PETER J. KARTHAK- This piece is on “Who Will Be A Gurkha,” the 75-min documentary film made by Kesang Tseten and shown at the recent 10th KIMFF (Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival).
The unpretentious but revealing film highlights thousands of late-teen Nepali male applicants aspiring to join the Brigade of Gurkhas of the British Army. All eligible Nepali male citizens are invited to a recent “free, fair and transparent” selection process – allegedly the most rigorous of any army recruitment drive in the world.
Finally, less than 200 recruits are accepted as infantrymen in the Brigade of Gurkhas. So the Biblical adage of “Many are called but few are chosen” is seen in the film’s depiction of so many hopefuls vying for so few places. As retention is low and rejection is as high as 98%, there’s much more sadness than triumph when the gates are closed at the end of the present British Gurkha recruitment marathon.
The wannabes want nothing short of individual soldierly berths in the Brigade of Gurkhas, in the failure of which there’s such a colossal wastage as to boggle one’s mind. For every Gurkha recruit selected, 49 other aspirers must be rejected and tearfully frustrated, as detailed by Tseten’s docudrama.
Not surprisingly, one of the Nepali Gurkha veterans in charge of the selection process at the Gurkha Brigade’s recruiting center in Pokhara, where the documentary was shot, advises one failure to look for other options available in life as “the British Army alone isn’t the only thing for you.” Indeed true for concrete consolation from an oldster who’s been through decades of varied experience in the Brigade: The young wannabe failed to belong to the elite force, but he shouldn’t consider himself a poor loser. But will his parents, siblings, fellowmen and girlfriend in the village understand this?
It’s UK – or bust! Two aspirants already fantasize about Britain: “Perhaps we won’t be taken by road. It’s all zigzag. So we’ll be flown in aircraft which is straight and direct.”
All this, despite another senior Nepali Gurkha officer in charge admonishing another young rejected applicant: “Why do you so wish to join a foreign army like this?”
The other reason is more valid. A Gurkha counselor has the last words for a particular applicant: “I don’t ever want to see you here again.” He is obviously a repeater. “Your eyesight is hopelessly weak, yet you reappear here. Don’t do it from next year, okay?”
As it is, the rejection rate is so high. But these young men want to have what they want – and most can’t! That’s the message of the documentary film.
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As the viewer delves steadily into the documentary, other visual and narrative skeins unfurl.
The first is the curiosity and anxieties of the mostly Mongoloid and non-Hindu Nepal-born recruits gathered to try their luck. Today’s would-be British Gurkha “Lahure” (See Note below) are steeped in visits to the libraries in town, surfing the websites and Wikipedia and reading reference books, and thus answering the interviewing panel’s questions as if by habitual rote in clichéd English – of all languages.
This should make the new British Gurkhas the first English-language-prone soldiers in the world. Their past predecessors were almost illiterate in the olden days; while they were trained in warfare, they were also taught the 3Rs in service. Not so these days, as the documentary makes clear. Previously, Gurkha recruits appeared almost nude, in scant loincloths; today’s would-be Gurkhas are clad in t-shirts, jerkins and their feet in running shoes. They prepare themselves in athletics, calisthenics and other physical training routines before they report at the recruitment center.
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In the viva voce sessions, the documentary shows a lack of articulation in both the British and Nepali Gurkha officers in explaining fully the pros and cons to the recruits. The three or four British officers speak in different accents of Berkshire, Kent, Gloucestershire and elsewhere, leaving the recruits puzzled in deciphering the intonation and pronunciation of the phonemes and morphemes spoken by each of the “Gora Saab” officers who include one female officer. The Nepali officers mainly communicate in Nepali to the “rangruts” but their Nepali also has some tinges of otherworldliness.
Coming to the panel of interviewers comprising Sandhurst-commissioned officers, who are always in combat camouflage in the film, and their Brigade-hardened Nepali counterparts in smart mufti, the inner or in-service politics of the army comes to the fore. In these collective decision-making rounds, the Nepali officers seem to surpass head over heels. Some instances:
While the lady officer makes her opinions about one interviewee, the Nepali officer to her right mutters “yes,” “yeah,” “ummm,” “ahem” ad nauseam and keeps stalling, not expressing a single word. The officer looks at him and waits for his verdict. The scene fades and shifts, to the viewer’s relief!
There’s an age-old reason for such adamant nose-up taciturnity on the part of the Nepali officers. A freshly-minted Sandhurst-manufactured 2nd Lieutenant of 23 years of age may outrank all Nepali Gurkha officers, but there’s no way to contest a veteran’s years of experiences which a Gurkha Captain or Major will have begun accumulating at a time when the said officer was a mere toddler and in potty training. So Nepali Gurkha officers call these British greenhorns “Sanu Saheb.” In the case of this lady officer, she would be addressed as “Sanu Mem” or something like that. There’s no misogyny suggested or displayed here; it’s just the earned values added to a veteran Nepali soldier’s maturity which an upstart British military brat must unconditionally respect.
