A Concern Concerning the Politics Behind the Demand for Kalimpong District
Writes: Binu Sundas
During a conference in Gangtok sometime in 2005/2006, concerning the identity issues of Gorkhas/Nepalis in India, Dr. H B Chettri while answering a question had said that Gorkhaland was the only solution to the problems and predicaments of the Gorkhas in India. His response immediately received a thunderous applause from the audience. His response to the question reinforced his reputation of being an intellectual and a politician. Since then he has moved from being an acclaimed intellectual among the Gorkhas, to being a core member of the GJMM, to a renegade who did not take the diktat of the party to resign from the Legislative Assembly to proclaim his own stand on the politics of the hills and Gorkhaland.
However, lately his demand for demarcating Kalimpong as a district and resignation from GJMM but not from the membership to the Legislative Assembly, is a concern for all those present that day at Chintan Bhawan, giving him a standing ovation for the response as well as all those who had faith and trust in his leadership. As an individual he has every right to do so. But as an elected representative he has showed no respect to the people who had elected him and the party on whose platform he had won the election. The reasons for him to take such a dastardly step were flimsy, regarding the accusation against the party of which he was a part, and the upgradation of Kalimpong sub division as a district. His accusation against the party is mendacious at best. His acknowledgement that he cannot promise, after the formation of the' new district of Kalimpong,' a Lok Sabha constituency is a well rehearsed act as the Delimitation Committee has already announced that there will be no reorganisation of the existing areas and thereby forming a new parliamentary constituency, until 2020.
Giving benefit of doubt that he will be able to grant Kalimpong a district status, what will be achieved? There will be no creation of employment avenues as the government of West Bengal will only upgrade the existing sub divisional offices into the district level offices, with the same existing offices and the staff. The only difference will be, increase in the number of people from outside with authority and power to govern and administer the hill and its people. Dr. H. B. Chettri has, in a very selfish manner planned with Mamata Banerjee to, symbolically upheld the authority of the Bengal Government over the people of the hills. Can he assure us that when the district is created areas of the plains will also be included? No he cannot, and this is just a ploy that his masters at Writers' Building would want him to act and divert attention from the issue of Gorkhaland in exchange of some personal bounty. His refusal to follow the party policy and renege on the promise that if the party wants him to resign anytime during his tenure as MLA then he would do so was also a well directed by the newly formed kinship between him and the opponents of Gorkhaland. To put it in a very mild manner Dr. Chettri has fallen from grace in the eyes of the hill folks, who had always cherished him as a leader and moreover as an intellectual who could cruise against the tide to help us achieve our goal of Gorkhaland. Sadly, though he used his intellectual faculty to betray the people and gain personal glory.
Dr Chettri has overlooked certain pertinent facts while proclaiming that he will make Kalimpong another District. First and foremost it should brought to his notice that people have not struggled and agitated for the creation of another district. People of Kalimpong and the rest of Darjeeling hills as well as all the Gorkhalis spread all over India do not have any problem that Darjeeling is a district. The fight is against the administration of West Bengal and not the bureaucracy of Darjeeling District to solve our identity crisis. It was a master stroke by Dr. Chettri, under the dictate of 'didi,' to turn our century old movement to solve our identity problem into one of development and against West Bengal Government into one against our own people. Further by playing into the devilish strategy of Mamata Banerjee he has proved all the leaders and the people of the hills and everyone who has always cherished the dream of Gorkhaland wrong and the sacrifices which people have made and the martyrs to be wrong. However, this is just a momentary lapse and he will be remembered in the history of the movement as someone who backstabbed his own folks for personal fame.
He has renege on the numerous promises he pledged for the creation of Gorkhaland. His promises and emotional speeches for supporting the cause of Gorkhaland made during his election campaign, has turned out to be just a ploy for achieving personal upward mobility. His antecedents were there for all of us to judge but the issue of Gorkhaland is so dear to us that we forgot his selfish and dubious, self aggrandising traits. He is amiss to lead our movement. But it is still not late, as the adage goes 'better late than never' to teach him a lesson and not fall into his design or should I rather say the scheme of his beloved didi, who he says there can never be another.
Binu Sundas (Ph.D, JNU)
New Delhi binusundas.blogspot.in/
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