Introduction
Sports in any form are known to arouse emotions of various kinds and therefore have been used as a tool for political advantage. Sports have been at the hands of politicians as a resource to suit their interests. They have also been used as a tool to pursue diplomacy, forge national integration, and encourage national economic growth (Houlihan, 2015). History has witnessed the use of football by various individuals, institutions, and nation-states to achieve their socio-economic and political agenda. It has been used both to repress and dominate and benefit others. This article tries to analyse the politicisation of football to assert one’s identity on the one hand and to repress an identity movement on the other. This article attempts to highlight the intrinsic relationship between football and politics in Darjeeling. The domain of sports is considered a neutral domain in the cultural and value system (Hargreaves, 1994), but the article tries to examine the realm of sports in Darjeeling from a critical lens, analysing the relationship between society, people, and sports. In this endeavour the article is divided into three sections the first section highlights the historical trajectory of the region and football, its introduction, growth, and popularity in Darjeeling. The second section investigates the ways in which football was politicised by the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) to assert and propagate the idea of cultural nationalism. The third section looks at the ways in which football was utilised by leaders who did not enjoy the support of the public, for joining hands with the state government against whom the masses were fighting, to legitimise their position and create a conducive environment for their control of politics of Darjeeling.
Method
This article is based on autoethnography and telephonic interviews of former football players and administrators of sports associations in Darjeeling. Autoethnography as a method is employed for the study as it helps to draw from lived experiences and also analyses the same. As a method, autoethnography also assists the author to connect as a researcher to the larger social, cultural, and political issues. “It is necessary to have a voice and bring it to one’s research writing to illustrate political, social and cultural issues” (Spencer, 2009, p. 35). It also allows the author to probe the relationship between the personal and political, as well as to map the intersectionality between biography and history. This method is important as it assists in unfolding the complex dynamics of human relationships by looking at the self in contact with the others (Poulos, 2021). Most importantly autoethnography is used for this study as it allows me to engage in systematic analysis and description of my years of experience as a football player and also as an individual growing up within the political situation and changes in Darjeeling in the 1980s and 1990s.
Telephone interviews were also used as a method of data collection as it was also essential to understand how the larger sports community in Darjeeling viewed the changes that has occurred over the last four decades with regard to the sporting ecology of the region. A total of 40 individuals were interviewed. The sample is small as many of the people who were earlier responsible for the functioning of the sports associations could not be contacted and some of them were not willing to talk to the researcher. A small number of Facebook posts and comments have also been analysed to understand the perception of people towards the political leaders who were organising football tournaments in 2018.
Beginning of Football in/and Darjeeling
Darjeeling’s social, economic, and political history is intrinsically associated with British colonisation. Darjeeling always remained a contested region for the neighbouring kingdoms of Sikkim and Nepal. Political agreement between the two was not possible until the Rajah of Sikkim sought the help of the British, who negotiated in favour of the Sikkimese king. In 1828, the responsibility of solving the frontier dispute was given to Major Lloyd and Mr Grant, who were instantly attracted by the beauty of the place. Mayor Lloyd was in favour of setting up a sanatorium in Darjeeling. They both proposed to Lord William Bentick to set up a sanatorium and a military centre (O’Malley, 1989). Lord Bentick, without any delay, asked Captain Herbert, who was then the Deputy Surveyor General to study Darjeeling. When his report was also favourable towards the proposal of Major Lloyd and Mr Grant, Lord Bentick allowed Major Lloyd to negotiate with the Rajah of Sikkim for the cessation of Darjeeling “hill in return for an equivalent in money or land” (Dozey, 1989, p. 3).
The geographical location and the climatic conditions of Darjeeling was immensely attractive to the British. The British considered Darjeeling an appropriate location for establishing a sanatorium to help the tired, suffering, and sick soldiers recover and regain their health. It was also crucial for them as they wanted to establish a trade route to Tibet (O’Malley, 1989). In 1835, the Rajah of Sikkim gifted Darjeeling to the British; since then, Darjeeling’s landscape has gradually changed. These aspects of governance necessitated infrastructural development. Soon hospitals and roads came into existence, and tea which was started on an experimental basis, showed promise and became a commercial enterprise. These necessitated further development, and railways were built in Darjeeling. Education initiatives and schools followed these developments. With the increasing number of tea gardens and the growth of the tea industry, Darjeeling witnessed a continuous increase in the volume and density of the population. Table 1 below depicts this growth.
