No Basis

The Darjeeling Hills have been on the boil since 8 June when the latest phase of the Gorkhaland movement was launched. Seven people have died in police firing since then (though the Mamata Banerjee government makes the ludicrous claim that the agitators fired on themselves!) and scores injured, while normal life has come to a complete standstill. Everything in the Hills has been on a shutdown mode for nearly six weeks now.

But despite the tremendous hardships that the people of the Hills, who are mostly poor, have been undergoing, the movement has only gained momentum. The severe shortage of food and other essential commodities, the closure of schools and the academic uncertainty facing students, the closure of government offices and the resultant difficulties it has caused to thousands, the severe shortage of medicines in the few healthcare institutions in the Hills, the lack of public transport and the unimaginable difficulties this has caused to people, and the many other severe inconveniences, has only served to strengthen the widespread sentiment in support of Gorkhaland.

And this has quite foxed Banerjee and her band of parochial Bengalis. The Chief Minister, as is her wont, failed to understand that the Gorkhaland movement is much more than the sum total of its parts. She suffered from the mistaken notion that suppressing the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), which has been spearheading the Gorkhaland demand since 2007, would automatically lead to the suppression of the movement and life returning to normalcy in the Hills.

Banerjee thought that the GJM and its chief Bimal Gurung launched the latest phase of the Gorkhaland movement to regain lost ground prior to the forthcoming polls to the Gorkha Territorial Administration (GTA) – the semi-autonomous body established as a diabolic sop to Gorkhas in September 2011 – and to disrupt the special audit of GTA funds by the state government.

These factors may have been on Gurung’s mind when he decided to revive the Gorkhaland movement in early June, but there is no denying that she, unwittingly, provided the spark by making Bengali a compulsory subject in all schools across the state in mid-May. Though she retracted in early June and announced that schools in the Hills would be out of the purview of the order, the damage had already been done.

Banerjee, as this article pointed out, then went on to commit one blunder after another. Even as protests against the ‘imposition’ of Bengali were picking up, she, in a show of utter insensitivity and as if cocking a snook at the protests, decided to hold a meeting of her council of ministers at the Darjeeling Raj Bhavan. By doing so, she threw an open challenge to the Gorkhas of the Hills. Naturally, the protests snowballed into violence.

An angry Banerjee then let loose her police on the Gorkhaland activists. Indiscriminate arrests on trumped-up charges and police heavy-handedness on protestors were followed by an ill-advised raid on Gurung’s office that yielded some bows and arrows and agricultural implements – which the state government tried to pass off, ludicrously, as lethal weapons – and, later, police firing on protesters that have so far claimed seven lives (including the latest at Mirik on Monday evening).

She had (mis)calculated that a police crackdown on the agitators would break their backbone and quell the demand for a separate state. Banerjee had not taken into consideration the fact that the Gorkhas are a proud and brave race who can not only withstand acute hardships, but will also not be cowed down by threats and intimidation. She has hurt the pride and self-respect of the Gorkhas and there was no way they would be beaten into submission.

It was then that the state police, which has been long rendered a spineless and ineffective force, started levelling allegations about ‘foreign powers’ having a hand in fuelling the Gorkhaland agitation. Senior police officers alluded to Nepal and this was picked up by the Trinamool Congress which claimed it had evidence of the involvement of neighbouring countries in the agitation.

Last week, Banerjee’s government told the Calcutta High Court that Nepal’s Maoists have sneaked in to Darjeeling to hold the GJM. Earlier this week, she wrote to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh making the fantastical claim that China is fuelling the unrest in the Darjeeling Hills. Of course, no proof of such claims that are extremely hard to believe have been offered. The demand for proof by Gorkhaland leaders has, obviously, been met with silence.

Her only intention behind levelling such allegations is to discredit the movement. Her strong-arm tactics to curb the Gorkhaland movement have failed miserably, and she has now resorted to defaming the movement by levelling false allegations of incitement by Nepal and even China. But to even a casual observer, her allegations would appear to be preposterous.

Why, for instance, would Nepal’s Maoists interfere in the Gorkhaland movement? What would they gain out of it? The Gorkhaland movement is not a secessionist movement at all and it would not make any difference to Nepal’s Maoists – the Bengal government never clarified which faction of Nepal’s splintered Maoists are supporting the GJM because it is perhaps blissfully unaware of the many factions within the ranks of Nepal’s Maoists – if Gorkhaland becomes or does not become a reality. This being so, why would any faction of Nepal’s Maoists extend any help to the Gorkhaland activists?

As for China, does Banerjee think that the Gorkhaland agitation is big or important enough for China to get interested in? Yes, China would have found the agitation worth supporting had it been a secessionist movement. China has, and is, supporting some secessionist terror groups in Northeast India. Had the Gorkhas in the Darjeeling Hills been demanding a separate country of their own by seceding from India, Beijing would have found it worth its while to extend support to the demand. But that is not the case, and it makes no difference in China’s scheme of things if Gorkhaland comes into being or not.

There is no indication that New Delhi has attached any importance to Banerjee’s wild allegations. But what she has achieved by levelling such allegations is further alienating the Gorkhas. They are extremely hurt that their nationalistic credentials have been questioned. And they have become more unforgiving of Banerjee now. “We are all proud and patriotic Indians. Everyone knows of the contribution of Gorkhas to the nation’s defence and security. Gorkhaland agitators always carry the tricolour very proudly. To allege that Nepal and China is helping us amounts to questioning our nationalistic credentials and doubting our patriotism,” said Morcha leader Roshan Giri.

A few other factors have also hardened the stance of the Gorkhas, who are determined that they will settle for nothing less than a separate state now. One is the unofficial blockade imposed on the hills by some Bengalis in the plains, allegedly at the behest of the Trinamool. They have been stopping trucks and even private vehicles from carrying food items and medicines from travelling to the Darjeeling Hills as well as Sikkim, whose Chief Minister Pawan Chamling has extended support to the demand for Gorkhaland.

Another is the trigger-happiness of the Bengal police in the Hills. “When it comes to tackling marauding Islamists, Banerjee’s police retreat to their barracks and even get beaten up. No action is taken against these Islamists. But our boys are being gunned down,”said Upendra Pradhan, a Gorkhaland movement leader. And by denying that no deaths so far have occurred due to police firing, the Bengal government has only rubbed salt into the Gorkhas’ collective wounds.

The Gorkhaland agitation, it thus appears, is headed for the long haul. There is little prospect for the scenic Darjeeling Hills turning peaceful in the near future. And it is all Banerjee’s doing. What remains to be seen is if this, among other things, becomes her undoing.