GENERATIONS OF STRUGGLE

I was returning to my ancestral house almost after five years. This giant old bungalow holds so many sweet memories of my childhood and much more of my mother’s. This house has seen my mother as a new born baby, as an innocent little child, as a young girl and now, as a full grown woman, a mother. There’s this thing about old houses. They have many secrets buried in their abandoned corners, roofs and walls. They have so much to reveal, so much to tell you about a history that has long been forgotten or even unknown to many.

I was nostalgically going through every room of this ancient British architectural cottage. The most fascinating part of house is my grandfather’s room. I don’t remember being very close to him as I was still a young child when he passed away. But still, it is after his death what I knew from others about him and how I feel about him now makes me closer to him. He was in the Indian Army. His portrait which now hangs on the wall of his dusty room shows a well-groomed disciplined man with warm, generous eyes. My mother told me that she was always his little princess. An old cupboard with dusty, weathered files occupied one corner of his room. I leisurely flipped the pages of those old files and sneaked my hands further into the cupboard to see if there was any old photographs but instead, an old envelop between those files caught my attention. It was a letter my mother had written to my grandfather when she was probably a young girl. She had often told me about writing letters to him as he was mostly away from home serving the country. The letter read,

Dearest Appa,

                      We didn’t have school even today. The strike doesn’t seem to end. Roads are blocked, shops, schools, offices all closed. It’s been more than a month now. Mother serves us lesser meals now. She says that if the strike doesn’t end, then we might not have anything at all to eat. I’m tired of hiding inside the house. There’s so much of violence outside. Anyone who’s found on the streets is shot by the CRP or by the opposition party. These days mother makes Vatsal wear my frocks and hat so that he looks like my little sister as they say, boys are the main targets of the CRP’s and the oppositions. I look at his dress and tease him all day.

                     Last night, something very terrible happened! Mother had put us to bed and switched off the lights by six but I wasn’t getting sleep. I was peeping out at the stars from my closed window (mother never lets us open the window these days). After staring for hours at the wide sky and the deserted street beneath, I suddenly saw our neighbour Buddha uncle’s elder son running like a mad person on the road. After him, were three tall, hefty men in uniforms. The boy ran into his house but the three men entered there also. After that, I could hear some banging and shrill loud cries and then, two shots of fire gun followed by a deep silence.... By the time, mother had woken up and tightly enveloped Vatsal and me in her bosom. I had never seen such fear in mother’s eyes before.

                                 Today morning, I heard some people outside say that the boy was shot last night and his sister, raped and murdered. Appa, I’ve never heard of such horrifying things before! Is the world coming to an end? Is this the price we all have to pay for Gorkhaland? I don’t know when this letter will reach you for the post office is also closed but please, please come back ! We need you... I m scared.    You are out defending the country but there’s no one to defend us here!  Please come back soon. We miss you...

                                                 Always your little princess,

                                                                        Prasiksha

I figured out that this letter was written during the 1986 agitation for Gorkhaland. Her experience helps me relate it to the recent agitation for Gorkhaland. There’s almost a difference of two generations between the two agitation but still, the demand is the same, the outcome still the same. Then, the agitation was headed by the then ruling party Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) and now, it is by the present ruling party Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha (GJMM). More than 1200 people sacrificed their lives for this common in the agitation of 1986. The demand and the movement eventually fell victim to an agreement that resulted in Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC) in 1988. Subhas Ghising, the head of the then ruling party (GNLF) agreed to “drop” the demand for a homeland. After sacrificing everything people felt stabbed in the back by their own leaders who sold away their demand, their homeland. All these years the Central government and West Bengal Government had disappointed the hills but now there was someone within to disappoint the highlanders. The DGHC administered the Darjeeling hills for 23 years with some autonomy but no great development took place.

By 2008, a new party Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha (GJMM) headed by Bimal Gurung entered Darjeeling politics with the demand for Gorkhaland again. But this time the agitation was on the Gandhian principles of non-violence. Nevertheless, people still died, suffered for a dream that seems like a forlorn quest. In the end all that we received as a consolation prize was the Gorkha Territorial administration (GTA). In others words, it’s more or less a synonym for DGHC which was the result of the 1986 agitation. A bitter history is being repeated again. Our forefathers witnessed and fought for our homeland, my parents witnessed and fought for it too and now, it’s me. I just pray our coming generations do not face disappointment like us. Gorkhaland is a demand that has been raised for more than a hundred years with no response from the Government. But still, we shall keep on fighting for our homeland, our mother.