Darjeeling strikes

mantru

at this point we have no clue whether its bad or good.....we'll get to know as days pass by........whether its going to bring good news for us or history will repeat again......like in the 80 ies

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Mantru
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Bhaswaran

Tourists attacked & injured - Darjeeling Hills & Dooers

Things are going the worst possible direction in the Darjeeling Hills. This is probably the most ridiculous and barbaric way to keep up the pressure of a agitation - to attack tourists. Yesterday, GJM supporters enforcing a bandh (shutdown) forced some tourists out of their respective vehicles as they are fleeing the area and attacked them with rods and choppers, injuring eight them badly.

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niteshsingh

Now this is bad for north east.. Ulfas are already doing damage in Aasam and now GJM...

machadinha

For Bhaswaran's newspaper link to the report just above, see: Tourists attacked with iron rods - Darjeeling Hills & Dooers

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mantru

read this.........all the avove info was false...i know the incident did not happen in the hills.....coz when i checked with locals they informed me tourist were allowed to leave peacefully.....

http://beacononline.wordpress.com/20.../#comment-5965

theyyamdancer

Thank you, mantru, for this post.

Bhaswaran

The attack was carried out by GJM activists aganist the tourists - that is the truth. The link is of a newpaper and all newpapers carried the report - they also told where the incident occured. The incident did not happen in the hills simply does not make any sense - it happend in the terai region by GJM supporters - is that false? - and GJM is primarily a outfit of the Darjeeling HIlls - is that false? Please see the newspaper links - are they false?

mantru

how sure are you its the GJM ??? sir your reply sounds as if you were very much present at that place...media carries all kinds of info......i am not here to fight we are as much concerned about the tourist...only concern is that people in the hills and plains should be safe....there are alot of communial clashes that has started in the plains...

ashakasha

Just got an update email from my friend/future employer in Darjeeling. He said only the schools and emergency services are operating at this point. They get a "three day relaxation" of the bandh every "fortnight" and are able to get mail and supplies. According to him, only school transports and emergency vehicles are being permitted to operate on the roads. Food supplies are limited, and even his family member had to go to Nepal for some medication.

My impression is that he still feels we will be able to go there and do our work in August, but I am not so sure. The GJM are set to begin hunger strikes and have turned down offers by the state to discuss demands and negotiate. So, it would seem they are in it to win it.

I read that 100 hotels are vacant and tour agencies are canceling bookings and redirecting their clients elsewhere for a long time.

edwardseco

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7458275.stm

Maybe one of the mods can find the place for this late breaking info..

mantru

chk this link.....

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Daily...=1213937283640

if not able to view read below....

