State scan: Gorkhaland has a Sikkim source

N Bhandari, ex Sikkim CM, who died last week, was pioneer for Nepali homeland movement 35 years back

It was somewhat ironic to hear Sikkim Chief Minister Pawan Kumar Chamling declare at the funeral of Nar Bahadur Bhandari, former chief minister of Sikkim, on July 19 at Gangtok that Bhandari would be universally missed and never forgotten. It was Chamling who ensured Bhandari’s political end. 
 

But Chamling was not wrong. Although Bhandari’s end was ignominious and unsung, he deserves a place in history for the kind of politics Sikkim followed — and eschewed.

Sikkim’s annexation — many say merger — by India is a story that continues to fascinate students of recent history. Four years after the merger, in 1979, the Sikkim Janata Parishad (SJP) swept the polls and its founder, Nar Bahadur Bhandari, was made chief minister. The SJP came to power on the back of a Nepali assertion.

Although Bhandari had blasted the merger and seemed to have a soft spot for the erstwhile ruler, the Chogyal, he got the unequivocal support of the Nepali inhabitants of Sikkim, who were trying to shrug off the yoke of the Lepcha and Bhutia, the ruling classes in the state. But Bhandari did not do to the Lepcha and Bhutia what the Trinamool Congress is doing to the Nepalis in West Bengal today. He tried to accommodate them, while granting most of the important portfolios to Nepalis. But those were the days of the Congress trying to rule the states from Delhi. The Congress government in New Delhi infiltrated the SJP, found a willing lieutenant in BB Gurung to topple Bhandari and dismissed Bhandari’s government, installing Gurung as chief minister.

Bhandari then recast his party. The Sikkim Sangram Parishad (SSP) formed the government in 1984, annihilating the opposition. It went on to form a government again in 1989.

In the 1989 Assembly election, a young man, Pawan Chamling, caught Bhandari’s eye. Chamling won his Assembly seat, Damthang, polling 96.6 per cent of the vote in the 1989 Assembly elections. Sensing danger from competition, Bhandari sought to co-opt him by making him a minister in the state government. Chamling had other ambitions. After two-and-a-half years of ministership, he quit the Bhandari government in 1993 and formed a new regional party, the Sikkim Democratic Front. In the 1994 Assembly elections, the SDF got 19 out of 32 seats. In 1999, it got 25 seats out of 32. In 2004, it got 31 out of 32 seats, and in 2009, it won all 32.

How did Chamling achieve this? By taking a leaf out of Bhandari’s book. While Bhandari had made Nepali rights his cause célèbre, Chamling went a step further and fought for and won a struggle to extend reservations to Nepali castes like the Limbus and Tamangs. This was in counterpoise to the upper-caste Brahmin base of Bhandari. In Sikkim, 20 per cent of the population is Bhutia-Lepcha and 40 per cent comprises other backward classes, including the Newars, a caste engaged in business. The Limbus, Rais, and Tamangs are around 20 per cent of the population. When they were included in the reservation net, they became Chamling’s natural constituency.

All this is the base on which the yearning for a Nepali homeland in India was fanned and nurtured. In many ways it was Bhandari as much as Subhas Ghising who laid the foundations of the movement for an autonomous region for the Nepalis in India. The protracted agitations of 1986-88 had culminated in the setting up of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC), only to be subsequently wound up and lead to the establishment, in 2012, of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA). The GTA, which has survived agitations since its inception, is now tottering.

Chamling has tactically built on Bhandari’s legacy. He announced his open support for the Gorkhaland movement and hailed the ‘martyrs’ who died in police firing. His letter to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in June said: “The fulfillment of the constitutional demand of the people in the Darjeeling Hills, which is deeply connected with the national identity of the Indian Gorkhas, will provide long-awaited justice to their patriotism, which has been second to none.” Sikkim already has a Nepali majority. For the moment he is not challenging the leadership of the Darjeeling arm of the Gorkhaland movement. But eventually there will be a struggle for leadership. Events in Sikkim and the hills of North Bengal will have to be watched carefully, especially the dynamic with the Union government. But what India must never forget is, it all started with Nar Bahadur Bhandari.