M. Shahidul Islam
What good is leadership if it fails to unite others for a common goal? The just concluded Scottish referendum has been an ideal showcase of leadership on the part of both the British Prime Minister and the First Minister of Scotland. It has saved the UK from an impending disintegration on one hand and sent the message of a peaceful exercise of democratic rights reverberating across the globe, on the other.
The politics surrounding it should be emulated by many governments striving to stave off protracted crises and secessionist movements in their own backyards. Especially India and Bangladesh have much to learn from this splendid exercise of democratic tools capable of defusing public anger and lingering discontents.
Westminster style stunt
Faced with an impending and seemingly unavoidable breakup of the union, British Prime Minister David Cameron brought on board the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party leaders and made a promise to the Scotts to empower their regional lawmakers with the mandate to devise laws on tax, spending and welfare. This promise worked wonder. Following the referendum, an exuberant Cameron said, “We will ensure that those commitments are honoured in full.” He also promised draft legislation to that effect in the House of Commons by January 2015.
The lessons of the Scottish election are stark for the South Asians: Respect for the will of the people had saved the UK in 2014 while the disrespect for the will of the people truncated Pakistan in 1971. In India, democratic desire of the regional sub-groups and nationalities must be respected likewise. The Scotts need not wage hartal for their rights, nor do they need to take up arms. Before the election, Cameron emphatically proclaimed: “We could have blocked this referendum. But we respect the will of the Scottish people.”
To the contrary, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina insisted prior to the January 5 election that holding the election without main oppositions’ participations was a ‘constitutional necessity’ and that ‘another election will be held later.’ She had chosen to renege on that promise only to rekindle fresh agitation to set the nation on the course of devastation once again.
Bangladesh aside, crisis of democracy and governance has been a perennial problem in South Asia; hampering peace, security and stability. In India, democratic choices of the minorities have been censored for decades, resulting in the activation of a myriad of armed secessionist movements in the Northeastern states in particular, abutting Bangladesh. It’s time both Dhaka and Delhi follow the Westminster’s war book and resolve their festering and protracted crises to ensure regional peace and stability. Make no mistake that misguided policies and an insatiable lust for power lie at the root of many of the festering crises in the region.
Perception of security
We all know that the cure to fundamentalism is scrupulous exercise of democracy and guarantee of the rule of law. Crying the wolf of Islamic terrorism did not help the NATO and Israel. It will not help India and Bangladesh either. Terrorism sprouts and thrives in the swamps of persecutions, authoritarianism and deprivation.
The gradual narrowing of political space, particularly in Bangladesh, for the opposition of all stripes will invariably allow fanatic and revolutionary forces to sprout and further destabilize the status quo. The Ruling AL’s euphemism of ‘development sans democracy’ is simply disastrous. The prescription is likely to turn Bangladesh into Iraq or Libya where developments mushroomed for decades in the absence of democracy. Malaysia, to the contrary, successfully synergized development and democracy and emerged as a model of social cohesiveness and prosperity.
In the Indian administered Kashmir, Delhi should comply with the UN Security Council Resolution 47 of April 21, 1948 and hold a plebiscite to decide the fate of the Kashmiri people. Pakistan must do the same unless it decides to willingly leave the people of the so called Azad Kashmir to join their brethrens in the Indian-controlled Kashmir across the demarcated Line of Control (Loc).
Following the creation in India of a new state with the passage of the Telengana Bill in the Lok Sabha in February 2014, the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) of the hilly Darjeeling and the surrounding areas along the Napalese border asked Delhi to take a unilateral decision and create a new Gorkhaland state within West Bengal. “We would now request the centre to similarly consider the just and fair demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland, which is amongst the oldest in the country,” GJM leader Bimal Gurung said in a Facebook post.
The Gorkhaland scenario
Continual denial by Delhi of the demand of about 800,000 Gorkha population of the area had already spelt serious trouble for Delhi in the past. In the 1980s, Subhash Ghising led a ferocious movement demanding the creation of a Gorkhaland state in the hills of Darjeeling and the adjacent areas of Dooars and Siliguri terai. Over 1,200 people died in that movement which culminated in the formation of Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC) in 1988. The DGHC administered the Darjeeling hills for 23 years with some degree of autonomy but Delhi chose to stop the fourth DGHC elections in 2004 and arbitrarily decided to make one Subhash Ghisingh the sole caretaker of the DGHC. This rekindled fresh unrest among the former DGHC councilors.