Trend in the Proportion of Tea Gardens and Workforce Participation in Darjeeling
| Year | No. of tea estates | Total no. of all kinds of tea | Total no of workforce | % of tea workers to total workforce |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1861 | 22 | 2,534 | — | — |
| 1871 | 56 | 8,000 | 94,712 | 8.45 |
| 1881 | 155 | — | 155,779 | — |
| 1891 | 177 | — | 155,207 | — |
| 1901 | 170 | 40,451 | 155,235 | 26.06 |
| 1911 | 156 | 39,561 | 151,604 | 26.09 |
| 1921 | 168 | 48,710 | 174,167 | 27.97 |
| 1931 | 169 | 63,665 | 129,070 | 43.33 |
| 1941 | 136 | 69,699 | 133306 | 52.28 |
| 1951 | 138 | 69,590 | 137,541 | 50.60 |
| 1961 | 145 | 59,844 | 266,105 | 22.49 |
Source: Compiled from A. J. Dash, Bengal District Gazetteers: Darjeeling, 1967, p. 100.
The British fought the Anglo-Bhutanese war, which helped them to annex Kalimpong and the adjoining Daurs region from Bhutan in 1865. This completed the continuity of the area demanded by the Hillmen’s Association to be separated from the Bengal Province. With the change in population dynamics, the people’s political imagination, under the British’s guidance, also started to develop and change. Political awareness led to the mobilisation of the people, and soon the Hillmen’s Association was born, and in 1907 it submitted a memorandum to the then Viceroy of Bengal to separate Darjeeling from the Bengal Province. Since then, this demand has remained unfulfilled. When a refined version of the 1907 memorandum was again submitted to the Viceroy in 1917, it was also the inaugural year for the Herlihy Cup football tournament in Darjeeling.
Schools and Sports
In 1864 St Paul’s School was transferred from Calcutta, and gradually many schools were established. According to O’Malley (1989), by 1894–1895, there were 109 schools with a total number of students of 3,830; by 1904–1905, it was 142 and 3,950, respectively. The impact the schools have had in the sporting culture of the region can be judged from the fact that two pupils, Joseph T. Galibardy and Cyril J. Mitchie, of Goethals Memorial School, established in 1907, were hockey gold medalists in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. Another student, Chaman Singh Gurung of Goethals Memorial School, won a hockey gold medal for India in the 1952 Helsinki Olympic Games. Another product of St Paul’s School, Peter Hildreth, participated in athletics in the 1952 Olympic Games. Goethals is probably the only school in India to have produced three gold medalists in the Olympics.
Schools and individuals associated with the education system were instrumental in promoting sports to the British population in the colonies. None other than the founder of the modern Olympic Games, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, has acknowledged the role played by schools in spreading and popularising sports (Sen, 2015). In colonial India, schools have also been at the forefront of popularising sports along with the army. By the time the first school was established in Darjeeling, football, many other sports had become popular in India. The British used sports as an instrument of diplomacy after the sepoy mutiny of 1857. The British soon started schools for the native princes in many parts of India, and “sports and outdoor activities were an indispensable part of the curriculum” (Sen, 2015, p. 60). In doing so, the British also had the hidden agenda of socialising many among the princely states into the British way of life and elite culture, so they would be on their side if another mutiny took place. Thus, among the many sports, cricket and football became popular among Indians after 1857 (Burdsey, 2007; Glodblatt, 2014), and football and boxing were the favourites of the soldiers (Sen, 2015).
The British had witnessed the bravery of the Gorkha soldiers during the First Anglo-Gurkha War in 1814, which encouraged them to recruit them into the British army. The constant flow of migrants from Nepal into the tea gardens helped them in that pursuit, and a recruiting depot was opened in Ghoom in 1902 (Subba, 1992). Two critical arms of the state apparatus, which facilitate the spread of sports in general and football in particular, were established in Darjeeling.
Sports in Colonial Darjeeling
Sports had established itself and had become an annual feature. Cricket and football, along with hockey and tennis, were played. Inter-school matches were common, along with matches between schools and the army teams. The army teams were more interested in football and cricket, and hockey was not to their liking. Football, though, at times seemed to have lost to cricket and hockey in popularity.
Owing to the counter attractions of Cricket and Hockey, we can hardly give the care and attention to the Footer that it deserves, and thus it comes to be regulated to the end of the year when the other games are no longer played. (St. Joseph’s College, 1908, p. 71)
Football started in Darjeeling much later than cricket, and the sole purpose of the beginning seems to be to pass the days during the rainy season between the two cricket seasons. The first season started in March and the second after the monsoon. Football gained popularity only in 1894.
