Despite the initial excitement for many over Prashant Tamang's Indian Idol win in September, the unfortunate repercussions of that victory continue to drag out – in court, on the streets, and in the region's media. On 24 September, the day after the finale on Sony TV following a five-month televised competition, a Delhi-based radio DJ made allegedly racist remarks against 'Gorkhas' that subsequently turned Siliguri into a battle zone. Thousands came out onto the streets to show their anger, with the authorities ultimately calling out both the army and the Border Security Force. Over in the Indian capital, the Information Ministry banned the station, Red FM, for one week, and a Darjeeling court eventually issued an arrest warrant for R J Nitin, the DJ. By the middle of November the Supreme Court had gotten involved, staying the arrest until it could hear the case.
Despite this bittersweet experience, when all is said and done it has been heartening to see the Gorkha (or Gurkha) community uniting behind these causes on a nationwide level: first to crown Prashant Tamang the champion, and then going all out against a racial slur in distant Delhi. Nonetheless, these past few months have also been difficult, with feelings of discomfort amongst India's hill communities being unable to subside very easily. These incidents have not only brought about a resurgence of tension among India's Nepali/Gorkha populace, but have also further opened up a national debate on the very meaning of the term Gorkha itself.
Red FM certainly cannot take all of the blame. Well before that incident there was the Indian Idol episode in which Prashant was dressed up like a chowkidar to sing the famous song "Hum bolega to bologe ki bolta hai". This massive hit had originally been sung in the 1974 film Kasauti by the actor Pran, who had likewise dressed up as a chowkidar and had done much to cement in the public's perception the false conflation of the Gorkha/Nepali and the chowkidar. Neither was Prashant's performance the first time that such racist slurs have been aired by Sony TV. In February 2007, during the first episode of Comedy ka Baadshah, a performer enacted a parody of the famous song "Suno gaur se duniya waalo". He sang Hindi words to the effect of, "Listen people, do not lay your eyes on our houses. Because till the time there are gates on our houses, Nepalis will be there to guard them."
This merging of stereotypes extends well beyond the confines of pop culture in India. Pankaj Mishra, in a review of The Inheritance of Loss, blithely tossed out terms such as "Nepali Gurkha mercenary" while discussing the uprising in the Darjeeling Hills, casually including the last modifier with nary a second thought. In another instance, Suketu Mehta, in his extremely successful book Maximum City, said of a senior police officer in Bombay, after he had rejected an offer to take charge of security for a multinational company, "He won't be anyone's Gurkha." Needless to say, such a denial could easily have been narrated without this comment from the author.