Gauging the sentiments of the hill people who were facing double hardships because of the ‘indefinite bandh’ on one hand and incessant rains and land slides on the other, Bimal Gurung , after a hurriedly called central committee meeting of GJM at Darjeeling on 22nd June’08, declared a relief for further 60 hours in the Bandh schedule, beginning with evening on 22nd June’08.
Softening his stand further and reversing earlier stand, Gurung agreed to send a delegation to Calcutta on 24th June’08, for bipartite talks with West Bengal government apart from the delegation that is being sent to Delhi on 23rd June’08.
As hinted earlier by this reporter in various articles, the present phase of movement after 20 years has been lacking in direction and intensity compared to one lunched by Subash Gheising, an ex-military man, in mid-eighties culminating into creation of DGHC. Not only that, Subash Gheising also got the ‘Hill Council’ upgraded to an‘Autonomous body’ by signing an agreement with the centre to get DGHC included in the 6th schedule of the Constitution, in a tripartite meeting on 7th Dec’05.
The youth of the hills who fought for ‘original Gorkhaland’ movement in mid-eighties have reached middle age now and understands well the ‘pros and cons’ of such movements. They also understands that a purely separate state is next to impossible and is against the ‘Bengali’ sentiments. They have already achieved the most they can achieve. Therefore, the present agitation, in all likelihood, is not going give much more.
On the part of the Bengal government, Chief Minister Bhattacharya laid a bait by saying that ‘more power’ can be given to the DGHC within the contours of West Bengal. The central government too- through Priya Ranjan Das Munshi and Pranab Mukherjee- has conveyed in no uncertain words, that Bengal cannot be divided.
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