GORKHA POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS: GJM withdraws interim set-up proposal, demands separate state – a brief but overall accurate report ?!!
(BSNL still down – photos finally uploaded, against all odds ?!!)
FROM HINDUSTAN TIMES
Darjeeling, May 30, 2010, 21:40 IST (PTI): In a U-turn, the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) on Sunday said it was withdrawing its proposal for an interim set-up, scheduled to be taken up at the next tripartite meeting, and wanted a separate state.
GJM chief Bimal Gurung told a rally at a school campus, 5 km from Darjeeling, that they would henceforward carry on movement for a separate state which would be known as the ‘Gorkha-Adivasi Parishad’ and not Gorkhaland.
In an obvious attempt to enlist support of the estranged adivasis who are opposed to the creation of a separate state encompassing Dooars and Terai where they are a majority, Gurung said they would no longer press for an interim set-up which the West Bengal government and the Centre were insisting upon.
GJM-supported Darjeeling MP Jaswant Singh said that the hill people’s long-standing dream of a separate state was nearing fulfilment.
“Ever since I became an MP from the region, I have taken the hill people’s dream to Parliament,” Singh said.
He, however, appealed to the people to keep their movement peaceful.
Gurung also told the rally that the GJM’s proposed 10-day Darjeeling bandh from June 12 had been withdrawn.
GJM general secretary Roshan Giri said his organisation had no hand, direct or indirect, in the murder of All India Gorkha League chief Madan Tamang and demanded a CBI inquiry to find out those responsible.
An enviable and totally peaceful, but ‘Massive Show of Gorkha/Adivasi Political Force’ in Darjeeling, in an age when only the strangulating ‘Voice of Violence’ dominates the world political statements… Is there anyone ‘out there’ in India listening to a ‘Just and Constitutional’ voice of the common people ?!!
(Captions by Himal News) – Photos from Darjeeling Times and Himalayan Beacon – by Chendup Lepcha, Mrinal Rana & Rabin Rai…
Bimal Gurung waving the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha flag to music just before speaking at the Maha Rally held in Darjeeling’s North Point ground on 30th May 2010 – The ‘Master Gorkha Choreographer’ at work ?!!
People begin filing into the North Point venue in Darjeeling in the early hours of Sunday morning, May 30th, 2010 – from all the far-flung areas of Gorkha dominated Siliguri and Dooars - under the watchful eye of the GLP Ladies - while Bengal is undergoing its Municipality ‘Semi Final’ elections for political change down under – to finally shrug the yoke of 4 decades of Communist misrule – from the ‘Richest State’ to one of the ‘Poorest States’ in India ?!!
A Gorkha Janmukti Morcha supporter holds a GJM flag at the GJM maha rally – fear palpable on his face (as reported by Bengal leaning media) or a grim determination with no coercion at all ?!!
And… the numbers slowly and steadily swell – waiting for an announcement of ‘The Idea’ that can well determine their future in a ‘Just and Equitable’ India ?!!
The Indian Media personnel to cover the Maha Rally - the fate of so many Gorkha and Adivasi supporters, in the hands of so few Bengal leaning journalists – fair coverage or distorted representation or maybe just simply ignored and passed over by media frenzy for 'violence, blood and gore' ?!! The 'Sea of People' – is Bengal only afloat ?!!
The ‘Sea of Faces’ – is Bengal only looking ?!!
The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha Dias with GLP Ladies managing the groundswell of people from Darjeeling and Dooars – discipline and authority that Bengal detests, a wholesome cultural difference ?!!
Gorkha Supremo and GJM President Bimal Gurung, dressed in his traditional Gorkha best, walks towards the dias – no kissing the ground and removing shoes, no Khukuri (traditional Gorkha knife) on his waist-band to complete the picture ?!!
Bimal Gurung with wife, Asha Gurung in the background listening in, waving and smiling – eyes that make every Gorkha distinct from those in and under Bengal’s Communist and Colonialist misrule, even after 63 years of India’s independence from Britain’s Colonial subjugation – a hasty unthinking negligence on the part of the British when they quit India ?!!
Bimal Gurung sitting proud behind a phalanx of unseen GLP cadres – private army of Gorkha Youths raised from the unemployed and trained by ex-Indian Army Gorkha Servicement to keep social ‘disasters at bay’ as well as enforce order and peace – an ‘Iron Fist in a Velvet Glove’ that has Bengal most riled and the British most envious ?!!
