Not only they came to the State Secretariat in Kolkata to meet the new Chief M Minister Mamata Banerjee and her officials. At the end, they stood beaming at a “joint” news conference where Ms Banerjee stole their thunder and declared, “I had said I will solve the Gorkhaland problem within the first 100 days of my takeover. I have done it.”

Since not a single GJM leader countered her claim, the media lapped it up, giving it saturation coverage the next day. There will be no partition of West Bengal, she added.

When they spoke to the Kolkata media separately — another departure, for normally they tend to avoid this section of the press like the plague — Gorkha leaders were more cautious and less effusive than the Chief Minister. They had not given up their demand for a separate state and the “successful” talks they held with Ms Banerjee represented merely “another step” towards their objective. However, they thanked her warmly for her interest and sympathy for their “cause”, unlike the outgoing government.

No wonder, even grizzled media veterans remained puzzled. What exactly had been achieved by the new Trinamool/Congress Ministry?

There is no doubt that progress of a sort had been made. Ms Banerjee deserved full credit for having drawn the GJM into meaningful dialogue with her government. And she herself had done the spadework actually visiting Darjeeling during the GJM agitation and meeting GJM representatives on their turf. The GJM returned the courtesy by not raising the Gorkhaland demand during her visit, reining in young hardliners apt to take the bit between their teeth. Her initiative won over even her critics, especially as Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee never bothered to visit the area after the GJM began its agitation.

As for the ruling CPI(M) he headed, it might not have existed in the hills! All Bhattacharjee would ever say about Darjeeling in public was, ”The situation is very sensitive, it requires careful handling.” Having said this, he felt he had done his job.

This, even as the GJM organised bandh after bandh, its followers stopped paying power and phone bills, road taxes and other taxes, changed the number plates of cars and did not allow traffic from West Bengal to reach Sikkim! Bhattacharjee remained in Kolkata and did not change his schedule, which included his daily evening visit to the cultural complex Nandan — once a film buff, always a film buff, Gorkhaland or not.

The fact that the GJM partly owing to the pressure of events, the central government and the massive victory for Ms Banerjee, had been forced to talk to the state government was itself a comedown . Its leaders now know their intransigence would get them nowhere. However, their determination to stick to their demand for a separate state, which they reaffirmed more strongly when they went back to Darjeeling, took some of the sheen off Ms Banerjee’s claims. Also, the GJM won a significant concession from the government, which promised to “consider” its demand for inclusion of additional areas from Dooars and elsewhere into the proposed Gorkha autonomous area. All the state government gained, it seemed, was a promise from the GJM not to resume its violent agitation for the time being.

Within hours, both the Left Front leaders and Adivasi (tribal) organisations of North Bengal protested sharply. This was one of the main sticking points in the GJM-State government deadlock, as tribals were fiercely opposed to the ceding of” even one inch” of land under their occupation to any setup under the Gorkhas. They wanted their own autonomous council. Therefore was the West Bengal Government abandoning the tribals without even talking to them, just to satisfy the Gorkhas because the latter were more violent and resorted to political blackmail, they asked.

There being no clear answer from the government, it seemed everyone was back to square one as far as the Gorkhaland agitation was concerned. All that had been gained was a brief respite, apparently. That was fine too, and nobody was complaining — not yet, anyway.
(IPA Service)