Attack blessing in disguise for Ghishing

Attack blessing in disguise for Ghishing
SUBRATA NAGCHOUDHURY

DARJEELING, FEB, 13: Flashback to the Eighties. Hundreds of people, shouting Jai Gorkha, Jai Subhash Ghishing, gathered at Chowkbazar, the town's commercial hub, when the two coffins carrying thebodies of two security staff of Subhash Ghising werebrought to Darjeeling yesterday.

Their death after heroic battle with Subhash Ghisingh's assailants seemed to have reknidled the ethnic passion in this tourist hill resort once again.

The bandh which entered the third day today was totaland spontaneous. The turbulent days of the Gorkhalandagitation were marked by such long bandhs -- 72 hours,108 hours and even longer. Despite requests from the stategovernment, Subhash Ghisingh refused to call it off.

``Let the police arrest at leastone culprit, or seize at least one sophisticated weaponfrom the extremists responsible for the attack so thatI can convince my men to withdraw the bandh call,'' he told a state government delegation led by the home secretary.

Understandably, the GorkhaHill Council chairman is not merely nursing his woundsat the hospital bed. He had state government officers nodding in agreement when he offered his help in counterinsurgency and told them that the ambush inDarjeeling should be viewed by the state as anextension of the operational area of the North Eastmilitants.

Understandably, the attack has provided Ghisingh with thestrongest ground ever to extract from the stategovernment a concession which he had been bargainingfor a long time -- transfer of powers of the home department to the DGHC.The state urban development minister AshokBhattacaharya, the Siliguri MLA entrusted by the state government and theCPI(M) to cultivate Ghisingh, has agreed to set up a meeting between Ghisingh andBhuddhadev Bhattacharya as soon as the Gorkha leader recovers.

In Calcutta, Bhattacharya said that he fully shares the sentimentsof Ghisingh. ``The smooth running of the DGHC and it'sfunctional autonomy is an answer to the growingsecessionist trends all over the country. In thatsense, the real attack is on the very concept of theDGHC,'' he said. The state government would stretchitself to the maximum limit to keep DGHC going, he added.

Going by the spontaneous response to the prolonged bandh call, the attack on Ghishing has generated much sympathy for the leader. Many homes in the hills are acutelyshort of ration. In Siliguri, hundreds of hill-bound tourists andstudents are stranded. Business is at a stand stillwith hotels closed. But the people, at least, the majority of them are taking it in their stride.

So strong is the passion that when a fellow Nepalipolice officer at Kurseong questioned the Chairman'sprudence in taking the non-conventionalPankhabari-Kurseong route on his way back toDarjeeling in course of a casual discussion, the crowdimmediately pounced on him. Severely manhandled, thepolice officer was made to go through an alcohol testat the subdivisional hospital.

Such an upsurge of Gorkha sentiment could not havecome at a better time for Ghisingh, when the DGHC wasbeing increasingly critisiced for lack ofdevelopment, rampant corruption and inefficiency.

Development in the hills after the formation of theDGHC in 1988 had been at best cosmetic. Apart fromlaying a number of new roads or setting up some rockgarden, the council did precious little to improve the basic civicamenities. Critics claim that contractors are minting money as the allocations for developmental projects are being systematically siphoned out.