Gorkhaland, elections and priorities

The political atmosphere in the hills along with the rest of the country has been warming up for quite sometime now. The principal political party in the hills has been shuffling from pillar to pillar trying to garner enough support for the Gorkhaland demand, and include the same in the respective parties manifesto. This might have come up with some success. Even though the appearance of “Gorkhaland” demand in the manifesto of the major national parties seem quite distant, the fact that most of them stood up, and tried to understand the issue is an achievement in itself. Contrast this with the time when we wanted the Sixth-schedule bill to be stalled, when top leaders of the country were hardly aware of the realities and intricacies of the “Gorkhaland” demand. Although the real benefit of such an exercise may not seem to come outright, even a small step in making major stakeholders of the country aware is, of utmost importance lest it is needed when the time comes for them to actually make a choice.

Having said that, to expect that the age old issues of separate state, development and identity will be solved in just one General Election, is only but wishful thinking. This is a long process and to address all of the issues will take time, patience and proper political maneuvering. While some of our issues maybe addressed to in the short term, for all of it to be solved we will require a proper long term vision. The key is to lay our eyes on our long term goal without losing focus of our short term priorities. If any one of it is sacrificed for the sake of another, we may just end up losing all we had to begin with.

For starters we need to get our priorities right. The pressing issues plaguing Darjeeling hills today is more of Socio-economic in nature. Along with this is the issue of identity for the millions of its residence within the state and nation, and the political power these residents possess in the corridors of power to make a difference. These cannot be solved overnight, and thus two prolonged approach should be taken to address them.

1. The issue of Political power to safeguard the political rights of our people as a community.
2. The issue of Separate state to address the long term solution to the woes of its people.

While these are still two distinct issues, they are not exclusive of one another. Conversely assuming that both the issues are the same is also grossly overlooking what we have at hand. It is true that Political power can up to some extent ensure a separate state, also a separate state will ensure political power, but what is different is while we have control over the former, the later is totally dependent on outside forces beyond our control. What we have at hand today is the political power to make a difference (provided we play our cards right), to have our voices heard, and to make a small but token difference in the corridors of power. What we do not have is a power to create a separate state. We need to understand that while we have a right to demand a separate state based on our grievances and our needs, what is more important is for the people in power to understand and be willing to accept that the demand is in the country’s national interest. Now, what would be in the country’s national interest would differ based on various geo-political realties prevailing in the country. How it would affect the region in which the demand is being made, and how it would affect the demand for other such movements across the country. Only after we have a consensus on the legitimacy of the demand, can it be met. As of now, we do not have the power to influence that consensus.

What we do have is the right entitled to every citizen of a democracy, the power to choose a leader who can best meet the solutions to the various problems being faced by the people. For this very reason we need to separate the two issues at hand. For now, what we need to do is to retain the political power we have. This might not lead to any significant achievement on the separate state issue; however we will still be retaining a power to be heard, a political voice for the Gorkha citizens of Darjeeling and West Bengal. Conversely, we will also be keeping the political opponents of the Gorkhaland movement at bay so that those forces opposing us do not crush our voices in the corridors of power. With this move, while we will be able to achieve immediate results on some of the economic and political fronts, the larger issue of a separate state can thus be achieved later in due time with the proper political maneuvering.

What needs to be understood is the importance of what the exercise of getting the demand included in the manifesto of the major national parties has given us. Even if the demand is not included in any manifesto, the consideration shown by political parties itself brings the demand into mainstream glare. The fact that GJMM was so interested in siding with the BJP itself has caused the Congress to at least take a second look at the demands of GJMM. In politics this it self adds a lot of weight. Ultimately a separate state may not be a reality without significant amount of public pressure from the Hills. No one will hand it over in a platter; it demands perseverance and action from the people, the people in power need to understand the gravity of the situation and act, but even a small political compulsion will significantly reduce the time and energy needed to achieve it!