The past weeks saw more publicity of the Gurkhas in Kathmandu. The young Singaporean photojournalist Zakaria Zainal launched his book, “Our Gurkhas: Singapore Through Their Eyes,” and also exhibited his black and white portraits of many retirees of the Singapore Police Force now living in different parts of Nepal as pensioners.[break]
Meanwhile, the 10th KIMFF (Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival) took place which, among others national, regional and international works, showcased Kesang Tseten’s 75-min documentary film, “Who Will Be A Gurkha,” shot at the Brigade of Gurkhas camp in Pokhara. For his singular work, Tseten received both the KIMFF International Jury Prize as well as the People’s Choice Award.
The two works on Nepal’s Gurkhas are created by non-Gurkhas – Zainal is a Malay Muslim of Singapore and Tseten being a Tibetan resident in Kathmandu.
It also must be noted that both Zainal’s and Tseten’s subjects are Nepal-born Nepali soldiers called the Gurkhas. They consist of some six major non-Hindu and ethnic martial races of Nepal: The Gurungs and Magars from the west and the Rais and Limbus from the east, with such fellow tribal groups as Tamangs, Dewans, Yakhas and other indigenous nationalities further complimenting the Brigade of Gurkhas as well as other forces manned by Gurkhas in Singapore, Brunei and elsewhere.
Both the above two topics of Tseten and Zainal deal with the world’s “most feared fighters” and “bravest soldiers” and most decorated Victoria Cross-winning warriors called the Gurkhas. But not much is known of the support group which makes it possible for this army to “crawl on its stomach,” as Napoleon said of his own army. However, these support personnel are present in both Tseten’s documentary and Zainal’s book: The men who manage the recruitment sessions in his film and some of the retirees in the photographs taken by Zainal are such people to be highlighted in this story.
The Babuji Paltan
For one such support system, readers must be taken to the celebrated Babuji Paltan of the British Brigade of Gurkhas. Babu and Ji mean Clerk and Sir in Hindi, and Paltan is the Nepali corruption of “platoon.” For every armed forces unit (battalion, regiment etc), there must be an administrative wing with clerks, record keepers, accountants, and mail service to keep the system going.
So the rest of this story is dedicated to the bureaucratic Babuji Paltan of the Brigade of Gurkhas, especially with reference to the norms followed over the 20-year period from 1950 to 1970.
There were fundamental differences between the recruitment process of soldiers for the Brigade and the enrolment of Babujis, even though the latter were officially designated “Riflemen Clerks.” And though both groups went through similar basic training for ten months, the British Gurkha soldiers lived in barracks and the Babujis had their own line living quarters.
While the infantrymen had to be Nepal-born, the Babujis were accepted from Nepali communities in India. While the soldiers had to be from six or seven non-Hindu ethnic hill tribes of Nepal, the Babujis represented all castes and tribal groups of Nepalis in India.
For instance, the group of 15 hopefuls this scribe joined in to “Go to Malaya,” two were Pradhans (Newar), three Lepchas (including me), two Sherpas, one Hyolmo, two Gurungs, one each Limbu and Rai, two Tamangs, and one Chhetri. [Disclaimer: My mother refused to allow me to join the Babuji Paltan; so I stayed back!] One previous group even had a Wang, a Chinese native of Darjeeling, and two Nepalis of mixed Bengali parentage.
Though the Riflemen Clerks in the Brigade of Gurkhas hailed from many parts of India, including Bhagsu and Dehradun in the west to Shillong, Aijawal and Manipur to the east, it was the three subdivisions – Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong – of the District of Darjeeling which supplied nine out of 10 successful applicants. Strangely, the adjacent Kingdom of Sikkim, even with its First Gurkha citizen in Ganju Lama as its living VC (Victoria Cross medal) recipient, rarely supplied any riflemen clerk recruits.
Education was another difference between Nepal’s infantrymen and India’s Nepali clerks in the Brigade. The infantrymen were essentially accepted as illiterate but had to be physically and mentally sound, whereas the clerks had to be educated, conversant in English and physically fit and with adequate IQ.
However, the educational criterion for the Babujis was one of the most comical aspects of the recruitment precondition; that is, every potential clerk had to have passed the ninth standard – no more and no less. Even a Matriculate (SLC equivalent in Nepal) Babuji was overqualified and hence unfit. So it was wise to submit only ninth-standard educational documents at the recruitment depot.
There was a valid reason for the academic ceiling; that is, the Ustads or Gurujis – the non-commissioned officer (NCO) trainers in the Brigade – were all Nepal-born and with just enough credentials in the basic 3Rs. Therefore, smartasses from Nepali India, with impressive smattering of English in Yankee accent and Brylcreem-pomaded hair a la James Dean and Elvis Presley, would pose greater problems for these lesser educated instructors and would also result in inferiority complex on the part of the Nepal-born infantry-oriented drill sergeants and army disciplinarians. So the inherent cleverness of the Babuji was peremptorily nipped in the bud, and the rest would be taken care of by shearing their stylish tonsures and by humiliating them on the parade grounds with the most abusive language and inhuman treatments imaginable for any army in the world. This can be a separate story of (in)human rights in the Brigade of Gurkhas.
