Demand For The Separate State of Gorkhaland
The demand for a separate state for the Gorkhas within India is more than 100 years old. "The name "Gorkhaland" is claimed to have been coined by Subhash Ghisingh on 5 April 1980, cf., his speech of 7 September 1989 at Darjeeling". After a violent agitation in the 1980s, which claimed more than 1200 lives in the hills, Subhash Ghisingh settled for the DGHC.
After a lull of Ghisingh's 20 years rule, the demand for Gorkhaland was again revived by GJM under the leadership of Bimal Gurung. The total area of the proposed state is 6246 km2 and comprises Banarhat, Bhaktinagar, Birpara, Chalsa, Darjeeling, Jaigaon, Kalchini, Kalimpong, Kumargram, Kurseong, Madarihat, Malbazar, Mirik and Nagarkatta. Unlike the 1980s, GJM has maintained that the struggle for Gorkhaland would be through non-violence and non-cooperation.
GJM initially resorted to bandhs, hunger strikes and non-payment of utility bills to further their demand. It was quite enough to get the attention of the State Government, who invited them to Kolkata for bipartite talks. GJM refused to attends the talks as the state Government had set preconditions that they would discuss developmental issues but not Gorkhaland. The Chief Minister extended the invitation again and denied having set any preconditions for the talks.
The first tripartite talks between Government of India, Government of West Bengal and leaders of the Hill Parties headed by GJM was held on 8 September 2008. The hill delegation also submitted a 51-page memorandum to the Union Home Secretary, Government of India.
"The demand for a separate state within the Constitutional framework and within the Indian Union, consisting of Darjeeling District and the Dooars region of West Bengal is arguably the oldest and most outstanding demand in the country today. This demand for separate statehood is founded on the bedrock of a historical, economic and political rationale. Against the backdrop of socio-economic exploitation, political and cultural hegemony, misgovernance and exclusion, the demand has become an expression of the ingrained and deep rooted aspirations of the people to secure to themselves, and to their succeeding generations, the right to determine their own future."
Read more about this topic: Gorkha Janmukti Morcha
Famous quotes containing the words demand for, demand, separate and/or state:
“The ceaseless, senseless demand for original scholarship in a number of fields, where only erudition is now possible, has led either to sheer irrelevancy, the famous knowing of more and more about less and less, or to the development of a pseudo- scholarship which actually destroys its object.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“The basis of political economy is non-interference. The only safe rule is found in the self-adjusting meter of demand and supply. Do not legislate. Meddle, and you snap the sinews with your sumptuary laws.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“How separate and unearthly love is,
Or women are, or what they do,
Or in our young unreal wishes
Seem to be: synthetic, new,
And natureless in ecstasies.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“Think of the importance of Friendship in the education of men.... It will make a man honest; it will make him a hero; it will make him a saint. It is the state of the just dealing with the just, the magnanimous with the magnanimous, the sincere with the sincere, man with man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)