The British and the Gurkhas: Worlds Apart? (Satis Shroff, Freiburg)

Even though generations of Nepalese soldiers called the fearsome Gurkhas, have fought Britain's colonial and other wars (Falklands, Croatia, Iraq) the Gurkhas don't have the same rights as ordinary British citizens.

It was a magnificent scenario: the proud Royal Scouts led British cadets, Territorial Army and Gurkhas over Waverly Bridge and along Princes Street. The Gurkhas were led by a man in spotted leopard cloak beating a drum, followed by vehicles with armed Gurkhas.

Who are these Gurkhas? You might ask. They are Britain's 3,500 elite soldiers from the small Himalayan country Nepal. These Gurkhas have fought and died with the British Armed Forces for two centuries. This year, according to the Scotsman (news.scotsman.com), Gurkhas have been dumped back in Nepal with a stipend by the thousand. This, after two centuries of fighting your wars for you.They are not, never have been, paid the same as a British soldier.

When it comes to money-matters, the Brits have always regarded the Gurkhas as cheap labourers and mercinaries that you can recruit in a matter of months, or even weeks. There are always 28,000 young Nepalese who want to join the Royal Gurkha Brigade. Only 200 are chosen annually. What happens to the others? Do they join the Maoists to get battle experience? I knew one named Kunjo Lama who didn't make it at the recruiting depot in Dharan (Eastern Nepal) and worked as a teacher in a Nepalese village in the hills rather than face the ignominy of returning home as the laughing stock of the hamlet dwellers. Losing one's face is something serious in the Nepalese world, and for the Nepalese psyche. But Kunjo made it at the next admissions and even took part in the Falkland War at Port Stanley against the Argentinians.He showed me a photograph from his wallet of himself and his fellow Gurkhas in front of a helicopter, armed to the teeth during the war at the Malvinas.

Sometime later during a trip to London I saw how the South Asian people were living in London's East End, where the Cockneys use to live earlier, with its brick-houses (Monica Ali's 'Brick Lane'). Nay, the Gurkhas didn't even enjoy the same status as the asylum-seekers from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Jamaica and other former colonies, settled in London's East End or Southhall. The Gurkhas are based in Church Crookham, Hampshire, but they are lucky if they can return to their home country after fighting Britain's wars and police missions in the British Rhine Army, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Borneo, Cyprus, Falklands, Lebanon, Croatia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan.

To think that so many ethnic Nepalese mothers have lost their sons, and so many children have lost their fathers and sisters their dear brothers fighting for the Glory of Britain, is indeed worth contemplating and discussing about in the London Parliament by the new government.The Gurkhas, who are ruthless warriors at war, have always been obedient, loyal, disciplined and subordinate to their British officers for 200 years. Their loyalty and bravery have always been unfaltering. Had Indira Gandhi taken the Gurkhas as her personal bodyguards like the Queen of England, instead of the Sikhs, at a time when when the storming of the Golden Temple of Amritsar was a big issue in Punjab and India, I'm sure she would have lived longer.
But most South Asians think: that's kismat. It was written that she had to die a violent death. Schicksalsdenken.

A Gurkha serves in the Army a minimum of fifteen and a maximum of thirty years after which they are discharged and obliged to leave Britain for Nepal. No, they aren't allowed to stay on, settle down and enjoy the English countryside with their meagre pensions, as far as English lifestyles and pays-scales are concerned. This speaks for the British government's nefarious 'special treaty' with the Gurkhas and the Royal Narayanhiti Palace in Kathmandu (Nepal). Nepal is on its way to becoming a democratic state and the government will have to make positive ammendments or scrap the treaty and draw a new one with human rights and dual citizenships for the Gurkhas.