Bimal Gurung and GJM Secretary, Roshan Giri – the side of GJM that keeps Bimal Gurung and the GJM strong, or vice versa. Roshan Giri’s delegation walked out of ‘Tripartite Talks’ in Delhi on the 11th of May 2010, when even after the 1st Political Level Talks it had been agreed that the next agenda would be the “Territorial and Administrative” jurisdictions and the Bengal delegation arrived in Delhi without a “mandate” on the most important “Territorial Issue” – Bengal deliberately pushing to test the Gorkha resolve but ultimately losing out ?!!
Bimal Gurung with Darjeeling MP, Stalwart Jaswant Singh, a veteran Indian Politician with an unsurpassed Political Provenance since independence in 1947, well versed in the echelons of Indian Parliamentary Powers that be; now anxiously speculated to be returning to the BJP fold after its evolvement; cancels medical treatment abroad to return at short notice from Delhi to Darjeeling for the greater ‘Gorkha Cause’ – the real cutting edge “Diamond” in the Gorkha ring ?!!
Darjeeling MP, Stalwart Jaswant Singh, speaks most eloquently with a starting rally cry that may be heard in the ‘Corridors of Parliament’ in Delhi – no louder voice for ‘Peace, Justice and Economic Equality’ did the Gorkha ever have, while Indian Parliamentarians still count votes, electoral alliances and pathways to power or emergencies ?!! The most basic issues of Water Infrastructure – that Bengal has so blatantly ignored and thereafter systematically and irreversibly lost all moral authority and trust ?!!
As well as the Medical Infrastructure, that Bengal so injudiciously only concentrated in Siliguri – ignoring the Hills it wants to control, but creating the very rift that it now must suffer ?!!
So, Bimal Gurung speaks, beginning with a vote of thanks for the overwhelming show of support of the masses; then switches to change in ‘nomenclature’ from ‘Gorkhaland’ to ‘Gorkha Adivasi Pradesh’ and no more ‘Interim Setup’ and onwards towards full fleged Indian ‘Statehood’; an opportunity of ‘State within a State’ that Bengal so dearly lost – still under duress, that the urban intellectuals just wont care to understand but criticize they must ?!!
Bimal Gurung thunders on… warning people about the ‘conspiracies’ against the peoples aspirations, under the snide and surreptitious designs (Bangal ko khema) of the powers that be in Bengal, ticks off those who handed in their resignation and upon his personal appeal that ‘really hurt him’ withdrew it subsequently… by asking if they had considered the “Greater Gorkha Issue and its Consequences” as well as refers to accepting the resignation of those who almost had him selling the “Gorkha Cause” under the RAW directives – another ‘Hitler with a touch of George Bush’ or a not-so-literate Gorkha son of unprecedented oratory and political perception and experience as well as one with the people support and power displayed at the Maha Rally in Darjeeling on May 30, 2010 ?!!
The ‘other’ and ‘ wilder’ side of some of the upcoming Gorkha generations of the more educated Gorkha parents, making a fashion statement…(that makes the young in Darjeeling so much more fun and rather groovy)…. ”Check our 32 month history”, says Bimal Gurung, “we have made people dance, pray and wear ‘dawra-suruwal’ not brandish Khukuris and so we are labelled as being ‘Taliban’ dictators, where have we resorted to brutally beating up students and murdering them ?”, referring to Bengal which lathi charged ex-servicemen and students in Siliguri and is well fooled by their love of ‘distorting, deleteting and generalising’ all information that comes their way – transference on the way to power ignored ?!!
Every Gorkha mother’s ‘extreme - but necessary - dread’ of the ultimate step, yet to be taken, if Democracy pays no heed in India – Lalgarh and “Naxal – Maoists” an example of everything that can go wrong in the ‘Peace Loving Hills’ of Darjeeling and its plains ?!!
NOTE: Photos earlier surreptitiously removed and still stuck by illegal hackers – nothing better to do – any wonder why ‘murders’ happen ?!!
MEANWHILE FROM THE TELEGRAPH
Statehood cry with gesture to Adivasis – Bengal misses compromise chance of ‘A State within a State’ ?!!
BY VIVEK CHHETRI
Darjeeling, May 30: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha has decided to discuss nothing less than the demand for a separate state with the Bengal government and the Centre, putting an end to talks on an “interim set-up”.
Morcha leader Bimal Gurung said today at a large gathering at the St Joseph’s School (North Point) grounds: “The interim set-up is now a closed chapter.” The Morcha has rechristened Gorkhaland as Gorkha-Adivasi Pradesh to make the demand palatable to the Adivasis living in the Dooars and the Terai.
Gurung announced that the plan for a 10-day shutdown from June 12 had been dropped and the strike in government offices would be withdrawn from June 2.