Nor should such a one be far to seek, as the interest in the game dates only from last season. In former years both Rugby and Socker found some devotees, but chiefly among the military. Last year the two Hill Schools seemed simultaneously to have concluded that the best way of putting some interest into the long and dreary rainy days and to tide over the gap between two Cricket seasons would be to place the game on a popular footing. (St. Joseph’s College, 1896, p. 30)
The same year a committee was formed to discuss the feasibility of a Challenge Shield, and with the generous support of the Maharaja of Cooch Behar organised football started in 1895 with eight teams participating. Other two significant tournaments at that time were the District Challenge Cup and the Poojah Cup (St. Joseph’s College, 1897). The hill population was also an active participant in the sporting culture of the place as one of the reports writes that the hillside between the ground and the college was crowded with thousands of nicely dressed hill people (St. Joseph’s College, 1898). The natives had also started playing football by this time, and the description of the “servants of St. Joseph’s College and those of St. Paul’s Jalapahar” match is evidence of it. “In conclusion, let us hope that this sporting instinct among the few of the Natives here may be encouraged, for should not they strive, as much as we …” (St. Joseph’s College, 1898, p. 21).
However, by this time in sports history, it was evident to the people that cricket was challenging to grow and flourish in the hills. “If Cricket was on the wane, Football certainly flourished as vigorously as ever” (St. Joseph’s College, 1899, p. 23) in Darjeeling. By 1902 league tournaments had started in Darjeeling, and football by far remained the favourite sport of Darjeeling. By the turn of the century football in Darjeeling was so popular that the annual report of St. Joseph’s College (1906) states, “Teams sprung up as by enchantment over the hillside; games there were and tournaments, and trophies to be played for and won, and Darjeeling was for once threatened with a surfeit of Footer” (p. 48). Crowds were becoming larger with every passing year at the Lebong ground.
Though the sporting historiography of Darjeeling is not well documented, it is clear that a vibrant sporting atmosphere existed with rivalries between schools and military teams. Hockey was also a very prominent part of the sports calendar of the region. There were many tournaments like the Newton Cup, Haskett Smith Cup, and Eroom Cup, which were withdrawn in the year 1913 and were replaced by the DuBern Hockey Challenge Cup. However, the latter was meant only for the European teams.
Gradually, apart from cricket, football, and hockey, the schools also introduced many other sports and athletics were part of every school. Tennis found its place much before volleyball and basketball.
Sports in the school curriculum were essentially guided by the philosophy that physical exercise was essential for a healthy body and mind and had a therapeutic impact on the individual (Hargreaves, 1994). Apart from the senior teams, schools had junior teams participating in various tournaments throughout the year.
Participation of Locals/Natives
Not much is known about the local people participating in the sporting activities of the time, except a few references. However, it can be speculated that the Gorkhas were part of the military football teams as they liked the “beautiful game” and a recruiting depot was there in Ghoom Sen (2015) writes, “In the evening, we used to go along and have a chat with the Gurkha boys. We would invariably find them playing football, and they would immediately split up and demand that we should join them” (p. 38). Although there was exclusion of the native soldiers and physical contact was discouraged by the early twentieth century, “many regiments had mixed football teams comprising both British and Indian soldiers” (ibid.). Football, though, is very popular at the moment in the hills of Darjeeling. In the reports of the schools, there is no mention of local teams participating in the tournaments of those times. However, it seems that the locals preferred hockey.
During the 1920–1930s, Darjeeling was also experiencing political upheavals with the demand for separating Darjeeling from the Bengal Province and establishing a distinct administrative unit. The demand for implementing the Nepali language in the schools was instrumental in sowing the seed of doubt among the Lepcha and Bhutia regarding the motives of the numerically dominant Nepali group (Subba, 1992). There was, as a consequence, discontentment and lack of understanding and solidarity among the three predominant ethnic groups—the Nepalis, the Bhutias and the Lepchas. This issue was overcome by the proposal to establish the Hill People’s Social Union that would work towards building brotherhood among the three ethnic groups and also look after their social welfare. Nebula (Ne for Nepali, bu for Bhutia and la for Lapche) was a monthly magazine published in Nepali, but by 1935 it became synonymous with the Hill People’s Social Union.
Nebula was the identity and soul of the local population, and in 1936, Nebula Sporting entered as the representative of the local community in hockey. The police team was the first among the local teams to participate in the tournaments, but it was Nebula, due to its political significance, that captured the worldview of the local community and society. Although Nebula does not feature in future tournaments, it made way for other local teams to participate. Subsequently, local teams named The Rising Gurkhas, The Young Gurkhas and Combined Gurkhas were playing in the hockey circuit. Besides the local teams, Indian players also became part of the schools and college teams by the late 1930s. St Paul’s School was among the first to have an Indian in their team.
North Point gradually had several Gorkha players in their various teams. S. K. Pradhan and M. Rasaily were part of the football team, and an individual named C. Norbhu was part of both the football and cricket teams. By the time of independence of India, the citadel of the Europeans and British in the arena of sports was broken, and more and more Indians were entering into the earlier European-dominated cricket, football and hockey teams. The British and European schools and individuals, however, have been instrumental in creating a vibrant sporting culture in the region and facilitating the local population’s participation in various sports.
