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A procession taken out by Morcha supporters in Darjeeling during the transport strike on Thursday. Picture by Suman Tamang
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TT, Darjeeling/Siliguri, Jan. 28: The All Hill Transport Joint Action Committee today threatened to call an indefinite strike if the administration continues to “harass” drivers of hill vehicles in the plains. The threat came on a day the outfit had called a 24-hour wheel jam in the three hill subdivisions.
Narbu Lama, the president of the committee affiliated to the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, said: “Drivers of vehicles from Darjeeling are being harassed as we have stopped paying road taxes to the government. They (the administration) want us to get our papers updated in Siliguri, which we have refused to do.”
The wheel jam, however, did not impact the plains much although no vehicles went up NH55 to Darjeeling from Siliguri. On NH31A, the lifeline to Sikkim, local private vehicles were stranded at Rangpo, the gateway to the Himalayan state, from 8am to 10am. Picketers allowed vehicles carrying essential commodities, army trucks and buses of the Sikkim Nationalised Transport to ply.
The national highway to Kalimpong, also part of NH31A, was, however, blocked. Vehicles to the Dooars that took NH31 were not affected.
With the strike being announced earlier, tour operators and tourists had adjusted their itineraries accordingly. “A number of tourists came down to Siliguri from the Darjeeling hills and Sikkim last evening and we have no reports of anyone getting stranded today,” said Samrat Sanyal, the general secretary of the Eastern Himalaya Travel and Tour Operators’ Association.
“Many tourists had either gone down yesterday or extended their stay by a day in Sikkim and will leave tomorrow,” said Lukendra Rasaily, the general secretary of the Travel Agents’ Association of Sikkim.
As part of the Morcha’s non-cooperation movement for its demand for Gorkhaland, the party had closed down all offices in the hills related to collection of taxes. Even though the state government, following orders from Calcutta High Court, has opened an additional counter of the Regional Transport Authority in Siliguri for collection of vehicle taxes, most taxis from the hills have not cleared their dues or updated their papers.
Taxis have to pay a token tax every three months and get their road permits renewed every five years. Apart from these documents, a taxi can be hauled up for not getting a fitness test done and pollution and insurance papers updated after the expiry of their terms.
Lama admitted that most of the documents of the hill vehicles have not been updated for more than a year now. “If the administration continues to harass us, we can even call an indefinite chakka jam,” said Lama.
Asked about the demand made through today’s transport strike, Darjeeling district magistrate Surendra Gupta said: “It is a normal, legal practice to take action if the vehicles’ documents are not updated.”
Transport Strike called by JCMS and AHTJAC was observed peacefully with no force except some barricades. A foreign car was allowed to enter Kalimpong on the day. Pic: Samiran Paul
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VIVEK CHHETRI AND RAJEEV RAVIDAS, TT, Jholung (Kalimpong), Jan. 28: Gorkha Janmukti Morcha chief Bimal Gurung today said he had sent a “secret proposal” to Delhi to make the demand for statehood more “palatable”.
Although he refused to elaborate, Morcha sources said the “secret” document had redefined the geographical area of “Gorkhaland” to include only the Gorkha-dominated areas of the hills and the Dooars and not the entire region, as had been its demand so far.
In a map drawn up and circulated by the Morcha earlier, “Gorkhaland” included not only the three hill sub-divisions of Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong, but also the entire Siliguri sub-division and the Dooars which make up around half of Jalpaiguri district.
If the Morcha sticks to its revised stand, it will mean that only those areas in the Dooars with considerable presence of Gorkhas, not the entire region, will be included in the demand for a Gorkhaland state.
In the past year, as the Morcha tried to establish its presence in the Dooars, frequent clashes have broken out between the Gorkhas and the Adivasis who are opposed to the demand for a Gorkha state.
In a further “concession”, Gurung said he had given Delhi time till 2011 to deliberate on and consider the “secret proposal”.
Morcha sources said this apparent softening in Gurung’s stand was a reflection of the pressure being brought upon him by members of the party’s central committee to settle for an “interim arrangement” instead of insisting on “nothing short of immediate statehood”.
This is because, Morcha sources said, many of the central committee members have realised that given the political compulsions of the Centre against the backdrop of the events surrounding the Telangana flare-up, Delhi is unlikely to agree to the Morcha’s statehood demand.
Besides, Morcha leaders also realise that the Trinamul Congress is the second-largest partner in the UPA government and that Mamata Banerjee would never agree to a bifurcation of Bengal.
Gurung said he would reveal the contents of the “secret proposal” before the next round of tripartite talks. “I will make it public before the fifth round of tripartite talks, whether or not the Centre responds to it by then,” Gurung said. “But I can assure you that the proposal will benefit the three hill sub-divisions, Siliguri and the Dooars.”
The latest round of tripartite talks was held in Darjeeling on December 21. Delhi had said it would announce the dates for the next round by February 6.
