Cooch Behar, A Part That India Has Been Slow To Embrace

West Bengal has 20 districts and I am happy that I have visited all of them. I had more or less done so even before I entered politics. As a child, my parents often packed us into a car or sent us off by bus on school trips to visit districts towns. This gave me exposure to the green countryside and the spectacular terrain of Bengal. Years later, when I set up my quiz company, I travelled across the state, conducting quizzes in district capitals and beyond. In fact, I have hosted a quiz in every district in West Bengal, the exceptions being South Dinajpur and Cooch Behar.

Located to the north of the state, in the foothills of the Himalayas, Cooch Behar has always fascinated me. It derives its name from the Koch dynasty. The Koch people (also known as Rajbongshis) are descended from among the oldest tribes in the subcontinent. The most famous member of the erstwhile royal house of Cooch Behar was Gayatri Devi, who was married into the House of Jaipur. She became a fashion icon and later, politician of some renown.

I finally visited Cooch Behar a few years ago as part of a parliamentary team, in my capacity as member of the Standing Committee on Home Affairs. That gave me some insight into the district and also an idea of what was going on yesterday, when Cooch Behar voted in the final phase of the West Bengal assembly election. Cooch Behar has nine seats and East Medinipur has 16. With these 25 seats, the long election has come to a close. Trinamool Congress is confident of winning about 80% of the seats that went to vote in these two districts. I won't say more, lest I begin to sound overconfident.

Coming back to Cooch Behar, this was one of the districts affected by the Partition of 1947. The division that year was on religious lines, and this created a minor distortion in the Cooch Behar area since some enclaves that should have come to India ended up going to East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and vice versa. The Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) signed between India and Bangladesh resolved this issue and exchanged 162 enclaves in 2015. It finally gave India, and Cooch Behar, a settled boundary.

This has also meant that the 2016 election will see many new voters, those who have finally become Indian citizens after years of living in Bangladesh, and have chosen to move to India as part of the LBA. Which way these first-time voters will go is anybody's guess, but we in the Trinamool are hoping the new residents will be persuaded by the constructive attitude and the development work of the state government. 
 Living in a big city in the middle of India, it is difficult to appreciate the problems of a frontier village or district. When I had visited Cooch Behar with my parliamentary colleagues, we had experienced first-hand the day-to-day troubles of people who were residents of both countries and citizens of neither, if that makes sense. We saw the Tin Bigha corridor, a narrow strip of Indian land that is the only access from one part of Bangladesh to another, and is now permanently leased to Bangladesh. We spoke to Border Security Force officers and jawans, doing a difficult job in difficult circumstances.

In the past five years, a lot has changed in Cooch Behar. There is a sense of tranquility and of a new beginning. For decades, the local Rajbongshis have felt alienation and deprivation, understandable for people and a region so far away from the centre of political power. This crystallised into a demand for autonomy and statehood, led by Bangshi Badan Barman, a local leader. In 2005, the agitation turned restive and was perhaps mishandled by the then CPI(M)-led government. There were clashes between the police and local protesters and five people were killed. Bangshi Badan Barman and some 40 associates were thrown into prison. 

The Mamata Banerjee government came to office in 2011 promising Cooch Behar the healing touch. Bangshi Badan Barman and his supporters were classified as "political prisoners" and freed in 2015. Efforts were made to address underdevelopment in Cooch Behar. The district has much going for it. It was a very well-planned town, perhaps the only one in north Bengal, when it was still ruled by a royal family. That heritage remains. Its tourism potential, especially with attractions such as the Cooch Behar Palace and the Madan Mohan Temple, is immense. Its climate and that it has an airport that can serve both Bengal and Assam add to its appeal.

I could have written this column on the so-called big picture and gone on and on about where the state elections are headed and how Bengal has voted. I decided to go micro, not macro. Because places like Cooch Behar rarely and barely find mention in our national media and national consciousness. For our Delhi-centric news channels, Cooch Behar is a distant second to Vasant Vihar. 

But it is the little stories and gains and achievements in far-flung constituencies such as those in Cooch Behar that are a validation of Trinamool's governance. And of our belief that this ushering in of a new political culture will be rewarded by voters. In Cooch Behar, as in Bengal.

(Derek O'Brien is leader, Parliamentary party Trinamool Congress (RS), and Chief National spokesperson of the party.)

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