There has been an urgency for a change in the hills. People are tired of waiting for someone to come and save them and they have decided to take matters in their own hands. They have been fighting for an identity, for growth and for prosperity but either too little action has been taken or in some cases none at all. The state center has been too involved in its own problems to pay any attention to those in the hills.
Could West Bengal have averted this situation? Did the state learn nothing from 1988? So what if it was a different party in power back then? Everyone knew what had happened. The demands, the desperation, the reasons, the losses, the deaths. So what happened to the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council? Has anything improved since its formation? Were all the resources and funds under the DGHC utilized efficiently? Could something else have been done? Or did everything get distributed among a selected few and the rest that trickled down to the common was too less, too late?
The Gorkha Territorial Administration (GTA) recently formed doesn't seem to be functioning too well either. May be it is so because it hasn't had enough time to start something concrete or maybe those in the administration didn't really know where to start from given the mammoth task that lay ahead. Would the formation of a state be anything different? Would it suddenly solve all the problems? Until and unless, every person is involved in the growth story, the task will continue to be daunting, no matter how much fund is available. It however may increase some corruption here and there.
What I would love to understand is how would it help if a new state was to be formed? I have heard about the identity crisis and I feel that it is true that people from the West Bengal hills are usually put under the category "Nepali" owing to the spoken language. But truth be told, having lived in many cities in India, I have come to the conclusion that people are usually unaware of what's happening beyond their day to day vicinity. Just forming a state may not give the people an identity. They would probably still be called Nepali and not Gorkhali. Instead an identity must be formed first. People must know how Gorkhali is different from others and what makes them who they are.
I would like to emphasize on the fact that development and change must come from within. There has to be a plan of development which each and every one must be aware of and must be accountable for. They must be responsible for attaining it. If the base of the building has not been made strong, no matter how much money you put in to make a fancy house or how hard you try to make it stable, it will always fall eventually. And that is what I ask the people of the hills to do. Make your base stronger.
I put forth the idea of RAIFOR to make a growth story out of the hills. A model that not only creates the Gorkha identity but becomes a benchmark for the rest of India to follow. RAIFOR stands for Recognize, Analyze, Improvise, Finalize, Organize and Realize. We recognize what the problems are and then analyze them. We prioritize them according to their importance and how they fit into our plan 3 years from now. We list down what are the things that we already have and whether there are anyways to make them more efficient. We improvise with the available resources and figure out all the options that we have and what are the extra resources we may require. Next we finalize on the option that is the most suitable under the given circumstances and also in the long run. Once we have the plan all we need to do is organize the man power and resources. If we are short of something, we ask the government. If they don't help us then we ask from the rest of India. Either way we get the job done. And if the state government doesn't help us then they will have no part in our success and that will make the demand for a new state stronger and more reasonable. If they do, then we grow and continue to have our autonomy. With proper planning and organization, no one can deny our right to grow and realize our dreams. It's a win-win situation. All we must do now is focus our energy in a more constructive direction, one that has a future.
Could West Bengal have averted this situation? Did the state learn nothing from 1988? So what if it was a different party in power back then? Everyone knew what had happened. The demands, the desperation, the reasons, the losses, the deaths. So what happened to the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council? Has anything improved since its formation? Were all the resources and funds under the DGHC utilized efficiently? Could something else have been done? Or did everything get distributed among a selected few and the rest that trickled down to the common was too less, too late?
The Gorkha Territorial Administration (GTA) recently formed doesn't seem to be functioning too well either. May be it is so because it hasn't had enough time to start something concrete or maybe those in the administration didn't really know where to start from given the mammoth task that lay ahead. Would the formation of a state be anything different? Would it suddenly solve all the problems? Until and unless, every person is involved in the growth story, the task will continue to be daunting, no matter how much fund is available. It however may increase some corruption here and there.
What I would love to understand is how would it help if a new state was to be formed? I have heard about the identity crisis and I feel that it is true that people from the West Bengal hills are usually put under the category "Nepali" owing to the spoken language. But truth be told, having lived in many cities in India, I have come to the conclusion that people are usually unaware of what's happening beyond their day to day vicinity. Just forming a state may not give the people an identity. They would probably still be called Nepali and not Gorkhali. Instead an identity must be formed first. People must know how Gorkhali is different from others and what makes them who they are.
I would like to emphasize on the fact that development and change must come from within. There has to be a plan of development which each and every one must be aware of and must be accountable for. They must be responsible for attaining it. If the base of the building has not been made strong, no matter how much money you put in to make a fancy house or how hard you try to make it stable, it will always fall eventually. And that is what I ask the people of the hills to do. Make your base stronger.
I put forth the idea of RAIFOR to make a growth story out of the hills. A model that not only creates the Gorkha identity but becomes a benchmark for the rest of India to follow. RAIFOR stands for Recognize, Analyze, Improvise, Finalize, Organize and Realize. We recognize what the problems are and then analyze them. We prioritize them according to their importance and how they fit into our plan 3 years from now. We list down what are the things that we already have and whether there are anyways to make them more efficient. We improvise with the available resources and figure out all the options that we have and what are the extra resources we may require. Next we finalize on the option that is the most suitable under the given circumstances and also in the long run. Once we have the plan all we need to do is organize the man power and resources. If we are short of something, we ask the government. If they don't help us then we ask from the rest of India. Either way we get the job done. And if the state government doesn't help us then they will have no part in our success and that will make the demand for a new state stronger and more reasonable. If they do, then we grow and continue to have our autonomy. With proper planning and organization, no one can deny our right to grow and realize our dreams. It's a win-win situation. All we must do now is focus our energy in a more constructive direction, one that has a future.
No comments:
Post a Comment