DARJEELING, GORKHALAND
Indian politics are complicated, confusing and often absurd. Darjeeling has been embroiled in a ‘political situation’ since independence, and while it’s gotten a lot less violent lately tensions remain high. The next few posts will be about the Gorkhaland independence movement, so here’s a brief rundown.
West Bengal is a state in India populated mostly by Bengali people, who share their language and heritage (though not religion) with the people of Bangladesh. Darjeeling and its surrounds are politically part of West Bengal, but the overwhelming majority of people are ethnically Nepali (or ‘Gorkha’) and have little to nothing in common with the Bengalis that actually run the state. The lack of Gorkha representation in West Bengal’s government has spawned numerous independence movements demanding a separate state for Nepali-dominated areas. Many states in India were drawn around ethnic boundaries (Assam, Nagaland, Tamil Nadu, etc), so it’s not at all an unreasonable request.
Back in the mid-80s, the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) started getting violent about the whole thing and a few hundred people died in the streets of Darjeeling. The Indian Army was called in, order was restored and the GNLF settled for a semi-autonomous “hill council” instead of a fully independent state. Nothing much happened until late 2007, when a former member of the GNLF decided that the Gorkhaland issue wasn’t over and founded the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM). The GJM whipped up dormant nationalist sentiments, recruited disaffected youth and quickly became a visible symbol of the revitalized Gorkhaland movement. Unlike the GNLF, the GJM espouses a devotion to satyagraha, Gandhi’s idea of non-violent resistance.
Sounds pretty okay, right? The problem is that the people running the GJM have no idea what they’re doing. They may have a commitment to nonviolence, but the tactics they’ve adopted are just as stupid and ineffective as indiscriminate killing.
We’ll talk about that on Monday!
The Gorkhaland (also popularly known as GADDHALand – the Land of Gaddhas/ Donkeys) movement is driven and supported only by AIDs infected monkeys leaving in this region. Since monkeys (that too infected ones) are no match for humans – their monkey brains will soon be taken out (fed to street dogs) and their bodies will be hung upside down in public. These monkeys have a rich heritage of excelling as porters, domestic helps & prostitutes – roles which best suit them and something on which they should focus for their own good and forget about their GADDHA-LAND.