Meanwhile, creation of a Gorkhaland state has been equally opposed by West Bengal. Faced with autocratic decisions of Delhi and the West Bengal governments, Gorkhaland activists hardened their stance further and recently issued a new map of Gorkhaland, comprising apart from three hills subdivisions of Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong of the Siliguri subdivision (encompassing almost whole of Darjeeling district if Naxalbari zone is included), Dooars areas of Madarihat, Malbazar, Nagrakata, Kalchini, Birpara, Banarhat, Chalsa, Bhaktinagar, Jaigaon, Kumargaon.
The crisis could be staved off by holding a referendum on time, as the UK did for Scotland. But false promises prior to elections and prevarications afterwards had been the hallmark of the politics of Delhi and Kolkata alike. Prior to the 2009 general elections, the BJP promised to create two smaller states in Telengana and Gorkhaland. Assured, the GJM supported the candidature of BJP’s Jaswant Singh who won the Drjeeling Lok Sabha seat with 51.5% votes. The promise turned into prevarication when, during the July 2009 budget session of the Parliament, three Parliamentarians Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Sushma Swaraj, and Jaswant Singh pleaded for creating a state of Gorkhaland and most of the other lawmakers remained mum.
People’s choice; Mamta’s manoeuvre
Instead, persecutions continued unabated. On 8 February 2011, three GJM activists were shot dead by police when they tried to enter Jalpaiguri district on a padyjatra led by Bimal Gurung. This led to more violence in the Darjeeling hills and an indefinite strike paralyzed the region for 9 consecutive days.
The choice of the people failed likewise to make any dent in the West Bengal Assembly where the GJM candidates won three Darjeeling hill assembly seats during the April 18, 2011 election on the platform of creating a new state in Gorkhaland.
Simply put, politics has been abundant since 1947 but the decision to grant the Gorkhaland the status of a separate state is yet to see the light of the day. A diversionary politics had meanwhile resulted in the creation of the Gorkhaland Territorial Authority on September 2, 2011 in the West Bengal Assembly and the publication of a gazette to that effect on March 14, 2012. This followed the GTA election on July 29, 2012 in which GJM candidates won from 17 constituencies while the remaining 28 seats were won unopposed. The election verdict went landslide toward creating a separate state.
Comparatively more popular West Bengal chief minister Maamta Banerjee has been no different with the Gorkhas within and the Bangladeshis across the border, whom she opted to deprive of the Teesta waters. During her 2011 election campaign, she promised to the Gorkhas to meet their demands while speaking from the same podium with Bimal Gurung in Pintail near Siliguri; duping the Gorkha leader to put his signature on a tripartite agreement.
Yet, as the prevarications and the politicking lingered, things turned sour again. On July 30, 2013, Gurung resigned from the GTA, citing interference from the West Bengal government. The BJP regime in Delhi so far did precious little to soothe the anger of the Gorkhas.
History overlooked
Many observers say the Gorkhas can hardly be blamed if they resume an armed struggle. They say if the British government can allow the Scotts to break up a more than 300 years old union, there is no reason why Delhi cannot honour the historicity of the people it governs as a democratic entity.
That historicity is too important for a new brand of politicians in Delhi and West Bengal and, it can only be overlooked at great peril. In 1835, the hills of Darjeeling encompassed 138 square miles (360 km2) which the British East India Company took possession from Sikkim through a ‘Deed of Grant.’ The area became bigger in November 1864 when the Treaty of Sinchula was added Bengal Dooars from the Cooch Behar state, along with the passes leading to the hills of Bhutan and Kalimpong, which were ceded to Britain by Bhutan. Darjeeling thus became about 1234 sq miles wide.
Smaller though it may be, Darjeeling’s political freedom was never tempered with by the Britt. Especially the gusto displayed by Gorkha regiments during the Second World War should have made Delhi give a second thought while deciding the Gorkhas’ fate. Besides, prior to 1861 and from 1870–1874, Darjeeling District was a “Non-Regulated Area” where acts and regulations of the British Raj did not automatically apply unless stated with specificity. The term “Non-Regulated Area” was changed to “Scheduled District” in 1874, which was again changed into the so called “Backward Tracts” in 1919. The status was known as “Partially Excluded Area” from 1935 until India’s independence in 1947.
There is no reason for Delhi to gauge the aspirations of this ‘distinct people’ as there is no justification for the regime in Dhaka not to allow its people to make a free and fair choice about who shall govern them. Democracy is universal, ubiquitous and one need not be a Scottish to follow the Scottish role model. Leaders should decide if referendum is needed on any matter crucial to the life of the people they lead.
Source: Weekly Holiday
