DARJEELING, GORKHALAND
The word bandh is usually translated as “general strike,” but that obscures the word’s whole crappy spectrum of meaning. To be more specific, a bandh is a type of protest where political party or other organization orders an entire town or region to completely shut down under the threat of violent reprisal (usually breaking all your stuff, but on Saturday some Maoists killed two people for working during a bandh).

Bandhs are incredibly common in India, Nepal and Bangladesh – West Bengal alone has as many as fifty a year. While many are called for legitimate grievances, they’re such a spectacularly effective way of getting noticed that some people will invoke a bandh every time they’re mildly pissed off (I’ve heard that it’s the norm in Nepal for farmers to shut down the only highway when there’s a wreck or somebody runs out of gas). There are so many that Nepalbandh.com actually keeps up with bandh calls and posts them on a calendar (there were about two or three every day last month).

Every time a bandh is on it inevitably destroys revenue for businesspeople and makes life a pain in the ass, so pretty much everybody hates them. The Indian government ‘banned’ bandhs in 1998, but you can imagine how that went, and there’s at least one anti-bandh group on Facebook.

The GJM loves stupid, flamboyant protest tactics, so of course they call a bandh in Darjeeling at least once a month. This time around it had something to do with Gorkhas killed in a Maoist attack and they announced it with orange posters stuck on buildings throughout the main thoroughfare. All transportation was to be shut down for two days, so everyone who needed to leave the city descended on Darjeeling’s jeep stand the evening before.