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When you imagine Darjeeling, what do you see? It’s easy enough to conjure up pleasant images – tea gardens overflowing with a sea of green leaves, slight women with smiling faces bent over to pick them up, rolls and rolls of sloping hills and then, just as easily as it comes to us...it’s gone. As the people of this land know all too well, ‘mainland India’ has little interest in getting to know this part of itself any better. Even today, a shocking number of people we meet respond to the question of where the region is located with a vague ‘the North East.’ If we can’t even locate it on a map, how can we recognise and acknowledge their individual identity, let alone their age-old fight for Gorkhaland? The fight against Bengali hegemony is years old, even predating India’s independence, yet almost none of us know anything about it. So what is ‘Gorkhaland’ and why is it relevant to every single one of us?
History Repeats Itself
Recently, the flames were fanned following Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s statement to make Bengali a mandatory subject for students of Class I - Class IX in all schools across West Bengal. Linguistic imperialism is a contentious matter in India, a country so diverse in its cultures, ethnicities, and languages. A move to unite people can often turn into an imposition, a nullifying of individual identities, and such has been the case for the Gorkhas. They have little to do with the dominant Bengali community, culture or language, yet they are placed as a small fish in a large pond that’s losing its way. A fine thread of commonality holds these two groups of people together which has frayed and thinned over the years
So how have we reached this point of agitation? It is not a new phenomenon but has only managed to gain some semblance of media attention because of its new aggressive stance, and unfortunately, the lives lost. To understand the Gorkha’s position and demands today we go back to trace a timeline of events, dialogues, and phases of the struggle.
Gorkhaland And Its People
The state of Gorkhaland, as it is proposed, comprises of certain areas of Dooars, Kalimpong, Siliguri, Kurseong, Darjeeling and its neighbouring hilly districts. ‘Gorkhas’ are citizens of India of Nepali ethnicity – for lack of a better word, and to put it more simply, they speak Nepali, and look more Nepalese in terms of physicality and physical traits, than those belonging to the Bengali community – who live across the country. In the Indian context, the term Gorkha is used to differentiate between those commonly referred to as Nepali Indians and citizens of Nepal, who are Nepalese; many Nepali-speaking tribes have also come to identify themselves as Gorkhas. There’s a difference between the Nepali-speaking Gorkha and the Nepalese Gorkhali, except for ‘mainland India’ they’re all clubbed together, stereotypically, as Nepalis.
A Separation – The Growing Demand For Statehood
Gorkhas are Indians, by birth, by law, and by right. While some of their ancestors may have been Nepalese immigrants, these are people born and brought up in India, but have had to constantly assert and prove their nationalism and ‘Indianness’.
Viewed as foreigners in their own land, they have faced discrimination and even threats of eviction in our current politically-charged environment. The shared border with Nepal and the region’s past colonial activity hasn’t made this any easier. The borders may have been drawn, but the ambiguities of it have created confusion that turned often turns into suspicion. This has only further strengthened the driving force behind the call for Gorkhaland.
Darjeeling wasn’t a part of Bengal, it was leased in 1835 from the kingdom of Sikkim by the British for a sanatorium, only to have it annexed and taken over as a district, including areas of present day Kalimpong, Terai, and Dooars area. The British designated this new land as a ‘Non-Regulation District’ which excluded it from acts and regulations that were passed throughout the rest of the country unless specially mentioned. Darjeeling was not required to send a representative to the Legislative Council and was overseen by the Governor of the Bengal Presidency. The problems that plagued the region continued post Independence when Darjeeling was merged into the region of West Bengal. The hilly regions largely housed Nepali-speaking Indians and Nepalese migrants, the dominant plains and lower West Bengal comprised of the ethnic Bengali population. Years of neglect, dismissal, and a lack of recognition of the people’s issues and demands fired the increasing calls for autonomy and legal recognition of the Nepali language through the 1950’s-60s – the latter was accepted in West Bengal in 1961 and listed officially in 1992 – but agitation grew for the creation of Gorkhaland.
