In a letter sent straight to his boss and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Trinamool Congress vice-president and former SDO of Kalimpong Dipak Ghosh wrote, “You have to patiently begin the process of identification of non-Indian Nepalis living in north Bengal according to the 1931 census. Then you have to strike their names off from all voter lists in Siliguri (including Dooars and Terai), Kalimpong, Kurseong and finally Darjeeling. And then one by one send them back to Nepal. After that the movement for Gorkhaland will die a natural death.” This curious despatch was dated August 8, 2013.

Less than a month later, Mamata is in north Bengal. In what can be seen as the opening shots of the racial strategy advocated by Ghosh, Mamata has adopted a ‘divide and rule’ tactic in which she has openly declared the Lepchas, and not the Gorkhas, as being the “original inhabitants” of north Bengal’s hills. In a public meeting organised by the Indigenous Lep­cha Tribal Association, she said to thunderous applause, “The original inh­a­bitants of Darjeeling are clear that they want nothing to do with the stir for a separate state. Has anyone ever heard the Lepchas demand a separate Lepcha­land? No. They have always aspi­red to integrate with the Indian mainstream.”

So a nebulous category, the “non-Ind­ian Nepali”, is being conjured up as a tactic against the Gorkhaland demand. It’s a risky gambit. No one can put a fix on “their” exact percentage, but it helps to build up a sneaking hysteria against a people who can fuel a separate statehood movement that has lasted three decades and repeatedly make tripartite talks (between the Centre, the state of Bengal and the Gorkha leaders) imperative.“The signing of the Indo-Nepal Treaty in 1950 was essentially an agreement of continued peace and friendship,” exp­la­ins analyst Tarun Gan­­guly, “but it never­theless put a ceiling on who qualifies as an Indian citizen of Nepali origin. The census that existed prior to the treaty, the 1931 cen­sus (there wasn’t one in 1941 bec­ause of the war), became the defining one. The treaty allowed free mov­e­ment and trade across the border, but declared that those who moved to India after 1931 and settled down here would not be conside­red Indians but Nep­ali. But the process of identifying non-Ind­ian Nepalis will be very diff­i­cult”.

Says Dipak Ghosh, “Free movement meant lar­­ge-scale and unchecked migration from Nepal.” This much is true, as the Darjeeling hills offered a natural att­raction for labour. Experts say after bil­ateral ties deteriorated, the treaty became more of a burden but no action was taken to stanch the flow. On this peg, the security establi­shment is hanging its scare stories. After the Gor­khaland agitation reignited last month, sou­rces tal­ked of the defence min­istry rece­iving military intelligence indicating that at least one, if not more, neighbouring cou­ntry was stoking it. Ganguly points ominously to “Nepal’s growing friendship with China”.  Also, after the arrest of Yasin Bhatkal near the Indo-Nepal border last month, the Gor­khaland issue has been effectively “securitised”. Ben­gal analysts, keen to discover an ext­ernal conspiracy angle, are citing strategic expert Brahma Chellaney’s tweets. 

Specifically, the ones that evoke a requis­ite degree of foreboding about that entire fraught border reg­ion. For instance, he tweeted: “More than the borders with Pakistan and Ban­gladesh, the open fron­tier with Nepal has emerged as the sou­rce of subversion of India’s sec­urity.”While Union home minister Sush­il­kumar Shinde has said the Centre fav­ours tripartite talks, Mamata, who is in north Bengal, may have other plans. To wit, one that rakes up the thorny issue of nat­ional identity and with that plays with the fire of disenfranchisement.