Will the Congress Party be ever in favour of Gorkhaland?

By Barun Roy

General Omar Bradley had once said, “It’s not the big bad bombs that I am afraid of. The chances are when they go off; things would be like a dream. I am scared of the small ones that maim and wound. A bad bad nuisance indeed!” D. S. is one such ‘Bomb’zan. In February 1998, I sat with Hem Rai the then General Secretary of Darjeeling Congress Committee (DCC) discussing issues at hand. The party had been plagued by the formation of the Trinamul Congress. Droves of Congress cadres left for Trinamul under the leadership of Dawa Norbula, today’s Congress MP. In fact, Dawa Norbula, a seasoned Unionist and a Congressman had been the first to sound the trumpet of resentment against the party. Most left with him and the tap of resentment that he had left open was quickly drying up DCC. The DCC had also further found itself at loggerheads with the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) and the All India Congress Committee (AICC). There were major resentment among the local leaders and more so for the visually enraged D. S. Bomzan who kept on hurling insults at the Party President P Rai and Hem Rai while we were still in conversation. D. S. Bomzan and much of the local leaders of the party wanted N. D. Khatiwada to be given the ticket while the PCC and AICC wanted Prashant Nandi to contest for the Darjeeling Hills Lok Sabha Seat. It was a known fact that the Gorkha National Liberation Front Supremo, Subash Ghisingh would support the Congress candidate or even better ban the General Elections and whoever contested on the Congress Ticket would find his or her way to the Indian Parliament. This was also not the only issue that greatly vexed the DCC. The local leaders including D. S. Bomzan wanted the Congress to support the demand for Gorkhaland. The PCC and the AICC were strictly against this and Congress in Darjeeling Hills was quickly losing the ground from under its feet. I particularly, remember the instance when D. S. Bomzan agitatedly stood up from his chair and shouted, “There is no hope for us in Congress!” He then flung his chair aside and left. I had chanced upon him later that day walking dazed, a man seemingly broken from inside. He had looked at me and said, “Nothing can be done for the good of people by being in Congress. We are just foot soldiers. Congress is too big for all of us.” Then I had asked, “Will you now form your own party now?” He had nodded almost wearily and shaking my hand left. Months later he formed the Bharatiya Gorkha Rastriya Congress.

Now, you might ask why I am discussing about D. S. Bomzan when frequent resentment among party leaders and cadres are not uncommon in this country. The incidence signifies in many ways how things are politically not just in these hills but in this nation vis-à-vis the Congress Party. Congress as a Party nationally vibrant in its stature is weak in its roots when it comes to reality and this too because of a simple fact that it is too big for its own good. The political ideology that engrosses its collective mind float thus much amongst the summits of Everest, K2 and Kanchenjunga that common people end up standing for hours only to welcome the arrival of the likes of Rajiv Gandhi now Rahul Gandhi when nothing fruitful can be expected of them. For parties like Congress more keen on grabbing a seat at the Union Parliament, the wishes of the people from Konkan or Darjeeling are nothing beside numbers in their Lok Sabha Board Game. When this number is achieved nothing else matters for another five years. Take for example, the Common Minimum Programme of the Congress. The formation of newer states like Telangana was written, stated and proclaimed by the Congress as an instant reality after elections. So much so that the then President of India in his Presidential Speech had even stated that the formation of the State of Telangana was in the highest of priorities of the Government. But has it? We are already looking ahead at the next General Election. Will now the Congress promise one more time the formation of newer states including Telangana, Vidarbha and Gorkhaland? Verrapa Moily had played up to the gallery by suggesting the formation of the Second States Reorganisation Commission but ending up being nothing more than a cruel joke pulled from the Congress Hat of Magic and Deception. Is there any national thinking in the formation of newer states? In fact, what is indeed the national philosophy on the demand of newer states? A mere nuisance! Yes a mere nuisance, which you temporarily try to resolve by offering such things as the Sixth Schedule and lap on to the shoulders of the poor and innocent for another five years in the Office. National Parties like this believe that small regional parties like Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, Telangana Rashtriya Samiti and Bodoland Liberation Front are more of a nuisance creator than real threats. ‘Buy them off and the issue can be forgotten,’ is the major philosophy among the leaders in Delhi. And as if things don’t work from them. The Gorkhaland Demand was temporarily thwarted by offering the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council from the Congress’ Hat of Magic and Deception. Even now the Sixth Schedule Amendment Bill had been pulled out from the same hat. TRS President, Chandrasekhar Rao, himself had been offered different positions in the Union Government, being for five years now wooed covertly and overtly by the Congress Central Government and the Party.

Yet, still given the argument that Congress was the party which brought freedom to this nation will it bring freedom and hope to most that are still discriminated and hopeless? No, not until a mass unified national campaign by all parties demanding statehood from Telangana to Panun Kashmir (State demand by Kashmiri Pandits) is not forced on to the very face of the AICC. In the national equation, when viewed from the eyes of these leaders, Non Cooperation Movements like the one launched by Gorkha Janmukti Morcha where leaders flattering in such tiny political area as Darjeeling Hills by banning and imposing restrictions on their own collective media, closing ATMs, Food and Supply Offices, restricting Garbage Disposal can only bring tears of laughter from these Men and Women, who portray themselves as Gods on top of Mount Olympus watching and mocking upon mere mortals down on pitiful earth. Congress, I am sorry, must be offered its own medicine – a mass civil movement. The Party is a Party of loyalists with Monarchical mindset where cadres look up to one family like that of Gods, a Party which still believes that it was Congress and Congress alone who brought freedom to India. Congress is also a party which cannot let go its failure to stop the formation of Pakistan. Every Congress leader must understand that the formation of Telangana, Gorkhaland, and Vidarbha is not like the formation of Pakistan.

The Congress has a great role to play in the destiny of India and I for one hope that it does. But in order to do so Congress must understand that the whole of India does not live in New Delhi or the state capitals solely and that the aspirations of the people cannot be measured on the strength of numbers a party musters in the Union Parliament. A party may not have a single member in the Union Parliament but may still represent the aspirations of a majority of a people. Ignoring the aspirations of the marginalized and nationally invisible minorities could prove fatal for a national party like Congress who has had been in power for the most number of times in the History of Modern Independent India. Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh must learn to listen to not just the likes of Buddhadev Bhattacharya, Jyoti Basu or Brinda Karat but to the likes of Bimal Gurung, Madan Tamang, R. B. Rai and D. S. Bomzan. And more importantly to its own grass-root leaders like P. Rai, Hem Rai and the thousands scattered all over the nation.

[Photo of the Indian Map with the Congress Symbol has been reproduced from the official Indian National Congress Website: http://www.aicc.org.in]