Post-Colonial Darjeeling and Sports
The British in Darjeeling did what they had done everywhere else, created “a miniature version of home, setting up schools, hospitals, churches and sporting clubs” (Wilson, 2016, p. 18) and left a legacy that was followed by the numerous schools that they had established in the region. The old-school rivalries continued even after they left, which helped perpetuate the sporting culture. The national freedom movement did not seem to have affected the sporting calendar in Darjeeling. Schools were regularly playing annual fixtures. The Edinburgh Cricket Shield, which started in 1911 along with the Herlihy Cup football tournament, which started in 1917 in memory of an Irishwoman, Mrs Herlihy of Woodlands, continued even after the independence of India, and is still played. Mrs Herlihy dearly loved the soldiers, who were averse to playing cricket and hockey. Therefore, it was decided to have a football tournament in her memory. However, after independence, there was a conspicuous change in the demographic profile of the teams, and more Indians were part of the teams. However, the Planters’ team even after independence was for a short period entirely made up of Europeans. The changes in the participating teams were also noticeable.
In the 1948 Herlihy Cup, Gorkha Recruiting Depot, Ghoom, Aloobari XI, British Gorkhas, and Indian Gorkhas were some of the teams who participated for the first time. Gradually other local teams participated in this tournament. Hockey was also popular among the local population, and local teams were seen to participate in the tournaments earlier dominated by the British Regimental and Catholic schools. With time, many new tournaments emerged in the region and hockey and cricket soon started to wane, while sports like volleyball gained popularity. Independence Cup tournaments were played to celebrate the country’s Independence Day, and the final match is held on 15 August every year.
One peculiar feature of Darjeeling concerning sports is that more public grounds must be established. Most of the grounds belong to schools or other institutions; therefore, hosting tournaments becomes difficult. Also, owing to the geographical terrain, there needs to be more proper grounds and especially in the tea gardens there are no standard-size football grounds. To overcome such practical problems, seven-side football tournaments became popular and had many finals scheduled for Independence Day at different places. The All India Gorkha Brigade Gold Cup, which started in 1975, was another calendar event of the region. It is said that the trophy was presented by the Gorkha soldiers of the British Army stationed in Hong Kong. All the country’s top teams, including those from the neighbouring countries, participated in this tournament. Along with these tournaments, the school matches were also played simultaneously.
The Growth of Football and the Downfall of Other Sports
“Sports cannot be understood in isolation as if it has no connection with other cultural practices and social influences” (Tomlinson, 2004, p. 163). Some of the reasons for football’s success in Darjeeling were that the game was suitable for a population not economically prosperous, the rules were simple to comprehend, and it only required a ball. The “simplicity of its rules and scoring system, its flexibility in terms of numbers that can play, how long they can play for, the space required to play in; its lack of equipment; and the lower likelihood of serious injury” (Goldblatt, 2007, p. 117) and “in part, it was pushed through the British schools” (Wilson, 2016, p. 20) further accentuated the popularity of football. Football had simple rules which were easily comprehended by the people, unlike the laws of cricket or other sports, and to be played only required a ball. In the absence of a ball, even something which resembled it, improvised from rags or tightly bound papers, was considered good enough for play. The socio-economic existential reality of the people suited football more than any other sport. Playing with sankhatra (Citrus maxima), which was abundantly available in the streets by young boys, is part of the local folklore.
The symbolic, social, and cultural relevance of football in the imagination and lifeworld of the population can be gazed at through oral histories and various narratives people have about the game. Every town, village, and tea gardens have a unique story of its own to narrate associated with football. Various stories and discourses about the game, players, spectators, personalities, grounds, love affairs, fights, and travel exist. Every locality has its narrative.
Narratives about the game of football developed because every tea garden had its tournaments, but neither the Darjeeling District Sports Association nor the sub-divisional sports associations recognised them. Each tournament had its own significance and charm for the organising tea gardens. Tournaments were played throughout the year in Darjeeling. In the absence of a regular football field, most of the tournaments in the tea gardens were innovative in nature. The size of the goalposts, throw-in rules, and penalty spots varied according to the field size. In Montevoit ground, Kurseong, one of the three sub-divisions of Darjeeling, throwing directly into the D-box was prohibited; in Mahanadi a small tea garden, players were not allowed to run while taking a penalty. A player had to stand and take penalty kicks. On many grounds, the ball would be considered out of play only if a spectator touched it. Each tournament was a symbolic and cultural capital for the organising place. The entire community would be part of the tournament as it produced “the kind of affective tie to a specific locality that one finds in more traditional and localist societies” (Brown et al., 2009, p. 2).
