GNLF founder Subhash Ghisingh passes away

Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) founder Subhash Ghisingh has passed away in New Delhi. He was 78.
He had spearheaded the Gorkhaland movement in the 1980s for a separate state for ethnic Gorkha people living in Darjeeling district of West Bengal.
Subhash Ghisingh

• He was born on 22 June 1936 at Manju Tea Estate in Darjeeling, West Bengal.
• In 1954, he had joined the Gorkha Rifles of the Indian Army as a soldier but quit in 1960.
• In 1968, he formed a political organisation called Nilo Jhanda to protect rights of the ethnic Gorkhas. Later, in April 1979, he raised the demand for a separate state for the Nepali-speaking people of the Darjeeling hills.
• In 1980, he had founded GNLF and led the movement, which disrupted the Darjeeling district with massive violence between 1986 and 1988.
• Later in 1988, this issue was resolved and resulted in setting up of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council, a semi-autonomous body.
• He was first chairman of Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council after winning the first council elections and was its chairman from 1988 to 2008.

Month: Current Affairs - January, 2015