Daggers drawn

It is anybody?s guess as to when the Darjeeling hills will be brought under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. More important is the fact that by agreeing to meet this demand of Subash Ghisingh, the West Bengal government has yielded important ground to him. As things stand, it may not be too long before it also agrees to include Siliguri and parts of the Dooars in the area to be governed by the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council. That will surely be done, if that happens, also in the name of maintaining peace in the hills. And who can guarantee that ultimately the government will also not agree to the creation of a separate Gorkhaland, that is the division of the state?

The government and the ruling party have always insisted, and continue to do so, that any division of West Bengal will not be allowed. But at the same time, they are always seen to be on the backfoot when confronted by a rebellious Ghisingh. The moment he talks of setting the hills on fire, the chief minister is seen to be fumbling. So far Ghisingh has blackmailed his way through. The DGHC election has been deferred, the application of the provisions of the Sixth Schedule has been agreed to. Now Ghisingh wants the council to rule over territory where the Nepalese are not in a majority. As usual, the municipal affairs minister, Ashok Bhattacharya, and the party as a whole are opposed to it, but going by track records, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee may counsel otherwise.

It is amusing the way the ruling party is giving way to Ghisingh and at the same time claiming that the Gorkha National Liberation Front chief is losing public support in the hills. If that is truly so then why not take him on? Are totally unreasonable demands to be considered and also agreed to, just because the man says he is once again going to create mayhem in the hills. If his support base is dwindling, then he surely will not be able to carry out his threat. On the other hand, by conceding to his demands, it is the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or at least the leaders in Calcutta, which is helping him regain whatever ground he may have lost.

Take this business of the Sixth Schedule. The simple question that needs to be asked is, are the Nepalese of Darjeeling tribals? Ghisingh himself knows they are not. Earlier in these columns, this writer had reported how in the Eighties he had sharply rejected the idea saying, ?We are not half-clad barbarians like the tribals?. Now he got some of his supporters to organize monkey worship, filmed the show and said this was proof that they were tribals. Bhattacharjee agreed, and so did Shivraj Patil; the latter of course can have no interest in what happens to Darjeeling for his party comes to life in the hills only when Ghisingh props it up. But will the two answer a question: if the Darjeeling Nepalese are tribals, then what about their brothers elsewhere? Can Nepal still claim to be the only ?Hindu? kingdom in the world?

Having agreed in principle to this, how can it be expected of the CPI(M) that it will also not concede Siliguri and parts of the Dooars? Ashok Bhattacharya has pointed out that these are not areas dominated by the Nepalese. But what if Ghisingh chooses to refer to Jharkhand where tribals are not in a majority and yet the state was carved out of Bihar? If he does so, then the government at the Centre will once again agree because the Congress had supported the separate state idea, as also did the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Ghisingh?s immediate concern is of course the September election to the DGHC. Publicly, he is saying that there can be no election at his stage but the wily old man is surely also testing the water. If he feels that he can muster enough support on the basis of his success with the Sixth Schedule demand and his claims for fresh territory, then he will make these his electoral plank and go for the polls. In that case, a victory can legitimately be claimed as popular support for extending the council?s jurisdiction to Siliguri and the Dooars areas. Otherwise he will not go for the polls. It will be the state government?s responsibility to avert any constitutional crisis through further amendment of the law. He does not lose anything. And any attempt by the state government to remove him from office will surely be met with another threat of violence and the Writers? Buildings will as surely buckle under it. After all, September-October is the tourist season.

When will Ghisingh go hammer and tongs with the demand for added territories? Not before the process of bringing the council under the Sixth Schedule has started and certainly not before the assembly election less than a year away. He knows there is no way in which he can get the Marxists to be soft to this demand at election time and so he will wait. He will not idle though. If he has not changed his ways, then it can be said with a fair degree of certainty that he has already unleashed a quiet campaign highlighting his success on this larger issue, hoping it will offset his many failures on immediate issues. And he may just succeed as he will also surely say that a more powerful council is yet another step towards the realization of the ultimate dream, a separate Gorkhaland. His opponents like the Gorkha League and the rebel Marxists, in particular, will have problems countering such a campaign as they also, despite the present tactical understanding with the CPI(M), have the same goal in mind.

The party that really has a problem in the hills is the CPI(M). It has already suffered a split when a section broke away blaming the Jyoti Basu government of being soft towards Ghisingh. Now, with Bhattacharjee also being clearly soft, more may well break away and join the ranks of the rebels as Ghisingh is almost a physical threat to them. In Siliguri, Ashok Bhattacharya will also be hardpressed to explain to his constituents why the state government is so overly eager to please a man who is getting away with all kinds of unreasonableness. Keeping his flock together in the district as a whole may turn out to be more of a problem than he had ever bargained for.

The picture actually is more bizarre than amusing. Here is a man who had once wanted the hills to be declared ?no man?s land? (by invoking the no longer valid treaty of Sugauli between Nepal and British India), had petitioned the International Court of Justice, recently demanded transferring the hills to Bangladesh or Bihar, and has still got away every time. And all because he has been pampered over the years by a party and its government because it has none who can stand up to him and call his bluff. As for the Centre, the Congress has always believed in playing up to Ghisingh to needle the Marxists.