Well here we are today, people across India shocked at friendly tourists being given an ultimatum to quit a hill station which they had gone to in search of bliss.. What was their fault? Why should those innocent people pay for some overzealous political parties political agenda? These were some of the questions many people asked me. Everyone was unanimous in condemning the act of the Gorkhas against the innocent tourists. And then there were the great Ministers of Bengal who were ready to say "I told you so!". The media was happy to give live coverage to the incident and news room vehicles were busy reporting live from the scene. But amongst this chaos, one wonders if the people in this country were interested in learning why the people had come out on the street for this agitation. Most of the comments I read in the internet forums were, that Gorkhas should ask for a separate state in Nepal, and it is illegitimate for them to ask for a state in India.
Well its unfortunate that living is this vast country, the people of this country have no idea about the people that live here. Everywhere the people are busy worrying about making there own living while the rest of there country men just wait for better times. Of course its easy for some as they have a means to make a living in the first place. But has any one thought about the not so lucky people living in this country, those communities who have been languishing in the not so developed areas of our country? For whom just making a living is an almost impossible task? People who have no access to safe drinking water, no access to sanitation, living in a place city where the last sewage and water supply construction was done by the British who left India almost 60 plus years ago?
As the whole country got up to celebrate the 62nd Independence day proudly, celebrating there freedom, there were over 50,000 people living in this same country who have been reduced to life as bonded laborers working for numerous tea gardens, which produce the Champagne of teas, the world famous Darjeeling Tea. Its surprising to know that, the Darjeeling Tea fetches over Rs 5000 per Kilo while the workers who work to produce the same tea are committing suicides because of their economic conditions. Its the irony of biggest proportions, but while we have a democratically elected government to boast of some how one wonders, whats democracy for if we cant safe guard the liberties and rights of our own people? Worst, our democratically elected representatives are busy squandering money all around the parliament to win a battle, which theoretically needs to be fought with ideologies. “Ideologies indeed” speaking of which we also do have a politically party ruling the very same state where Darjeeling lies, claiming that their party constitution is more important than the constitution of the country, strange indeed.
Then we have a bunch of people, who were born n brought up with the belief that they were Indians, they sang India's national anthem, they celebrated Independence day better than any festival is celebrated in India, and sent in their sons to swear to defend the country against any enemy foreign and domestic, only to one day wake up and hear one of the Ministers of their state saying these people are not Indians, they are foreigners who came to India, before the existence of India itself. We have Ministers coming out and becoming Historians, speaking how 200 years ago some people came to a place what 100 years later would become part of India, and so by his own logic makes them foreigners. I wonder whether the Minister had indeed read that part of history while he was in High school or did he suddenly realize that when the people there started becoming aware of there political rights? This was the same government that sent in the state forces to beat up a group of peaceful senior citizens who had come out seeking for the rights of their people, perhaps the government forgot that it was those very people who till a few years ago had been on the borders of this country defending the democratic and political institutions of this country. Which brings to me another conclusion, for the people and their political masters in Bengal, all that matters is Darjeeling should be an integral part of the West Bengal, where their sons and daughters can enjoy a romantic honeymoon, walking on the clouds as they put it singing among the beautiful tea bushes. These people laud the beauty of Darjeeling, the honesty of the people there, and go on record to praise their bravery, to recruit them to defend the country, take their services as police men. As long as the "Gurkha" works as a Chowkidar outside their home, saying "Jee Sahab", and drives him around the hills of Darjeeling, they are very good people, but the moment that same persons questions back asking for his rights and his dues, he becomes a foreigner, a separatist and a threat to Bengali as a race! Wow, never understood how asking for a homeland where you make up 90% of the population can be a threat to another community who leaves a couple of hundred miles away! Perhaps the great historian Ministers of Bengal can answer us on this, drawing some examples from another one of the incidents of History, maybe!
Growing up seeing everything in Darjeeling and listening to what everyone had to say, I cant help asking myself who then is the good amongst them? Is it the Gorkhas who threw out the tourist demanding a separate state to safeguard their culture and their identity? Is it the Ministers of the Government who are defending the very existence of their race against the onslaught of a numerically inferior, socially marginalized and economically downtrodden community? Or is it some foreign hand just trying his luck doing something only he can explain? Then again who is the bad and the ugly? Surely it cant be the Ministers of Bengal, for they are only working hard to save their race from extinction, their land from being divided, and their political constituencies devastated? Is it then the poor worker of the numerous tea gardens of the hills? Or is it the son of a chowkidar or a driver who was once a faithful servant of the same masters from Kolkatta? Well only time will tell, but amongst all this rights and wrongs, its the people who suffer, I wonder who will hear them? will they ever get a better life? will their contribution towards this country ever be recognized? or will their sons and daughters ever grow up to enjoy the true freedom that this country promises...
