Kokrajhar, May 25: Given his fascination for “border” themes, filmmaker J.P. Datta may not need too much prodding to make a film on the travails of the residents of Darranga, a once thriving town on the Indo-Bhutan border in Assam. Since the Royal Bhutan Army’s offensive against militants, life has been unkind to several thousand families dependent on trade with the Bhutanese people for their livelihood.
Darranga is about 115 km from Nalbari town and part of the newly created Baska district, which is administered by the Bodoland Territorial Council. The population is a mix of Bodos, Nepalis and Adivasis.
Though Bhutan’s operation against militant groups has ended, the border gates in Samdrup Jongkhar town of the Himalayan kingdom remain closed.
The ambience in the marketplaces now is a far cry from the days when residents on either side of the border used to do brisk business.
Residents of Darranga said gate number 2 was closed by the Bhutanese authorities without warning, dealing a blow to border trade. Till the military operation, the Samdrup Jongkhar administration had kept gates 2 and 3 open in spite of the Royal Government of Bhutan constructing a boundary wall during 1997-98.
“Since gate number 2 was closed, approximately 700 shops in Darranga and several thousand families have been without any source of income,” trader M. Karki said.
Another resident of the town, Bir Bahadur Chetry, narrated the same tale of woe. “The Bhutanese authorities and officials on this side of the border had assured us that they would co-operate with one another to maintain the relationship between the people of the two countries. But see what happened.”
Residents submitted a memorandum to Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi recently, calling for diplomatic pressure on Bhutan to open gates 2 and 3 in Samdrup Jongkhar. “Now that the situation is normal, there is no reason why the gates cannot be reopened. People will die if this is not done,” Chetry said.