Rejoinder to Dr. Saumitra Mohan's Anti-Gorkhaland Article
By: N N Ojha
IAS can rightly boast of having India’s brightest young men and women as its officers and the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) Mussourie where they undergo a two phased training spread over a year helps them develop a well rounded personality fully equipped with analytical skills, a sharp mind and a healthy down to earth practical outlook. Incidentally I too attended the foundational course at the LBSNAA way back in 1973, I was therefore, naturally excited to see that an officer of the Service Saumitra Mohan who had once also been DM of Darjeeling had penned his detailed analysis of over a century old Gorkhaland movement.
I must however confess that my excitement gave way to disappointment by the time I finished reading his article. What was disappointing was not the vehemence with which the author argued against statehood for Gorkhaland but the manner in which prejudices based on confusion and contradictions were passed off as arguments.
Let us start with the confusion. The author argues that Gorkhaland should not be created because creation of new states may ultimately result in each of the 530 odd erstwhile princely states asking for separate status thereby negating their integration in the Indian Union so painstakingly achieved by Sardar Patel. In fact integration of the erstwhile princely states with independent India and the subsequent reorganization of these under Article 3 of the constitution are two distinct events not just chronologically or virtually but legally and constitutionally as well. Once the princely states submitted their instruments of accession and accepted the constitution they subjected themselves to the union’s power to reorganize in accordance with article 3 of the constitution.
Retention of article 3 on the statute book instead of repealing it after the first reorganization exercise carried out in 1956 is an acknowledgement of the process remaining open ended to cater to the dynamics of socio political and governance imperatives. The process in no way confers any right explicit or implicit on the legal heirs of the erstwhile princely states to either rescind the accession or ask for its territorial restoration in the form of a separate state and can by no stretch of imagination negate the legacy of Sardar Patel.
Let us now deal with the specific arguments against Gorkhaland. The first argument is that the movement in support of the demand is the handiwork of some wily power hungry politicians of the region with no support from the masses. The author has adduced no empirical evidence to support his accusation. However there is sufficient evidence to suggest that back home in Kolkata the demand is being opposed largely by power hungry political class with the sole aim of preserving their political space. It is not difficult to see as to who is power hungry; the protagonists or the opponents of Gorkhaland.
Going by the massive participation of common man from the hills in each spell of agitations which I have personally witnessed it would be ridiculous to even vaguely suggest that the movement is run without mass support.
The next argument is that demand for Gorkhaland hits at the core national value of pluralistic coexistence. That the argument is skewed is clear from the manner in which the author contradicts himself on this count at least twice. The first contradiction is that having set the standard of pluralistic coexistence to deny legitimacy to the demand for Gorkhaland the author in the same breath scoffs at the idea of inclusion of the Mouzas in Gorkhaland on the ground that majority of inhabitants of these Mouzas are non-Gorkhas.
Ergo going by his own logic Gorkhas have an abiding obligation towards pluralistic coexistence with Bengal but the non Gorkha residents of the Mouzas have no such obligation to coexist with the Gorkhas in Gorkhaland. The author contradicts himself a second time when he argues against creation of Gorkhaland on the ground that at least 2.75 lakh people residing in the Darjeeling hills are non Gorkhas i.e. Lepchas etc who do not support the demand.
One wonders what happens to his staunch advocacy of the core national value of pluralistic co-existence? Is it to be used solely as a weapon to oppose the demand for Gorkhaland? Is this core national value binding only on the Gorkhas and not on either the Lepchas living in the hills or the other non-Gorkhas in the Mouzas in adjoining plains?
Further more it is wrong to suggest that the Lepchas do not support Gorkhaland. The very first memorandum submitted to the British authorities in 1907 was jointly submitted by ‘all the hillmen’ including Lepchas and the entire hill society continues to support the movement in spite of crude attempts by the ruling dispensation in west Bengal to lure the Lepchas and some others away from the mainstream.
The argument that by acceding to the demand for Gorkhaland on grounds of ethnicity or linguistic distinctness the government will have to cope with at least 5000 similar demands from other ethnic and at least 850 linguistic groups betrays ignorance of basic facts about sociological realities of caste, class and ethnicity.
