A million partitions?

Some assume that the Gorkhas name themselves after the Gorkha district in Nepal. While this may appear a rational etymology, others trace the Gorkhas to the 8th-century warrior-saint Gorakhnath and his Rajput disciple, Rawal. In this mix of history and legend, Rawal’s descendents moved to present-day Nepal, and in the early 16th century, overran an area that would be named Gorkha after them. For the British, even the tribes of Rai, Gurung, Limbu, Magar, etc were “non-Kshatriya Gorkhas” who provided the bulk of Gorkha soldiers, while the Thakuris and Chhetris (“Kshatriya Gorkhas”) made officers. The Gorkhas are indeed a brave and tough people. Ironically, this truism is based on the greatest sociological myth invented by the British in India: “martial” and “non-martial” races.

Bimal Gurung’s search for the Gorkhas’ identity as Indians, through a separate state, assumes that a political boundary is enough to define (and confine) identity. Therefore, despite the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha’s rhetoric about socio-cultural aspirations, the struggle for Gorkhaland is a case of identity politics. The Gorkha heterogeneity is being compounded by subsuming everybody — Bhutias, Lepchas, Tibetans, Sherpas, etc — under the Gorkha identity. As a result, when Gurung says that the struggle is not communal, not divisive, that all the hills peoples demand “Gorkhaland”, we know that the “Gorkha” identity has grown exponentially. By the time of the first demand for a separate administrative set-up for Darjeeling around 1907, the Gorkhas and the non-Gorkha tribes were already converging towards the umbrella identity of “hill people”.

The Darjeeling hills belonged to the Sikkimese hill tribes. The Gorkhas overran them in the 18 and 19th centuries, losing the area to the British through the Treaty of Sugauli in 1816. The British returned the land to the Sikkimese, but decided to annex it to the empire once they realised how good it was to have sanatoriums and summer retreats. The majority of “Gorkhas” in Darjeeling today can be traced back to Nepalese migrations for jobs during the Raj. In the mirror of history, therefore, except for the indigenous tribes, Gorkhas, Bengalis, Marwaris, Biharis, and others are all “outsiders” in the Darjeeling hills. But GJM claims that its struggle has the support of all. To say that you will take them all in, in your distinctly ethnic entity of Gorkhaland, is thus an unworkable contradiction.

But to say that “Gorkhaland” is needed for better administration and faster economic development may be justified. Except Jharkhand, smaller states have proved the right experiment for India. And yet, if the DGHC was a failure (with Subhas Ghising not accounting for Rs 60 crore given in the first year of the council’s formation, and a further almost Rs 19 crore later), dismantling it and getting a state assembly in its place is no guarantee of success “post-2010”.

West Bengal has suffered enough under the CPM, a division of the state will not substantially add to its woes (except perhaps the loss of tea revenue). But Bimal Gurung’s blitzkrieg of bandhs is already hurting people and making them unhappy. Tea and tourism being Darjeeling’s staple, continued and frequent strikes will turn both into sick industries, the second time so for the tea industry. “Gorkhaland” then may not be in a position to build its just and equal, Gandhian and self-sufficient, prosperous and peaceful society. Gurung should also know that a separate state doesn’t mean a flood of Central and all kinds of funds.

He is very popular at the moment, but there are dissenting and doubtful voices that are waiting and watching. Most see him as an instrument, one that can be dropped when things go wrong. But if Gurung fails in this “last war” for Gorkhaland, who will emerge after him? Social work and political mobilisation differ significantly from running a state. And the CPM corrupts every ideology, every struggle, every institution — it has set a dangerous precedent in Ghising. It will try the same again. A hole in the regional pocket, with GJM activists growing fat on mysterious money, will preclude every conceivable candle-light vigil at the Mall in the future.

But before the unlikely bi-partite, and the more likely tri-partite, talks begin, both hills and plains will have to first rein in ethnic jingoism. The Amra Bangali and Jana Jagaran should be put back in their holes or wherever they emerged from. They are the products of a collective Bengali imagination that has run dry.

For its part, the GJM should do a reality check. If they ethnically divide the state, there will be eternal strife between the claims on history. Current demographics will mean war on the plains, because the Gorkhas are a minority in Siliguri and the Dooars. And violence there will have repercussions in the hills and vice versa. Further, if Gorkhaland should be carved out of Bengal because of ethnic and cultural differences, the same should apply to every second Indian state that is a reflection of the Indian heterogeneity. How many more partitions must this country suffer within and without?

sudeep.paul@expressindia.com