Hill status

The Gorkhaland agitation is born of poor politics. Bengals hills await responsible leadership

If a classic dichotomy between means and ends caused the Telangana imbroglio,that means has intensified the demand for several similar,yet distinct,ends. Although the first demand for a separate administrative set-up for Darjeeling was made around 1907,statehood for Gorkhaland seemed unfeasible as recently as last year. It has now,perhaps,evolved into a genuine case. Smaller states have been,in sum,good for India for one,they are easier to administer and develop. The case for Gorkhaland has been strengthened by Bengals visibly deteriorating standards of governance. If governance has been abysmal in the state for a while now,in the Darjeeling hills,it has been near-absent for much longer,in a squandering of the opportunity for autonomy and

development once the Gorkha National Liberation Fronts violent struggle had ended in 1988.

Nevertheless,the Left Front,the Trinamool and the Congress concur at the moment on opposing any division of the state. Should a consensus be sought,the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha is unlikely to get any. Moreover,the GJM chief Bimal

Gurungs statements about changing the nature of their struggle currently comprised of shutdowns,hunger strikes,squatting on highways and railroads,symbolic acts like replacing the phrase West Bengal with Gorkhaland on

address signs,etc and his hints about making the area ungovernable should anything less than a separate state be on offer add to the discomfort. There are also allegations of the GJM bullying other Gorkha political voices into silence. Gorkhaland is not a fait accompli; and the next round of talks which the GJM insist must be at a political level may not leave the GJM satisfied either. Meanwhile,hill parties must demonstrate their capability to make the Darjeeling district governable,that they are capable of managing a state and not repeating the avarice and lack of accountability of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council under Subhas Ghising.

There is,in fact,a bigger problem. Gurungs struggle is part of a search for Gorkha identity through a separate state,assuming that a political boundary defines and protects identity. Unlike Telangana,the demand for Gorkhaland has been traditionally voiced in ethnic terms. Dividing the state on ethnic grounds would be a recipe for eternal strife,with non-Gorkhas a minority in the hills and the Gorkhas out-populated in the plains in June 2008,the army had to be alerted in Siliguri. However,it is an altogether different matter to demand Gorkhaland for better administration and faster economic development.