The example given in support of the 5000 ethnicities is the Jats, Rajputs, Yadavs and Meenas etc. Jats, Yadavs and Rajputs are castes whose socio cultural ties and heredity are rooted in their respective states. As for Meenas they are concentrated in Rajasthan that happens to be the land of their ancestry. In fact the Meenas were the rulers of Amer (Jaipur) state till 12th century AD when the Kachwahas dethroned them. Meenas were however retained in the constabulary and the intelligence set up of the state and they haven’t left the land of their roots that is now their very own state of Rajasthan.
Unlike Jats, Yadavs, Rajputs or Meenas, the Gorkhas were tied down with Bengal in the late 19th century and while an average Bengali has been affectionate and considerate, the ruling establishment of the state including the bureaucracy seldom accorded to them the respectability shown to other citizens of the state especially to the Bengalis.
It is perhaps this mindset of superiority scornful towards the Gorkhas that the CM of Bengal talks of ‘cutting the lez (tail) of the hill leaders,’ that the service commission of west Bengal refuses to entertain youngsters as candidates for various posts under the government because they have received education through their own Nepali medium and do not know Bengali and that a serving bureaucrat like the author openly grudges the ‘disproportionate allocation of resources to Darjeeling at the expense of other more deserving districts of the state.’
Coming to the 850 linguistic groups it is unclear from where this figure has been sourced, as schedule VIII of the constitution lists only 22 languages 15 of which are already exclusive to existing states or well defined regions within states. Of the remaining seven, three (Sanskrit, Sindhi and Urdu) have pan India sweep leaving a balance of only four (Nepali, Santhali, Maithili and Konkani) for which if there is a popular demand for state hood why the same shouldn’t be examined instead of rejecting outright just because some one has given the scary figure of 850 such demands based on nothing except imagination or untruth.
The author sings loudly about gender and human development indices and, hold on, infrastructure in the Darjeeling region being superior to most other districts of the state and perhaps implicitly grants credit to the state government who has been allocating disproportionate resources to the region. In so far as gender equality and literacy rates are concerned these are attributable to the traditional culture of the hill people and the presence of some of the best educational institutions in Darjeeling and Kalimpong dating back to the 1860s.
In so far as infrastructure is concerned one feels astounded that a former DM of Darjeeling should forget the Bijanbari bridge collapse that took the lives of 40 innocent people because it was not even maintained when it became overdue to be replaced. I can fill pages giving numerous examples of similar ‘about to collapse’ bridges and roadless bustees in Mirik (where incidentally I stay), Bunkalung, Lava, Lolegaon and so on and so forth to bust the claim of superior infrastructure.
Let us take up the financial argument of the author. The total revenue generation potential of the proposed Gorkhaland according to him is Rs 50-100 crores annually whereas the likely annual expenditure on plan as well as non-plan heads could be around Rs 2000 crores. ‘Let the protagonists of Gorkhaland explain’, the author challenges, ‘from where they will arrange the balance funding’.
I do not know the source of the author’s statistics but if I recall correctly in a submission made before hon’ble Calcutta high court in a PIL filed against the bandh of July 2013 it was averred that the loss to the state exchequer for 10 days of the bandh was approximately Rs 70 crores which the activist who filed the PIL wanted to be recovered from the GJMM and its leadership who had given the call for the bandh.
If this submission is correct the potential revenue generation from the region must be over Rs 2500 crores annually. The discussion is however futile as financial self sufficiency though important is not a precondition for creation of a new state and Gorkhaland being a hill state shall have special status like the hill states of the NE region to take care of the gap between its income and expenditure.
Even in case of heavy dependence upon the central government Gorkhaland shall be in the good company of a large state like west Bengal who too depends heavily upon over drafts and variety of grants and loans to make the two ends meet. Let us therefore unnecessarily not get bogged down by this non-issue.
Officers of the IAS, as I said, at the very outset are brilliant people who are capable of objective thinking and systematic reasoning with a high degree of consistency of thought and expression. The present article by an officer of the Service however falls woefully short of these high expectations. I cannot persuade myself to believe that the shortcomings are due to lack of any of the qualities of head or heart.
One plausible explanation that comes to my mind is that the author being still in service is bound by the conduct rules applicable to him under which he is barred from publicly criticizing the declared policies of the government. Since the declared policy of the government of west Bengal under which he serves is ‘Banglar bivag hobe na’ (There shall be no division of Bengal) he is under compulsion not to express any divergent opinion.
Let us therefore grant him the benefit of doubt and not take his negative outpourings to heart.