The most interesting social fact in the sphere of sports in Darjeeling is the clubs’ names associated with the place or the locality. Many of the clubs named themselves based on their geographical locations, which have helped them to produce affective ties (Brown et al., 2009) and assisted in constructing an identity based not on individuality but on the collective behaviour of the village, town or city (Mason, 1988). These affective ties and identity were essential for the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) to mobilise and organise the population in the late 1980s to demand the creation of Gorkhaland and separation from West Bengal.
Football and Politics of Appropriation
The demand to form a separate administrative unit for Darjeeling detached from the Bengal Province was first made in 1907. This demand had echoed intermittently in the region but was not organised, vociferous and violent till the 1980s. The entire population was directly or indirectly involved in the Gorkhaland agitation, and there was chaos, normlessness and disruption of the social order in the region. After losing more than 1,200 lives and property worth millions, a political settlement arrived. A tripartite agreement for creating the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC), a semi-autonomous administrative unit, between the GNLF, the Government of West Bengal, and the Government of India was signed in 1988. The transition was more or less smooth, but a large segment of the society was not satisfied with this agreement. Furthermore, many of the structures of the society were damaged in the years of agitation. During the agitation from 1986 to 1988, all the tournaments were suspended due to the law and order situation that prevailed in the region.
Sports and sporting events in the entire region were crippled and did not take place. Schools also did not play the traditional home and away matches.
After the formation of the DGHC, as per conditions of the agreement many governmental departments were handed over by the Government of West Bengal to DGHC and one of them was the Department of Youth and Sports and the onus of reviving the sporting culture lay in the hands of DGHC.
The DGHC was in complete control of GNLF, who, despite the discontentment among the people, had won all the seats except two in the election to DGHC. The demand for Gorkhaland was made based on the distinct linguistic, ethnic, and cultural identity of the Gorkha and the GNLF, through the DGHC was trying to establish this distinct cultural identity to separate the Gorkhas from the dominant Bengali population of West Bengal. In this process, the assertion of cultural nationalism started. In the realm of sports, it was the most visible. The Darjeeling District Sports Association (DDSA) which was affiliated with the West Bengal Sports Department and the Indian Football Association (IFA), a body responsible for the administration of association football in West Bengal, and had been functioning since the time of independence was the first victim. The new political regime proclaimed that the existence of DDSA would symbolise the continuation of the rule of West Bengal in Darjeeling and changed the name to Gorkha Hill Sports Association (GHSA) and sought direct affiliation with the All India Football Federation (AIFF). However, AIFF did not accept the application because it reflected ethnicity rather than the geography and also accepting GHSA would mean that the structure of the body would be altered. The GHSA had new members, people who were connected to GNLF and the association was headed by the Councillor heading the Sports Department of the DGHC. Therefore, it was pertinent for them to continue with the assertion of cultural nationalism. The ensuing period in the hills of Darjeeling witnessed the ideal being subjugated by the material, and the prevailing dominant rationality treated “people as mere objects to be manipulated, rather than as autonomous creative beings worthy of being treated with respect” (Inglis, 1994, p. 83). These endeavours was aimed to “project a degree of cultural distinctiveness which reinforces their claim to sovereign status” (Houlihan, 2015, p. 188) and reminded the state government of their interests. It soon became evident that the objective of the GHSA was futile and they changed the name of the association to the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Sports Association. This too did not bear any fruit, but it continued to function. The names of the sports associations in two sub-divisions were also changed and became the Kalimpong Gorkha Sports Association and the Kurseong Gorkha Sports Association.
Football and sports are generally perceived as social and cultural capital and were part of the historical legacy. The different tournaments and the various players were integral to the everyday discourse and existence of the population. The DGHC, through the imperatively coordinated groups, brought about new tournaments in the region, which challenged its rich heritage of sports. Due to the absence of imagination, football was supported, and other games were left to their own, slowly disappearing from the calendar. Gradually, sports, a “free and purposeless bodily activity enjoyed for its own sake” (ibid., p. 91), was appropriated, controlled, and dominated by a few political elites to fulfil their instrumental goals. Thus, new tournaments like the inter-constituency and the Mahakal Cup emerged. The inter-constituency tournament established that only registered voters and residents of a particular constituency could participate and represent that particular constituency in the tournament. This entirely circumscribed the functioning and autonomy of the clubs. Until then, clubs formed strong teams by bringing players from different places from within and outside the DGHC region for the local leagues and other tournaments but could not proceed to carry out this action autonomously. The team for the Kurseong town constituency was selected by former players. However, the team did not represent all the clubs of the town as it was dominated by players from one single club. The political leaders of the town saw this as not fulfilling their desired goal, so a member of the leader’s inner circle was sent to negotiate with the selection committee to include players from all the clubs, even at the expense of dropping better players from the team. This exercise and negotiation was intuited by the players and the committee members as a means by which the political leader would show his benevolence only in order to ask the clubs in the future to support him in his political endeavours. In this tournament neither the sports associations nor the clubs were directly involved. All aspects of the team were taken care of by the elected representative of the constituency. As football was and is by far the most popular sport in Darjeeling, through this tournament the GNLF was trying to establish a collective consciousness among the people, and reaffirm their commitment to the cause of Gorkha nationalism. However, this tournament did not succeed and tactics were changed.
