It was with a sinking sense of historical inevitability that I heard Jaswant Singh murmur that Darjeeling's logical future lies in joining Sikkim. The hill district's unlikely Bharatiya Janata Party representative quickly admitted sotto voce that Sikkim was dead set against merger. But he also declared loud and clear that in no way - culturally, linguistically, ethnically - can the people of Darjeeling be called Bengalis.
True enough. But that can also be said of Lepchas, Kamrupis, Rajbangshis, Parsis, Anglo-Indians, Tamils, Gujaratis and especially of the Marwaris who rule Bengal's financial roost. Should homelands be carved out for each rootless community that has settled in the state? The logic of Singapore - Malay territory that has blossomed into a Chinese state - would riddle Bengal with dozens of enclaves. Aware of the intense resistance to further truncation, Jaswant Singh spoke feelingly of the partition pains of 1905 and 1947 and those emotive words "anga bhanga". He was releasing a revised edition of my book, Smash and Grab: Annexation of Sikkim, in Kolkata's Crossword bookstore when reporters asked about Darjeeling.
The Nepalese maintain they came with the land. Successive Census reports cited in Smash and Grab show they came seeking land. The Sikkimese, to whom Darjeeling belonged until the ruler was forced to lease it to the East India Company in 1835, accuse the British of sponsoring Nepalese migration for cheap labour to blast mountains, build roads and plant tea. Convinced that Hindus with cultural links with India would defend the Raj more effectively than Buddhist Bhutiya and Lepcha adivasis with roots in Tibet, a 19th century British administrator waxed lyrical about Nepalese migrants being "hereditary enemies of Tibet" and "the surest guarantee against a revival of Tibetan influence."
He wrote that in Sikkim, as in India, Hinduism would cast out Buddhism, "and the praying-wheel of the lama will give place to the sacrificial implements of the Brahman. The land will follow the creed… race and religion, the prime movers of the Asiatic world, will settle the Sikkim difficulty for us, in their own ways." Darjeeling is a relic of "the Sikkim difficulty".
Sikkim's 10-page memorandum when the British left asked India to return the territory because "on the lapse of paramountcy all sovereign powers in respect of the Darjeeling area will de jure revert to the ruler of Sikkim." Meanwhile, the undivided Communist Party of India (CPI) naively demanded that "the three contiguous areas of Darjeeling district, southern Sikkim and Nepal be formed into one single zone to be called 'Gorkhastan'." Perhaps that delusion inspired Subhash Ghisingh to send copies of his charter to Queen Elizabeth and King Birendra until, realising the danger of sounding secessionist, he reinvented the "Nepalese" as "Gorkha". His successor seems as skilled in obfuscatory tactics but may have met his match in Mamata Banerjee.
Though affirming Darjeeling's non-Bengali identity, Jaswant Singh feels that size, population and resources don't justify statehood. Hence, his suggestion of a union territory. But as Rajiv Gandhi warned, any form of "regional autonomy is the stepping stone to another state." If statehood is denied, the only alternative is union with Sikkim. Which means that Darjeeling, the amputated limb, will swallow Sikkim's somnolent body. Sikkim's first ethnic Nepalese chief minister, Nar Bahadur Bhandari, was responsible for Nepali's inclusion in the Eighth Schedule. But his famous declaration "We have merged but will not be submerged" reflected the fear of all Sikkimese - majority Nepalese and minority Bhutiya-Lepcha - of being swamped by Darjeeling's commercially acute and politically astute inhabitants.
All this follows from Sikkim's annexation which opened the Pandora's box of India's first Nepalese-majority state. But since the deed is done and can't be undone, the best course would be for Bengal again to show India the way by living up to the national ideal of unity in diversity. If Nepalese can't live amicably with Bengalis in one state, how can Hindus and Muslims, Tamils, Jats, Nagas and Kashmiris do so in one country?
Tailpiece: I once arranged for the British writer Gavin Young to see Jyoti Basu. They met in the CPI(M)'s Alimuddin Road office and The Observer newspaper in London duly published Gavin's feature. Basu, who kept abreast of British press coverage, sounded very pained the next time we spoke. "Your friend wrote I was wearing a sarong. I was in a dhoti!" he exclaimed. Basu's other complaint was that Gavin had described him as being "surrounded by Chinesey-looking types". "That was our Darjeeling district committee!" he exclaimed. I am not sure which comment gave the greater offence.
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