[NN Ojha is a retired bureaucrat and writes the column 'The Expositor' for Darjeeling Times]
Source: DT
By: N N Ojha
IAS can rightly boast of having India’s brightest young men and women as its officers and the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) Mussourie where they undergo a two phased training spread over a year helps them develop a well rounded personality fully equipped with analytical skills, a sharp mind and a healthy down to earth practical outlook. Incidentally I too attended the foundational course at the LBSNAA way back in 1973, I was therefore, naturally excited to see that an officer of the Service Saumitra Mohan who had once also been DM of Darjeeling had penned his detailed analysis of over a century old Gorkhaland movement.
I must however confess that my excitement gave way to disappointment by the time I finished reading his article. What was disappointing was not the vehemence with which the author argued against statehood for Gorkhaland but the manner in which prejudices based on confusion and contradictions were passed off as arguments.
Let us start with the confusion. The author argues that Gorkhaland should not be created because creation of new states may ultimately result in each of the 530 odd erstwhile princely states asking for separate status thereby negating their integration in the Indian Union so painstakingly achieved by Sardar Patel. In fact integration of the erstwhile princely states with independent India and the subsequent reorganization of these under Article 3 of the constitution are two distinct events not just chronologically or virtually but legally and constitutionally as well. Once the princely states submitted their instruments of accession and accepted the constitution they subjected themselves to the union’s power to reorganize in accordance with article 3 of the constitution.
Retention of article 3 on the statute book instead of repealing it after the first reorganization exercise carried out in 1956 is an acknowledgement of the process remaining open ended to cater to the dynamics of socio political and governance imperatives. The process in no way confers any right explicit or implicit on the legal heirs of the erstwhile princely states to either rescind the accession or ask for its territorial restoration in the form of a separate state and can by no stretch of imagination negate the legacy of Sardar Patel.
Let us now deal with the specific arguments against Gorkhaland. The first argument is that the movement in support of the demand is the handiwork of some wily power hungry politicians of the region with no support from the masses. The author has adduced no empirical evidence to support his accusation. However there is sufficient evidence to suggest that back home in Kolkata the demand is being opposed largely by power hungry political class with the sole aim of preserving their political space. It is not difficult to see as to who is power hungry; the protagonists or the opponents of Gorkhaland.
Going by the massive participation of common man from the hills in each spell of agitations which I have personally witnessed it would be ridiculous to even vaguely suggest that the movement is run without mass support.
The next argument is that demand for Gorkhaland hits at the core national value of pluralistic coexistence. That the argument is skewed is clear from the manner in which the author contradicts himself on this count at least twice. The first contradiction is that having set the standard of pluralistic coexistence to deny legitimacy to the demand for Gorkhaland the author in the same breath scoffs at the idea of inclusion of the Mouzas in Gorkhaland on the ground that majority of inhabitants of these Mouzas are non-Gorkhas.
Ergo going by his own logic Gorkhas have an abiding obligation towards pluralistic coexistence with Bengal but the non Gorkha residents of the Mouzas have no such obligation to coexist with the Gorkhas in Gorkhaland. The author contradicts himself a second time when he argues against creation of Gorkhaland on the ground that at least 2.75 lakh people residing in the Darjeeling hills are non Gorkhas i.e. Lepchas etc who do not support the demand.
One wonders what happens to his staunch advocacy of the core national value of pluralistic co-existence? Is it to be used solely as a weapon to oppose the demand for Gorkhaland? Is this core national value binding only on the Gorkhas and not on either the Lepchas living in the hills or the other non-Gorkhas in the Mouzas in adjoining plains?
Further more it is wrong to suggest that the Lepchas do not support Gorkhaland. The very first memorandum submitted to the British authorities in 1907 was jointly submitted by ‘all the hillmen’ including Lepchas and the entire hill society continues to support the movement in spite of crude attempts by the ruling dispensation in west Bengal to lure the Lepchas and some others away from the mainstream.
The argument that by acceding to the demand for Gorkhaland on grounds of ethnicity or linguistic distinctness the government will have to cope with at least 5000 similar demands from other ethnic and at least 850 linguistic groups betrays ignorance of basic facts about sociological realities of caste, class and ethnicity.