The Mahakal Cup, an inter-club tournament soon followed the inter-constituency tournament. The GHSA had come into existence and as a part of the project to cut all ties associated with West Bengal, all the erstwhile tournaments like the Herlihy Cup and the Jasoda Giri Cup were suspended, and in place of these tournaments the Mahakal Cup was started. It was the first tournament in the region that gave prize money to the finalists. The winners would take home 200,000 rupees and the losing finalist would receive 100,000 rupees as a cash prize, while the two losing semi-finalist teams would be richer by 20,000 rupees. There were no sponsors associated with the tournament and all expenditure was borne by the Sports Department of the DGHC through the GHSA. This gave the leaders of the GNLF a space to promote themselves as well-wishers for the development of sports. Since these political elites enjoyed all the powers they gradually also started patronising the clubs. Each club had one or the other leader as their patron as they were able to fund the clubs. Through the clubs they remained visible among the people, which they utilised during election times. The political elites gradually either by design or by chance penetrated the neutral space of football. Undoubtedly it became the biggest tournament in the region, but due to the high financial implications it could not be sustained and soon ended, but not before also disrupting the clubs functioning. Tarun Khel Khud Sangh, which won the inaugural year, was later suspended which led to the players moving to other clubs, and the winner of the second edition Shiva Shakti of Ghoom also had to face the same fate, though they were not suspended. Tarun Khel Khud Sangh was later able to put up a good team, the latter completely vanished.
The Shahid Cup then came into existence. It was a tournament in memory of all those who had lost their lives during the agitation for the cause of Gorkhaland and was held in Kalimpong. Unlike, the above-mentioned two tournaments this tournament invited teams from outside as well. The final match every year was held on the 27 July. This day marked a significant day in the lives of the people of the entire region, as on the 27 July 1986 a major police action took place against the protestors and activists of the Gorkhaland movement in Kalimpong. It was Sunday and a large number of people had gathered to protest and burn the Indo-Nepal Friendship Treaty of 1950. The police did not want this event to take place, and without provocation they fired indiscriminately killing 13 individuals and injuring hundreds. There were many more who died for the cause of Gorkhaland. When peace prevailed in the hills after the formation of the DGHC, compensation was made to the families of those who had laid down their lives. However, the compensation was discerned as an insult because the amount was only 8,000 rupees. Through this tournament the political elites wanted to rectify the mistake they had made and also appropriate the secular space of football and propagate their political motives and ambitions.
In all these tournaments there was a pattern that could be deciphered. In every match, one or the other leader of the GNLF would be present for the match and they would be introduced to the players. During this introduction, the leader would say the same thing to all the players, as if it was tutored. They would say “Keep up the Gorkha pride”. At the end of the match they would also give money to some of the players and tell the clubs that if they required any help they would always be there to help. In the final matches of the tournament, it was a tradition to invite former players or bureaucrats as chief guests, but after the formation of the GHSA and later the DGHSA it was only the leaders of the GNLF who were invited as chief guests to every tournament that was played, recognised or not, whether it was in tea gardens or in the urban spaces. The field during the matches and the stage for the trophy presentation ceremony would be covered with the green flags of the GNLF, small green paper flags, symbolising the GNLF were used to decorate the grounds, and songs that praised and depicted the contribution of the party and its leaders played from the morning until late in the evening. All volunteers in the grounds would be their party cadres. They would make speeches full of the Gorkhaland rhetoric and its importance for the region, history, culture, and identity. They would target the consciousness of the people, installing in them the false pride and hope of being a Gorkha and the importance of fighting for Gorkhaland, even though they had agreed in writing in the tripartite agreement never to raise the demand again.
