NEW DELHI,
The reported plan of a little-known Nepali organisation to felicitate chief of Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) Bimal Gurung later this month in Kathmandu has put this powerful force of the Darjeeling hills in a dilemma.
Confirming the situation, GJM General Secretary Roshan Giri informed The Post that they will write to the Ministry of Home Affairs seeking permission to go to Nepal to accept the felicitation by the Nepali organisation ‘Himali Cultural Group’.
The group reportedly wrote a letter to Gurung some days ago, inviting him to Nepal to accept an award on April 28 in honour of his contribution to ‘upholding the Nepali culture’. Giri claimed that President Ram Baran Yadav would confer the award though it is not formally mentioned in the letter.
“The Himali Cultural Group wrote to us some five days ago. However, it is only verbal communication that the President will honour our party chief,” said Giri.
A report carried on Thursday by the Indian daily The Telegraph states that ‘receiving an award from a neighbouring country like Nepal would not have raised eyebrows in case of any other Indian citizen but the GJM’s statehood agitation which centred on a different identity for Indian Gorkhas has put the party in a spot’.
In 1995, when Subash Ghising—the head of Gorkha National Liberation Front—was invited to Nepal for a programme organised by a group called Karnali Mukti Morcha, it had created brouhaha. Later, the Nepal government itself did not allow the programme to take place.
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