India, the incredible and the vulnerable THE VIEW FROM NEW DELHI

By Stanley A Weiss
It’s tempting to dismiss as excessive the Indian government’s efforts to protect the Olympic torch run last week from Tibetans protesting the Chinese crack down in their homeland—sealing off much of the historic heart of this city, shrouding the relay in a veil of secrecy and surrounding the flame with 15,000 police and soldiers.
Likewise, it’s easy to brand New Delhi’s muted response to the repression as “overcautious,” as did the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader. For merely saying it was “distressed,” the Indian government is accused of sacrificing its moral authority as the world’s largest democracy to avoid upsetting China, now its largest trade partner.
A more accurate reading of New Delhi’s stance, however, reveals a far more complex picture, one that stretches beyond Tibet and trade.
In virtually every direction, India faces what national security advisor MK Narayanan tells me are “existential threats”—failed or fragile states that claim Indian territory, support anti-Indian insurgencies or threaten the very idea of India as a secular, multi-ethnic, pluralist democracy.
Indeed, alongside the tourism campaign proclaiming “Incredible India,” there’s also a sense of Vulnerable India. A quick 360-degree tour of India’s neighborhood reveals how this Asian giant—with its roaring economy and rising global profile—faces a tyranny of geography.
To the west lies historic nemesis Pakistan and, beyond that, Afghanistan—two Muslim nations in the grips of Al Qaeda and Taliban terror, whose collapse could send waves of refugees and violence into Hindu-majority India.
After three wars, contested Kashmir remains a tinderbox, and the loss of Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim majority state, could ignite a chain reaction of separatism among India’s kaleidoscopic regions, races, religions and languages.
To the north, it’s China—and territory, not trade—that unnerves Indians. It wasn’t geography but guns—China’s 1950 invasion of Tibet—that first made these two Asian powers next-door neighbors.
“The Humiliation”—India’s defeat in its 1962 border war with China—remains etched in the Indian psyche. To New Delhi’s eternal frustration, China still occupies the Aksai Chin region in the western Himalayas and claims the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which Beijing refers to as “lower Tibet.”
Indeed, it was China’s nuclear arsenal, not Pakistan, that Indian leaders say justified their nuclear tests a decade ago. Indian officials speak openly of being “encircled” by China, with its new deep-water navy and naval facilities stretching from Pakistan to Bangladesh to Burma—a “string of pearls” that could turn the Indian Ocean into the Chinese Ocean.
In tiny Nepal, also to India’s north, New Delhi fears that this month’s election victory of former Maoist rebels could energize the Maoist revolt raging across rural India that has killed thousands. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called it “the single biggest security challenge” India has ever faced.
To the east, Bhutan, Burma and Bangladesh have served at times as sanctuaries for the dozens of ethnic, tribal and separatist groups in northeastern India that have killed more than 50,000 people during decades of resistance to Indian rule. Thus New Delhi’s controversial aid to Burma’s junta, which returns the favor by attacking anti-Indian insurgents.
Finally, to the south, Sri Lanka’s 25-year civil war is the headache that won’t go away—in memories of the Indian military intervention that led Tamil militants to assassinate Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and in fears that any independent Tamil state would stoke separatist passions among the 60 million Tamils living in southern India.
“India’s neighbors use all these cards in an attempt to keep India in check and it constrains our foreign policy options,” says Brahma Chellaney, a leading strategic analyst. “Given the looming threat that neighbors could step up their claims or interference, India has to follow a fine balance.”
As a result, India faces a paradox of proximity. New Delhi enjoys strategic relationships with Russia, the European Union, the United States (including a tentative nuclear pact) and Japan and signs major arms and trade deals with partners from Brazil to Nigeria and Israel to Iran to Indonesia. Meanwhile, South Asia accounts for an estimated two percent of Indian trade.
To its credit, New Delhi has undertaken what Shyam Saran, the prime minister’s special envoy, tells me is a “steady rethink” toward its neighbors—a realization that it can neither insulate itself from them nor achieve India’s full economic potential “unless we can ensure a relatively peaceful and stable periphery.” Farooq Sobhan, a former Bangladesh high commissioner to India who heads the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute, credits this recent “turnaround in India’s thinking” for turning India from a skeptic to a champion of regional economic and political integration. “We are poised to build a new and better relationship,” he said. After Burma’s military regime crushed democracy protests 20 years ago, a Western diplomat confessed that a far-away America, with “very little strategic interest” in Burma, had “the luxury of living up to its principles” and condemning the crackdown.
For now, with so many claims on its territory, Vulnerable India has no such luxury with Tibet. That comes later, when, free of today’s existential threats, Incredible India can act more confidently in both its interests and its ideals.
(The writer is founding chairman of Business Executives for National Security, a nonpartisan organization based in Washington.){ Kantipuronline)

GJM to march to Kolkata demanding separate state

IN A throwback to over two decades ago, the hills of Darjeeling, quaintly named the Queen of the hills by the British has again begun to seethe. The mid-eighties saw violence in support of a separate state of Gorkhaland restricted to the hill region where over 300 people died. Today, another generation of activists is seeking to bring the same demand to the capital of West Bengal, Kolkata.

The fledgling Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) born six months ago, which wrested control of the Darjeeling hills and the future of the hill people from the hands of Subhas Ghising, the supremo of the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF), is bent on bringing the agitation for a separate state at the doorstep of the Left Front government which fought tooth and nail to stop Darjeeling from seceding in the mid-eighties.

The Morcha is planning to use 10,000 handpicked people from the three hill subdivisions and start a long march to Writers' Buildings, the state secretariat on May 7. The activists will walk all the way to the seat of the Bengal government to lay bare its demand.

