On 14 April, after spending three years underground, Bimal Gurung addressed a mammoth gathering in Darjeeling. Gurung is one of the most recognisable faces of the Gorkhaland movement, which has long agitated for a separate state to represent the Nepali-speaking community along the northernmost reaches of West Bengal. He is the founder of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, the primary political vehicle of the Gorkhaland movement, and was previously the chairperson of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, an autonomous administration representing Gorkha majority regions. In the recent West Bengal assembly elections—the fifth phase, which included all regions of the GTA, was held on 17 April—Gurung’s GJM suffered a serious loss, losing all three hill seats in the Gorkha majority region to a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party and a breakaway faction of his own party. In the two seats the BJP won, the two factions of the GJM polled higher if their votes were added, indicating that the election was more a loss for Gurung himself rather than the Gorkhaland movement.
In 2017, Gurung led a 104-day bandh calling for the territories of the GTA to be made into a full state. The protest started following the West Bengal government’s decision to make Bengali mandatory in schools across the state. Gurung’s face was omnipresent, urging the protest on through videos on WhatsApp and Facebook that every youth seemed to be watching on their phones. In comparison, his speech on 14 April was a far more toned-down affair. Instead of emotive calls for the creation of state of Gorkhaland, Gurung instead asked for the extension of the GTA to the lowland Terai and Dooars areas, and for the inclusion of 11 tribes under the Scheduled Tribes category.
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