Darjeeling: Quitting the Trinamool Congress (TMC) was “much easier" than giving up on Gorkhaland, says Bhim Agarwal, who recently won a civic body election in Kalimpong. Agarwal, who is not even a Nepali-speaking Gorkha, switched from the TMC to the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) last month, in the wake of the unrest in the hills of West Bengal.

The ongoing agitation over the demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland for the Nepali-speaking community of Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts has already claimed three lives. And the TMC, which had quietly made inroads into the hills of West Bengal, is counting losses with leaders and allies fast distancing themselves from the party.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has in the past few years created as many as 15 boards for the welfare of different tribes of Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts. She committed funds for tribal development, winning hearts and support from the local people. GJM, the dominant party in the hills of West Bengal, didn’t take kindly to the move, and described it as divisive politics.

For the TMC, the going was good till elections were held in May to municipal boards in Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Mirik and Kurseong. For the first time, the TMC secured people’s mandate to run the Mirik municipality and six others of the party won elections in the three other towns. Clearly, cracks had started to appear in the Gorkha domination of the hills.

The GJM would have no more of it.

Banerjee unwittingly handed the GJM an opportunity to strike back when she made teaching of Bengali compulsory in schools across the state. She clarified within days that Bengali didn’t have to be taught in schools in Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts. But, by then, the GJM had already fomented a movement, playing an old card.

From as early as 1907, the Gorkha community of Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts—including Nepali-speaking tribes—have been fighting political battles to neutralize the influence of Bengalis from southern parts, according Amiya K. Samanta, a former police officer and an author on the Gorkhaland movement.

Despite Banerjee’s U-turn, the Gorkha leadership managed to spawn an unrest helped by an “administrative blunder". As the Gorkhas protested, at least 15 activists were held. They were seen inciting an “ethnic strife", said a key police officer, defending the move. But in hindsight, it should have been avoided, this person said, asking not to be named.

To be sure, Darjeeling has witnessed many violent movements from the mid-1980s but they were always political in nature—never an ethnic strife, according to Samanta.

Through years of efforts, Banerjee had established herself as “the only alternative" to the GJM, according to a TMC activist in Darjeeling, who, too, asked not to be identified. She had engineered cracks within the GJM, and won the support of fringe political outfits such as the Jan Andolan Party and the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF), this person said.

But with her political ambitions becoming increasingly evident, the tide turned on her.

“She wants to grab everything," Roshan Giri, the spokesperson for the GJM said, referring to Banerjee, in the early days of the movement, which escalated with Banerjee holding a cabinet meeting in Darjeeling on 8 June. It was seen by the Gorkhas only as further incursion into their turf. The standoff intensified and led to the killing of three Gorkha protesters in clashes with the police on 17 June.

None of the local political parties that had supported Banerjee against the GJM had given up on the demand for greater autonomy. “We gave up on her after the municipal elections," said Mann Ghisingh, president of the GNLF. Banerjee, according to him, had promised to help the Gorkhas secure more autonomy under the sixth schedule of the Indian Constitution. But in reality, she is only looking to expand her own political influence, he added.

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