ON June 26, Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) supremo Subash Ghising, was hounded out of the Darjeeling hills by the party of own protege Bimal Gurung, who broke away from the GNLF in October last year and formed the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM).
The immediate provocation for this was the death of Pramila Sharma, an activist of the Gorkha Janamukti Nari Morcha, the womens wing of the GJM, which held a demonstration outside the residence of GNLF Darjeeling branch committee president Dipak Gurung. Pramila Sharma was killed allegedly by shots fired from Dipak Gurungs house. The incident resulted in outrage among the people of the hills, who are overwhelmingly on the side of the GJM, and there was a violent reaction as GJM supporters went on the rampage. The houses and the vehicles of GNLF leaders and their supporters were targeted by mobs. Following a shooting incident, Ghising, who was the undisputed leader of the Darjeeling hills for over 20 years, was given 15 days by the GJM to leave the hills permanently. He left for the plains the same day with his wife and son under heavy security cover provided by the West Bengal government.
At the time of the shooting, Ghising was apparently holding a closed-door meeting with local GNLF leaders inside his residence. Getting wind of this, around 2,000 activists of the Gorkha Janamukti Nari Morcha and the youth wings of the GJM gathered to demonstrate outside his house, and then proceeded towards Dipak Gurungs residence nearby. Dipak Gurung, who had to be escorted out of his house by the police, was subsequently arrested and detained in an undisclosed location.
Ghising, who came into political limelight in 1986 when he called for a separate Gorkhaland state, has in less than a year found himself dethroned and isolated from the very movement he launched. With the vast majority of the people having turned their back on Ghising, this latest humiliation is another nail hammered in by the GJM in the coffin of Ghisings political career.
In the foothills of Siliguri, safe from the public fury, the GNLF chief put up a brave front, maintaining that the GNLF was still a force to reckon with in the hills. However, he admitted that his presence in the hills would further aggravate an already volatile situation. Chances of Ghisings return to the hills in the near future look bleak. The GJM is determined to keep him out and Ghising no longer has any significant support base among the masses. He has betrayed the aspirations of the people of the Darjeeling hills who will not allow him to return. It is they who removed him from here, GJM general secretary Roshan Giri reportedly said soon after Ghisings departure.
After Ghisings departure, his sprawling residence, locally known as the White Palace, in the Manju Tea Estate near Mirik in the Kurseong subdivision, was taken over by the GJM. This palace was built on public money, and now it will rightfully be used as public property, GJM branch committee president in Manju Tea Estate, Roshan Thapa, reportedly said. The GJM intends to use the house as an office and also to put up guests when programmes are held in Mirik.
According to informed sources, Ghising was making an attempt to reorganise his crumbling GNLF and re-establish his waning influence. After his forced resignation as caretaker administrator of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC) on March 10, Ghising was lying low even by his own reclusive standards. His situation is that of an outcaste in his own place, and his furtive attempts to reorganise was not being seen kindly by the GJM and the vast majority of the people of the hills, an informed source in Darjeeling told Frontline. It is now unlikely that Ghising will be able to stage a comeback in the politics of the Darjeeling hills. His departure from the hills was accompanied by a flurry of resignations from the party by leaders who still remained loyal to him.
This is the second time in six months that Ghising found himself homeless. Earlier this year, for about a month he was unable to enter his home turf, and could do so only after resigning as the caretaker administrator of the DGHC.
Meanwhile, at the insistence of West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the Union government has agreed to hold tripartite talks involving the West Bengal government and representatives of the GJM sometime in the second week of August.
Suhrid Sankar ChattopadhyayCOMMents
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