The British government always uses Nepal's government pay-scales as a yardstick to pay off their loyal Gurkhas. There are so many British citizens working all over the world but what would happen if they were paid according to the laws existing under the rule of Queen Victoria and receiving the same pay scale as in those days. The Gurkhas are not living in the past but in the present and the cost of living is high everywhere and their families need food, clothing and education. Gurkhas aren't social cases for the men have been enlisted by Her Majesty's officers at Dharan (Nepal) to serve in the Gurkha Brigades, which officers like to emphasise as an integral part of the British Army. The British government realised soon enough that the India of the former Raj were being qualified and were clever at Oxford and Cambridge and they wouldn't tolerate the master-and-servant relationship which the burra sahibs had propagated during the Raj.

But Nepal is another matter. The Ranas and Shahs have exploited the country and its manpower resource for longer than two centuries and were to blame for the bad manpower management deals with the then British government. Another factor that is Nepal's disadvantage is the fact that Nepal wasn't really conquered by the East India Company and has thus never belonged to the British Commonwealth. That explains why the wealth and equality hasn't reached Nepal's Himalayan boundaries as yet, for the targets of equality are always specific and comprise aristocratic privilege, capitalist wealth, bureaucratic power, racial or sexual supremacy, and the desire of a group of people to dominate their fellows.
Today, we have the possibility of doing away with these discriminations and injustices. Under Gordon Brown we have the chance to give the Gurkhas a helping hand of real friendship, and not only lip-service, and make good.

Prior to the EU-membership of East Bloc countries, when a Polish worker came to help pluck the strawberries in the vicinity of Freiburg (Germany), they weren't paid the actual rate for west workers in Germany either. Now that the Poles have no zlotys, and are paid in Euros in their own countries, it doesn't seem to be lucrative to go all the way to Germany, with the result that the strawberries get overripe and go kaputt. Ethnic Germans are reluctant to do this back-breaking job under the blazing sun.

The British Army onced sacked 111 Gurkhas, and as a result the Gurkhas wrote a petition to the Queen of England to help the men who had been sent to Nepal, and to improve the treatment of the Gurkhas (who had after all fought for Britain in the Falklands) throughout the Army. The petition to Queen Elizabeth II was signed: Your Majesty's most obedient servants. The all (sic) ranks of SP 1/7th Gurkha Rifles.

A question that vexed me is why the Gurkha children have to do the SLC (School Leaving Certificate) exams of Nepal, instead of the GCE 'A' levels, like all school-kids in England? The British government and the Nepalese monarchs never appreciated the importance of better, higher education for the offsprings of the Gurkhas. With British educational certificates and degrees thousands of sons and daughters of the Gurkhas would have had better chances in their lives and would be much better off than their soldiering Dads and brothers. The idea from the start was to put the Gurkhas and their families in ghettos alias barracks or lines, and no attempts were made to integrate them and their families in the British society.

If a Gurkha would join France's Foreign Legion, they'd be taught the French language and would get a much better status in the French society than the British give to the Gurkhas. I don't want to say alas, but Nepal just wasn't a French colony, though the French managed to come up to an enclave named Pondicherry in India. Nepal has no special relationships with the French but with the British

There have been isolated instances of Gurkhas involved in recent courtroom skirmishes with the British Ministry of Defence to receive the same pension and conditions as other British soldiers. Whereas an ex-Gurkha received 40,000 English pounds payment from Britain after a court ruling, which was an isolated instance, another Gurkhas claim was rejected by a Nepal court. 'Better to die than be a coward' is the motto of the Gurkha warriors who are an integral part of the British Army. It should run 'better to fight a battle with a good lawyer against the Ministry of Defence than against Britains foes, as we say in Germany: bis die Fronten geklärt sind.

Britain and its admirable people still have to do a bit of soul-searching on the question of their best friends-in-arms. The officers in the administration and the Defence Ministry think of the Gurkhas still as cannon-fodder and not as humans, at eye-level with the same rights and equality. They still play the game of the Raj: masters and servants. This must not be tolerated and must be put to an end by the new government at 10 Downing Street, for they have gone too far. It is hoped that the impeccable British people will rally around and support the brave but legally weak Gurkhas by giving them a helping hand. I know that the British people do give a helping hand when necessary and that I appeal to their fairness.

