THE BRITAIN-NEPAL SOCIETY

J o u r n a l

Number 36

2012 A LEGACY OF LOYALTY

That is why we are asking those In just the last four years the If you do write or amend your who do remember, to consider monthly ‘welfare pension’ we Will to make a provision for the making a provision now for the pay to some 10,400 Gurkha Trust then do please let us know. time when funding and support ex-servicemen and widows has We hope it will be many years for Gurkha welfare will be much risen from 2,500 NCR to 3,800 before we see the benefit of your harder to come by. You can do NCR to try and keep pace legacy, but knowing that a this by a legacy or bequest to the with inflation in Nepal. Welfare number of our supporters have Gurkha Welfare Trust in your Will. pensions alone cost the Trust £4.4 remembered the Trust in their million last year. Who knows what Wills helps so much in our This will help to ensure the the welfare pension will need to be forward planning. Thank you. long-term future of our work. in 10 or 20 years time.

PLEASE WRITE TO: The Gurkha Welfare Trust, PO Box 2170, 22 Queen Street, Salisbury SP2 2EX, telephone us on 01722 323955 or e-mail [email protected] Registered charity No. 1103669 THE BRITAIN-NEPAL SOCIETY

Journal Number 36 2012

CONTENTS

2 Editorial 3 The Society’s News 7 A Secret Expedition to Dolpo 20 The Remains of the Kosi Project Railway: an Obscure Grice 26 Three Virtues 34 The Digital Himalaya Project 41 Victoria Crosses Awarded to Britain’s Indian Army Gurkhas 1911 – 1947 43 Gurkha Settlement in UK – An Update 45 Women Without Roofs 48 From the Editor’s In-Tray 51 Book Reviews 53 Obituaries 58 Useful addresses 59 Notes on the Britain – Nepal Society 60 Officers and Committee of the Society

1 EDITORIAL

Firstly I must apologise for the late Royal Engineers used to clear a track publication of the 2012 edition of the through that area so that we could drive our journal which has been the result of Landrovers from the cantonment to the personal family circumstances. I had Kosi for fishing and shooting trips in the originally planned to make this a purely winter season. I am grateful to John Cross ‘Dolpo’ themed edition but once into the and the editor of The Kukri for permission detail I realised that both the pieces, the to use a piece written for that journal in report by Major Meerendonk of his trek 1975. At the Britain Nepal Academic there in 1963 and Lady Cowan’s more Council conference in Cambridge I had the recent diary of the trek that she and good fortune to meet Dr Mark Turin who General Sam Cowan did in the late has set up the Digital Himalaya Project. summer of 2011 were quite long and Back numbers of the journal are now deserved to be included in full. However I available through that medium as a result have to be aware of costs and balance. of his interest and cooperation. Richard Anne Cowan’s trek diary will be the major Cawthorne has provided a summary of the article of the 2013 edition which I will try VCs awarded to the Indian Army Gurkhas to bring out in the first quarter of 2014. I 1911-1947 and Colonel William came across the Meerendonk report whilst Shuttlewood, Director of the GWT, gives going through a lot of old papers that I an update of Gurkha settlement in UK. thought one day might be useful, and so it Anna Townsend describes the charity she has turned out. I am grateful to Mark set up as a result of her time in Kathmandu Temple for the piece on the Dharan – Kosi when her husband was serving in HQ project railway. I remember it well from British Gurkhas Nepal. As always I am my time there in the early 1960s. The grateful to all the contributors.

Sandak village, Dolpo (Sir Sam Cowan, 2011). This view is unlikely to have changed much since Major Meerendonk’s visit in 1963.

2 THE SOCIETY’S NEWS By Gerry Birch

Once again members will note that the traditional secretary’s report has been once again written by the chairman. Sadly, due to changes in family circumstances, Mr. Kul Kadel was in the event unable to continue as the Society’s secretary. So once again we have had a year without a designated secretary. I am particularly grateful to Mrs Jenifer Evans and Mrs Frances Spackman who have between them taken on this task. Notwithstanding this set back, we have The piper from Queen’s Gurkha held the usual programme of events that Engineers at the supper were generally well supported. The ever popular supper was held at Pont Street a wide range of subjects. On 15th May with around one hundred and twenty Robin Garton spoke to us about the participants. We were honoured to have melting of the Himalayan glaciers and as our guests Lt Col Strickland DSO problems that result from this. We had MBE and Sgt Dipprasad Pun CGC who two talks in the autumn. One by Alison gave us an enlightening talk on their Marston on the effect that the internal experiences in Afghanistan. This venue Maoist uprising has had on education has the big advantage that we can bring which provoked a good deal of in our own caterers, not an option discussion and the second by Major Paul permissible in most other possible Whittle on the Darjeeling Railway which locations. We have already booked Pont followed the article in the last edition of Street for 14th February 2013 for next the journal. This year after strong year’s supper. The three talks followed lobbying by certain committee members by supper at the Medical Society covered we re-instituted the summer outing. River trips in the past have proved popular and since Her Majesty The Queen was due to have a ceremonial boat ride down the Thames as part of the Jubilee celebrations, it was decided that the Society should do likewise. Around sixty members gathered at Westminster Steps to board the vessel that had been chartered to take us downstream to Greenwich. The picnic was loaded in The Chairman, HE Dr Chalise, time so the panic of a previous river trip Dr Dhital, Lt Col Strickland and was avoided. The weather was very Col Ghimre at the supper breezy but just warm enough for most to

