Darjeeling: Subhash Ghising's name is no longer synonymous with the Gorkhaland movement. There is a new generation of leaders, desperate for attention, desperate for change.

 

But if under Ghising, Bimal Gurung, now the President of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, struck terror in the hills in 1986, today, he wants to be known as a Gandhian.

 

"Our students, Gorkhas are being beaten in the plains, ask around, so many tourists come, students come to study here. Have we slapped anyone?" says Gurung.

 

Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha, formed in October 2007, captured people's imagination last year with its campaign for the Indian Idol hearthrob Prashant Tamang.

 

Now, it has asked its cadre to carry Khukris, but restrain from using them in their fight for a separate state that also includes Siliguri, Terai and Dooars

 

"We have rejected the idea of the hill council. It has become a farce, rendered useless," says GJM secretary Roshan Giri.

 

The demand for Gorkhaland, some say, is as old as the hills. For the GJM, the focus is on the people who they believe have been left waiting by the state administration.

 

"After 20 years of DGHC the problem of drinking water remains the same," says Amar Lama of the GJM.

 

Ever since the agitations across the hills and the plains, there have been bandhs, counter-bandhs. All these appear to be tools in the process of acquiring the promised Gorkhaland.

 

As political parties of all colours slug it out on Darjeeling, this hill town and the many others it gives access to reminiscent of the 80s again await a decision on their futures.