Indian Idol put Ghisingh out of tune?

indiatimes.com

6 Mar 2008, 0228 hrs IST,Anand Soondas,TNN

Prashant Tamang was four when Subash Ghisingh began his rule of the Darjeeling hills in 1988. Then, in the mountains just beginning to rage with foetal fires of rightful rebellion, the boy’s family, which toiled hard and remained poor, had no inkling that two decades on, he would be at the heart of the downfall of a man many called “the region’s first and perhaps last dictator”.

The GNLF strongman, who’s heading the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council for 20 years, quelling all dissent with Stalinist resolve — would in all probability have ruled until his death had Prashant, now 24, the Indian Idol winner, not taken up singing.

Strange as it may seem, almost illogical, Ghisingh’s ruin began the day he showed his back to the Nepali singer, who powered by desperate and nationalistic SMSing from Nepalese across India and the globe, went on from one round to the next.

As Prashant, a Kolkata Police constable, reached the competition’s definitive stage and the hills went mad with hopes of seeing their boy hit national limelight, Ghisingh quietly went to Bangkok to attend a tourism meet. In contrast, locals were giving up their month’s salaries, selling off their cars and jewellery to help Prashant.

But the DGHC chairman showed no interest. This when the CM of Sikkim, sundry ministers from Nepal, and the increasingly rich Nepali NRI community gave ‘Save Prashant’ funds running into crores of rupees.

The tide almost immediately turned against Ghisingh, who has now taken refuge in Kolkata after being hounded out of Darjeeling by seething hordes of picketers. That the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), a fledgling party until it took up cudgels for Prashant — garnering so much support that it surprised its leader Bimal Gurung — has metamorphosed into a combative, formidable adversary of the GNLF, hasn’t helped the Gorkha strongman. Not that the hills — now divided over its proposed inclusion in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, a move that will give it a new autonomous self-governing council, perhaps giving more power to the 30% tribal population — haven’t been restive for a while. Prashant was merely a match to the tinderbox.

“People were angry for years at Darjeeling’s worsening economic condition. It was given a channel by Prashant,” said Anil Thapa, a teacher in Kurseong. “We got upset when Ghisingh was disinterested in the one happy event in the hills after so long.” A GNLF leader, who didn’t want to be identified, said he “fails to understand” how Ghisingh didn’t read the mood. “Now, it’s backfired,” he added.

Thapa has a point. The hills have been miserable for decades. Drinking water is supplied in Darjeeling once a week. Electricity is erratic, unemployment rampant, corruption high, human rights low, roads still narrow and poverty very wide. The trees are gone, the streams have dried up and only pollution is aplenty. What has compounded the bleak scenario is the utter lack of interest in Kolkata over developments in Ghisingh’s fief. West Bengal bartered non-intervention in lieu of a commitment from the GNLF leader that he wouldn’t create any trouble. All evil was glossed over.

There’s massive unrest once again now after the bloody violence for Gorkhaland in the early 1980s. People are burning effigies of GNLF leaders and beating them up on the streets. Unknown to him, Prashant’s triumphant song may just have rung in Ghisingh’s end.

NB: pic from sikkimonline.info