Meanwhile, this was how a level playing field was created for one and all in the rank and file of the Brigade right from the first turnout outside the barracks for rigorous sweating and hard swearing. All recruits were equal before taming and training made them more equal by the dint of the humility imposed on them and the hammering they were subjected to. This was how brainwashing took place while Gurkha infantrymen and Babujis alike were stacked inside the hot kilns of soldiering to have them rolled out as fine-tuned fighters at the ready and at all times. That was why even clerks were called “riflemen” in the Brigade of Gurkhas and subject to strict periodic medical and physical checkups and backbreaking training regimes as soldiers.
Once the infantrymen from Nepal were ensconced in their army barracks and the Indian Nepali Babujis given their suitable quarters after completing their basic training, the Babuji Paltan came into its own semblance of what life was like in India. Culturally conscious as they were, the educated, worldly-wise and modern military men organized their clubby circles, held sing-along evenings of beer and lamb, formed rock bands, played and sang Nepali modern and folk music, rehearsed for their Dashain and Tihar Maruni Nach as well as Xmas and New Year soirees, celebrated Bhanu Jayanti with plays, dances and music. The Babujis had poets and lyricists, writers, tunesmiths, composers, musicians and singers while they turned out in smart uniforms for their daily office works.
One of the greatest Nepali Rock n’ Roll hits to come from the Brigade of Gurkhas in Hong Kong was “Musu musu hansideuna lai, lai, Musu musu hansideau.” One Sherpa in the group I forsook had a role in the Brad Pitt-starred “Seven Years in Tibet” many decades later.
The Babuji Paltan had their kindred souls in the teachers and principals of the Brigade schools for children. They were all imported from among the Nepalis in India. There were also Indian Nepali nurses in the medical corps as well as broadcasters at the Brigade’s radio station and editors and reporters for the army magazine. These professionals were among the most highly paid Nepalis anywhere in the world, with matching perks, benefits and future security in pensions and gratuities in their retirement.
The Babuji Paltan also had politically astute members who always put senior Gurkha and British officers on the edge. In these issues, a distinct dichotomy presented itself, depending on who was the Gurkha Major, the highest rank of a Nepali Gurkha. Officers were appointed and promoted from both the infantry ranks as well as the Babuji Paltan. The Indian Nepalis were more attuned to the modern world and it influenced their outlooks and approaches to handling matters liberally in the Brigade, whereas the Nepal-born infantry cadres were a bit hesitant or conservative. It was all a matter of geopolitical mentality of the respective countries they came from. Even within Nepal, the easterners and westerners were demographically and geographically at variance with each other in many instances: The easterners were more exposed to the nearby Indian outside while the westerners came from deeper hinterlands of Nepal. Therefore, in such stalemate cases that arose at times, the British could not watch with eyes askew or arms akimbo in their habitual divide-and-rule stance; they had to intervene with King Solomon’s wisdom.
One such politically inclined Rifleman Clerk in the Babuji Paltan must be mentioned. Deu Prakash Rai of Darjeeling joined the Brigade at its recruitment center in the Gorakhpur-Nautanwa sector in the 1950s. His true crusade was to preach anti-British Nepali nationalism among the Gurkhas in the Brigade, all at the expense of the British hosts and on their own turfs in Malaysia. He was soon ferreted out as an undesirable element and shipped out to the Barrackpore docks posthaste. In Darjeeling, he led the Gorkha League Party, and the denizens of Darjeeling elected him repeatedly as their representative MLA (Member of the Legislative Assembly) to Calcutta where he but spent his House Session months in wanton abandon. The present state of affairs and the two Gorkhaland agitations in Darjeeling are due to what he failed to pursue for his electoral district.
The group I didn’t join in to sail to Malaya in 1960/61 came back after their first four years of services in Hong Kong. They brought Dacron suit pieces, tweed jackets, Sanforized shirts, records by Cliff Richard and the Beatles, Philips record players, Rolleiflex cameras, Japanese electric guitars and amplifiers. They brought home the fruits of their hardships in the Brigade of Gurkhas which was also a source of perennial remittance.
As it was then, the Babuji Paltan of the Brigade of Gurkhas was largely manned by quiet and unsung riflemen who did the clerking for the regiments. They made it possible for the Brigade to crawl on its stomach in war, peacetime and the lulls in between.
The writer is the copy chief at The Week and can be contacted at pjkarthak@gmail.com
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