Tourists crowd Darjeeling’s Motor Stand on Monday. Picture by Suman Tamang

Darjeeling, June 9: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha has squeezed in an appeal for “the supreme sacrifice” while announcing the indefinite bandh in Darjeeling.

“Our hill people must also be prepared for the supreme sacrifice and everyone must rise above petty personal interests,” Morcha central committee member D.K. Pradhan told a meeting where it was announced that all tourists must leave Darjeeling.

The semantics may carry shades of the slogans that rent the hills at the peak of the Gorkhaland agitation in the eighties. But the immediate objective of today’s exhortation could be pacifying those who are bracing to bear the brunt of the indefinite bandh.

Till this noon, the residents of Darjeeling had no inkling that an indefinite bandh was lurking around the corner.

Last evening, the Morcha had called only a 24-hour bandh after its supporters were stoned while blockading a road near Bagdogra Airport. It had spared transport, and the tourists had begun the day with sightseeing trips. The sudden quit directive changed everything.

Yesterday, Morcha leader Bimal Gurung had given people time till June 15 to stock provisions for two months so that the organisation could launch a fresh agitation for statehood. Today, Gurung admitted that the call for the indefinite bandh had been “sudden” and “instant”.

Not that Darjeeling is not used to “indefinite” — which sometimes has stretched to five or six days — or marathon (there was a 40-day strike in the eighties) bandhs.

However, given the growing public mood against bandhs, the Morcha is not taking any chances and the call for “the supreme sacrifice” seems to be part of an attempt to make the strike less unpalatable.

Gurung said the party would think about calling off the indefinite strike only if the Centre invited it for talks on Gorkhaland.

He said those sitting on hunger strike at Bagdogra and Naxalbari would continue the protest, “though no longer for permission to hold a rally in Naxalbari, but for Gorkhaland comprising the hills, Siliguri, Terai and the Dooars”.

“We will not discuss any other issue. The invitation must come from the Centre. We have no problem if it is a tripartite meeting where a representative of the state government is present,” he said.

Home ministry sources in Delhi were tight-lipped on the demand for talks. But they said all steps would be taken to avoid any untoward incident in areas with Gorkha presence in neighbouring states.

Gurung said the Morcha had little choice other than to call a strike, given the turn of events yesterday when five of its supporters were injured in stone-throwing when they were blocking a highway to demand permission to hold a rally in Naxalbari.

“We are no longer interested in talks with the state government for permission to hold meetings in Siliguri,” Gurung said. “We will hold them as and when we please.”

“We will also organise rail roko programmes in the Terai region from tomorrow and all national highways passing through the proposed Gorkhaland area will be shut,” he said.