The demand for a separate Gurkha state in India has taken the shape of a movement in the hilly tea growing West Bengal district of Darjeeling and adjoining areas, predominantly inhabited by Nepali speaking people.

The death toll in the clashes between the workers of the Gurkha National Liberation Front and police on July 7 last has risen to 17 and the situation in the area is reported to be very tense, The call for 108 hours’ strike sponsored by GNLF from July 8 to protest against police firing, according to newspaper reports, paralysed normal life in the area, An earlier call for 72 hours’ strike given in May last was also responded by the people enthusiastically, Despite about 100 active workers of the Front having been arrested, shops, offices and even wayside restaurants Were closed.

Commenting on the statements by certain government functionaries that the movement was being funded by some foreign powers, a section of the rpess observed that instead of going into the merit of the demand and trying to assuage the feelings of people of Nepali origin, by providing them with “better jobs” or a “fair share of the national cake”, they have fallen back on the old ploy of damning it as foreign inspired.

The leading journal “Caravan” observed that the first response to every such demand had been that it was inspired by foreigners. It was only when the movement gathered momentum that the rulers were forced to go into the real reasons behind the demands.

‘According to press reports the demand for a separate Gurkha state has been made at various times during the last halfa century, but was not strident enough to catch the attention of the Press, The cry that the Gurkhas must have a homeland of their own, even though itis a part of India, now reverberates in ‘the hills around Darjeeling in the state of West Bengal.

‘The area has been a tourist paradise but the main role of the Gurkhas has been that of porters ‘or Chowkidars “They have now “vowed that they will not let the Bengali ‘babus’ hold sway over them”

The cry, the reports said been taken up by all people of Nepalese origin who have not forgotten the history of the insurgency in Nagaland, Mizoram and Manipur which won those areas independent identity as full-fledged states of the Indian Union. The Gurkhas in India have been seeking recognition of their rights in one form or the other for over 50” years.

Various organizations have been in the forefront of the demand so far, but their voice, according to newspaper comments, lacked vehemence.

It gave expression to the quiet discontent prevalent among the Gurkhas living in those areas, Where a new organization the Gurkha National Liberation Front, led by Subhash Ghising, has entered the scene and has managed to watch the imagination of the Gurkhas who. are reportedly flocking in their hundreds to group under its banner.

What according to a published report, has triggered the demand is. the fact that the government of the state of Meghalaya, goaded by the ‘All Meghalaya Students Union, in its pursuit of the ‘sons of the soil’ ideal, threw out Nepali workers of ‘coal mines in the state owned by private individuals. Government officials, helped by the police, collected the workers, put them in trucks and dumped them in Assam, without any money, food and shelter. They crowded the footpaths of the city of Guwahati. The ‘Assam government led by the ‘Assam Gana Parished, it self a votary of Assam for Assamese, ordered the police to collect every Nepali and take him away. ‘The poor, helpless mine workers of Nepali origin, hounded out of Meghalaya, were rounded up, put in trucks and taken across the border of West Bengal.

The Chief and other activists of the Front went about telling the Nepali people of Darjeeling and its environs that if Meghalaya could do it, so could the government of West Bengal. After, all, they said, Nepalis have always been exploited and there is no reason to expect that they would meet a different fate.

‘Another argument advanced by: them was that they were living on the land which once belonged to them, the Gurkhas. If the Bengalis had Bengal, the Gujarat is, Gujarat, there was no reason why Gurkhas should not have Gurkha land.

Article extracted from this publication >>September 5, 1986