What is the difference between an asylum-seeker and a Gurkha in Britain? In the long run the asylum-seeker gets a British passport, British pay (if he or she's qualified) and British rights and his or her children kindergartens,schools, colleges and universities in Britain, and become a part of the British mainstream. Not so the Gurkhas and their families.

Due to questionable 'special relations' between Britain and Nepal that haven't been ratified yet, the poor Gurkha and his family have to say goodbye to Britain and head for the barren hills of Nepal. That's the plight of what Sir Ralph Turner MC, 3rd Queen Alexandra's Own Gurkha Rifles, 1931 said, „ Bravest of the brave, most generous of the generous, never had a country more faithful friends than you.“

When you think of how true, loyal friends are treated for their faithfulness in even present-day Britain, you can only shake your head or hide in shame.

During the Falklands War out in the Malvinas under Margret Thatcher's primiership, the British were put in an embarassing situation by Argentina's UN- representative for he accused the British of having deployed 'Gurkha mercinary' troops. The British government demented that and said it had special relationsships with Nepal and that the Gurkhas were its own troops, belonging to and integrated in the British Army.

But the sad reality is: when a British leutenant saunters by, a Gurkha-Major is obliged to salute him! And not the other way around. This still means that all soldiers are equal in the British or Gurkha army, but some solders are more equal than the others, George Orwell's Animal Farm, which Gurkha school children learn in good English schools in India's Darjeeling and Nepal. In this context it must be mentioned that 45,000 Gurkhas died in the two World Wars under the Union Jack and another thousand since then, even though the Gurkhas were reduced and demobilised to Brigade strength in the British and Regiment strength in the Indian Army. This was after the partition of India in 1947 after an agreement between Nepal, India and Britain, whereby four regiments from the Indian Army were transferred to the British Army, which then became the Gurkha Brigade.

It's still the white sahib commanding the natives, despite the so-called handsome pensions that the Gurkhas receive, according to Nepalese standards. When I lecture in Switzerland I earn almost 100 Swiss Francs per hour, like all Swiss and German lecturers, without discrimination about my origin and descent. I think that it's high time that the Gurkhas received the same wages as their British fellow soldiers. Please don't come up with the Sugauli Treaty or 'special relations crap' that dates to the times of Queen Victoria and Junga Bahadur Rana. We are living in modern times and democracy exists in England since a long time. The world has learned from the British what fairness is not only in sport but in everyday life.

I think it's high time that the Gurkhas went to an international court in Strassburg, Belgium UN(NY) and received Flankenschutz from Human Rights Organisations in Britain, Britain Watch, NGOs and whatever. Sally and rally around and give the Gurkhas a helping hand so that they can also have equal rights and their sons can receive education in Britain and when they are qualified they can work and live there. They are not exotic creatures, they are human beings who also ought to have human rights.Britain still has the chance to repair the damage it has done towards the Gurkhas by giving their children a decent English education, for education is the best gift we can give to children. Give education to a Gurkha child and you have given him or her something very valuable and priceless and they will be thankful all their lives.
If you don't know the impact that the death of a Gurkha can have on his near and dear-ones, then please read the following lyric and think of the plight of the Gurkha mother:

A GURKHA MOTHER (Satis Shroff)
(Death of a Precious Jewel)

