{"id":35993,"date":"2018-11-01T12:53:43","date_gmt":"2018-11-01T07:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=35993"},"modified":"2018-11-01T12:53:43","modified_gmt":"2018-11-01T07:23:43","slug":"whats-brewing-in-darjeeling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/whats-brewing-in-darjeeling\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s brewing in Darjeeling:\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/todays-paper\/tp-opinion\/whats-brewing-in-darjeeling\/article19352839.ece\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What\u2019s brewing in Darjeeling<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The Darjeeling hills crisis<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>Context<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A resurgent Gorkhaland movement and subsequent state crackdown have infused life with violent uncertainty.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What happened<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In May, the West Bengal government announced Bengali as a compulsory language in schools across the state. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By June, this triggered protests and claims of \u2018linguistic imperialism\u2019 in the Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts (where the lingua franca is Nepali).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The ensuing clash with police left government property destroyed and many protesters injured.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Army was brought in to staunch unrest, but it escalated instead. Subsequent protests and crackdowns have led to further destruction and deaths.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Slogans like \u2018Jai Gorkha, Jai Gorkhaland\u2019 reverberating through the hills, Darjeeling has plunged again into the throes of agitation.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Internet and cable television have remained suspended since June 18.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Strikes and security threats have devastated the local economy at the peak of tourist season.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Crux of the movement<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Gorkhaland movement is a long standing quest for a separate State of Gorkhaland within India for Nepali-speaking Indian citizens.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With roots dating back over a century, Gorkhaland is a classic subnationalist movement, not unlike those that have produced other States, most recently Telangana, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh.<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Beyond all else, Gorkhaland is a desire for the recognition, respect, and integration of Gorkha peoples in the Indian nation-state.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Sudden resurgence<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recent turmoil mustn\u2019t obscure deeper histories.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For Gorkhas, the troubling realities of colonial and present-day Darjeeling are eerily similar: linguistic chauvinism, ethnic and racial discrimination, resource extraction, unilateral territorial claims, the denial of self-governance, political suppression; and ultimately, an unwillingness to respect the \u2018native point of view\u2019.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This double bind of colonial nostalgia and neocolonial regional domination produces a sense of constant d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu, leading to the desperate feeling that genuine progress is out of reach. These unsettling truths demand some soul-searching.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What\u2019s brewing in Darjeeling:\u00a0 The Darjeeling hills crisis Context A resurgent Gorkhaland movement and subsequent state crackdown have infused life with violent uncertainty. What happened In May, the West Bengal government announced Bengali as a compulsory language in schools across the state. By June, this triggered protests and claims of \u2018linguistic imperialism\u2019 in the Darjeeling&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/whats-brewing-in-darjeeling\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">What\u2019s brewing in Darjeeling:\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704831232},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35993\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}