Bimal Gurung
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
A profile
Keshav Pradhan | TNN
From the archives of "The Times of India"
July 24, 2011
It’s been a long and strange journey for Bimal Gurung – from ruthless militant to Darjeeling’s top leader
At first glance, Bimal Gurung may come across as a quintessential Nepali — cheerful and fun-loving, yet reticent. Be it dussehra or diwali or any celebration, he breaks into an impromptu jig with his supporters.
But under the veneer of such a happy-golucky disposition lies the heart of a politician hardened by years of poverty, deprivation and political violence. Born into a family of tea garden workers, Gurung, now 48, abandoned his studies while he was in junior school. He spent his teens and adolescent years doing odd jobs to support his family.
Gurung’s life took a dramatic turn when Subash Ghisingh launched an armed struggle for a Gorkha homeland in 1986. He immediately joined Gorkha Volunteers' Cell (GVC), the police wing of Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) set up on the lines of Hitler’s SS. All through the 28-month-long movement, GVC cadres carried out kidnappings, beheadings, bomb attacks, arson, social ostracism and other forms of persecution against anti-Gorkhaland elements, especially the Marxists. They also frequently ambushed security forces.
Robust and well-built, Gurung quickly made a name for himself as a top-notch GVC militant. People began to call him ‘Patlebansko Bimal’ (Bimal from Patlebans, which probably derived its name from a bamboogrove) either out of fear or in derision. Patlebans is located in Tukvar, about five km from Darjeeling. At the time, people would call Tukvar a “mini-Beirut”. Marxist and GNLF cadres would often engage in gun battles for its control.
Gurung and his Patlebans fighters left Ghisingh soon after the GNLF signed the 1988 Darjeeling Accord with the Centre and the West Bengal government that led to the formation of Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC). They went underground for about four years after police started a hunt for them. After he resurfaced and surrendered in 1992, Gurung floated an organisation of unemployed youth and started working as a petty contractor. It was during this period that people started calling him a Robin Hood. A few years later, he returned to the GNLF and became close to Rudra Kumar Pradhan, DGHC councillor from Tukvar-Singhamari. After Pradhan was hacked to death by some disgruntled GNLF workers in 1999, Gurung replaced him in the DGHC. Ghisingh gave Gurung the charge of DGHC’s sports and youth affairs department, an assignment that helped the young leader consolidate his position in the hills. Soon, the two became so close that people started saying Ghisingh would rule as long as Gurung was with him. Gurung and his followers would not allow Opposition parties to carry out their campaign against Ghisingh’s bid to bring DGHC under the Sixth Schedule.
Life took a new turn for Gurung a little before the 2007 Indian Idol-III contest. Fissures surfaced once again between Ghisingh and Gurung over certain party issues. Bimal got a chance to hit back when his mentor declined to support Prashant Tamang, the Nepali contestant who had reached the finals of the reality show. He chose to go by the mood of the Nepali diaspora and set up ‘Prashant fan clubs’ to garner support for the singer. While Ghisingh lived in isolation, the clubs got funds from Nepali-speaking people from across India, Nepal, Bhutan, the UK, the US, Hong Kong and the Gulf for the voting rounds of the contest. Prashant’s victory in the TV contest emboldened anti-Ghisingh organisations to openly oppose the DGHC chief ’s excesses as well as the Sixth Schedule proposal. Seizing the opportunity, Gurung turned Prashant fan clubs into Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) on October 7, 2007. He backed the people’s opposition to Ghisingh’s proposal to include DGHC in the Sixth Schedule. Most Nepalis opposed the move fearing disintegration of the community on ethnic and religious lines.
Within months, Gurung drove Ghisingh out of Darjeeling, forcing him to live in exile in the plains. He then revived and extended the Gorkhaland campaign abandoned by Ghisingh in 1988 to the Terai and the Dooars. To win popular support, he promised to follow Gandhi’s path of non-violence. Soon, his image suffered a big dent after he imposed a dress code on the people and condoned ostracism of opponents. His detractors accused him of failing to stop fund raising and acquisition of government contracts by GJM workers.
The biggest threat to Gurung’s leadership came when he and other GJM leaders were named in an FIR for the murder of Akhil Bharatiya Gorkha League chief Madan Tamang on May 21, 2010. The case still hangs like the sword of Damocles over his head, weakening his power to bargain with the government.
After having accepted Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), Gurung faces the daunting task of justifying his decision to settle for an arrangement short of full statehood. For, he had earlier vowed to achieve a Gorkhaland state by March 10, 2010. Besides, his fellow Nepalis from the Terai and the Dooars may hound him if he fails to get their areas into GTA. Was it to avoid a possible political checkmate by his opponents that he did not sign the GTA accord himself and left that bit to other senior members of his team?
