TT, Calcutta, June 3: The Bengal government may take the help of Interpol to catch the murderers of ABGL leader Madan Tamang, director-general of police Bhupinder Singh said at Writers’ Buildings today.
Singh said around 22 suspects might have fled to Nepal or Sikkim. “But Sikkim is a small place so it is likely they will take shelter in Nepal. However, before seeking the help of Interpol, we have to determine whether they are there. But it is quite likely that they (accused) may be there because at one side the Nepal border is open and through that a number of people enter,” he said.
KalimNews adds: So far Darjeeling police have arrested 10 suspected persons in connection with the murder of ABGL leader Madan Tamang. The ten accused Pravin Dewan, Arun Malay, Arun Moktan Tilak Chhetri, Tripal Rumba Anup Kanu, Binod Chhetri, Narbu Bhutia, Suraj Tamang, and Jay kumar Tamang are in the custody of Darjeeling court.
GJMM has sent an invitation to ABAVP for a joint talk on the issue of statehood demand.
Meanwhile CPRM has refuted the claim of GJMM and stated that only 4 CPRM members have left party to join GJMM. It has also claimed that 40 families of GJMM have joined CPRM.
POISED ON A RAZOR’S EDGE
The spontaneous candlelight gathering for Madan Tamang shows the people’s need for true leadership, writes Gopalkrishna Gandhi
The spontaneous candlelight gathering for Madan Tamang shows the people’s need for true leadership, writes Gopalkrishna Gandhi
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| The people of Darjeeling hold a candlelight vigil on May 22 |
TT, 25 May: The people of Darjeeling hold a candlelight vigil on May 22
The present moment is a razor’s edge. The words are Nehru’s. He said something to that effect to show how, at the heart of the real moment, when a response has to be made, a decision taken, a choice made within that fraction of time, everything except the voltage of that moment is meaningless.
We go through such moments all the time. We stand on that edge, over small matters and not-so-small ones. Madan Tamang died on that edge. And by it.
The picture showing him slumped and crossing over to the other shore with an incredible smile on his face I will never be able to erase from my mind’s eye. He is clad, in that picture, like most men in Darjeeling generally are — in a pair of informal trousers and good strong shoes meant for walking on tough roads, slippery roads, rock, reed and root. They lie encasing his dying feet in a pool of dying blood.
I did not know Tamang well. He called on me almost each time I went to Darjeeling. He would come unfussily, speak briefly but pointedly, leave with the firm handshake he had greeted me with, placing a well-written and neatly typed memorandum stating his purpose on my desk. “You can read this at your leisure, Excellency.”
His sense of Darjeeling’s history always impressed me, not just for its sequential integrity but for the way he related it to the present moment. It too had an edge to it. But one that was very different from the edges one is all too familiar with, those of ego, of hubris.
It was clear to me that my appreciation of his discussions with me was not quite reciprocated. He would have liked me to have responded faster, better and more visibly to what he perceived was wrong and unjust in Darjeeling. For him the ‘Darjeeling problem’ was about more than a new geo-political status. It was about how power games are played out, how a people’s aspirations can morph into private ambitions.
It is not as if Tamang’s political career was exempt from the tactics of alliance and misalliance or the familiar pattern of trust reposed and betrayed. But there was in him a freedom from that bane of Indian politics — short-termism, to call opportunism by a better name.
Like all children of those hills, Tamang had courage. But his courage had a distinctive feature. It was the courage of a Gorkha among the rest, but also of a Gorkha among the Gorkhas. It was the courage of the daring bushel on a hill that is used to only one tree at its crest.
Ostracized until the other day, gheraoed, ridiculed, abused, threatened, he stood his ground. And on his ground, called it a day. The spontaneous candlelight gathering at Darjeeling’s Chowrasta to express grief and solidarity with the slain man grew in no time from a mourning handful to a throng. No party had summoned it, no leader orchestrated it. The people of Darjeeling found themselves doing what they did reflexively. This shows more than our people’s ability, so pure and unmotivated, to grieve for a person. It shows our people’s need for true leadership, which is different from playing leader. It shows something even more important than that. It shows how fear and violence, for all their seeming power, are temporary masters and fake ones at that.
The Gorkha people and others living there who are not Gorkha but children of the Himalaya no less, and those from the plains who have made the Darjeeling hills their home, need to savour democracy, with its options and opportunities, its scope for free belief and expression, including the option of voluntary silence. That opportunity and that facility has eluded the rainbow population of those hills all these years. It must come to them.
The murder, in cold blood, of Darjeeling’s dissenter has been perpetrated by the politics of intolerance which is inconsistent with democracy. It ought to rouse urgent action to bring the perpetrators of violence to justice. More, it ought to make society and our political class deny vengeance and vendetta any space.
The leaders of opinion, of parties and of movements in Darjeeling must now take pause and reflect on the course that democratic articulation must take in their beautiful hills. They must shun the politics of violence and of vengeance, of bandhs and blockages. They must pursue their democratic goals democratically, their constitutional goals constitutionally, through fair and free elections fought without fear and won (or lost) with grace.
Paradoxical though it may seem, democracies have to be intolerant of intolerance and disallow the disallowance of political rights. Nowhere is this more important than in areas where democratic processes have encountered resistance and subversion, and in places where strong feelings of identity prevail, with sub-identities also seeking a voice.
