Gorkhaland Rundown

It was brought to my atten­tion that a few weeks ago this blog turned up on the sec­ond page of Google searches for Gorkha­land. Given the vis­i­bil­ity, I’ll add a lit­tle more back­ground on the his­tory and cur­rent hap­pen­ings. Here goes:

The dis­trict of Dar­jeel­ing in India is a boarder region in the foothills of the Himalayans with Bhutan, China (Tibet), Bangladesh, and Nepal as close neigh­bors. Dar­jeel­ing is the north­ern­most region of the state of West Ben­gal. Start­ing in the 1810’s, dis­putes over the dis­trict resulted in it chang­ing hands between Nepal, Sikkim, and the British East India Com­pany. Once the British East India Com­pany had firm con­trol of the area in the mid-nineteenth cen­tury, it began devel­op­ing the tea indus­try and estab­lished a hill sta­tion. Labor­ers from Nepal were brought in for agri­cul­tural work, sup­ple­ment­ing the exist­ing Nepali, aka Gorkha, pop­u­la­tion, which had set­tled in the hills in the late 17th cen­tury. The Gorkhas formed an impor­tant part of the British army under colo­nial­ism. They were prized as skilled fight­ers, and the Gorkha reg­i­ments were highly revered. After Indian inde­pen­dence from Britain in 1947, British tea estate own­ers left, and Ben­galis stepped in as the new eco­nomic rul­ing class. Gorkhas con­tin­ued to serve proudly in the Indian Armed Forces.

The Dar­jeel­ing dis­trict is unique in the state of West Ben­gal as it is a hills region mostly pop­u­lated by Nepali-speaking Gorkhas, whereas the rest of the state is a planes region of Ben­gali peo­ples. The polit­i­cal fric­tions result­ing from the mar­gin­al­iza­tion of the dis­trict in state pol­i­tics and resource allo­ca­tion led to sev­eral agi­ta­tions for local polit­i­cal con­trol through­out the 20th cen­tury. West Bengal’s dis­crim­i­na­tory treat­ment of Gorkhas con­trasted starkly with the nearly benev­o­lent treat­ment from the British (at least com­pared to the plight of other agri­cul­tural work­ers thought India) and the honor asso­ci­ated with Gorkha con­tri­bu­tions to national defense forces.

Sub­ash Ghising

The 1985–88 agi­ta­tion for state­hood was the longest and most vio­lent, involv­ing the orga­ni­za­tion of local par­ties and clashes with West Ben­gal police. The agi­ta­tion ended with Gorkha National Lib­er­a­tion Front leader Sub­ash Ghis­ing nego­ti­at­ing a com­pro­mise of par­tial local auton­omy through the estab­lish­ment of the Dar­jeel­ing Gorkha Hill Coun­cil. Ghis­ing remained in power until the fall of 2007.

Prashant Tamang

In the fall of 2007, two things hap­pened. First, in Sep­tem­ber, Prashant Tamang, a Gorkha from Dar­jeel­ing, won Indian Idol (yes, in the style of Amer­i­can Idol). Tamang’s vic­tory was aided by Bimal Gurung, a Dar­jeel­ing politi­cian and pro­tégé of Ghis­ing. Gurung bottom-lined a pub­lic­ity cam­paign encour­ag­ing Gorkhas to vote for Prashant via text mes­sage. Gorkhas all over India SMSed their votes, and cel­e­bra­tions for Prashant’s vic­tory lasted late into the night. Orga­niz­ing for Prashant quickly turned into polit­i­cal mobi­liza­tion. Gurung formed the Gorkha Jan­mukti Mor­cha party in early Octo­ber, con­fronting Ghis­ing for his cor­rupt and lax lead­er­ship of the Dar­jeel­ing Gorkha Hill Coun­cil. After two decades in power, the effec­tive­ness of Ghising’s lead­er­ship was ques­tioned in the face of dodgy finan­cial deal­ings and failed promises of infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment. Gurung rode the wave of resur­gent Gorkha pride to draw atten­tion to the weak­nesses in Ghising’s leadership.

Bimal Gurung

The sec­ond thing that hap­pened: In Novem­ber, Dar­jeel­ing grew dis­con­tent with Ghising’s sup­port for a the fed­eral pro­vi­sion that tribal Nepalis be included in the sixth tribal sched­ule, a sys­tem of wel­fare for tribal groups that suf­fer dis­crim­i­na­tion in India soci­ety (See my ear­lier post on the tribal and caste sched­ules). He, and he alone, had been invited to talks in Delhi over the mat­ter. The pro­vi­sions of the sixth sched­ule would exclude the 70% of non-tribal Nepalis in Dar­jeel­ing. Gorkha’s saw Ghising’s sup­port for the sixth sched­ule as an aban­don­ment of the dream for Gorkha­land and an attempt to divide the Gorkha pop­u­la­tion. The pop­u­lar hero of the 1980’s agi­ta­tion was sud­denly seen as a trai­tor and an out­caste for col­lab­o­rat­ing with gov­ern­ment inter­ests at the expense of his community.

Gurung’s Gorkha Jan­mukti Mor­cha party (GJM) gained increased sup­port in Dar­jeel­ing with the alle­giance of the Dar­jeel­ing Bar Asso­ci­a­tion, Hill Trans­port Union and ex-members of the Indian Armed Forces. Sub­ash Ghis­ing finally had to resign in early March of this year. The fed­eral gov­ern­ment dropped the bill for includ­ing Nepali tribes in the sixth tribal sched­ule. The GJM took power and revived the cam­paign for state­hood. The cam­paign involves marches, ral­lies, prayer ser­vices, meet­ings with state offi­cials, and strikes to pre­vent tim­ber export from the region and crip­ple the tea indus­try, which is largely Ben­gali owned. (See ear­lier posts for pho­tos of the mar­ket dur­ing a strike, a can­dle lit vigil, and a stu­dent rally.) Their goal is to achieve Gorkha­land by March, 2010. These demands have been met with intense frus­tra­tion in Kolkata and the for­ma­tion of anti-Gorkhaland groups by Ben­galis. Some of these groups are respon­si­ble for attacks on Gorkhas in late June.

And that’s where things are. Last I heard, all strike activ­i­ties are on hold until August 7th while the party regroups. I hope this was help­ful. Please post a com­ment if you’d like to add more information.

Sources:

Times of India: Gorkha­land, a story of polit­i­cal bungling
Suite 101: Indian Idol and Gorkha
Wikipedia: Gorkha­land
Dar­jeel­ing Times: Call for Gorkha­land Renewed
Live Mint WSJ: Indian Idol Reignites Demand for Gorkha­land
Unheard Voices: Racism on Both Sides of Boarder
The Himalayan Bea­con: Gorkhas Cam­paign for New State in Darjeeling