The gurkha with a khukri
But no enemy
Works for the British Gurkhas
And yet gets shot at
In missions he doesn't comprehend.
Order is hukum,
Hukum is life
Johnny Gurkha still dies under foreign skies.
He never asks why
Politics isn't his style
He's fought against all and sundry:
Turks, Tibetans, Italians and Indians
Germans, Japanese, Chinese
Argentinians and Vietnamese.
Indonesians and Iraqis.
Loyalty to the utmost
Never fearing a loss.
The loss of a mother's son
From the mountains of Nepal.
Her grandpa died in Burma
For the glory of the British.
Her husband in Mesopotemia
She knows not against whom
No one did tell her.
Her brother fell in France,
Against the Teutonic hordes.
She prays to Shiva of the Snows for peace
And her son's safety.
Her joy and her hope
Farming on a terraced slope.
A son who helped wipe her tears
And ease the pain in her mother's heart.
A frugal mother who lives by the seasons
And peers down to the valleys
Year in and year out
In expectation of her soldier son.
A smart Gurkha is underway
Heard from across the hill with a shout
'It’s an officer from his battalion.
A letter with a seal and a poker-face
"Your son died on duty," he says,
"Keeping peace for Her Majesty
The Queen of England."
A world crumbles down
The Nepalese mother cannot utter a word
Gone is her son,
Her precious jewel.
Her only insurance and sunshine
In the craggy hills of Nepal.
And with him her dreams
A spartan life that kills.
Glossary:
gurkha: soldier from Nepal
khukri: curved knife used in hand-to-hand combat
hukum: Befehl/command/order
shiva: a god in Hinduism

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Dear Satis,

Namaskar! I am a retired Gurkha soldier, currently residing in Nottingham. I read your recent article “The British and the Gurkhas: Worlds Apart”. Many thanks for this and I really appreciate your article which is very informative. I have several contacts and will certainly pass this article to them.
I served 20 years under the flagship of the Union Jack in the Gurkha Regiment, but never had a chance to deploy in active war. During my 20 years experience, there were so many discriminations being laid in between British and Gurkha soldiers. I always asked myself, why they are treating us like this even when we deploy in the war alongside British counterparts, the enemy never spare us because of our cheap status. But we were sought to keep remaining quiet. Our Senior Officers were British, trained at Sandhurst Academy and the way they were treating us very painful in terms of comparing the way of life in Britain and Nepal.
As you had written 111 Gurkha soldiers were sent home without pension from Hawaii incident. The main cause was their Company Commander, the British Major (no name). He was so cruel and always been treated the Gurkha soldiers as slaves and he gave a speech to the American soldiers highlighting that the Gurkha soldiers are very poor in Nepal, uncivilized etc…. Although we were taught hard and respect our seniors, 111 soldiers could not bear this humiliation and the incident took place.

After having been fighting against with the British Government by the series of Ex-Gurkha Servicemen Organisation more than a decade, finally the British Government has given green light to settle the Gurkhas in the UK, but setting the magic cut off date of 1997. Those who are retired before 1997 are not allowed to settle in UK. Now, the British Government has reviewed the new terms and conditions of the Gurkhas after much pressure delivered by the some Ex-Gurkha Servicemen Organisations. The British Government reviewed and this special news of treating same footage of British counterparts been spread all over the world via media, but they did not review as per British soldiers.

Tul Bahadur Pun, VC, 84 arrived in UK on 5 July for his medical treatment. He was barred by the British Embassy to grant settlement visa a month ago. His application was rejected by saying” He has no close tie with Britain”, what a shame! This was the man who was awarded the Victoria Cross during World War II saving the Gurkhas and British soldiers in the battle field and he was fighting for Britain, not for Nepal or other countries. He was later granted a settlement visa after much pressure created by the British public. We have many widows, orphans and Gurkha veterans without pension. This is how we do not understand that the BritishGovernment can move the gaol post at any place and at any time he wishes, negating the human rights and delivering injustice to the Gurkhas who have fought for Britain and given their lives by the thousands.

Satisji, again. Thank you very much for your article.


G. Rai
From : Nottingham

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Sir,

A friend forwarded an article you had written about the Gurkhas and their British masters. I am impressed by your knowledge of the 'internal going-ons' within a Gurkha regiment and that the facts in your article reflects the true goin-ons in a Gurkha regiment.

