THE HEART OF THE MATTER

By claiming to have solved the hill problem, the new chief minister has shown an imperfect grasp of the situation, writes Vivek Chhetri

Mamata Banerjee with Bimal Gurung, May 30, 2011 An euphoric chief minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, announced that “the Darjeeling problem has been solved”. The statement merely underlines the new chief minister’s immaturity in dealing with hill politics, as even the greatest optimists in the hills would find it difficult to empathize with the chief minister’s statement. At best, the new government has signed “an agreement” with one political party which has given hope of defusing the present imbroglio for some time. One need not be an expert on hill affairs to understand that solving the Darjeeling issue is as difficult for the state government as achieving statehood is for the hill people. Credit should be given to Banerjee for having shown flexibility in solving contentious issues, unlike the Left Front, in order to chart a roadmap to end the present administrative impasse in the hills. But even in this agreement there are many loose ends that need to be tied — the most important being territorial jurisdiction of the new administrative body. Even if this territorial issue is amicably solved — which is not likely to be easy given the opposition from the adivasis — Banerjee will have to understand that the problem of Darjeeling would be far from being permanently resolved. The new chief minister was able to clinch a deal with the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha largely because of the cordial relationship they had nurtured over the past year. The GJM, too, has its own compulsions, ranging from its need to be in power to stay afloat to removing the Damocles’ sword that is hanging over their leaders’ heads regarding the murder of the Akhil Bharatiya Gorkha League leader, Madan Tamang. Banerjee is confident that when she comes up to the hills to ink the deal later this month she will be able to sit with the GJM leadership for a good feast. In fact, she did ask Roshan Giri, the GJM general secretary, whether the party would organize a feast for the Calcutta team in Darjeeling when they come up to sign the deal. The chief minister must, however, understand that in the past three years it is the GJM leadership which has been climbing uphill trying to achieve Gorkhaland, and all weary travellers negotiating rough hilly terrains are always a little hungrier. The new government has to remain cautious if its agreement to bring peace in the region is to work for long. Lessons must be learnt from the Left Front’s dealings with the then undisputed leader of the hills, Subash Ghisingh. Ghisingh, too, had inked the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council deal after becoming weary of leading a 28-month-long bloody agitation. He needed some rest on his uphill trek and the Left Front government was only too obliging, and gave him a cosy nesting place. And the Gorkha leader always made a noise if his resting place was disturbed. The Left Front government soon found out it was best to leave the hills to Ghisingh. There was no accountability, no transparency, in the functioning of the DGHC. Ghisingh’s acolytes were suitably rewarded. There was no roadmap to alleviate the hill people’s poverty, no vision for a move forward. The state government did not bother one bit. Ghisingh asked for the council to be extended without elections and the state government agreed without protest. He asked for the resignation of all his councillors and they, too, agreed without protest. Ghisingh was the sole “caretaker- administrator”, whose tenure would be “automatically” extended every six months by the state. The leader was the ringmaster of every show in Darjeeling, whether political, cultural or religious. This, Banerjee must realize, was an outcome of the “cordial” relationship Ghisingh shared with the Left Front government. Even after the Gorkha National Liberation Front president was made to resign as the caretaker-administrator of the council on March 10, 2008, and Bimal Gurung started a popular movement, there was no inquiry into the financial mess of the council. There were no answers as to why the council was allowed to function without the framing of proper rules and regulations. It now needs to be seen whether Banerjee will make a distinction between being cordial and ensuring that the new body works within the framework of the law of the land. The state government must also be sincere in devolving genuine power to the autonomous setup. The Left Front took Ghisingh for a ride and it also thought that it could take the hill people for a ride, only to find that Ghisingh, its pointsman for the hills, had been overthrown even before it had realized what had happened. Despite calling the DGHC an autonomous setup, the state refused to hand over revenue generating departments, such as motor vehicles, or those needed for the devolution of power, like municipalities. If the new chief minister continues with the GJM as the earlier government had done with Ghisingh, it is only a matter of a few years before the circle of unrest in the hills comes to hound her government. The GJM has already said on record that it is not letting go of the statehood demand despite the new arrangement being put in place. The statehood issue has resonated in the hills despite Jyoti Basu forcing Ghisingh to sign an agreement which clearly stated that the demand for Gorkhaland “was being dropped in the overall national interest”. Banerjee must be on her toes at all times and not rest on the laurels of having “solved the Darjeeling issue”. Three years ago, Bimal Gurung had been able to rally the hill people around him against Ghisingh, not just because the people wanted a change after 21 years of misrule but also because of their desperate need for identity. This need has found resonances in the hill psyche since 1907 — the first time that the Hillmen’s Association placed their demand for a separate administrative unit before the British — and anyone familiar with hill thoughts will second the fact that development bonanzas have not managed to erase this sentiment till date. Mamata Banerjee must now be ready to face constant challenges from the Darjeeling hills despite having “solved the Darjeeling problem”.