Mamata Banerjee has initiated an essay to woo the Adivasis in the Dooars to undercut the impact of the renewed movement for Gorkhaland that has virtually crippled Darjeeling for the past two months. In a way, the initiative is reminiscent of the CPI-M's strategy in 2009 when Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had countered efforts to include the entire Terai, Dooars and Siliguri in the proposed Gorkhaland. The agitation for a separate Kamtapur in the Cooch Behar region remains another thorny issue to contend with. Markedly, the Chief Minister's overtures were distinctly intended to play to the Adivasi gallery in the Dooars; she is acutely aware that the GJMM muscle-flexing with khukris in Siliguri last week was a pregnant move ~ potentially intended to extend the statehood movement from the Hills to the plains.

Her iteration that she will not allow a further division of Bengal ~ once again recalling the Leftist stand when in power ~ can be contextualised with the gradual spread of sub-regional jingoism. One could of course argue that the Bengal Left had changed its stand ever since it advocated ~ in the late 1940s ~ a separate state in the Hills. And if Junglemahal is any indication, subaltern strife in the plains can be no less a forbidding challenge than the ethnic upheaval in the hills.

It thus comes about that at last Wednesday's meeting of the Tribal Advisory Council, the Chief Minister almost readily agreed to several of the demands raised by the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad. Chief among them is to drop the cases pending against its members for their involvement in the violence in the Dooars (2009-10), notably when the CPI-M was in power. Miss Banerjee has asked the tribal welfare department and the police brass to take a call on the cases and take steps to drop them. To ensure the peace and thwart any extension of the Gorkha movement, the government has taken a bow in the direction of the potentially restive Adivasis. Pragmatic realism, to use Marxist terminology.

Her directive at the meeting to distribute land pattas to Adivasis who have for generations been working in the tea gardens is of a piece with the overall intiative to woo this segment. No less significant was the venue of the meeting ~ at Uttarkanya in Fulbari, very much within Adivasi territory. The pledge to rename a certain college after the tribal leader, Birsa Munda, is a recognition of the rich tribal heritage of the Adivasis. As must be the official release of the Alchiki dictionary ~ the language of the tribal. The welter of initiatives are of a piece with the Adivasi opposition to the Gorkhaland movement, claiming that it is a "direct affront" to their homeland in the Dooars.