What initially began as a factional political rivalry in the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) in Darjeeling is now threatening to snowball into a major upheaval in the Darjeeling hill district of West Bengal. Apparently, the fledgling Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) spearheaded by breakaway GNLF leader Bimal Gurung seeks to revive the two-decade-old demand of the then militant GNLF leader Subash Ghising to create a separate hill state for Darjeeling. Gurung's contention is that the proposed hill district council status for Darjeeling under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, for which a Constitution Amendment Bill was introduced in Parliament last year, fails the people’s aspirations. He opines that it will amount  to an “administrative arrangement” for tribal people. But in Darjeeling, tribals constitute only  30 per cent of the population. Therefore, he demands the process of Constitutional Amendment be halted and the district should instead be accorded full statehood.

However, Gurung’s real motives are different. Until last November he was Ghising’s right hand man. Thereafter, the two fell out over personal ambitions. In a short span of four months, Gurung has eclipsed Ghising and his GJM has virtually overshadowed the GNLF. So, if today Ghising is supporting the Sixth Schedule status for the hill council, can Gurung be supporting it? Not surprisingly, among top priority demands of Gurung is also Ghising’s exit from the existing Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council as its caretaker administrator. Further, Gurung and his new brand of militants do not even want Ghising to step into Darjeeling. 

The nasty power struggle and succession battle that is being fought in the guise of fighting for a cause is already taking a toll of the hill district’s tourism-based economy. Tourists have withdrawn from the hill areas in the wake of an indefinite hunger strike launched by the GJM last month and its threat to impose an indefinite bundh – all reminiscent of the tactics adopted by Ghising in the mid-1980s. The agitation is also affecting normal life and disrupting the transport links to Sikkim. Regardless of what happens to the pending bill in Parliament, the Centre and state governments must tackle Gurung’s dangerous political games with a firm hand.