However, despite his assurance that he has given Delhi till 2011 to respond, there was little indication today of any let-up in the statehood movement the Morcha has launched.
A daily two-hour blockade of roads in the hills is on and Gurung urged his supporters to “keep up the momentum of the movement” and “not to lose sight of their goal”.
“The movement will continue in its current form to keep up the pressure on both the state and the Centre, but there might not be something drastic like an indefinite shutdown of the hills as has happened on a few occasions earlier,” a Morcha leader said. “But in the end, everything depends on Bimal Gurung.”
KalimNews Input: Central Committee of GJMM had divided the entire 28th constiutuency into 3 blocks instead of the five blocks as decided earlier. It had to listen to the demand of the party cadres which opposed twice to the decision of its central committee. Entire constituency/zone is now divided into a/ Samsing Kumai b/ Rongo Gairibas and c/ Todey Tangta-Jaldhaka Blocks.
SNS, 27 Jan, : It remains a riddle why India’s Nepali community, celebrated for its spirit of loyalty and sacrifice, was left out in the cold when the rest of the country was aroused from a century-long slumber of self-oblivion, writes Romit Bagchi
A CHARGE is often made against India’s Gorkha community that it took no remarkable part in the country’s freedom movement. Such a summary dismissal of a community as regards its loyalty to the nation has assumed serious undertones in the context of the Gorkhaland agitation that continues in the Darjeeling hills. To repudiate the charges, the Gokha leadership in the hills takes recourse to a few names like Dal Bahadur Giri, Durga Malla, Ram Singh Thakuri and others. This has been continuing for years and in this process a serious aspect remains ignored.
Did the national leadership spearheading the anti-colonial struggle make any worthwhile effort to involve the community in the national mainstream? There are possibilities that the casually hurled insinuation against the community will lose much of its force if a serious attempt were made to answer the question.
History, of course, bears witness to the fact that the Gorkha regiment served as cannon fodder for British forces during World Wars I and II. The Punjab regiment also played the same role. Yet the common people of Punjab participated in India’s struggle for freedom even if the Gorkha community remained largely conspicuous by its irresponsiveness to the anti-colonial upsurge.
Rather, a few organisations like the Hillmen’s Association chose a subservient role towards the British regime. They never tired of debunking the nationalist fervour gripping the country, the objective being to curry favour with the imperial government. Even the literary movement launched principally by Parasmani Pradhan remained engrossed in developing the Nepalese culture and language. And the first political outfit in the hills, the All India Gorkha League, also steered clear of the freedom struggle and concentrated instead on the interests of the community.
The loyalty of a large section of the upper middle class and middle class in the hills towards the British crown was evident beyond any question during the times when the freedom struggle in Bengal was showing an extremist penchant. The oppression of the colonial government in course of the Civil Disobedience Movement provoked some Bengali youths associated with a secret society known as the Dhaka Anusilan Samity to make an attempt on the life of the former governor of Bengal, Sir John Anderson, during his stay in Darjeeling, the summer capital of the imperial government, in May 1934. The attempt was, however, unsuccessful.
But before the governor’s arrival and the consequent Lebong Race Course shooting incident, Darjeeling’s local elite presented an address to Anderson assuring him of full loyalty against the tide of extremist forms of nationalism. “We are sure your Excellency will find a congenial atmosphere in the bracing climate of these hills and your Excellency will undoubtedly feel a happy change here, especially after the heated political controversies which characterise life in the plains below. We are not so ambitious as our brethren of the extremist political party in the plains. We assure your Excellency of our readiness to respond to any call on our people at all times and in any emergency,” ran the address.
With the preponderant mood of the elite strongly inclined to the imperial power and the level of the political consciousness of the common people, principally comprising tea plantation labourers and recruits for the military regiments, remaining abysmally undeveloped, it was but natural that the appeal of nationalism was weak in the hills. Some isolated sparks of ascendant nationalism were found here and there, though.
Way back in 1906-07, when the representatives of the hills were busy appealing to the British regime to carve out a separate administrative unit for the Darjeeling hill areas, a few Indian Nepalis participated in the Swadeshi movement, having a connection with the extremist groups in lower Bengal. Even a journal, Gorkha Sathi, was published from Calcutta to spread nationalistic ideas among the Neapli populace. The government later banned it.
When Mahatma Gandhi launched the non-cooperation movement in 1918-19, a galaxy of nationalist figures emerged on the hill horizon. Apart from Dal Bahadur Giri, there were Bhaktavir Lama, popularly known as “Asahayogi Lama”, Agam Singh Giri, Ramchandra Giri, Khargabahadur Bista and Dharanidhar Koirala, who took charge of the anti-colonial movement in the hills.
Two women, Helen Ahmed, a Christian Lepcha from Kurseong, and Mahadevi Chettri, a Nepalese, participated in the national struggle for independence under Gandhi’s leadership.
