Remembering the Forgotten Soldiers of a Vanished Empire

It is that time of year again when Australians and New Zealanders remember their fallen war heroes and celebrate the veterans as part of the ANZAC Day festivities. It is an occasion when the self-sacrifice of the few are mourned and mythologized, and the values they fought for are cheered and cherished by the multitude. It is a day when the national fabric is examined, repaired and renewed in solemn ceremonies held across Australia, New Zealand and Gallipoli, Turkey.

On this occasion, I shall remember another group of heroes, second to none in valour, sacrifice, comaraderie and courage under fire, whose stories remain largely untold, who have been shoved into the shadows of history, who have been disowned by their own compatriots. I am talking about Gurkhas, the forgotten soldiers of a vanished empire.

A fortuitous by-product of the 19th century British imperial adventures in India, Gurkhas shared many commonalities with their ANZAC counterparts. Both Gurkhas and ANZACs, along with colonials such as Sikhs in India, fought in wars in which they had no discernible stakes. Both served masters whose chief interest in them lay in using them as shock troops to further their imperial gains. Both were heaped with soaring rhetorical bouquets but cast away thoughtlessly as soon as they outlived their usefulness. Both were used as political pawns by their respective leaders eager to please an empire where the sun never set.

The crucial difference between the Gurkhas and ANZACs lies in the way they were perceived and treated by their own countrymen. ANZACs were retrospectively elevated to the sacred rank of national heroes and living treasures. They formed the bedrock of their nation's founding myth. In the Australian national narrative, the new European settlers' claim to the Great Southern Land, whose original inhabitants were dispossessed, marginalized or killed after the European arrival in 1788, did not become legitimate until young Australians were mowed down by Ottoman Turkish machine guns on the shores of Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915. Such is the price exacted by the birth of a nation state.

Gurkhas occupied the opposite end of the national mythology spectrum. They were an unpleasant reminder of a humiliating defeat inflicted on Nepal by the British East India Company in the Anglo-Nepalese War (1814 to 1816). In a treaty that followed the war, Nepal was forced to cede one-third of its territory, put up with a British Resident in Kathmandu and permit the British East India Company to recruit Nepalese youth into its private army, effectively becoming a British client state. Such is the price exacted upon a nation that comes second best in a collision with a super power.

Furthermore, the British chose to recruit only from those Nepalese ethnic groups that it classified as the "martial races", which also happened to be the newly conquered peoples of Nepal by the Gorkha Kingdom. Hence, the Gorkha ruling elite had at least two reasons to banish Gurkhas from national consciousness and write them out of history books.

On this ANZAC Day this Sunday, when fresh wreaths are laid down and the Last Post sounded for the fallen ANZAC diggers, some of us whose stories are interleaved with those of the Gurkhas will mourn and pay homage to the memory of these forgotten soldiers of a vanished empire, whose exploits in Gallipoli matched and even outshone those of the ANZAC heroes.