3 family circumstances will mean it will be once again delayed. Use of colour will be continued. For 2013 we have so far planned two lectures. The first is scheduled for Tuesday 14th May when Dr Rosie Llewellyn-Jones from BACSA and is entitled ‘Tales from the Past’. The second talk to be given by Mrs Celia Brown will be on Thursday 3rd October; Members enjoying a draughty trip on the Thames title still to be decided. A third talk has been venture on deck to view the sights which penciled in for 7th November with a were explained by a member of the crew speaker tbc. on the tannoy. On arrival we had about There have been some changes in the an hour to look around this historic site. committee organization that have At the same time the sun broke through occurred since the last AGM. Mrs which greatly added to the occasion. Ambika Shrestha, minister counsellor at There is much to see and I took the the embassy after a short spell of duty opportunity to re-visit the Painted Hall in here was promoted and as a result the Old Royal Naval College which I had returned to Kathmandu to an appointment not seen since a Staff College dinner in in the Foreign Ministry. Whilst we were 1973. There is now a good information pleased for her we were sad to lose centre from where you can plan your someone who had been such a strong visit to the Royal Observatory, National supporter of the Society. In her place I Maritime Museum and the Cutty Sark. am glad welcome Mr Tej Bahadur There is also a good restaurant. Success Chhetri. Simon Lord who represented of these events does depend on the Brigade of Gurkhas finally handed commitment by members as often the over his post to Major Wylie Carrick. booking of transport etc, the vessel in this The FCO representative, the Nepal Desk instance, requires funds up front. In the officer, has been something of a event we just about covered everything. revolving post. Currently Ms Jacky Devis The Society has again donated funds from Belgium is filling the post part time to the Gurkha Welfare Trust and to a (the post has now been filled by Ms project run by Lt Col JP Cross for those Sarah Wrathall. Ed). As I have already with spinal injuries. referred to we are once again without a The 2011 edition of the journal designated secretary and I am grateful to continued the use of colour photos. The the committee who have taken on extra editor had hoped to catch up and get the work as a result. After nineyears in the 2012 journal out in very early 2013 but post Dr Peter Trott wishes to hand over

4 his post as honorary treasurer at the next costs have continued to rise. Apart from AGM. We are therefore once again the journal, postage has gone up several looking to the membership for support times and the costs of venues for and help in these regards. The search for meetings have risen too and there is the a secretary also goes on. Someone of the website that also requires funding. We younger generation would be a distinct have to face these facts that are beyond advantage to help with the website. the Society’s control. We therefore now Finally I can report, with considerable need to consider raising the Society’s relief that Mr. Roger Potter has agreed to membership subscriptions, especially if take over from me as chairman. He is no the Society is to maintainits record of stranger to the Society and is a previous supporting various charitable vice chairman so needs no introduction. organizations and projects. The new With his connection to the younger rates are shown on page 59. generation through his work with ‘World Sadly I have to record the death of a Wide Volunteering’ he may be able to number of members; the tragic and take the Society in that direction. unexpected death of Lt Col Adrian On the financial front you will have Griffith, and Brig Tony Hunter-Choat, seen from the accounts, and heard (at the Mr IP Manadhar, Mr. Mike Westmacott, a AGM) from the hon treasurer, that we member of the 1953 Everest team and have been spending rather more than we also Mr Ranjitsing Rai, formerly of BMH have been receiving. This is partly due to Dharan, not a member but known to increased journal costs and to delays in many who passed through Dharan and the publication of the Jubilee edition of also my wife. Obituaries, as appropriate, 2010; two editions of the journal were will be included in the journal. paid for in one financial year. After a period of twelve years since 2000, when we last raised subscriptions, the Society’s

Mrs Ambika Luintel with the Chairman & Mrs Birch and Mr Luintel at the Nepalese Embassy

5 THE GURKHA MUSEUM PENINSULA BARRACKS ROMSEY ROAD, WINCHESTER HAMPSHIRE SO23 8TS Tel: (01962) 842832 Fax: (01962) 877597 THE UNIQUE AND EXCITING GURKHA STORY Open: MON-SAT 10am - 4.30pm SUN 12 - 4pm Registered Charity No. 272426