The national leadership, however, did not take much of an initiative to involve the common people in the nationalist struggle. Some who became leaders came into close contact with the national leadership and tried their best, despite the limited resources, to arouse the nascent spirit of nationalism in the local populace. But the Darjeeling hills were more or less kept out of the tempo of the anti-colonial movement, with the leadership displaying rather inexplicable lethargy in seizing the initiative from the pro-colonial elitists as regards mobilising public opinion in the nationalist direction. No conscious efforts were made to link the anti-colonial struggle with the day-to-day problems of the populace, though grievances were mounting, particularly among the plantation labourers against their exploitation.
Later, the Communist Party of India tapped the fount of grievances with immense dividends.
Things, however, started changing somewhat with the election of Subhas Chandra Bose as president of the Indian National Congress in 1938-39. He appealed to Indian Nepalis in the Darjeeling hills to join him at a meeting of the Bengal Provincial Congress held in Jalpaiguri in 1939. Responding to the appeal, an estimated 1,000 people from remote hill areas enrolled.
That the spirit of nationalism was latent in the subjective world of Indian Nepalis awaiting initiation became evident when the Indian National Army came into being with its appeal to Indian prisoners of war to join the fight for independence. During World War II, when British rule collapsed in Singapore and Burma and the Japanese took control, a large number of the POWs were recruited in the INA and these recruits comprised several Indian Nepali soldiers.
Captain Durga Malla and Major Dal Bahadur Thapa, both from Kalimpong sub-division, were captured, court martialled and then hanged for their participation in the war against the British in Southeast Asia under the INA and its leader, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Malla was hanged on 29 August 1944 and Thapa on 9 March 1945, a few months before the historic INA trial started in the Red Fort.
Apart from these two martyrs, there were several Indian Nepali soldiers from Darjeeling, Assam and Dehra Dun who were recruited as INA officers and fought for the country valiantly, like Colonel Dilman Singh Thapa, Dal Singh Rana, Major Puran Singh Khawas and Captain Ram Singh Thakuri.
Special mention must be made of Captain Ram Singh Thakuri, who remains immortal as the military musician for the Azad Hind government-in-exile because of the tunes he set to the INA’s marching songs. These tunes are time- transcending in their electrifying appeal.
Corkha National Liberation Front chief Subash Ghisingh made a significant comment during the nationwide celebration of Subhash Chandra Bose’s centenary in 1997. He said in public that the Indian Gorkha community could forget everything, but would always remember Bose’s peerless struggle for India’s independence.
This outburst of emotion for the revolutionary leader made one thing clear: that if ignited with loving sincerity, the patriotic fervour smouldering in the Indian Gorkha community would have consumed pro-British elitist leanings. It remains a riddle why the community, celebrated for its spirit of loyalty and sacrifice, was left out in the cold when the rest of the country was aroused from the century-long slumber of self-oblivion.
Chamling's Award Genuine- Government
ABI had done due diligence of over 4,000 people of professional importance, including Chamling, to determine the names of those to be inducted to its Hall of Fame, the release said.
The ABI in its 42 years&apospublication has published over 250 biographies of those it has honoured in it dwelt on their leadership skills and excellence in public life, it said.
JAC rejects Center's Offer
Ashoke Das, THT, Hydrabad:The Joint Action Committee (JAC) spearheading the agitation for a separate Telangana state has rejected Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s offer to set up a panel next week to resolve the statehood issue.
Chidambaram said in New Delhi on Thursday, “If all goes well, we should have a committee by the end of this week. We will announce the committee by next week."
This was, however, not good enough for the JAC, comprising representatives of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, Telugu Desam Party, Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party and small regional groups.
“The people are not prepared to accept yet another committee to deal with the issue as they have seen many such committees in the past such as the Pranab Mukherjee committee and the Rosaiah committee. It is nothing but delaying tactics,” JAC convenor M. Kodanadaram said in Hyderabad.
Congress legislators from the Telangana region, who had earlier threatened to quit
the JAC, expressed happiness over Chidambaram’s announcement.
“Because of our collective efforts, the Centre responded positively by announcing the formation of a committee,” Congress MLA K. Jana Reddy said.
“We are pretty sure that the Telangana state will be a reality in six or seven months,” he said, adding that there was no point in the JAC demanding resignations of MLAs from the region as the Centre had responded positively.
Congress leaders in coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions however reacted sharply to the Home Minister’s announcement.
“We don’t accept it. The Centre has succumbed to blackmailing by the Telangana JAC,” state party leader K Sivaji said.
At the time of going to press, the steering committee of the JAC was thrashing out a consensus on the course of action to push for statehood.
Chidambaram had in a meeting with political parties from Andhra Pradesh on January 5 said the Centre’s agenda was to "deliberate on the mechanism and lay down a road map for consultations" on the Telangana issue.
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