INSIDE SIKKIM In his column, Mediawatch, published in Calcutta’s Sunday magazine, eminent journalist and recently-elected President of the Press Club of India, S. Nihal Singh, observed: “...the fighters of press freedom are not those who declaim the virtues of the freedom of the press at great gatherings, useful as such exercises are as reminders of principles. They are the small-town journalists who spurn temptations of political patronage and personal monetary gain to do their jobs honestly.” Singh then goes on to add: “The fourth estate has a growing responsibility in pinpointing the evils because it is often the only pillar of democracy to be found in these areas.” He finally comments: “But newspapers need to do more to support lone journalists fighting against great odds...It is, therefore, the duty of the national press to highlight the sacrifices of little-known men and women fighting at the real frontiers of press freedom...The old battle against India Gandhi’s Emergency was fought and won in the capital and other metropolitan centres. The new battles are now raging elsewhere. Let us salute those who are fighting them.” Singh’s words describe the press in Sikkim perfectly. The non-existence of an effective opposition and the absence of a democratic atmosphere in the former Himalayan Kingdom of Sikkim has resulted in the local press shouldering greater responsibilities than it was meant to, often taking calculated risks to life and property. Independent newspapers such as the Sikkim Observer have over the years gone through enormous hardships in maintaining their independent existence and not submitting to the diktats of those in power. Some of us have had to live under constant pressure and often have been unjustifiably penalised. For instance, the Eastern Express and Sikkim Observer printing presses – two credible and independent newspaper establishments in Sikkim – were completely ransacked following electoral ‘victories’ of the Chief Minister, Nar Bahadur Bhandari’s Sikkim Sangram Parishad (SSP) in the Assembly elections in 1985 and 1989. Assaults, threats, intimidations and pressure exerted on the local press in the past one and half decades has completely and systematically silenced the voice of free press in Sikkim. The printing of the Sikkim Observer had to be undertaken in another State (West Bengal) after 1989. Even there, the paper was forced to suspend publication many times. After May 1993, the Sikkim Observer ceased publication. Efforts were made to bring out the paper even further away than West Bengal as the law and order situation and the political process steadily deteriorated. Bhandari’s stranglehold on the State Legislative Assembly was spoilt by one legislator, Pawan Kumar Chamling, deciding to break away and forming a one-man opposition under the banner of the Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF). In spite of its supporters and leaders having been arrested and tortured in police custody, the SDF became hugely popular of late and may just succeed in its objective of putting an end to the “reign of terror”. The press naturally welcomes this bestirring of the opposition because for too long it has offered the sole resistance to the regime. Our job as journalists and newspaper-owners is to give a balanced view of events and issues. It is for the people to initiate change for which the press can only act as catalyst. The Hindustan Times, during the ‘merger’ period, warned that India would not be able to convince the world that Sikkim’s inclusion within the Union represented the will of its people. “Elsewhere protectorates are graduating to independence and colonies are marching to freedom. In Sikkim, a protectorate is moving to freedom within India,” it commended. Today, the people of Sikkim are questioning whether “moving to freedom within India” has benefitted them socially, culturally, economically and politically. Or whether they were better off being a Protectorate rather than a part of the Indian Union. Acknowledging that he did not approve of the manner in which Sikkim was merged with India, the former Indian Prime Minister, Morarji Desai, in 1979 said while ‘merger’ was a ‘fait accompli’, he hoped that the people of Sikkim would benefit from it. Whether the merger has benefitted the people or not can be best gauged from the fact that the Sikkimese people continue to be deprived of their basic fundamental rights and freedoms despite having been a part of the world’s largest democracy for almost two decades. The former Chief Minister and chief architect of the ‘merger’, Kazi Lhendup Dorji Khangsarpa, has stated on more than one occasion that New Delhi has failed to honour its word and abide by the ‘terms of the merger’. Kazi has declared that the ‘merger’ was conditional and the Government of India was morally and constitutionally bound to respect the terms and conditions under which Sikkim became the 22nd State of the Union and protect the ‘rights and interests’ of the Sikkimese people and thereby preserve the distinct identity of Sikkim within the Union. The constant betrayal of the people’s trust by political leadership in Gangtok and New Delhi and the poor economic condition of the people speak volumes of how the ‘hopes and aspirations’ of the Sikkimese people have been sacrificed in order to secure peace in this strategic border State and satisfy the growing greed and ambitions of power-hungry politicians and bureaucrats. What New Delhi fails to admit and realise is that the peaceful atmosphere that is prevalent in Sikkim today is nothing but ‘peace of the grave.’ For under the peaceful facade, the undercurrents are high and tension is mounting day by day. Not many people believed that the demand for ‘closer ties with India’ and ‘full-fledged democracy’, made prior to the ‘merger’, would lead to Sikkim becoming a part and parcel of India. Similarly, no one this time can predict where the present anti-Bhandari wave, pro-democracy, and pro-Sikkim movement for ‘freedom and democracy’, will eventually lead to. “We fought for democracy and freedom. What we have in Sikkim today is dictatorship of the worst type,” stated Kazi and the former Chief Minister, Bhim Bahadur Gurung’s letter to the Prime Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao, in 1992. A public interest petition relating to corruption in the State administration filed in the Supreme Court by Kazi in early 1993 against Bhandari and others is likely to come to a final end shortly. The CBI (Criminal Bureau of Investigation), on the insistence of the Supreme Court, has recently submitted its report to the Supreme Court on the issue. The report of the CBI, which has been investigating corruption charges against Bhandari and others, including the former Sikkim Chief Secretary, P.K. Pradhan, and the former Rajya Sabha MP from Sikkim Karma Topden (now a member of the Bhandari Cabinet, after having retired from the Rajya Sabha in October 1992), provides enough evidence to hold them guilty of corrupt practices. Even if the Centre is unwilling to go against Bhandari, the views of the court and the present anti-Bhandari wave in Sikkim, spearheaded by Chamling’s SDF, is likely to dampen Bhandari’s prospects of a fourth consecutive victory in the Assembly elections slated for 1994-end. Corruption in high places is one thing; using money made through corrupt means to remain perpetually in power is quite another. While the content of this book will hopefully be a valuable document for those interested in the state of Sikkim after the Indian takeover in 1975, this book is essentially written for myself, and perhaps for those who saw what I was doing but didn’t really know why and how I went about my job. This is my tenth year as a full-time journalist in Sikkim and besides recording my views on important events and issues of Sikkim, I want to record everything for posterity to take note of how things were and how some of us have been living all these years – all alone and against the tide.December, 1993. (Ref: Inside Sikkim: Against the Tide, Jigme N. Kazi, Hill Media Publications, Gangtok, 1993.)