The swift and unambiguous statement of the governor of West Bengal, in which he described the outrage in Darjeeling as an attack on our democratic process, and one that will not be tolerated any longer, was aimed directly at the perpetrators of the fell deed. It must also be seen as a message to those who choose silence and inaction when one right word spoken at the right time, and one right step taken on the “razor’s edge”, can make all the difference.
The present moment is a razor’s edge. The words are Nehru’s. He said something to that effect to show how, at the heart of the real moment, when a response has to be made, a decision taken, a choice made within that fraction of time, everything except the voltage of that moment is meaningless.
We go through such moments all the time. We stand on that edge, over small matters and not-so-small ones. Madan Tamang died on that edge. And by it.
The picture showing him slumped and crossing over to the other shore with an incredible smile on his face I will never be able to erase from my mind’s eye. He is clad, in that picture, like most men in Darjeeling generally are — in a pair of informal trousers and good strong shoes meant for walking on tough roads, slippery roads, rock, reed and root. They lie encasing his dying feet in a pool of dying blood.
I did not know Tamang well. He called on me almost each time I went to Darjeeling. He would come unfussily, speak briefly but pointedly, leave with the firm handshake he had greeted me with, placing a well-written and neatly typed memorandum stating his purpose on my desk. “You can read this at your leisure, Excellency.”
His sense of Darjeeling’s history always impressed me, not just for its sequential integrity but for the way he related it to the present moment. It too had an edge to it. But one that was very different from the edges one is all too familiar with, those of ego, of hubris.
It was clear to me that my appreciation of his discussions with me was not quite reciprocated. He would have liked me to have responded faster, better and more visibly to what he perceived was wrong and unjust in Darjeeling. For him the ‘Darjeeling problem’ was about more than a new geo-political status. It was about how power games are played out, how a people’s aspirations can morph into private ambitions.
It is not as if Tamang’s political career was exempt from the tactics of alliance and misalliance or the familiar pattern of trust reposed and betrayed. But there was in him a freedom from that bane of Indian politics — short-termism, to call opportunism by a better name.
Like all children of those hills, Tamang had courage. But his courage had a distinctive feature. It was the courage of a Gorkha among the rest, but also of a Gorkha among the Gorkhas. It was the courage of the daring bushel on a hill that is used to only one tree at its crest.
Ostracized until the other day, gheraoed, ridiculed, abused, threatened, he stood his ground. And on his ground, called it a day. The spontaneous candlelight gathering at Darjeeling’s Chowrasta to express grief and solidarity with the slain man grew in no time from a mourning handful to a throng. No party had summoned it, no leader orchestrated it. The people of Darjeeling found themselves doing what they did reflexively. This shows more than our people’s ability, so pure and unmotivated, to grieve for a person. It shows our people’s need for true leadership, which is different from playing leader. It shows something even more important than that. It shows how fear and violence, for all their seeming power, are temporary masters and fake ones at that.
The Gorkha people and others living there who are not Gorkha but children of the Himalaya no less, and those from the plains who have made the Darjeeling hills their home, need to savour democracy, with its options and opportunities, its scope for free belief and expression, including the option of voluntary silence. That opportunity and that facility has eluded the rainbow population of those hills all these years. It must come to them.
The murder, in cold blood, of Darjeeling’s dissenter has been perpetrated by the politics of intolerance which is inconsistent with democracy. It ought to rouse urgent action to bring the perpetrators of violence to justice. More, it ought to make society and our political class deny vengeance and vendetta any space.
The leaders of opinion, of parties and of movements in Darjeeling must now take pause and reflect on the course that democratic articulation must take in their beautiful hills. They must shun the politics of violence and of vengeance, of bandhs and blockages. They must pursue their democratic goals democratically, their constitutional goals constitutionally, through fair and free elections fought without fear and won (or lost) with grace.
Paradoxical though it may seem, democracies have to be intolerant of intolerance and disallow the disallowance of political rights. Nowhere is this more important than in areas where democratic processes have encountered resistance and subversion, and in places where strong feelings of identity prevail, with sub-identities also seeking a voice.
The swift and unambiguous statement of the governor of West Bengal, in which he described the outrage in Darjeeling as an attack on our democratic process, and one that will not be tolerated any longer, was aimed directly at the perpetrators of the fell deed. It must also be seen as a message to those who choose silence and inaction when one right word spoken at the right time, and one right step taken on the “razor’s edge”, can make all the difference.
TITBITS from SHEEM
Tourists started checking out Gangtok hotels due to water shortage.
Publication of new Nepali daily newspaper Gorkha Bharati started with its sample copy published on 3rd June.
Pranab Mukherjee, resigned as the WBPCC President.
WB Higher Secondary Examinations results to publish today.
Light downpour continuing in Kalimpong this morning (0630 hrs), weather is cloudy.
Kalimpong Press Club to discuss about the publication of Yellow Pages in its meeting tomorrow (5th June). Football tourneys are going on at Mela Ground, Kalimpong.
GJM's Youth's workshop is continuing at Missiontar, Relli River, Kalimpong.
Ad-mag (Advertisement Magazine) titled Kaleybung Bazaar Patrika being published from 5th June from Kalimpong. Its first issue included fixture of pre-knock stage of 2010 FIFA World Cup, etc.
Most awaited bollywood film Rajniti to be released today, a must-see for all.
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