Darjeeling Hills Bandh back, with changes

Darjeeling, June 15: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha’s indefinite shutdown resumes in the Darjeeling hills from 6pm on Monday, but the party has tweaked the rules of the bandh to maximise its effect.

Schools and colleges have been exempted from the shutdown so that education is not affected. Tea gardens and the cinchona plantations, which together employ the largest workforce in the hills, will also function normally.

Morcha president Bimal Gurung mixed warning and assurance in his appeal to the hill people a day before the four-day relaxation of the shutdown ended.

“Please stock up whatever items you can as the strike resumes on Monday. However, if you run out of food, the Morcha will make arrangements to replenish your stocks,” Gurung said while addressing a party rally at the confluence of the Teesta and the Rangit near Kalimpong this afternoon.

“We will be setting up helplines at all places for this purpose,” Gurung added.

As in the first phase of the bandh (June 10-12), there will be restrictions on transport, which means no supplies can come in from the plains unless there is another relaxation.

Traders and residents are gearing up for a long haul.

“Today, we replenished our stocks for 20 days with essential items like rice, dal (pulses), atta (coarse flour) and sugar, so there is no reason to panic,” said Raja Banerjee, the area sales manager of a shopping chain.

“We are happy that at least schools are going to be open. Let us see how things progress. This is a movement and there are bound to be hardships during such times,” said an employee of a private bank who did not want to be named.

Unlike in the hills, the Morcha is treading cautiously in the Terai and the Dooars, which are located within the territory marked by the party as Gorkhaland. The party leadership has asked its supporters there not to enforce the shutdown in their areas and instead rely on relay hunger strikes to press for the statehood demand.

However, the Morcha will continue to block Sikkim’s lifeline, NH31A, from tomorrow, hoping to put pressure on the Centre through the hill state. “Our picketers will remain in numbers in Rangpo, located in the Kalimpong subdivision, and at Coronation Bridge, blocking the two ends of the highway to Sikkim,” said Gurung.

“We want Sikkim to speak to the Centre about the manner in which students from the state were harassed in Siliguri and the economic hardship it is having to face,” said Morcha general secretary Roshan Giri.

College and university students from the hills, including some from Sikkim, had been harassed and allegedly beaten up in Siliguri on Thursday by local mobs opposed to the Gorkhaland demand. Most of the students have returned to the hills and Sikkim.

The Morcha’s cautious approach in the plains has been prompted by the sporadic violence that erupted in the Terai and the Dooars over the enforcement of the indefinite bandh in certain areas, said party insiders.

The insiders added that the central Morcha leadership had taken note of the clashes in the Dooars between its supporters and those belonging to the CPM and the RSP in Malbazar, Hamiltangunj and Oodlabari. The incident in which alleged Morcha supporters had attacked elderly tourists in the Chapramari forest had also been weighed, they said.

Morcha leaders now want their supporters in the plains to start a “social movement” because otherwise they might become “victims of violence” as law and order breaks down in the Dooars.

“We do not trust the Bengal government to stand by these victims of violence,” said Giri.

According to party insiders, the Morcha leadership is also not ready to put their trust on two central ministers from Bengal — Pranab Mukherjee (external affairs minister) and Priya Ranjan Das Munshi (information and broadcasting) and wants them to be kept out of its talks with the Union government.

“When Mukherjee said in Calcutta yesterday that Gorkhaland will not be discussed, we are not sure whether he was speaking as a state Congress leader or a central minister. Usually such statements are made by the Union home minister,” a senior Morcha leader said.

Sources said none of the three hill MLAs are expected to take part in the all-party meeting called by chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee in Calcutta on June 17. Darjeeling and Kalimpong MLAs Pranay Rai and Gaulan Lepcha, respectively have resigned from the GNLF. The MLA from Kurseong, Shanta Chhetri, has been staying in Calcutta and has not been allowed to return to the hills for months now.