PARBAT PORTEL

The Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) has announced the second phase of its protest, demanding a separate state of Gorkhaland in the Darjeeling Hills in West Bengal, India. The party has announced an indefinite strike in the Hills, beginning Saturday.

After India’s ruling coalition, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), endorsed a separate Telangana state by bifurcating Andhra Pradesh very recently, the GJM renewed its agitation for the separate state for the Nepali speaking population in West Bengal.

The Gorkhaland movement spearheaded by the GJM had ebbed after a tripartite agreement signed on July 18, 2011, that had put in place the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), an autonomous elected council to look after the affairs of the Darjeeling Hills.

Immediately after the Telangana decision, GJM Chairman Bimal Gurung resigned as the chief of the GTA and announced the agitation by calling a three-day general strike in Darjeeling on Monday.

Gurung has claimed that the movement this time will be a ‘decisive one’ and that they will only settle for a separate state. The WB state government has decided to mobilise the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) to contain the GJM protest.

In view of the tensions in the Darjeeling Hills that are likely to escalate in the coming days, students going to schools in places like Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong from other places have started leaving the troubled Hills.

Most students from outside the Darjeeling district and studying in St Joseph’s School have either left or are planning to leave Darjeeling, school principal Fr Santy Mathews said. The school has 120 Nepali students, 60 Bhutanese, 40 Thai and 10 from Hong Kong.

Similarly, St Paul’s School has students from as far as America, Holland and Jordan. Students from other places in India and from Bhutan also left Darjeeling on Friday. Uday Shrestha, a travel agent here, said around 200 Nepali students entered the country via the Kakadbhitta border in the last two days alone.

Published on: 3 August 2013 | The Kathmandu Post