Mission Dooars for Bimal’s wife - Morcha harps on Gorkha-Adivasi unity - Agitation stalled growth: Home secy

If Bimal Gurung is trying to reach out to statehood supporters in every nook and corner of the hills, his wife Asha is on a mission to unite various voices in the Dooars that supports the Gorkhaland movement.

Realising the importance of the need to garner the support of the Adivasis in the Dooars, Asha and her entourage are currently conducting a door-to-door campaign in the region.

“We came to the Dooars on November 21 and will stay till the 30th. We are on a whirlwind tour, trying to convince the other communities the need for Gorkhaland. We have been able to bring the Adivasis and the Gorkhas together and instead of organising public meetings, we are going from door to door,” said Asha, whose husband had founded the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha last year, from Makrapara in middle Dooars over the phone. The Morcha wants the Dooars to be part of Gorkhaland.

Although Asha does not have a political background, she has been actively involved in party affairs ever since its formation. In fact, soon after the Morcha had been formed, Asha had camped in the Dooars for a month to mobilise support for the new party.

“The response from the region has been tremendous this time around. They had been betrayed by Subash Ghisingh in 1986 and many of them were sceptical about our intentions. We have convinced them that our party will never let them down,” said Asha, a central committee member of the party.

Since October, the Morcha has taken active interest in the Dooars, especially after the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Parisad (ABAP) started opposing the statehood demand. “We have met a lot of ABAP supporters in the Dooars and they have started supporting our demand. We are looking at holding some more meetings with the ABAP leaders,” said Binay Tamang, the media and publicity secretary of the Morcha, who returned to Darjeeling on Saturday after a 21-day tour of the Dooars. Tamang was part of the team, which consisted of R.P. Waiba, Ram Bhujel and Kamal Sharma.

Tamang said the unity of the Gorkhas and the Adivasis was a decisive factor in achieving the statehood. “Since 1904, when the first tea gardens were set up in the Dooars, the two community have been living together. The living standards of both the communities are still very low. The Adivasis are a majority in the Dooars, followed by the Gorkhas,” said Tamang.

Members of the Gorkha Minority Forum, a Morcha affiliate from Darjeeling, are expected to visit the Dooars to convince other communities to support the statehood movement. Recently, members of the Janmukti Secondary Teachers’ Organisation were in the Dooars with a similar purpose.