Lack of Self-Respect and The Hill Communities

OF MAMATA AND LOVE LOST – Lack of Self-Respect and The Hill Communities

Writes Upendra for The Darjeeling Chronicle

Dr. Martin Luther King once commented, "A man can't ride your back unless it's bent"... he was alluding to the fact that others can only suppress, discriminate, bully and humiliate you if you permit it to happen.

Sadly in the case of our hill populace, our back is not only bent, it is in fact broken... it might be more apt to say that we don't have a back, we have become spineless today. This does not emanate from our lack of bravery, rather it originates from the greed of a few people and majority of us keeping silent about it.

File pic showing one of the Board chiefs receiving cheque from Mamata

Pained at the state of Darjeeling, one of our readers Mr. Sidhant Sampang wrote two days ago:

“Good morning DC, I just got to know about Mamta's arrival to Darjeeling today from your post. My concern is regarding the mentality of our people. Yesterday I was in Darjeeling and what I saw is whole town was decorated with Mamta's photos (political ones, if it was Goverment hoardings then I would have nothing to say), TMC flags, festoons and even in way to Darjeeling it can be seen.

Chowrasta's situation is even worst pointing which you have already wrote in your previous post , thank you.

Now what matters is tourists who are mainly non-locals after seeing all this will think that people of Darjeeling are now happy with Mamta and with her developmental projects. Which they take along themselves to their respective places and hence acts like cyanide to our dream our need.

Yes we are living in democratic country and every individual, every party has equal rights and we can't stop them doing so but what we can do is we can spread awareness among masses. We can talk about the outcome of these all. Let's not let to ruin our SELF-RESPECT and IDENTITY because of our some bloody morons leaders.”

Yesterday, Mamata played the role of a regent – declaring a development board, forgiving police cases against GJM cadres, announcing money for this project and that. Packed crowd of our local people cheered and clapped each and every thing she said.

Nothing wrong in that…

But take a moment to reflect on what Mr. Sidhant Sampang has written… are we willing to forego our self-respect and our collective identity as Gorkhalis for a few crore rupees?

If we are not careful, the repercussions of the various boards being allowed to come into existence will be felt in about 10 years from now, when each individual Jaati will prefer to place their community over the collective Gorkhali identity.

Most of these development boards are not formed for the benefit of our hill people, rather they are used as bribes for toeing the Bengal line. Majority of the people I have talked to, irrespective of their community – Lepcha, Tamang, Sherpa, Bhutia, Rai, Limbu, Newar, Sunuwar, Kami, Damai, Chettri, Bahun, Dhimal, Thami, Mangar and so on…. all express their dismay and disgust at a few sellouts using our community ko good name for personal benefits. However, all of us keep quiet against these nefarious elements, who are selling out the future and well-being of our children for a few Crore rupees.

Having said that, even the GJM is equally guilty of what is happening today. Darjeeling had unequivocally supported them for Gorkhaland, but GJM were the 1st to sell out, when they rushed in to accept this non-functioning and powerless GTA.

What is happening today is a direct outcome of that blunder.

Perhaps time has come for us to question the existence, use and utilization of these various development boards and question its role in subverting our demand for a separate state.

If we are to seek Gorkhaland, all the development boards need to be dismantled.

Let us start by dismantling the very 1st development board that Mamata formed – the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration.

It will serve us well to remember that Mamata may love the hills… but she doesn't love the hill people, and she never will.

Originally posted here http://on.fb.me/1Ej2gdp

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