Thunder in the hills

The Darjeeling hills are once again showing signs of getting caught in the throes of violence. MALABIKA BHATTACHARYA on the recent attack on Subhash Ghising.

WEST BENGAL'S picturesque Darjeeling hills, which witnessed a bloody ethnic movement for a Gorkha homeland a little over 15 years ago, are once again showing signs of getting caught in the throes of violence. This at a time when the Left Front Government in West Bengal is finding itself stretched preparing for a likely bruising electoral showdown in two months' time.

At the root of the current convulsion in the hills is an assassination bid on Mr. Subash Ghising, chairman of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC). As the unchallenged supremo of the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF), Mr. Ghising had set the hills aflame by authoring the Gorkhaland movement which in 1986 forced New Delhi and Kolkata to grant him the council, a halfway house of sorts.

On February 9, Mr. Ghising's convoy, bound for Darjeeling - ``my capital'', in his words - from Siliguri was attacked on a narrow and winding mountain road by militants armed with sophisticated rifles and grenades. Showing great presence of mind and courage, Mr. Ghising, bleeding from wounds in the neck and shoulders, crouched on the floor and, moving away from the door on the gunmen's side, rolled out through the opposite one into a ditch below. After about half hour, a blood-soaked Mr. Ghising was rescued by his associates. On his way to hospital, Mr. Ghising gave a clear plan of action to his men on how to deal with the situation at various levels.

The attack on Mr. Ghising, widely believed to be the handiwork of Mr. Chhatre Subba, a one-time Ghising protege who has turned against the GNLF supremo for his purported betrayal of the Gorkhaland cause, is fraught with political implications. Mr. Subba and his band of supporters, long suspected to be in cahoots wuth various guerilla outfits active in the northeast, are believed to be hiding in sanctuaries in Nepal.

The West Bengal Chief Minister, Mr. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, barely four months into the job, has told the State Assembly that his police have almost got to the bottom of the ambush as they have identified the masterminds, their political affiliations, their travel and money routes over the past few months. Among the masterminds is Mr. Subba who can be flushed out of his sanctuary only with assistance from the Centre, Mr. Bhattacharjee says. It is apparent that Mr. Bhattacharjee does not want to take any rash step when it involves Nepal, because he, too, is aware of how a nasty rumour involving the actor, Mr. Hrithik Roshan, very nearly spoilt relations between the two countries. Mr. Bhattacharjee also hinted in the Assembly that he had decided to hold back crucial information in the overall interest of the current investigation.

For the ruling Leftists what comes as a rude shock is the revelation of the existence of a terror network which Mr. Subba has put in place in North Bengal with assistance from militant outfits such as the NSCN. Ironically, when Mr. Subba openly issued a threat to Mr. Ghising and his DGHC councillors a few months ago and asked them to give up office for realising ``Gorkhaland'', no one took him seriously. His chilling line: ``I will have Ghising and his councillors killed if they did not quit by January 31,'' was greeted with titters.

The reason for the Leftists' growing anxiety is not difficult to comprehend. With the elections round the corner, West Bengal is increasingly getting scarred with political violence. Thanks to Ms. Mamata Banerjee's aggressive politics and the Leftists' matching response, parts of Midnapore are already tense. In the plains of North Bengal, the ethnic Kamtapur movement is fast snowballing into a volatile issue with support from the Trinamool Congress and a few other Opposition parties.

Against this background, if Mr. Subba covertly ties up with the protagonists of Kamtapur and resurrects the Gorkhaland movement, the Government will find itself in a jam before the elections. For Ms. Banerjee's Trinamool Congress, which is a relatively weak force in North Bengal, such a situation will be tempting to exploit.

As far as Mr. Ghising is concerned, the ambush portends shaky times ahead because it shows up Mr. Subba's effective penetration of his inner circle without whose - at least a part of it - complicity the attack could not have taken place. Already, the police are putting under the microscope a few Gorkhaland councillors who have lately become high spenders.

But what is causing concern to the GNLF is the realisation that the attack is also a pointer to popular disillusionment with the DGHC and, also to some extent, with Mr. Ghising who rode to power selling to the people - most of whom are poor - the dream of ``Gorkhaland''. Rising poverty, unemployment and dimunition in life appear to be forcing a large number of Mr. Ghising's voters to suspect the DGHC to be a letdown, a betrayal of the cause. Mr. Subba, the breakaways from the CPI(M) and the GNLF and other detractors of Mr.Ghising, who have been lying low all these days, are now showing signs of going for the jugular because they think their time has finally come.

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