“SIKKIM FOR SIKKIMESE”

THE RISE AND FALL OF NAR BAHADUR BHANDARI

In 1986 (the year I started my own Gangtok-based English weekly, Sikkim Observer, after three years into journalism), I asked the former Sikkim Legislative Assembly’s Deputy Speaker, Lal Bahadur Basnet, who won on the Parishad ticket from Gangtok in the 1979 Assembly elections, whether it was possible for the original Parishad team to forget the past and come together and work for the interest of the people as they had once set out to do. His immediate reply was, “Bhandari has now reached a point of no return.” Many others, who were earlier with Bhandari, felt the same way.

   After Bhandari’s fall in May 1984, I devoted an entire issue of the July 1984 issue of the Spotlight on Sikkim on him. Entitled “The Rise and Fall of Nar Bahadur Bhandari”, I stated: “Though Bhandari has long abandoned the cause of the people, his final departure from the post of leadership symbolizes the end of an era, which can be best described in the words of Tennyson” “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” Perhaps Sikkim will look back to this era and recall this period as Sikkim’s ‘finest hour’. Bhandari will then not be remembered for the wrongs he had done but for the things he hoped to do and for the dreams he set out to fulfill.”

   My views on political developments in Sikkim after the merger and before the first Assembly elections in 1979 was clear: “The victory of Bhandari’s Sikkim Parishad in 1979 elections symbolized the triumph of anti-merger forces, whose main objective can be best expressed in three words – “Sikkim for Sikkimese”. Thus, Bhandari was not important in himself but what he represented. The disintegration of his party and his personal loss of credibility stems from the fact that he had drifted far beyond the people’s wildest expectations from the stand that the Parishad had initially taken.

   Their Election Manifesto promised: “This party, if returned to power, is committed to giving the Sikkimese people back their self-respect and sense of dignity,” is now just another dream. The Parishad also swore that it would, if given the chance, punish the corrupt regime of the Kazi Government for all its ‘corruption, favouritism and nepotism practised since 1974’. Ironically, corruption was one of the major factors that led to Bhandari’s downfall. Even some of his genuine supporters acknowledge the fact that even under the Kazi Government, corruption had not reached such a height as is prevalent today.”

   I added, “The ‘sons of the soil’ policy formulated and propagated by the Bhandari Government has not made much headway. Selling of reserved seats of Sikkimese students to non-locals, indiscriminate allocation and distribution of building sites and trade licenses, discrimination regarding grant of scholarships to students, refusal to allot work to local contractors on tender basis, favouritism and red-tapism concerning jobs in government service, and back-door leverage for non-locals to share in the State’s administrative and economic development plans are a few examples of the Bhandari Government’s various activities which do not reflect the ‘sons of the soil’ policy they so passionately propagated before coming to power.

2010 meet in Gangtok: (L to R) Jigme N. Kazi, Nar Bahadur Bhandari, PM Subba, former Sikkim Lok Sabha MP and KN Upreti, former Minister in Bhandari Government.)

   Over the years, Bhandari gradually lost the support of his own party colleagues. They claim they were Bhandari’s genuine supporters, who were with him ‘through thick and thin’ during his political wilderness experience when he was constantly harassed by both the Central and State governments for his anti-merger stand. It was these people, with the help of a few others, who later formed a nucleus that ultimately influenced the formation of a dissident group within the Cong (I) fold to knock down Bhandari.

  Although Bhandari’s ‘Sikkim for Sikkimese’ slogan and de-merger promises attracted a large following in the last election, many people did not believe that things would be as simple as the promises that were made. But one thing they did not anticipate was Bhandari’s betrayal on certain basic issues concerning the people. The oft-repeated phrase – ‘Kazi sold the body, Bhandari sold the soul’ – has some relevance to the gradual erosion of the distinctive character for the Sikkimese way of life.”

   I then summed up: “Bhandari is still very young and will no doubt try to come back to power. His abrupt dismissal from the post he so dearly coveted does not necessarily mean the end of his political career. He has the potential of making a comeback provided he learns not to overdo things. However, he cannot hope to regain his pre-’79 status to ensure future electoral victories.

   Try as he may, Bhandari will never again win back the respect and love of the people of Sikkim, which he so freely and fully received in ample measure during the 7-year period of the merger controversy. Never again will he hope for the same from the people, for he, he alone knows that he has miserably failed to prove his worth to the people, whose cause he so dearly championed and for whom he sacrificed so much.

   In the final analysis, it is the Central Government that has come out victorious in destroying anti-merger forces, which played a predominant role in the last election under the leadership of Nar Bahadur Bhandari. There never was a man, who could so successfully unite all sections of the population under one banner as Bhandari had done, and there never will be another such man for a long time. Never have the Sikkimese people bestow so much faith and confidence on one man in such a short time. Bhandari’s failure to fulfill their innermost hopes and aspirations for a strong, stable, and united Sikkim within the borders of India, is his greatest tragedy and the Government of India’s biggest achievement.

    Looking back in retrospect, one sees enough evidence to justify the fact that Bhandari and his colleagues unconsciously became victims of circumstances and political intrigues that finally broke them into pieces and shattered every hope of them coming together on the same plank they once stood so unitedly.”

(Ref: Inside Sikkim: Against the Tide, Jigme N. Kazi, Hill Media Publications, Gangtok, 1993.)