Indian gorkhas are not rebels without a cause



Demand For Statehood Not New, Rumble Began In 1907


Anand Soondas | TNN




When the first batch of Indian Nepalese, or Gorkhas as they like to be called, settled in what is now Darjeeling, there was nobody to record it for history. But Darjeeling already had a resident population when the British, after a ravaging war with the fierce warriors, brought them down with guile to annex the hill tracts in 1814.
That was almost 200 years ago. A decade after that General Lloyd and J W Grant of the East India Company began the first British settlements in Darjeeling, finding it favourable both as a getaway and sanatorium.
The region was formally adopted by the British in 1837 and a road from Pankhabari to Ghoom, and then up to Darjeeling, leapt up almost immediately as a hotel was established in Kurseong for European travellers. By 1866, Darjeeling district as we know today was complete.
It’s surprising, therefore, that CPM state secretariat member and West Bengal transport minister Subhas Chakrabarty should call Gorkhas foreigners, exhibiting ignorance about the history of a region that has long been a part of West Bengal. That apart, it’s doubly worrying that his utterances have come when the hills are burning with the renewed rage of a people marginalized and dispossessed through centuries.
It didn’t help either that external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee, and not the Union home minister, made a statement just a day before that when he dismissed the demand for a separate Gorkhaland. Could he have thought, for a slippery moment, that Gorkhas being ‘‘foreigners’’ all matters relating to them logically come under external affairs?
Today, when charged up masses in the hills have pledged to go on a 45-day strike, botching up on history can have grave consequences. Also, it will be worthwhile for the Buddhadeb government to remember that the first rumblings of discontent were heard in the hills way back in 1907, making the call for separate statehood and identity one of the country’s oldest rebellions. The wounds thus are centuries old and call for sensitivity and diplomacy. More importantly, Subash Ghising sold his Gorkhaland dream 20 years ago to a government that just wanted the monkey off its back.
No genuine effort was made to tackle the festering problems of poverty, unemployment, water scarcity, lack of quality higher education and roads. All that was done was a promise made to Ghising that his autonomous hill council wouldn’t be accountable to anyone and that he could run it like a fief if he so wanted with no questions asked.
Now, though, both the dynamics of agitation and those leading it have changed. Indications are Bimal Gurung of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, spearheading the fresh homeland demand, will not sell out, prolonging an agitation that can be bitter, violent and more broadbased. After all, much has happened in the Hills in the last two decades and Gorkhas, in India and abroad, are better educated, better connected and better equipped to sustain their struggle. There is already a frantic Internet community exhorting people to lend a helping hand to their brethren back home.
There is also a new cultural and linguistic nationalism in the way Gorkhas came together, from Nagaland to Nepal, Mumbai to Manhattan, to heave and push Prashant Tamang to his Indian Idol victory last year which has come into play in the region, making the situation trickier than earlier.
Socio-economic indicators of the Hills show that a staggering 75% of the populace, according to Laden Tenzing of Tenzing Wine Store in Kurseong, are alcoholics. Though culturally a wine-drinking people, he says neither he nor his father remember so many people hitting the bottle. This time around, the agitators need to be brought to the table and efforts made to address immediate issues, ensuring that the escape hatch of all the piled up despondence and hopelessness is not violence. Not again

capt_mahajan

Wondering if this wine shop owner was undah the influence when he became a combined statistician and medico

PS The TOI's standards are falling faster then necklines. I mean this whole piece.

Bhaswaran

Ohhh......I am astonished. Now...each and all of the media - all newspapers and TV media went wrong...and others...police...the tourists...all. Now, please create a potboiler story....somebody else took on the tourists to enforce a bandh called by GJM or further worse.....the tourists hit the bandh supporters and got themselves injured ...or something like that.

Alas, all of the media went wrong on that day.

Ok, here I take a resolution - From today, for newss reports, I will not see newpaper or any media but rely on stories from people like you. Many many thanks for opening my eyes that were shut uptil today. Ha ...Ha.... Ha... Ha....

mousourik

All said and done, what about the harassment that the tourists had to face there ?
I myself planned for Dooars this puja. The travel agents (everybody) are saying that nothing happened and will happen to the tourists. The media gave an altogether wrong impression. Do people expect us to be so naive ?! In the incident that took place near Chapramari, some Calcuta tourists were involved and their interview was published later. After all this, will any sane person venture out there ?
Even today, Sikkim is severly affected by the bandh calls. I have friends who are cancelling plans to go there.
Will sense prevail over the bandh supporters ?

Aloo

I'm supposed to be flying in to bagdogra July 11th. My Ghorka BF is of course updating me as he can on the bandh, it may be that I have to just stay in Delhi instead of catching the flight from there to Bagdogra. I've been having quite the time figuring out if I'd even be able to fly there..no word from the airline ( Jet ) in regards to this. Has anyone very recently tried to fly INTO Bagdogra or has any current news on the situations? It's far easier to get me to Bagdogra than get him to Delhi.

As far as I know they are still advising tourists to stay away. I'm also confused as to what is advice and what is non negotiable. I know there is much in the way of safety and risk assesment to take into consideration in my own head as to what is smart or not, but right now I'm just looking for the facts if such exist as to logistics.

Thanks!