Tamang’s death may drag Darjeeling Hills into chaos (News Analysis)

DARJEELING - The killing of Akhil Bharatiya Gorkha League (ABGL) chief Madan Tamang may worsen the situation in the troubled Darjeeling Hills, political observors and major parties feel.

The 64-year-old Tamang, who led the Democratic Front opposed to the hill’s dominant Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), was stabbed to death Friday in Darjeeling town while he was preparing for a party meeting.

Tamang, a strong advocate of a new state of Gorkhaland to be carved out of parts of northern Bengal, had all along maintained a distinct identity of the ABGL and consistently opposed the GJM, which has been spearheading the statehood agitation for the last couple of years.

Despite having a limited base in the hills, as manifest in the dismal showings of candidates backed by him in the assembly and Lok Sabha polls in recent times, Tamang seemed to be emerging as a strong rallying point for all anti-GJM forces after his strident opposition to the GJM’s call for setting up an interim council till Gorkhaland was achieved.

Tamang’s demand that Gorkhaland be granted straight away had apparently struck a sympathetic chord with the people, political observers said.

Fingers have been pointed at the GJM for Tamang’s killing, with state Municipal Affairs Minister and senior Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Ashok Bhattacharya saying it was the Bimal Gurung-led outfit’s way of ensuring there were no voices opposed to them in the Darjeeling Hills.

However, the GJM has denied any wrongdoing on its part, and instead blamed the state government for “hatching a conspiracy that led to the unfortunate murder of Tamang”.

“Why should our men be involved? Because we know if our party is involved in the murder of a man of Tamang’s stature, then we will lose support among the people,” Harka Bahadur Chhetri, GJM’s press and publicity secretary, told IANS.

Amidst the allegations and counter-allegations, political activists and experts are concerned at the fallout of the murder on hills politics.

They fear the Darjeeling Hills - comprising the three sub-divisions of Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong - which have seen repeated shutdowns and blockades over the last couple of years, might lapse into chaos.

“The killing of Tamang will lead to a deterioration in the condition of the hills. It may go against the GJM as people are likely to abhor the dastardly incident,” Maya Ghosh, a professor of political science at the North Bengal University, told IANS.

“The killing could also have an adverse effect on the political movement in which the GJM is playing a big role. This could lead to big losses for the party,” Ghosh said.

This, in turn, could breathe a fresh lease of life into the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF), the original driving force of the Gorkhaland demand but now reduced to insignificance following the rise of the GJM, she said.

Chhetri too conceded that Tamang’s death could adversely hit the Gorkhaland movement.

“It may have an unfavourable political effect on the movement,” he said.

ABGL general secretary Laxman Pradhan agreed with Ghosh. “The hills will never get a leader as great as Tamang. The killing will inflict heavy political losses on the GJM.”

A senior police officer in the district said on condition of anonymity that the hills now seemed to be a powder keg. “The situation may turn for the worse. Anything may happen any time”.

Darjeeling district CPI-M leader Jibesh Sarkar condemned the incident and alleged that the police were “totally ineffective in the hills”.