Today’s rally had been touted as a “show of strength” following the act of defiance by residents of Darjeeling during the funeral of the slain Akhil Bharatiya Gorkha League leader, Madan Tamang, on May 24. People had then shouted anti-Morcha slogans, blaming Gurung for the killing, and tore down the party’s posters and flags. A defiant Gurung returned to Darjeeling leading a cavalcade of a hundred cars the very next day and announced today’s rally.
Tamang was hacked to death at the Clubside motor stand in the heart of the town on the morning of May 21.
Gurung today expressed his displeasure over the state and the Centre’s refusal to include areas in the Dooars and the Terai in the proposed set-up that was under discussion. “They are talking about granting only 22-23 mouzas from the Dooars. We were not asking for Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s and (urban development minister) Asok Bhattacharya’s personal land. We are asking for areas where our people are in the majority but now the issue of interim set-up is over,” said Gurung.
He said that since there was opposition from the Adivasi community to the nomenclature of Gorkhaland, “We will name the state Gorkha-Adivasi Pradesh. Both the communities have been deprived and we will fight together to create a state.”
The term Gorkhaland had been coined by Subash Ghisingh, who had led a bloody 28-month agitation from April 1986. Other names conceived by protagonists of a separate state in the past were North-East Frontier State, Uttarkhand Pradesh and Gorkha Pranta but none gained the currency of Gorkhaland.
Gurung urged the leaders of the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad to sit for a meeting. “They must also hold a meeting with us now since we have changed the name of our proposed state to accommodate them. After meeting the Parishad leaders we will hold three meetings.”
The party has decided to suspend its agitation, which included the closure of government offices from June 2 and a 10-day general strike from June 12, till a party meeting on June 14. “We will look at the response from the state and Centre on the statehood demand and will announce our programme on June 14,” Gurung said.
The Morcha’s announcement, rejecting the interim set-up and changing the nomenclature of the state it is demanding, is being seen as a strategy to silence the voices that have opposed it. Since all Darjeeling-based political parties are also demanding a separate state, the Morcha had come under criticism only after it started talking about a “secret proposal” it had sent to the Centre last January.
“It must be understood that the interim set-up was offered to us by the Centre. However, since we did not agree to what they sent us, we had merely sent our own proposal for the set up to Delhi,” said Roshan Giri, the general secretary of the party.
The Morcha leadership had revealed the “secret proposal” on March 15 in the form of the interim set-up that would last till December 31, 2011. The talks, however, fell through with the state and the Centre not accepting the territory being demanded by the Morcha.
The change in nomenclature is also a clear indicator that the Morcha is aware that it needs the support of the dominant tribal community in the Terai and the Dooars even if it wants only those areas in the region where Nepali-speaking people are in the majority.
Jaswant Singh, the Darjeeling MP, said at the meeting that he would always work for the creation of a separate state. “One must however be patient and must always maintain peace.”
Not just Gorkhaland, now adivasis too – or else a home with no door ?!!
FROM HINDUSTAN TIMES
By HT Correspondent
Darjeeling, May 31, 2010, 00:24 IST: Gorkhaland, the proposed home state of the Gorkhas, has undergone a metamorphosis to become ‘Gorkha Adivasi Pradesh’.
The change in nomenclature, announced by Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) president Bimal Gurung on Sunday, is designed to assuage the feelings of the tribals and to justify the inclusion of the Dooars region in Jalpaiguri district, where the adivasis are in a majority.
GJM’s demand for the inclusion of nearly the entire Dooars has met with stiff resistance from the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikash Parishad (ABAVP).
“We have nothing to do with Gurung’s announcements. Our problems are unique and not similar to the Gorkhas,” ABAVP state president Birsa Tirkey said. “Our demand is the inclusion of the region in the sixth schedule of the Constitution to safeguard the rights of the scheduled tribes.”
Appearing at a public rally to emphasise he was in charge after the murder of All India Gorkha League chief Madan Tamang on May 21, Gurung said, “We had given enough time to the government to implement our interim proposal …. As the government failed to do so, it will be the separate state demand henceforth.”
He said Siliguri would be an integral part of the new demand.
“We need the (New Jalpaiguri) railway station and (Bagdogra) airport as we are landlocked and will be handicapped without them,” he said. “We will not accept a separate state comprising the three hill sub divisions alone.”
According to the demand, the new state would have four subdivisions — Darjeeling, Kurseong, Kalimpong, Siliguri— of Darjeeling district and nearly the whole of Jalpaiguri, totalling 6,450 sq km.
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