Maoist win in Nepal could spell curtains Gurkhas

London, Apr.25 : The tradition of Gurkha soldiers being an integral part of the UK armed forces is probably at risk with the coming to power of the Maoists.The Maoists are the largest party in the 601-seat constituent assembly after a surprise election result. Though they do not have a majority, the preliminary results give them 217 seats, and this the former rebels say will allow them to end the practice of allowing Gurkhas to enrol for the British and Indian armies.Baburam Bhattarai, a Maoist leader, said: "The obnoxious practice of your citizens joining foreign armies as mercenaries will be stopped."But this has been met with opposition among former soldiers - and politicians in Britain. "Nothing stirs a Gurkha more than his honour dared, but here we are in a fix," said Mahendra Lal Rai, secretary of the largest former Gurkha soldiers' group."We do feel like mercenaries fighting for foreign armies, but who can deny our economic reality, our compulsions? We are caught between pride and practicality."Nick Harvey MP, the Liberal Democrat shadow defence secretary, was quoted by the Scotsman as saying: "This would be a disaster for the British Army, and a disaster for those who are, and may wish to become Gurkhas."The contribution Gurkhas make to Britain's armed forces is invaluable. Any prospect that we could lose the service Gurkhas give this country only serves to highlight the poor treatment that their veterans have been subjected to by the British government," he added.The Lib-Dems want Gurkhas who left the army before 1997 to be granted the same right as those who retired since then to live in the UK.There are around 3,500 Gurkhas currently serving in the British army.Last year, about 17,500 Nepalese youths battled to secure 230 places on offer in the army. They are motivated by economic reality as well as a proud fighting tradition.They earn the same 28,000 pounds basic wage as British personnel and now qualify for a UK pension and the right to retire in the country.Nepal is one of the world's poorest countries - the typical wage is less than 300 pounds a year and 40 per cent of the population live in poverty.(Nepal News .net)

GORKHALNAD AGITATION: CLASH AT SILIGURI

Clash at Siliguri: Glimpses from Himalaya Darpan (Nepali Daily): To read Himalaya Darpan click at the given link at right hand.

Hills shutdown after foot hills clash

Hills shutdown after foothills clash
Gorkha Ex-Servicemen Battle Police After Statehood Rally Is Blocked In Siliguri
Deep Gazmer & Pinak Priya Bhattacharya TNN
Siliguri/Darjeeling: Some 2,000 Gorkha ex-servicemen descended from the Hills in support of Gorkhaland and clashed with police when stopped at Darjeeling More on Wednesday. They ransacked police vehicles and shops and fought a pitched battle with the cops. At least 35 persons were injured, including policemen, ex-servicemen and photographers, who were admitted to hospitals and nursing homes in Siliguri. Around 40 people were arrested. In protest, Gorkha Janmukti Morcha called a 24-hour bandh in Darjeeling district, including Siliguri, on Thursday. Greater Cooch Behar Democratic Party (GCDP) — the political wing of Greater Cooch Behar People’s Association — and Kamtapur Progressive Party have supported the bandh. “The situation is under control as of now. But we’ve deployed additional forces,” said Darjeeling district magistrate Rajesh Pandey. The incident occurred a day before the CPM-run Siliguri civic body called a mass convention against GJM’s demand for statehood. Flaunting banners of the GJM-affiliated Bharatiya Gorkha Bhutpurwa Sainik, the demonstrators assembled at Darjeeling More, Bagdogra and Pradhannagar for a ‘peace rally’ to Hasim Chowk via Hill Cart Road, Siliguri’s lifeline. On being tipped off, the Siliguri police put up barricades at all entry points, stopping the agitators from entering the town. Trouble broke out when GJM supporters broke through the barricades and clashed with the police. “It was a peaceful rally. But CPM cadres, in connivance with the administration, tried to disrupt it,” GJM secretary Roshan Giri said from Siliguri. Police denied the charge, saying the demonstrators sparked trouble by pelting stones. The cops then resorted to a lathi charge and burst tear gas shells to disperse the mob, but that proved inadequate. The mob chased the cops and ransacked police vehicles. “One of our officers was dragged into the crowd by GJM supporters, leading to violence,” the DM said. According to Pandey, the Gorkha ex-servicemen had planned the rally without permission. “We knew the rally wouldn’t be a peaceful one, so we withheld permission. The organizers had told us only ex-servicemen would take out the rally. In reality, about 60% of the crowd comprised people from different places,” the DM said. As soon as the news spread in the Hills, GJM supporters forced shops to down shutters. Later, at a joint press conference of the three parties who backed the bandh, GJM chief Bimal Gurung attacked municipal affairs minister Asok Bhattacharya for using cops against “our legitimate cause”. CPM cadres behind rally ruckus: Bimal Gurung Siliguri/Darjeeling: Gorkha Janmukti Morcha president Bimal Gurung claimed CPM cadres had sneaked into Wednesday’s rally of ex-servicemen and invited the police crackdown. In a tactic borrowed from Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee, he accused the police of acting under the directives of the CPM party office. The three parties that have backed Thursday’s bandh also charted out their future course of action. A public meeting at Siliguri on April 27 will be followed by gatherings in Cooch Behar, Darjeeling, Raiganj and Jalpaiguri through April and May, just before the panchayat elections in the plains begin. In a press release issued from Kolkata, CPM state secretary Biman Bose appealed for peace in the Hills and the plains. “Some forces are out to drive a wedge between the regions. We are committed to development of the Hills and want to sort out the problem through dialogue with the state government and the Centre,” Bose said. IG (law and order) Raj Kanojia said the rally had not been given permission in view of the volatile situation in Siliguri. “There was a blast last week and explosives were recovered recently. But they chose to ignore the directive, which resulted in the clash,” said Kanojia.

