A ‘dictator’ deposed

Having reigned as the 'Dictator of Darjeeling' for two decades, Subash Ghisingh surely could not have imagined a more ignominious ouster: a popular uprising that would no longer allow him even to enter the hills. During the end of February, activists of the fledgling Gorkha Janmukti Morcha searched vehicles day and night coming into the hills to prevent the erstwhile administrator of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council from 'sneaking in'. Ghisingh had gone to New Delhi to lobby, unsuccessfully, for the passage of a parliamentary bill to include the Darjeeling Hills in the Constitution's Sixth Schedule for greater autonomy – a demand far short of statehood that an increasing number of people in Darjeeling was finding untenable.

It was an incredible chain of events, which occurred so fast that even Ghisingh's detractors could hardly believe what was unfolding. The people of the Darjeeling Hills, who for so long had been afraid to speak out against the Gorkhaland National Liberation Front (GNLF) leader, were suddenly taking to the streets on a daily basis, burning effigies and engaging in mock funerals for the self-styled 'rajah of the hills'. As they saw the tide turning, his deputies began resigning en masse; those who chose to remain were faced with a social boycott. An indefinite bandh was called in Darjeeling, and people began public fasts. Their demands were straightforward, if far-reaching: the scrapping of the Sixth Schedule bill, Ghisingh's resignation and the creation of a separate state of Gorkhaland. Ghisingh ran between Calcutta and Delhi, asking his longtime 'sponsors' in the faraway power centres for succour. But this time, the game seemed well and truly up. Following Parliament's decision against the bill's passage on 1 March, and a ten-day ultimatum from West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya calling for Ghisingh's resignation, the longtime leader did just that on 10 March.