In another scene, the presiding Sandhurst officer is positive about a particular candidate and awaits comments from the Nepali officer by his side. The Nepali counterpart vetoes by stating that the candidate’s racial slurs and casteist views are for earning “sympathy votes” for his selection. Case dismissed!
There’s a grading to be awarded in another scene. The Nepali officer, perhaps a retired Gurkha Major, the most senior rank for Gurkha enlistees, toys with his reading glasses, unhooking the frame from his ears and placing it on the table, putting it on, and repeating the process all over again. While the Gora Saheb looks on and waits, his Nepali junior counterparts have mirthful smiles on their faces as to what will transpire. Finally, the taciturn Major awards a measly number to the recruit’s written test paper. There!
In another session, a would-be Gurkha mentions “dhotis” in denigration, indicating a certain country and its people. The British officer gently reprimands him in no uncertain English. There’s hint that perhaps the Sahab himself is another kind of dhoti? That’s his parting shot before being rejected.
Then there’s a fun party at the Brigade of Gurkhas camp with parodied dances, a scene already suggestive of John Masters characters in the offing in the new British Gurkhas.
There’s a cast of characters among the recruits as well. The documentary records their talks and repartees. One among them is the smartass of the lot, talkative, and a jester. As viewer, I already consign him to the slush pile. Such a “clever” character isn’t fit to be a Gurkha. Not surprisingly, he’s rejected. With wet eyes, he shoulders his overstuffed bag and walks to the gates where his waiting guardians take him back into the family fold. The two UK dreamers are also homeward bound, along with the other 9,800+ rejects, including one who loves his mom and dad “so much” – words of affection guaranteed to doom a potential Gurkha material.
“Who Will Be A Gurkha” ends with the passing-out parade of the accepted recruits, following their months of training, and they file by after taking their oath in front of the portrait of bucktoothed Queen Elizabeth II.
By 2027, each of them will have completed 15 years of service in the British Brigade of Gurkhas, and will be eligible for honorable pension for life. The oldest among them will be 35, a prime age with enough experiences, and more fitting for the next employment prospects – the Singapore Police, the luxury liners plying the pirate-infested Strait of Malacca, professional security posts in Nepal or the Gulf, embassies and international agencies in Kathmandu. The list is long.
Meanwhile, the final fading seconds of Kesang Tseten’s documentary heralds the future of a freshly burnished contingent of Gurkhas. Will there be recruitment next year, or the year after that? Let’s hope there’ll be, as long as there’ll be newer Kosovos, Afghanistans, Iraqs and other troubled spots in the world needing Gurkha deployments.
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To write this piece, I had to suspend my reading of Eric Hobsbawm’s seminal book called “Bandits” – a tome which is timely for reference here.
The copy I have belongs to the first edition of 1969, published by Delacorte Press of New York, and is uniquely placed in the Pageant of History Series. It’s the back of the book’s blurb that is of interest to me. It declares, “This lively and informative series tells the story of little-known but important historical groups of men and movements: religious sects, political parties and causes, military and professional elites, castes, cults and institutions of all sorts. The authors of these volumes are talented writers and specialists in the fields, and their narratives are both dramatic and authoritative. The books are profusely illustrated with pictures that illuminate and enhance the text.”
Then the page has the following list of books and authors under the Pageant of History Series:
BANDITS – Eric Hobsbawn
GLADIATORS – Michael Grant
GURKHAS – David Bolt (my emphasis)
HIGHWAYMEN – Christopher Hibbert
NIHILISTS – Ronald Hingley
THE SAINTS – Edith Simon
DUELLING CORPS – Robert Baldick
HITLER’S S. S. – Richard Grunberger
SAMURAI – Ivan Morris
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NOTE ON “LAHURE” OR “LAHUREY”
It’s the most misplaced moniker ever given to the British Gurkhas.
In fact, the first and the last Lahure-s were Generals Bal Bhadra Kunwar and Amar Singh Thapa and their Gorkhali fighting men who forever left Nepal to join Ranjit Singh, the Sikh “Sher-e-Punjab,” or the Lion of Punjab, in his capital Lahore; hence the origin of the byname “Lahurey.”
The exodus was due to the disillusionment of Thapa and Kunwar with the Kathmandu Durbar for being more accommodating to the British in India while the two Gorkhali commanders were adding more territories for Nepal. They declared their allegiance to Ranjit Singh for a common cause against the increasing British influence in India.
This devolution nearly brought the Gurkhas against each other, with one band of previous brothers-at-arms on the side of the British, and the other poised with Ranjit Singh and his Sikh warriors.
The British Gurkhas’ true birthplace is Quetta where the First Shirmoor Battalion was raised against the Afghans and to check the Russian ambitions southward to the Hunza, the Khyber and the Kashmir frontiers during the Great Game.
A pair of Russian-made brass cannons captured by the Gurkhas in the campaign traveled from India and Southeast Asia to finally Hong Kong where the guns, polished and shining, adorned the main entrance to the GTR (Gurkha Transit Regiment) Camp, thereby popularly known as Gun Club, on Austin Road, off Nathan Road, in Kowloon.
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