Gorkhaland activists and police face off at Darjeeling More

A police barricade at Darjeeling More in Siliguri on Wednesday
(The Times of India)

Lepchas are the first inhabitants of Darjeeling and Sikkim

The above article appeared in Himalaya darpan of today which talks about the Lepchas as the original inhabitants of Sikkim and Darjeeling. The historical facts and references are given. I will try to translate it into English and will post here in due time. Worth reading the article. For beteer view of the article please click the link given at the right hand side.

Issue on Gorkha Identity: Are Darjeeling Hill Nepalese foreigners?

This is the write up for the answer to the question raised by Mr. Sumanta Sen in The Telegraph, Kolkata edition, Dated April 3, 2008 on the Gorkha Identity in Fifth Column: Fight for a New Home.
Mr. Sen writes in the midst of the tussle, a pertinent question seems to have got lost. The question is how valid is the Nepalese claim to Darjeeling, which includes Kalimpong and Kurseong? Are they the original inhabitants? The answer, unfortunately, is a ‘No’…….. Strictly speaking, the Nepalese in Darjeeling can be dubbed ‘foreigners’ because they have come from another country. For whole story read
Mr. Sen sounds that he is advocating for the state and is desperate to force the sixth schedule in the hills. He sounds contradictory himself, in one hand he says Nepalese can be dubbed as foreigners and on the other hand recognizes citizenship of ours too. It shows that he knows what the status of Nepalese is. The state or the supporters of the so called sixth schedule are desperate seeing the positive momentum of the movement in the hills. They know that Gorkhaland is achievable. And it is the trend in the past too to sideline the real demand of the Hill people.
Mr. Sen has misconception regarding the term Gorkha itself. He had taken the explanation of the term Gorkha from a reliable source but muddled with it. The source says “It is a misconception that the Gurkhas took their name from the Gorkha region of Nepal. The region was given its name after the Gurkhas had established their control of these areas. In the early 1500s some of Bappa Rawal's descendants went further east, and conquered a small state in present-day Nepal, which they named Gorkha in honour of their patron saint.” So every Nepali in the Hills is a Gorkha. Our root lied in the Bappa Rawal’s ancestry which hails from India. It has nothing to do with the citizenry of a country.
By the way how does one differentiate between Bangladeshi Bengali and Indian Bengali? Why don’t you call Amartya Sen a foreigner, he is born in Bangladeshi region? You will argue that it was before Independence, bla..bla..bla right? The same logic applies to us. If you dub Darjeeling people as foreigner then the land itself by default is a foreign land which was ruled by Nepal and Sikkim(Sen has accepted this fact ). Why doesn’t Sen argue in favor of giving back the land to Sikkim or Nepal or Bhutan? He will not do so? Because he knows not what is what in the hills? Why cannot he argue and say that the Dooars, Siliguri was and is a part of the Darjeeling Hills by default, he will not do so because he knows not the history. The arguments put forward by Sen are hypothetical. He does not have sufficient data to authenticate his arguments. Please do remember, Sikkim, prior to 1973 was a sovereign country. Sikkim as a sovereign state of India at no cost will claim its ownership on Darjeeling, to claim its ownership on Darjeeling, as a sovereign state of India is nonsense. Sen talks about fencing of the border because of the influx. But what data he has to support his argument that immigrants from Nepal are residing in Darjeeling Hills? Is he talking about fencing the border with Darjeeling only or the entire Nepal India border? India will be on loss if it is done. Sen sounds conservative and looks at the issue from a very narrow point of view.
History tells that by the start of the twentieth century, Gorkhas made a modest socio-economic advance through government service, and a small anglicized elite developed among them. Following this in 1907, the first ever demand for “a separate administrative setup” for the District of Darjeeling was placed before the British government by the “leaders of the hill people”. The “Hill people” here referred to the Lepchas, Bhutias and the Gorkhas. Their main reason for doing so was the superior attitude of the Brown Sahibs (from Dhaka and Calcutta) shown towards the people of the hills and their growing sense of insecurity against the educated hordes of the plain. The demand was ignored. The demand for separate statehood was revoked in 1917, 1930, 1934. On 19 December 1946, the party's heart and soul, D.S. Gurung even made a plea in the Constitution Hall before the Constituent Assembly for recognition of Gorkhas as a minority community "Sir, the demand of the Gurkhas is that they must be recognized as a minority community and that they must have adequate representation in the Advisory Committee that is going to be formed. When the Anglo-Indians with only 1 lakh 42 thousand population have been recognized as a minority community, and Scheduled Castes among the Hindus have been recognized as a separate community, I do not see any reason why Gurkhas with 30 lakhs population should not be recognized as such." (Source Wikipedia). Is this not the same attitude of the so called Bhadra lok from Kolkata or West Bengal towards Darjeeling?
Darjeeling Nepalese or the Indian Nepalese has never denied their roots. We have never denied our history. But what we want to do is reinvent our history. The constitution of India provides us ample space to reinvent it. Mr. Sen must know why this upsurge or the demands for the formation of new state is coming up now and then. The way Sen has put forward his argument, it itself is one of the causes for demanding separate state. First there is a big question on our Identity. Second, the issue of development is another question. Darjeeling in terms of revenue from tea and tourism fills state revenue box but in return what does it get? A penny? With penny what have we done let me cite few examples: the overall Human Development index of the hill (Darjeeling) shows (0.65) and ranking at the fourth position after north 24 Parganas. Where the higher education facilities in the hills is almost nil still Darjeeling shows HDI on education as 0.72 next to Medinipore. Check the outlays of the government; only in 1990s outlays in Darjeeling was higher. Third, Governance is and was always an issue in the hills and state government never tried to straighten it because they were virtually running the hills and they loved to do so. Irrespective of the Government’s insufficient support, negligence Hill can come up to this high level then imagine what we can do once Gorkhaland is formed? Subrat Mukherjee, don’t compare Darjeeling with Purulia. We are dignified people with enough self esteem. Fourth, Darjeeling has no cultural affinity with Bengal. Darjeeling is unique in its demography, geographic constituents, language. This difference should allow us to be separate from Bengal.

