Mizoram Gorkhas long for OBC status

Aizawl, Jul 14 : The Gorkha community in Mizoram has eagerly been waiting for the state government's nod to grant Other Backward Class (OBC) status to them.

The promise of the then Mizo National Front (MNF) ministry to include Gorkhas in Mizoram in the OBC category is yet to materialise, a Gorkha leader said here today.

It was on July 14,2008 that the then Rural Development minister H Vanlalauva said the MNF ministry would do 'everything' to grant the Gorkhas the long-awaited OBC status.

The Gorkhas reiterated their long-standing demand to Parliamentary Secretary Lal Thanzara, who graced the 196th birth anniversary of Adikavi Bhanu Bhakta Acharya, a renowned Nepali poet, at Kolasib on Tuesday.

Mr Thanzara assured the Gorkhas that he would do whatever he could to include the community in the OBC list in Mizoram.

Mr Thanzara said though Mizos and Gorkhas are not from the same ancestry, there is a good brotherhood between them.

''Gorkhas have been living in the state for more than hundred years and have built a good brotherhood with the majority Mizos,'' he said.

The declaration of Gorkhas, who had settled before 1950 and their descendants as bonafide citizens of Mizoram, was made during the Lal Thanhawla-led Congress ministry, Mr Thanzara said.

The Parliamentary Secretary praised the honesty of Gorkha people and urged to keep up this quality and maintain the harmonious coexistence with the Mizos.

Speaking at the function, B S Thappa, a Gorkha youth leader and lecturer at Government Kolasib College, recounted the loyalty of the Gorkhas towards Mizoram.

''The fact that 21 Gorkhas went underground and joined the Mizo National Front (MNF), when the latter was fighting for independence from the country, showed the solidarity of the community with the Mizo people,'' he said.

When Mizoram was elevated to statehood in 1987, the Constitution of India included the Gorkhas in the OBC list, depriving the Gorkhas of all privileges they had enjoyed before, the Gorkha leader said.

''If Mizoram government includes us in the OBC list, we will be able to enjoy certain rights and privileges without encroaching on the Mizoram's quota,'' he said.