The Movement And Where It Stands Today
“We want a homeland for ourselves – for our own identity,” Gorkhaland Janmukti Morcha’s Amar Singh Rai told Scroll.in in an interview. “Although we are bonafide Indian citizens, we are still called ‘Nepali’. To get rid of the stigma we feel it’s essential that we have our own state.”
In 1980, Subhash Ghisingh formed the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) to stand in opposition to the West Bengal government with one demand only – Gorkhaland statehood. The movement gained momentum through the ‘80s, and even turned violent on occasion during 1986-88, reportedly leading to the death of 1,200 people. This drove the GNLF and the government to reach an agreement, leading to the establishment of an elected body called the Darjeeling Gorkha Council (DGHC) in 1988, which was autonomous in its governing of the region. GNLF took over the administrative role of DGHC with Ghisingh as Chairman for three consecutive terms. 2005 saw the signing of a Memorandum of Settlement by the Central and State governments and the GNLF to include Darjeeling in the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution. While some say this as a move forward, others saw it as a step back in the process of attaining statehood, and dissent within GNLF grew.
Darjeeling may have become more stable during this period, but the issue of separation from West Bengal still lingered in the minds of the people, only furthered by the lack of development in the region despite the formation of the DGHC and promises made by the State Government. Bimal Gurung broke away from the GNLF and formed the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) in 2007, became the new face for Gorkhaland, and protests began again with GJM growing to become the largest political party in Darjeeling.
The demand for Gorkhaland has never completely died down. In 2013-14 when Andhra Pradesh was divided to form Telangana, a linguistic reorganization following numerous protests, Darjeeling erupted as questions regarding why the government has turned a blind eye to their same request came up.
It’s now 2017, following Mamata Banerjee’s statement of making Bengali mandatory, Darjeeling is yet again in turmoil. The region has been on an indefinite strike for over a month now, army personnel patrols the streets and curb protests while support on one hand, and criticism on the other of Gorkhaland separation sprout across the nation.
Would Gorkhaland Succeed Or Collapse?
There has been longstanding social, economic and political marginalization of the Gorkhas in West Bengal. This has left them riddled with stereotypes, given minimal recognition and representation on national and state levels – it’s no wonder that the Gorkhaland issue has been one of the oldest and longest movements in India, beginning before India’s independence in 1907.
Darjeeling tea prices have doubled since the WTO gave it the status of Geographical Indicator, making Tea a huge aspect of their financial self-sustainability, as well as its tourism industry. Both of these have been cited as factors contributing to the financial stability, present and future, of Gorkhaland if granted its statehood. Why has the government been so apprehensive regarding Gorkhaland’s creation? The revenue generated by the tea plantations rarely gets returned to the region in terms of infrastructure and economic development, regardless of its contribution to West Bengal’s GDP and economy, making it a cash cow that the state wouldn’t want to let go off. What happens to Gorkhaland and the Gorkhas could possibly affect India-Nepal relations as well, and because of Darjeeling’s strategic position, cited as the ‘chicken neck’, India’s gateway to the north east and Nepal border. Darjeeling has the potential to flourish, only if it reaches stability, which is possible if Gorkhaland is granted separation. Though the fear lies in the balkanization of India; submitting to the Gorkhas demands may prove to the masses that violence is the way to getting what one wants and separation is something that several other ethnic groups in India have been calling for over the years.
So What Should We Do?
Understand the movement better and let it have its rightful voice as citizens. We don’t have the skills, knowledge or know-how to say whether Gorkhaland should be established or not. What we do know and what the media needs to correct in terms of information dissemination, is that Gorkhaland is not an anti-national movement. Contrary to what has been portrayed about the movement and the Gorkhas involved is that they are not calling for separation from India, but a recognition of being Indians, in a way, and a demand to protect their unique identity, history, rich culture, and traditions. The future of the movement depends on those involved and those opposing it – is it politically motivated or identity driven? At the moment, it remains unsure, but it now seems to be in the hands of the Central government to decide whether India’s oldest movement will finally come to an end or not.
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