OBITUARY

Bhandari gave us Sikkim’s ‘finest hour’

 Jigme N.Kazi

   He had been suffering from back pain – injuries incurred from police beating during his anti-merger days in early 1970s – for a very long time and finally hospitalized in Delhi. But he breathed his last in a New Delhi hospital on July 16, 2017, due to cardiac arrest.  “Dad was fine till the last moment. He did not reveal any signs that he was leaving us,” said his daughter Primula who was beside him when he passed away.

   Nar Bahadur Bhandari ruled Sikkim, the former Himalayan kingdom – now the 22^nd State of India, for more than a decade and half (1979-1994). The teacher-turned-politician began his political career in early 1973, when pro-India forces in Sikkim under the leadership of Congress leader Kazi Lhendup Dorji Khangsarpa – a Sikkimese Lepcha aristocrat – were gradually tilting towards India. Despite opposition from the Sikkimese people Sikkim became a part of India in mid-1975. The Sikkimese people led by the Chogyal (king), Palden Thondup Namgyal, Nar Bahadur Bhandari and other Sikkimese nationalist leaders lost the fight to retain Sikkim’s distinct and unique international status. Despite the odds heavily stacked up against them pro-Sikkim forces swam against the tide. Theirs was a losing battle but come what may they would go down fighting. The Indira Gandhi-led Congress Government, Congress dominated Parliament, Indian officials at the helm of affairs in Sikkim, Indian Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Indian Army – were no match to the people’s movement opposing the ‘merger.’

    However, four years after Sikkim’s annexation the Bhandari-led Sikkim Parishad scored a decisive  moral victory when it trounced Kazi’s Congress-turned-Janata Party in the first Assembly elections in Sikkim as an Indian State and formed the government on October 18, 1979 with Bhandari as the Chief Minister.  Kazi, the grand old man of Sikkim politics, lost his own seat to a Parishad candidate, Athup Lepcha, from the remote Dzongu constituency in North Sikkim. The Parishad won 16 seats and with the help of an Independent (Sangha MLA, Lachen Gomchen Rinpoche, was actually a Parishad candidate) formed the government.  The Congress (R) party led by Kazi’s Cabinet member Ram Chandra Poudyal, who revolted against Kazi and New Delhi for unilaterally and illegally abolishing the 16 seats reserved for the Sikkimese Nepalese in the 32-member House, won 11 seats, leaving Nar Bahadur Khatiwada’s Sikkim Prajatantra Party with 4 seats. Khatiwada, the former Youth Congress leader who spearheaded the merger movement, fell out with Kazi in 1977 alleging that the ‘merger’ was ‘illegal’, ‘undemocratic’ and ‘against the wishes of the Sikkimese people.’

   The rest is history. Petty politics does not deserve much attention. But what needs to be mentioned here is that Bhandari’s downfall began when he, against the wishes of the people, merged the Sikkim Janata Parishad with Indira’s Congress party in July 1981. Three years after this unfortunate merger Bhandari was dethroned in May 1984 by dissidents within the Congress party. He was accused of being corrupt and communal. However, he fought back and formed the Sikkim Sangram Parishad (SSP) and returned to power in March 1985, winning 30 of the 32 seats. The Congress party had to bite the dust and had to be content with only 2 seats. Significantly, till date no national parties have won Assembly polls in Sikkim.

   For two terms beginning from 1985 Bhandari ruled Sikkim singlehandedly like an autocrat. His critics accused him of acting like a dictator until he was finally ousted from power by dissident SSP MLAs on the income tax issue in May 1994. His protégé and SSP legislator, Pawan Kumar Chamling, aroused the imagination of the people and using the OBC (Other Backward Classes) card and leading a pro-democracy movement, challenged Bhandari’s authority and came to power in the Assembly elections held in December 1994. Ever since Chamling’s Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF) has been in power. Bhandari tried his luck for a comeback but his efforts to do so when he joined the Congress (I) in August 2003 and thereafter to revive his own SSP in 2009 failed.

    “Despite his age we still cannot write off  Bhandari politically,” observed  Suresh Pramar, former editor of Sikkim Express and Eastern Express. A day later Bhandari breathed his last. Significantly, Bhandari’s death came at a time when Sikkim has been in the headlines in the national media for almost a month. China has not only threatened to strike India at the strategic and highly sensitive border area in eastern Sikkim, it has also – for the first time since 1974-75 – stated that Sikkim was annexed and that China may back pro-independence movement in the former kingdom after de-recognizing the ‘merger’.

   When he was abruptly ousted from power in 1984 Bhandari claimed that he was thrown out because he refused to yield on his demands on constitutional recognition of Nepali language, citizenship for ‘stateless persons’, and Assembly seat reservation for Sikkimese Nepalese. Except for the Assembly seat issue the two other demands were met during his tenure as Chief Minister. The third issue, yet to be resolved, is posing a big headache to the Chamling Government.

  When he was ousted from power in 1984, I wrote:  “Perhaps history will look back to this era and recall this period as Sikkim’s “finest hour”. Bhandari then will not be remembered for the wrongs he has done but for the things he hoped to do and for the dreams that he set out to fulfill.”

   His stand, “We have been merged, we shall not be submerged” still echoes in the heart of many Sikkimese. Sikkim faces yet another crossroad even as the man whom many looked up for political leadership is no more. Between China’s latest bid to liberate Sikkim and India’s ‘democracy’ lies the Sikkimese people, who are uncertain and insecure of a future in their own homeland.