Yet again, we have lost out on our demands for equal pensions. The government has on 08 March 2007 announced equal pensions that have once again fooled the general public. My British friends congratulate me that finally I will now receive equal pensions with my British counterpart.

The real picture is now that the British Government has given equal pensions to Gurkhas I as a Warrant Officer 2 get an annual pension of £3138 for 22 years service against my British counterparts annual pension of £12,114 for 22 years service. The British Government calls this equalpension! Could I please request your kind assistance in spreading this word far and wide.

I hope you have the time to study the attached British/Gurkha Pension rates.
With kind regards.

G. Limbu

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About the Author:

Satis Shroff is a writer and poet based in Freiburg (poems, fiction, non-fiction) who also writes on ethno-medical, culture-ethnological themes, and writes regularly for The American Chronicle (http://www.amchron.com/), and is a contributing writer on www.boloji.com and also Blog.ch. He has studied Zoology and Botany in Nepal, Medicine and Social Science in Germany and Creative Writing in Freiburg and Manchester. He describes himself as a mediator between western and eastern cultures and sees his future as a writer and poet. Satis Shroff was awarded the German Academic Exchange Prize.He is a lecturer in Basle (Switzerland).

Writing experience: Satis Shroff has written two language books on the Nepalese language for DSE (Deutsche Stiftung für Entwicklungsdienst) & Horlemannverlag. He has written three feature articles in the Munich-based Nelles Verlag’s ‘Nepal’ on the Himalayan Kingdom’s Gurkhas, sacred mountains and Nepalese symbols and on Hinduism in ‘Nepal: Myths & Realities (Book Faith India) and his poem ‘Mental Molotovs’ was published in epd-Entwicklungsdienst (Frankfurt). He has written many articles in The Rising Nepal, The Christian Science Monitor, the Independent, the Fryburger, Swatantra Biswa (USIS publication, Himal Asia, 3Journal Freiburg. Also read his poems, articles in http://www.yahoo/ & http://www.google/ search under: satis shroff freiburg.

What others have said about the author:

Satis Shroff writes political poetry—about the war in Nepal, the sad fate of the Nepalese people, the emergence of neo-fascism in Germany. His bicultural perspective makes his poems rich, full of awe and at the same time heartbreakingly sad. In writing ‘home,’ he not only returns to his country of origin time and again, he also carries the fate of his people to readers in the West, and his task of writing thus is also a very important one in political terms. His true gift is to invent Nepalese metaphors and make them accessible to the West through his poetry. (Sandra Sigel, poetess, Germany). An anthology of poems and prose ‘Between Two Worlds’(Satis Shroff) can be read at www.Lulu.com/content/247475.

.Die Schilderungen von Satis Shroff in ‘Through Nepalese Eyes’ sind faszinierend und geben uns die Möglichkeit, unsere Welt mit neuen Augen zu sehen.“ (Alice Grünfelder von Unionsverlag / Limmat Verlag, Zürich).

Since 1974 I have been living on and off in Nepal, writing articles and publishing books about Nepal-- this beautiful Himalayan country. Even before I knew Satis Shroff personally (later) I was deeply impressed by his articles, which helped me very much to deepen my knowledge about Nepal.Satis Shroff is one of the very few Nepalese writers being able to compare ecology, development and modernisation in the ‘Third’ and ‘First’ World. He is doing this with great enthusiasm, competence and intelligence, showing his great concern for the development of his own country. (Ludmilla Tüting, journalist and publisher, Berlin).

Due to his very pleasant personality and in-depth experience in both South Asian, as well as Western workstyles and living, Satis Shroff brings with him a cultural sensitivity that is refined. His writings have always reflected the positive attributes of optimism, tolerance, and a need to explain and to describe without looking down on either his subject or his reader. (Kanak Mani Dixit, Himal Southasia, Kathmandu)

Satis Shroff writes with intelligence, wit and grace. (Bruce Dobler, Associate Professor in Creative Writing MFA, University of Iowa).
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satisle@myway.com