I am the citizen of India. Gorkhaland is my birth right. When I can get Gorkhaland then why should I get satisfied with sixth schedule? West Bengal will never allow Darjeeling to be separated from it because it is one of the major source of revenue to it, they can muddle with the people of the hill easily. For their selfish desires Hill have suffered a lot till date, NOW is the time to fight back and get our right.

History of Gorkha and Gorkhaland..

Gorkha are people from Nepal and parts of North India, who take their name from the eighth century Hindu warrior-saint Guru Gorakhnath. His disciple Bappa Rawal, born Prince Kalbhoj/Prince Shailadhish, founded the house of Mewar, Rajasthan (Rajputana). Later descendants of Bappa Rawal moved further east to found the house of Gorkha, which in turn founded the Kingdom of Nepal.
It is a misconception that the Gurkhas took their name from the Gorkha region of Nepal. The region was given its name after the Gurkhas had established their control of these areas. In the early 1500s some of Bappa Rawal's descendants went further east, and conquered a small state in present-day Nepal, which they named Gorkha in honour of their patron saint.
The history of Darjeeling is intertwined with that of Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim and Bengal. Until the early 19th century, the area around Darjeeling was ruled intermittently by the kingdoms of Nepal and Sikkim,[2] with settlement consisting of a few villages of Lepcha woodspeople. In 1828, a delegation of British East India Company officials on their way to Sikkim stayed in Darjeeling and decided that the region was a suitable site for a sanitarium for British soldiers. The Company negotiated a lease of the area from the Chogyal of Sikkim in 1835.[2] Arthur Campbell, a surgeon with the Company and Lieutenant Napier (later Lord Napier of Magdala) were given the responsibility to found a hill station there.
The British established experimental tea plantations in Darjeeling in 1841. The success of these experiments led to the development of tea estates all around the town in the second half of the 19th century. Darjeeling was annexed by the British Indian Empire a few years after an incident of discord between Sikkim and the Company in 1849.
Under British rule, the Darjeeling area was initially a "Non-Regulation District" (a scheme of administration applicable to economically less advanced districts in the British Raj) — acts and regulations of the British Raj did not automatically apply to the district in line with rest of the country. As a consequence of the 1905 Partition of Bengal, the area came under the jurisdiction of the Rajshahi division (Rajshahi is a city in Rajshahi District in northwestern Bangladesh. The river Padma, one of the major rivers of Indian subcontinent, runs along the city) and was placed in the newly created province of East Bengal and Assam. Later in 1919, the area was declared a "backward tract". Darjeeling's elite residents were the British ruling class of the time, who visited Darjeeling every summer. An increasing number of well-to-do Indian residents of Kolkata (then Calcutta), affluent Maharajas of princely states and land-owning zamindars also began visiting Darjeeling. The town continued to grow as a tourist destination, becoming known as the "Queen of the Hills".
Historically, Darjeeling and its surrounding terai areas formed a part of the then Kirat kingdom called Bijaypur. After the disintegration of the Bijaypur kingdom, it fell to Sikkim and Bhutan. From 1790-1816, Darjeeling and its immediate contiguous area were overrun by the Gorkhas of Nepal. After the Anglo Nepalese War (1814-1815), Treaty of Sigauli was signed between the Gorkhas and the East India Company. Darjeeling was wrested back from the Gorkhas of Nepal by the Britishers and handed back to the Sikkimese after the Treaty of Titaliya. In 1835, Col Llyod became the representative of East India Company for Darjeeling. During his tenure Darjeeling was annexed into the British India Empire. However the original map of Darjeeling came into existence only after the induction of Kalimpong and Duars area after the Anlgo-Bhutanese war of 1864 (Treaty of Sinchula). Darjeeling as we know of today was organised in 1866. The ethnic identity "Gorkha" comes from the district of Gorkha within Nepal which was the kingdom of the Prithvi Narayan Shah.