The political class had become an essential part of the society. Their benevolence was sought to organise tournaments. They would fund smaller tournaments organised in the villages and tea gardens. They were invited as chief guests and patrons. This allowed them to seek support from the people for themselves and their party. The lack of tournaments destroyed the players’ and spectators’ spirit and enthusiasm in an amateur structure where people played for fun. Politicians would strut onto the ground, donate money, and demonstrate control over the game’s administration (Sundas, 2018). All these ensured that the “dominant class’s interests were served by binding a large proportion” of the population “to the social institution of sport” (Rowe, 1994, p. 105). However, all that these efforts to appropriate sports did was dismantle the structure of the existing culture of the region. Many regions lost the annual tournaments. Many tournaments in smaller places like Kurseong have disappeared, which were very well known and participated in by many big teams.
In a short period, the GNLF, through the DGHC, had appropriated sporting spaces to achieve and fulfil their political motives. It could enjoy political hegemony with utter ignorance of opposition, which was non-existent. They monopolised people’s socio-economic and political spheres and remained unchallenged until Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) came into existence.
Gaining Legitimacy Through Football
After the formation of the DGHC and its comforts, the GNLF never took up the demand for Gorkhaland. The DGHC failed to satisfy the people in every possible way. There was a tactic understanding between the GNLF and the state government, and no further elections were held. After a certain period, there were no elected representatives in the DGHC. It was administered by the earlier Chairman of the DGHC, Subash Ghising, who was appointed as a caretaker of the DGHC by the Government of West Bengal. There was profound dissatisfaction among the people, and in 2006–2007 during a reality show “Indian Idol” the GNLF and Subash Ghising refused to support the local boy participating in the reality show; this caused the public to openly start talking against the GNLF and its leader. This provided a very strong platform for Bimal Gurung to support the local boy and challenge the GNLF and Subash Ghising, with whom he was already at logger heads. When the local boy won the Indian Idol contest Bimal Gurung emerged as an unsung hero. In the course of the moment, he emerged as a challenger to the reign of the GNLF. The people rallied behind him and chased Subash Ghising out of the hills. Soon Bimal Gurung formed his own political party, the GJM.
With the emergence of the GJM, there was renewed demand for the state of Gorkhaland, which again ended with the signing of another tripartite agreement in 2010, which led to the formation of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA). However, unlike the GNLF, the GJM stayed active when the state government tried to undermine the legitimacy of the GTA, and another agitation took place in 2017. The state government always interfered with the functioning of the GTA and the differences between the two actors started to surface soon after the signing of the GTA Agreement. In 2016 the Government of West Bengal implemented a policy of making it mandatory in the state to teach the Bengali language in the schools. This was perceived as a cultural imperialism by the people and the GJM as the Nepali language was considered the official language of the Darjeeling hills. This led to protests erupting in Darjeeling against the state government. Soon it evolved into a movement demanding the separation of Darjeeling from West Bengal. The state acted quickly to subdue the movement. Police atrocities knew no bounds. Eleven people were killed in a short time. Police cases were lodged against everyone irrespective of their participation or non-participation in the movement. Numerous cases were lodged against each of the leaders which forced them to hide or leave the place as their lives were in danger. Due to the fear of police action and atrocity, two leaders surrendered to the government, when others were either imprisoned or in hiding it gradually brought the movement to an end.
One of the two leaders was appointed the Chief Executive of the GTA. There were other political actors as well those who were in the good books of the state government and supported the repressive approach of the state for suppressing the movement and the demand. The hills were burning, as they say, and bringing back normalcy in the hills was the topmost priority of the state government, as the region and the state government were constantly under the surveillance of the Central Government. The GJM had supported the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the national elections and were part of the National Democratic Alliance, which was in power in the country. As an alliance partner, the GJM was constantly putting pressure to act against the West Bengal Government or find a solution to their demand. This created a lot of pressure on the Government of West Bengal as well and was motivated to prove that Darjeeling was peaceful and the majority of the people did not support the GJM.
The football World Cup like in any part of the globe is followed with fanfare and enthusiasm in Darjeeling. Flags of the participating countries can be seen flying in most of the houses and cars. In 2018, the football World Cup took place in Russia. The Edwards Foundation in collaboration with other organisations proposed a theme—the Darjeeling World Cup Town—a carnival to enjoy the World Cup matches. The organisers said it was an event to raise funds to provide health care services to people experiencing poverty. However, it was perceived as an event against Darjeeling’s social reality. It was an event organised by the same people who had, in disguise, run anti-Gorkhaland propaganda during the agitation period. It was an event organised, if not at the behest at least in connivance, with the state government, to showcase that Darjeeling was no longer burning and had moved toward normalcy. It countered the narrative that the Darjeeling region was under the spell of the unfreedom spread by the repressive state apparatus. Out of the 40 respondents interviewed by telephone, 38 believed that the event was a gimmick and was meant to undermine the agitation and the sympathy that the leaders who were facing police cases received from the public. Fifteen respondents thought that the organiser was trying to generate goodwill among the state leadership by organising this event. Twenty respondents thought that the chief of the organising committee was always against the GJM, so it was a good time for him to sabotage the goodwill the GJM enjoyed among the masses. A comment reacting to the event on Facebook succinctly describes the politics behind organising the event.