The Morcha wants to tell the chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and people of Bengal about the injustice meted out to former servicemen who have spent their lives guarding the country and the burning desire for a separate state they can call their own, Bimal Gurung, Morcha president told a huge crowd in Darjeeling yesterday, the local media reported.

Much before the planned march to the capital of the state the Morcha has called for an indefinite shut down of all government establishments, both central and state in the Darjeeling hills as of April 14. Morcha leaders have assured tourists that they would not be inconvenienced because the shut down would only in government offices. Hotels, private establishments, municipalities and banks will be kept out of the purview of the shut down.

It is a long drawn programme that the Morcha has in mind, albeit different from the tactics used by Ghisingh in his heydays when indefinite bands and violence were his only weapons. The Morcha is mobilizing school students to take part in the rally in Darjeeling on April 11. On April 15 school teachers will stage a rally. On April 17 minority communities would take out a rally in the hill town.

There was a 24-hour bandh in the hills from Thursday to Friday morning in protest against police action on ex-servicemen from Darjeeling during a rally in Siliguri on Wednesday. The Morcha has demanded an inquiry into the police lathi charge on its rallyists.

Meanwhile the man who has earned the wrath of the Morcha the most urban development minister Ashok Bhattacharjee appealed to the agitating hill leaders to come to the negotiating table both with the Centre and the state. He said agitations and violence would not solve problems and pointed out that the state chief minister was always ready for a dialogue. The minister has become persona non grata in Darjeeling because he called the Morcha leaders "outsiders". The minister was elected from North Bengal and is in charge of CPI (M) affairs in the hill district. (merinews)

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.

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.

Dalai Lama's Realpolitik: Gold Medal versus Human Rights

Dalai Lama’s Realpolitik: Gold Medals versus Human Rights
By Satis Shroff
The Chinese poet Dong Guanfu writes in his blog: “We cannot win the heart of the Tibetans if we only develop their economy. If we cannot manage to understand this, then many other conflicts will follow. There’s no denying that one of the reasons of staging the Olympic Games is that we want to make money. But the greater value of the Games is to strengthen and rejuvenate the spirit of a nation. How many spiritual values can we convey by way of the Olympic torch? This is a question that has to be weighed by the whole Chinese folk, especially the ruling part members (in Beijing). ” Read this heart touching article in full click the link Read the whole article

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.

TIBET IS BURNING

PHOTOS FROM REUTERS:

DHARAMSHALA, India (AFP) 16.Mar.08:The Dalai Lama condemned on Sunday what he called China's "rule of terror" and "cultural genocide" in Tibet, calling for an international probe into unrest in his homeland.
Eighty people have been confirmed dead in the Himalayan region, the Tibetan government-in-exile said at its base in this northern Indian hill town, contradicting the Chinese official report of 10 fatalities in days of unrest.
The dead included 26 people shot near a prison in the Tibetan capital Lhasa, aides to the Dalai Lama said.
"They simply rely on using force in order to simulate peace, a peace brought by force using a rule of terror," the Dalai Lama said in Dharamshala, his home since fleeing Tibet after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.
The unrest in the vast Himalayan region, which began last week after the 49th anniversary of the 1959 revolt, is the biggest challenge to China's rule there in nearly two decades.
"Please investigate, if possible... some international organisation can try firstly to inquire about the situation in Tibet," the Buddhist spiritual leader said.
"Whether intentionally or unintentionally, some cultural genocide is taking place. There is some kind of discrimination: the Tibetans in their own land quite often are treated as second-class citizens," the Dalai Lama added.
"Some trusted group should go there and see how it happened," added the Dalai Lama, who has long complained that Beijing is flooding Tibet with Han Chinese in order to make the Tibetans a minority in their homeland.
But the Dalai Lama, a Nobel peace laureate, refrained from calling for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics in August, as many Tibetan exiles have been demanding.
"The Chinese people... need to feel proud of it. China deserves to be a host of the Olympic Games," he said, saying however that Beijing also needed to be "reminded to be a good host."
His comments came hours after China declared a "people's war" in Tibet, and as witnesses reported repeated gunfire in the Tibetan capital on Saturday and a huge security build-up by Chinese forces there.
On Sunday, Chinese security forces were said to be patrolling the streets of the now-calm but tense Tibetan capital.
The Dalai Lama also appealed to China to recognise he wanted autonomy for Tibet, and not independence, and that his campaign was non-violent.
"We are not seeking separation -- that, everyone knows," he said.
The unrest in Tibet and a major Chinese crackdown prompted more furious protests on Sunday in Dharamshala, with activists nailing hundreds of Chinese flags to the ground for people to walk on.
"China should stop the brutal crackdown and genocide," said Sonam Darjee, a leader of the Tibetan Youth Congress -- a pro-independence group which views the Dalai Lama's call for greater autonomy as not going far enough.
When asked if he was able to bring an end to Tibetan protests, the Dalai Lama said, "I have no such power."
"It's a people's movement, I consider myself a people's servant, I cannot ask people not to do this, not to do that," he said.
But "everyone knows my principle -- knows (it is) completely non-violence... Violence is almost like suicide."
He denied Chinese charges he was linked to the unrest.
"The Chinese accuse me of creating these problems but I am actually not -- I consider myself a spokesman for the Tibetan people," he said.
At the same time, the Dalai Lama said a growing number of Chinese "are showing solidarity with us."
"Chinese scholars and government officials privately support our 'middle way' approach," he said.
"Genuine harmony must come from the heart on the basis of trust, free of fear."

Source: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5io5GuMgIy7aW7aitUDxeqKYC92aA

http://uk.reuters.com/news/pictures/articleslideshow?articleId=UKPEK29814020080316&channelName=UKNews1#a=19