Turbulence in Darjeeling

Turbulence in Darjeeling and 

Opacity of Opposition

                        Nidhu Bhusan Das

Politics in India has been reduced to being wily. Shrewdness has replaced wisdom; presence of a void in the absence of content has become the hallmark of our politics and political discourse. The debate on the present violence in Darjeeling hills highlights the hollowness of our politics in which verbosity seeks to hide its poverty in well-meaning thought and wider perspective. The present state of politics in this respect calls to mind the fable of the wolf and the lamb on the bank of a mountain spring. The little lamb drinks water downstream and the wolf drinks upstream. The wolf is bent on feeding on the flesh of the tender lamb, and, therefore, alleges that the lamb has muddied the water. The meekly lamb points out that he being downstream cannot muddy the water upstream. The wolf says the father, the grand father or the great grand father has muddied the water and he must pay for the ‘crime’. With this fallacious argument he kills and feeds on the lamb. Our opposition appears to have assumed the role of the wolf. The opposition awards advantage to those votaries of violence who have gone berserk in the hills.

Darjeeling Burning.Courtesy: Business Times

The focal point of the mainstream opposition in the state, including those whose passivity and abject lack of sense of duty as the ruling coalition once gifted heyday for anti-people forces in the hills, is the ‘Hills Smile’ statement of the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

How can one deny that during her governance a relative calm has prevailed in the hills till the recent civic polls? Development projects were     taken and following the return of peace hill economy looked up with tourism back to growth path? How can it be ignored that when the GTA elections are round the corner and special audit of the GTA accounts have been announced and undertaken, Bimal Gurung, the GTA Chairman and GJM supremo has given the call for the revival of the ‘Gorkhaland’ agitation? The ‘Gorkhaland Demand’ is as fruitful for the contenders of absolute power, perhaps for absolute gratification, like the proverbial goose that laid golden eggs.

The opposition does not denounce the systematic violence being perpetrated in the hills. They are rather busy finding faults of the government. Even those who swear by Gandhi who called off the Non-cooperation Movement after the violence in Chauri-Chaura have failed to condemn the reckless violence. The state leadership of BJP has miserably failed to fathom the gravity of the situation created by their ally in the hills which is likely to seriously affect their organizational growth and expansion of support base in the state.

The GJM swears that the people of the hills are behind the relaunching and continuation of the movement. Does the opposition subscribe to the view? Who are the arbiters- the people or the leaders, who are set to gain- the people or the leaders, who are to lose – the people or the leaders, who will bear the brunt- the people or the leaders? Interestingly all the local parties in the hills have come together while the mainstream politics is divided. It only paves the way for the parochial and ambitious local forces to thrive that subordinate national interest to local vested and emerging interests.