“There is nothing wrong in holding events which genuinely focus on sports, but the overemphasis of this event in portraying ‘absolute peace and normalcy’ is a complete farce. This makes it more [of] a political event than sports. U don’t always need a political outfit to fulfil a political message that favours our adversaries.
If for instance, we assume that there is absolute peace and normalcy and that Darjeeling is the world’s nicest place, then there is absolutely no need to assert our fundamental rights and no question arises for our self-determination and statehood. So we should be honest with ourselves and not fall for such farce. No doubt Mamta Banerjee in her recent visit to Kalimpong emphasized more on holding such events during the administrative meet to prove that “Pahad haashche”.
When the party of the vice president of this organizing committee was in power, the prestigious Brigade of Gorkhas Gold Cup was not allowed to [be] host[ed] for 20 years. Just a reminder”. 1
The GTA Chairman Gold Cup soon followed this event. The 2017 agitation was unique in its way. Due to the use of social media, the movement gained support from the people residing in the hills and the global Gorkha diaspora, which added to the momentum. It was surreal to witness some form of protest against the West Bengal Government worldwide. The betrayal that the two leaders committed by surrendering to the state led to a division among the people, with some supporting the leaders who had betrayed the movement. However, the majority was with the GJM and supported the movement. Even with the use of force and atrocities, these leaders could not gain the confidence of the majority, and the legitimacy of their appointment as the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the GTA was always questioned.
The use of force and legal means was not enough for the people of Darjeeling to succumb to the atrocities of the state and the self-proclaimed leaders. So they used football as soft power to project themselves as being well-wishers of the people and the region. They held the GTA Chairman Gold Cup football tournament. This tournament was held during the onslaught of winter, which never happened in Darjeeling. During winter only a few tea gardens would host tournaments and none of the registered organisations hosted tournaments during this time of the year. With lots of fanfare, the trophy and the logo of the tournament were unveiled on 2 December 2018. Never in the history of football has a trophy like this been unveiled. Kalimpong has always been the centre of the Gorkhaland movement and one such ceremony was also held there in which the Chairman of GTA proclaimed that the trophy was worth 500,000 rupees and this was only part of the development they envisaged for the region. The tournament was held in all the three sub-divisions of the Darjeeling district and one match was also held in Salugara, on the outskirts of Siliguri. It was a tournament through which the incumbents in the GTA wanted to pass a message that rather than agitating for a separate state it was better for the region to work in harmony with the state government for the development of the region. However, the public did not agree with them and they were opposed tooth and nail. An analysis of 220 Facebook posts about the tournament reflected that people did want to watch these matches even though after a gap of almost 30 years, good teams from outside the region were playing. However, 189 comments suggested that they would not watch the tournament as this would justify the Chairman and Deputy Chairman’s role in sabotaging the movement and their politics. Further, 138 comments said that they were holding this tournament to remain indispensable and functional and validate their status in front of the West Bengal Government. Bimal Gurung, the leader of the GJM, who was betrayed by the organisers of the tournament in the middle of the agitation and was opposed to the organisers and the tournament, in a meeting attended by the author said
they are doing politics to fill their stomachs while I am doing politics for the betterment of not just the present Darjeeling but also for the progeny. This football tournament is also conducted under the command of the state government otherwise do you think that teams like East Bengal and Mohammedan Sporting Club would come to participate? They only want to show to the outside world that the fire in the belly of the Gorkhas has dozed off. People will never accept them for what they have done and history will remember them for going against the people and the place.
Conclusion
From the history, it is evident that sports in Darjeeling have forged affective ties among people and also helped in building solidarity and “collective consciousness within the atomise urban environments”, which may have been, for some period in Darjeeling, lost due to the transition, but football “may [have] repair[ed] much of this social damage by enhancing the cultural bonding and integration of disparate individuals within modern societies” (Brown et al., 2009, p. 2). This bonding, affective ties, and solidarity were evident when the local teams played in the All India Gorkha Brigade Gold Cup and the teams from Darjeeling played outside of Darjeeling (Sundas, 2020). However, football has also apparently been used to fulfil political objectives and motives.
The GNLF used football and its potential to assert the cultural distinctiveness of the people and the region when they blundered by dropping the demand of Gorkhaland while signing the tripartite agreement to create the DGHC. On the other hand, the two leaders who surrendered and betrayed the movement used football to legitimise their betrayal and their political positions. In these years of political turmoil, one thing that was damaged the most was sports in general and football in particular.