Wednesday 28 August 2013

The Father of Modern Gorkhaland Movement turns into a Stepfather

On that Sunday, I was as usual honing my football skills, when I heard shouts of many people. Running to see what the matter was I could only see serpentine line of vehicles with black flags but I was too young to make a sense of it. Returning home I could over hear some older people talking about Gorkhaland. For the first time in my young life I was introduced to an issue that would remain with me for the entire life. It was in 1986 that I was introduced to the demand of Gorkhaland as a young school going kid and the issues of identity and our status in India. My young mind could grasp the importance of it even then and was excited, enthusiastic about participating in the movement and have done in my own way.
This was the phase of ‘Modern Gorkhaland Movement’ and the father of the movement was none other than Subhas Ghising. He was loved and treated like a demi god by one and all for raising the issue. The issue of Gorkhaland was raised by other political parties before him as well but none were successful in mobilising the entire hill population and resisting the CPM and its brutality like him. Ghising was able to organise the movement and give proper structure to it. Men, Women, Youth, Students all participated in the movement under the aegis of GNLF. Every individual in the hills (except the CPM cadres) participated and supported the movement in their own ways. The contribution has been immense.
Ghising enjoyed unprecedented support and was able to motivate and mobilise people with his inspirational speeches and deeds. There was not a single soul who doubted his leadership. People went hungry but made sure that the 40 days bandh called by GNLF was a success. People challenged the CRPF and fought them with little or no resources only for the creation of Gorkhaland and more importantly because they thought that Ghising would not fail to deliver his promise. In this endeavour people lost their lives, property, loved ones and youth. Officially the loss of lives was conservatively estimated to be 1200, but there have been many unaccounted loss of lives and crores of rupees worth of property not for any other cause but for the cause of Gorkhaland. However, Ghising did not deliver his promise and left the people low on confidence and self-belief. What he did has instead dented the solidarity and peacefulness of the region.
For Ghising the metamorphosis from being the father of Modern Gorkhaland Movement to being a stepfather started with the signing of the tripartite agreement with the state and the central government for the creation of DGHC in 1988. DGHC was an arrangement to stop the century old movement for the creation of homeland for the Gorkhas. It was not constitutionally recognised and no constitutional amendment took place and neither did it have any executive nor legislative powers worth mentioning. Any power that was vested upon it was only attempts to eye wash the folks of the hills. The years of sacrifices people had made and the aspirations people had was lost with that signature on the dotted line. The process of transformation to stepfather gathered momentum with the issue of sixth schedule for Darjeeling hills which many individuals in the hills vehemently opposed and took it as a betrayal on the part of Ghising and GNLF for their loyalty and support towards them. As a stepfather, he did not accept any dissent and voice of discontentment from anyone, from within and outside the party, leading to political victimization and murder of leaders. During his reign there was chaos, might was right, in short Darjeeling was in a barbaric stage.
The power got into his head and from being a charismatic leader with authority he soon transformed into a traditional authority. The party and the patriarch became undemocratic. Democratic space in the hills of Darjeeling was systematically squeezed until it became non-existent. Dissent and opposition was crushed with heavy hand. The political discourse in Darjeeling under the stepfather was destined to become an utter failure. And it did fail. DGHC had become defunct and only Ghising remained as a caretaker. As all despots and dictators Ghising did not understand that his sway over the public and Darjeeling no more existed.
He became the absolutely loathed and ostracized stepfather when he failed to support a local boy participant in a reality TV show when the public at large saw his participation as an issue of ethnicity and identity. The pride and ego led to his eventual downfall. The stepfather was shown the door, never to return, by the family.
Like a stepfather full of vengeance he has been plotting strategies to dampen the renewed enthusiasm, hope and aspiration of his family to achieve the long desired goal of Gorkhaland. By floating the GNLF again he is trying to break the collective consciousness and solidarity of the gorkha community. He is doing his best to unsettle and confuse the people. He is doing all this, and mind you, under the guidelines of the parties who are against the creation of Gorkhaland and have time and again reiterated collectively that West Bengal will not be divided. If not then he would not have been staying in the rented house in jalpaiguri amidst the people with whom he, throughout his political career, was at loggerhead.
The large family which dispossessed him should beware the stepfather and his designs, as he is trying to hit back a hit back hard. Stepfather has found some space among those who could not gain materially from the new family structure. The gorkha family will do itself good if the stepfather and his cohort, the GNLF, who are at the moment confused when every individual is euphoric at the positive prospect of their long cherished dream coming true, is outrightly rejected and not allowed to dictate terms once again and be visible in the vicinity of the house, as it was them who took away 25 years of our life, dignity, development and movement.