By the start of the twentieth century, Gorkhas made a modest socio-economic advance through government service, and a small anglicized elite developed among them. Following this in 1907, the first ever demand for “a separate administrative setup” for the District of Darjeeling was placed before the British government by the “leaders of the hill people”. The “Hill people” here referred to the Lepchas, Bhutias and the Gorkhas. Their main reason for doing so was the superior attitude of the Brown Sahibs (from Dhaka and Calcutta) shown towards the people of the hills and their growing sense of insecurity against the educated hordes of the plain. The demand was ignored. The demand for separate statehood was revoked in 1917, 1930, 1934. On 19 December 1946, the party's heart and soul, D.S. Gurung even made a plea in the Constitution Hall before the Constituent Assembly for recognition of Gorkhas as a minority community "Sir, the demand of the Gurkhas is that they must be recognized as a minority community and that they must have adequate representation in the Advisory Committee that is going to be formed. When the Anglo-Indians with only 1 lakh 42 thousand population have been recognized as a minority community, and Scheduled Castes among the Hindus have been recognized as a separate community, I do not see any reason why Gurkhas with 30 lakhs population should not be recognized as such."
Soon after the death of D.S. Gurung, Randhir Subba raised the demand for a separate state within the framework of the Indian Constitution called Uttarakhand. Uttarakhand could be comprised of the following options.
Darjeeling district only or
Darjeeling district and Sikkim only or
Darjeeling district, Sikkim, Jalpaiguri, Dooars and Coochbehar or
Darjeeling district, Jalpaiguri and Coochbehar
This movement was discussed even by the masses. Initially Randhir Subba was in favor of a militant movement but was dissuaded by other leaders. Sadly the movement never gained momentum as its leaders were moblised to other purposes.
In presentations to the States Reorganisation Commission in 1954, the CPI favored regional autonomy for Darjeeling within West Bengal, with recognition of Nepali as a Scheduled Language. In all from the 1950's to the 1985, first the CPI (1954), then the Congress (1955), then the triumvirate of Congress, CPI and AIGL (1957), then the United front (1967 & 1981), then again Congress (1968) and finally CPI(M) 1985 dangled along with the carrot of Regional Autonomy for Darjeeling. (Source: Wikipedia)
The Gorkhaland movement has its roots in the demand of Gorkhas living in Darjeeling district and Duars of West Bengal and the aspirations of all Gorkhas within India and abroad, who see India as their motherland, for a separate state for themselves, within the constitutional framework of India. The Gorkhaland National Liberation Front which led the movement in the 1980's, was the first party ever to use the proper noun Gorkhaland for the desired dream. The movement disrupted the district with massive violence between 1986 and 1988. The issue was resolved, at least temporarily, in 1988 with the establishment of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council within West Bengal.
The fight for separate land for the residents of this hill is not new at all and every time the demand was ignored or sidelined. The recent sidelining was replacing statehood by sixth scheduled status. But as of today’s status every individual in the hills know why we need Gorkhaland. The major issue here is how and when.