The example given in support of the 5000 ethnicities is the Jats, Rajputs, Yadavs and Meenas etc. Jats, Yadavs and Rajputs are castes whose socio cultural ties and heredity are rooted in their respective states. As for Meenas they are concentrated in Rajasthan that happens to be the land of their ancestry. In fact the Meenas were the rulers of Amer (Jaipur) state till 12th century AD when the Kachwahas dethroned them. Meenas were however retained in the constabulary and the intelligence set up of the state and they haven’t left the land of their roots that is now their very own state of Rajasthan.
Unlike Jats, Yadavs, Rajputs or Meenas, the Gorkhas were tied down with Bengal in the late 19th century and while an average Bengali has been affectionate and considerate, the ruling establishment of the state including the bureaucracy seldom accorded to them the respectability shown to other citizens of the state especially to the Bengalis.
It is perhaps this mindset of superiority scornful towards the Gorkhas that the CM of Bengal talks of ‘cutting the lez (tail) of the hill leaders,’ that the service commission of west Bengal refuses to entertain youngsters as candidates for various posts under the government because they have received education through their own Nepali medium and do not know Bengali and that a serving bureaucrat like the author openly grudges the ‘disproportionate allocation of resources to Darjeeling at the expense of other more deserving districts of the state.’
Coming to the 850 linguistic groups it is unclear from where this figure has been sourced, as schedule VIII of the constitution lists only 22 languages 15 of which are already exclusive to existing states or well defined regions within states. Of the remaining seven, three (Sanskrit, Sindhi and Urdu) have pan India sweep leaving a balance of only four (Nepali, Santhali, Maithili and Konkani) for which if there is a popular demand for state hood why the same shouldn’t be examined instead of rejecting outright just because some one has given the scary figure of 850 such demands based on nothing except imagination or untruth.
The author sings loudly about gender and human development indices and, hold on, infrastructure in the Darjeeling region being superior to most other districts of the state and perhaps implicitly grants credit to the state government who has been allocating disproportionate resources to the region. In so far as gender equality and literacy rates are concerned these are attributable to the traditional culture of the hill people and the presence of some of the best educational institutions in Darjeeling and Kalimpong dating back to the 1860s.
In so far as infrastructure is concerned one feels astounded that a former DM of Darjeeling should forget the Bijanbari bridge collapse that took the lives of 40 innocent people because it was not even maintained when it became overdue to be replaced. I can fill pages giving numerous examples of similar ‘about to collapse’ bridges and roadless bustees in Mirik (where incidentally I stay), Bunkalung, Lava, Lolegaon and so on and so forth to bust the claim of superior infrastructure.
Let us take up the financial argument of the author. The total revenue generation potential of the proposed Gorkhaland according to him is Rs 50-100 crores annually whereas the likely annual expenditure on plan as well as non-plan heads could be around Rs 2000 crores. ‘Let the protagonists of Gorkhaland explain’, the author challenges, ‘from where they will arrange the balance funding’.
I do not know the source of the author’s statistics but if I recall correctly in a submission made before hon’ble Calcutta high court in a PIL filed against the bandh of July 2013 it was averred that the loss to the state exchequer for 10 days of the bandh was approximately Rs 70 crores which the activist who filed the PIL wanted to be recovered from the GJMM and its leadership who had given the call for the bandh.
If this submission is correct the potential revenue generation from the region must be over Rs 2500 crores annually. The discussion is however futile as financial self sufficiency though important is not a precondition for creation of a new state and Gorkhaland being a hill state shall have special status like the hill states of the NE region to take care of the gap between its income and expenditure.
Even in case of heavy dependence upon the central government Gorkhaland shall be in the good company of a large state like west Bengal who too depends heavily upon over drafts and variety of grants and loans to make the two ends meet. Let us therefore unnecessarily not get bogged down by this non-issue.
Officers of the IAS, as I said, at the very outset are brilliant people who are capable of objective thinking and systematic reasoning with a high degree of consistency of thought and expression. The present article by an officer of the Service however falls woefully short of these high expectations. I cannot persuade myself to believe that the shortcomings are due to lack of any of the qualities of head or heart.
One plausible explanation that comes to my mind is that the author being still in service is bound by the conduct rules applicable to him under which he is barred from publicly criticizing the declared policies of the government. Since the declared policy of the government of west Bengal under which he serves is ‘Banglar bivag hobe na’ (There shall be no division of Bengal) he is under compulsion not to express any divergent opinion.
Let us therefore grant him the benefit of doubt and not take his negative outpourings to heart.
[NN Ojha is a retired bureaucrat and writes the column 'The Expositor' for Darjeeling Times]
Source: DT
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