The brutal assassination of Madan Tamang, President of Akhil Bharatiya Gorkha League (ABGL) in broad daylight by an armed gang on 21st May is a body blow to democracy in the trouble-torn, three  mountainous sub-divisions of Darjeeling district in West Bengal.

Two days after the murder the police fear that the main accused, all members of Bimal Gurung-led Gorkha Janmukti Morcha’s (GJM) frontal organizations, have taken shelter in neighbouring Sikkim.

Laxman Pradhan , General Secretary of ABGL has lodged an FIR accusing Bimal Gurung, his wife Asha Gurung and several other GJM central committee members including Roshan Giri, Harka Bahadur Chhetri and Binay Tamang  of criminal conspiracy.

It is now widely believed that Mr. Tamang’s fearless opposition to the fascist and corrupt leadership of GJM had infuriated them. GJM’s stranglehold on the hills was getting threatened by the coming together of several anti-GJM outfits including the influential Communist Party of Revolutionary Marxists (CPRM) under the leadership of Mr. Tamang.

Subhash Ghising-led Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) , once the predominant political force  in the hills, although on the run for much of the past two years, has started regrouping with new vigour and is making their presence felt all over again in the hills.

As the political ground under their feet started slipping, a sense of desperation might have led the GJM leadership to plot the dastardly act of eliminating Mr. Tamang – perhaps the only leader in the hills who had the  courage and credibility to challenge them.

Now that its bloodthirstiness has come out in the open, GJM’s politics of coercion has dropped its crude pretension of Gandhian non-violence.

GJM’s image is already in tatters. Cases of extortion are rampant all over the hills. A private militia, called Gorkhaland Personnel (GLP),  is  used by GJM to unleash a reign of terror on whoever defies their writ. 

GJM has recruited about 4000- odd boys and girls from the hills and the Dooars in GLP. The party pays them a monthly payment that ranges from Rs. 1,000 to Rs. 2,000.

Apart from providing personal security to GJM supremo Mr. Gurung, the stick ( at times, khukri) – wielding GLP staff are also seen patrolling streets in the hills in uniforms resembling  the fatigues of national security forces.

Corruption scandals involving the top brass of GJM are surfacing  thick and fast.

On 23rd April, Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC) Administrator B L Meena alleged that merely 30 to 35 per cent of the DGHC funds were actually being spent and he had no idea about the rest of it.

In a recent press conference at Pintail village, Mr.  Meena declared, “I better not comment on the remaining part (60 to 65 per cent) of the disbursed Rs 220 crore as everybody is aware of what is happening in the hills.”

Without making any direct reference to GJM, Mr. Meena made it clear that most of the developmental projects in the hills are controlled by the members of GJM and the quality of their  execution is downright  shoddy.

It is indeed a tragedy that Mr. Gurung, who ousted Mr. Ghising from the hills on the ground of abusing the power the Gorkha population had bestowed on him, has proved himself to be as venal and despotic. Unfortunately, when  any sordid history repeats itself, cynicism soars. The residents of Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong  sub-divisions would do better than giving in to cynicism.

Concentration of power without any accountability is the defining characteristic of  a regime fallen into an authoritarian rut. History tells us that whipping up ethnic sentiments to build an illegitimate power structure as a political strategy inevitably  follows the law of diminishing returns.

Unless  the local civic bodies are revitalized by grassroot level democratic participation,  the feudal character of the political formations in the hills will be here to stay. A culture of democracy has to evolve from the ground up. 

It is now up to the civil society to save democracy in the hills.

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