Calcutta, Oct. 24: Mamata
Banerjee’s success in bringing the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha back to the
talks table has prompted the CPM to concede that a solution through
talks was welcome and inadvertently give credit to the government for
breaking the deadlock.
“We have been
watching how repeated agitations in the Darjeeling hills disrupted
peace. The Morcha should sit with the state government and resolve the
problem through talks,” Biman Bose, the CPM state secretary, said in
Siliguri yesterday.
Three Morcha MLAs
are scheduled to meet the chief minister in Darjeeling tomorrow. They
had also come down to Calcutta and met Trinamul leader Mukul Roy,
apparently to seek an audience with Mamata.
Analysed in
isolation, Bose’s comments when asked about the Morcha’s eagerness for a
dialogue with the government after restarting the statehood agitation
barely two months ago and its earlier refusal to speak to the state
administration, might not sound significant.
But if assessed
against the backdrop of what CPM leaders have been saying since the
Morcha renewed its Gorkhaland demand, it marks a departure from its
recent stand.
CPM leaders have
always been critical of Mamata’s way of handling the trouble in the
hills. After the signing of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration
(GTA) pact, questions were raised about why the word “Gorkhaland” was
included in the accord.
Whenever the chief minister said “pahar hasche (the hills are smiling)”, CPM leaders mocked her at public rallies, news conferences and in Facebook posts.
After the Morcha leadership
organised a series of indefinite strikes to demand Gorkhaland following
the Centre’s nod to Telangana in July, the Bengal government addressed
the unrest through firm administrative action, but the Opposition
accused it of mishandling the situation.
“The response that
the chief minister has got in the hills has proved that her way of
handling the situation there was right,” industries minister Partha
Chatterjee said.
The fact that Mamata has communicated to
the people of the hills in no uncertain terms that Darjeeling is an
integral part of Bengal is her “biggest success”, Chatterjee added.
No one can predict how the situation will play out in the hills eventually but, as of now, Mamata holds the advantage.
CPM sources said
Bose’s stress on the need for talks was an admission that the Trinamul
government had managed to achieve a breakthrough in the hills.
“Mamata has been
able to force the Morcha to submit to her. We couldn’t do that when our
party was in power,” a CPM state committee leader said. “Obviously, we
cannot say this in public but there is little doubt that she (Mamata)
has handled the problem much better.”
Mamata’s frequent
visits to the hills, organising rallies in Darjeeling town to stress on
development and her virtual challenge to Morcha chief Bimal Gurung has
been in stark contrast to former chief minister Buddhadeb
Bhattacharjee’s response to the problem.
Since the Morcha’s
formation in 2007, Bhattacharjee didn’t set foot in the hills once even
though he visited Siliguri and Mongpong, 80km from Darjeeling town.
The fact that the
then chief minister had steered clear of Darjeeling because of the
Morcha’s announcement that it would not allow Bhattacharjee to enter the
hills had embarrassed the CPM, especially because he was overseeing the
district on behalf of the party.
CPM leader and
former hill affairs minister Asok Bhattacharya said Mamata succeeded
because she used “force”, an option the “democratic Left government”
didn’t want to exercise.
“Mamata succeeded
to enter the hills because of her threats to the Morcha. Her government
has arrested many Morcha leaders. She has driven fear into the minds of
Morcha leaders. She is also weaning away Morcha supporters to Trinamul.
That’s why, the Morcha is keen on having a dialogue with her,” he said.
Asked why the Left
government did not exert its administrative might to ensure
Bhattacharjee’s entry into Darjeeling, Asok Bhattacharya cited the “fear
of a Nandigram rerun”. According to the former minister, the CPM’s
policy was not that of confronting the Morcha like Mamata.
“We didn’t believe
in confrontation with the Gorkhas. Rather, we appreciated their
sentiments even though we were against statehood. But the Morcha told
its supporters that that the CPM was anti-Gorkha. That’s why we lost a
good number of Assembly seats, including my Siliguri constituency, in
Darjeeling in the 2011 Assembly elections,” Asok Bhattacharya said.
The CPM had
applied the same policy of non-intervention during Jyoti Basu’s tenure
as chief minister after the government signed a peace pact with Subash
Ghisingh, who had launched an agitation in Darjeeling in early 1980s
demanding a separate state.
Ghisingh’s
strategy of prolonged bandhs and violent agitations forced the
government to buy peace with him, which resulted in the formation of the
Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council.
“Since then, the
Left government left it to Ghisingh to take care of Darjeeling and he
reciprocated by ensuring the Gorkha National Liberation Front’s support
to CPM candidates in the hills in every election,” said a retired IAS
officer who had worked both with Basu and Bhattacharjee.
As Ghisingh
gradually withdrew from public life, it allowed Gurung, his former
understudy, to pull the rug from under his feet and launch the Morcha,
which renewed the Gorkhaland demand that the GNLF chief had abandoned
after his treaty with the Left government.
“Our party
continued backing Ghisingh, who had lost touch with people. We did not
intervene even as Gurung’s power increased. This is how we lost the
political battle in the hills…. Mamata has been proactive and that’s why
she has emerged the winner,” a CPM leader admitted.
