Thursday, June 19, 2008

Chaos in the Hills


This week it was the turn of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha in Darjeeling to go for a show of strength by making the lives of the masses miserable through their ‘weapon’ of bandh.
In the past week, we have seen the same sort of game being played in Rajasthan, diametrically opposite to Darjeeling on the map of India. And the commonality of the issues comes out in form of the general people, who want to live their life peacefully, being forced to suffer at the hands of a few.Coming back to Darjeeling, for quite some time now, there has been unrest among the Gorkha majority in this place. They have been demanding a separate state for the Gorkha speaking majority.

The question that arises every time the demand for a state arises on the lines of linguistic majority is, what if every linguistic group starts demanding the same for their people. We know that dialect changes every 5 kms in India. Won’t that mean that there should be states of the size of a 100 square miles or something of that sort? And would they be states or Ghettos?It is an example of the state machinery acting impotent to put to rest the growing view that a few in the society can get anything that pleases their whims and fancies, just by getting on the roads and wreaking havoc.

The GJM had called for a day long bandh which was metamorphosed by them into an indefinite one. The result was an exodus of summer revelers from the popular hill station. I ask the GJM leaders, where would they get money to run Gurkhaland (the name proposed for the new state), if the kill the Golden Goose, tourism, with their own hands? But that would be beyond the levels of comprehension of the few who want to taste the power.

In Rajasthan and in Darjeeling, we have come across the Nation being held hostage to the whims of a few socially challenged people.If the same Governments are made to face a position like Kandahar, I bet they would be ready to wait and watch, and then sell the Nation to the devil, the terrorists in this case. Seems, no one has the guts to counter such issues, because if they do, they end up sacrificing the vote bank.

Sorry and pathetic state of affairs.

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