The True Colours of GNLF – We Cannot Forget

The True Colours of GNLF – We Cannot Forget

The history of Darjeeling and Kalimpong hills is just not about the toy train, timber, and tea but it is also about its dark tryst with cold-blooded murders, unsolved and unresolved till date, swept under the carpet by those who did it and those who supported it.

The new age voters, the millennial, the educated, the social media savvy generation, swayed by the “soft politics” promoted by the same perpetrators now needs to know about the dark days where the voice of democracy was silenced by the mere words “ 6 Inches “ “Cha Inchee.. Ghatai Dinchu”!

 2^ND October 2020 marked the day when one of the most charismatic and flamboyant leaders of the erstwhile undivided Darjeeling district was murdered in broad daylight in what today is known as C.K. Chowk, Kalimpong named after the man himself C.K. Pradhan, who fell foul with his own boss Mr. Subash Ghishing. It has been 18 years yet his family has not found justice, but everyone knows which party was behind his gruesome murder.

The politics of the hills have always been about the infighting within us “Gorkhas”. According to unverified estimates, there were close to 300 murders of political activists from the opposing party during the agitation of 1986 itself, done and perpetuated by none other than the carders of GNLF.

“A few months after Subash Ghising accepted the idea of New Delhi and Calcutta forming the DGHC, the popular senior leader of the Indian Communist Party (Marxist) and former member of the State Assembly TS Gurung was murdered near his home in 1989. Despite being a leftist, he was a staunch supporter of the Gorkhaland movement. Santosh Karki, secretary of the Kalebung Municipal Committee of the same party, was killed in 1992”. – Ananda Shrestha Himal Khabarpatrika

Prakash Thing, a member of the erstwhile DGHC was gunned down just near where he lived, so was Rudra Pradhan, a DGHC member, who was hacked right in the hustle and bustle of Central Darjeeling town on March 1999, merely a week after his victory in the elections.

The list goes on and on; nobody dared to speak against the hegemony of the GNLF for the simple fear of “having their heads cut off” by the guys wearing duplicate camouflage army jackets and big “falter hats” (local lingo),” bolis ki moris”

These are the events the new age voters don’t remember, they only remember the misdeeds of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, as such tend to sway towards the soft politics played by the so-called new generation of GNLF Leaders who are nothing but foxes in the clothing of sheep.

Tyranny, fear-mongering, broad daylight murdering, looting “patang, chuppi, bhamphak, khukuri wielding hoodlums ruled the roost and that image of theirs has not changed yet. They are dormant right now but are waiting for the appropriate moment to rise again to their glory days.

However, the new age voters have every right to decide his/her own adult franchise, but whether they want the days of “6 Inches” to return or want their freedom of speech and democracy to remain intact depends on them.

Writes: Vivek Chettri