6 A SECRET EXPEDITION TO DOLPO

In the summer of 1963 Major Malcolm the suzerainty of China over Tibet and that Meerendonk was tasked to go on a secret therefore Tibet was entitled to negotiate its expedition to the remote area of Dolpo in own treaty arrangements as an the northwest of Nepal adjacent to Tibet independent nation. The Chinese refused to (China). The aim of this expedition was to recognise this convention since, if they did, ascertain what Chinese troops were up to it would give credence to Tibetan in the Tibet border area and if there had independence from China. been any illegal movement across the Meerendonk was selected for this task Nepal border and what their likely as he was a considerable linguist and intentions were to be in the autumn when could be made available from his post at post-monsoon campaigning was able to the Brigade of Gurkhas Depot at Sungei resume. This was set aga inst the Patani in northern Malaya. As senior background of the Chinese invasion of education officer he was responsible, inter India in 1962. alia, for Nepali language training for In the autumn of 1962 the Chinese had British officers joining the Brigade. Apart launched an invasion into the North East from Nepali he had a practical working Frontier Agency (NEFA), now known as knowledge of both Chinese and Tibetan. In Arunachal Pradesh. They had already addition he had been attached to a penetrated the remote Aksai Chin area in Nepalese Army unit during his war service the northwest and had even built a road in India. across it. These developments and threats A member of the Society, he died in went largely ignored by the Indian August 2001 and his obituary appeared in government, particularly by Prime the 2001 edition of the journal. At that Minister Nehru and Defence Minister time I was able to obtain from his widow a Krishna Menon. They pursued a policy number of his papers including a copy of ‘Hindi Chini bhai bhai’ hoping that India’s his report on his trek into Dolpo. I was membership of the non-aligned movement reminded of this when I learnt of General would prevail. The whole question of the Sam and Lady Cowan’s more recent trek to India/China border is historical and relates Dolpo. An edited edition of Anne Cowan’s back to uncompleted business in the days diary of their trek will appear in the next of British India. Efforts to demarcate the edition of the journal. I have reproduced frontier known as the ‘McMahon Line’ below Meerendonk’s report, mildly edited, were never fully completed and certainly for comparison of these two treks some not agreed by both Tibetan and Chinese fifty years apart in time. GDB. authorities. Since 1914 the Chinese had disputed this boundary. In that year Sir Henry THE MEERENDONK REPORT McMahon held a confere nce in Simla with the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, known as the SECRET Simla Convention to negotiate the border between British India and Tibet. The 1. The name Dolpo is the correct name Chinese were not invited to participate on for the self-contained cultural unit shown the grounds that Britain did not recognise on the Survey of India 1929 map

7 incorrectly as Danbhansar and d. Tarap (from which valley a Chharkabhot. The names now generally tributary flows south-east to join the accepted as correct are used in this report, Bheri near Tarakot, containing Tok- with the map version shown afterwards in Khyu (SI: Atali), Do (SI: brackets prefixed by the letter SI. Tarapgaon) and Doro. Dolpo is bounded in the north by the e. Tsarka (SI: Chharkabhotgaon) on Ladakh range which forms the boundary the headwaters of the Bheri between Tibet and Nepal and in the south (Barbung). by the Thuli Bheri River (known in the upper reaches as the Barbung Khola) and 4. ROUTE by the main Himalayan range – Kanjiroba Lekh, Mukut Himal and the Dhaulagiri a. I left Duniahi (check post) (9000 ft) Massif. It is bounded in the west by the on D+1 and spent the night in gorge through which the headwaters of the Rohagaon. The people are Nepali. Karnali break out into the Mugu area of b. D+3 reached Murum, 13000 ft Nepal north of the Sisne Himal and in the (NOT shown on SI maps). This east by Mukut Himal and the mountains place is on the main trade route east of Tsarka (SI: Chharakabhot Gaun) from Tibet via Saldang in Dolpo which form the watershed between the down to Tarakot (via Duniahi) and Kali Gandaki to the east and the Tibrikot. The people are all headwaters of the Kali and the Bheri, both Tibetans (Bhote), but some speak of which have their sources in Dolpo. colloquial Nepali. c. D+4 reached Ringmo, a monastery 2. Dolpo may be described as a town on the Phoksumdo Lake mountainous land between 15000 and (15000 ft). People all Tibetan but 20000 feet in height sandwiched between some speak colloquial Nepali. the main Himalaya n Range and Tibet, and Stayed two days to arrange porters. which is divided into valleys by various d. D+8 reached Shey (16000ft) in rivers which form the headwaters of the Dolpo, after a two day crossingf o Karnali. It is about sixty miles long and the Nangda La pass (20,000ft) (SI: thirty-five miles wide, and contains fifteen Sehu-la Bhanjyang). This route is a main villages with a permanent population minor one into Dolpo, and had not of a few hundred souls each. It has been been used so far this year from the described as the highest land in the world south, though a few Dolpo people of comparable size to be inhabited all the had come over from the north year round. (unladen) before us. It is a monastery village of great local 3. The habitable districts (valleys) are importance but was at the time of (east to west): our arrival completely deserted, the a. Phijor and Shey. very few inhabitants at this time b. Namgung (the Namdo-Saldang having fled at our approach. We Khola) (SI: Namgung Khola). stayed one day, meeting no-one. c. Panjang (the Panjang Khola valley) e. D+10 crossed the Shey La pass containing Nyisal (SI: Nisalgaon), (19000ft) to Namgung monastery Shimen, Ma (SI: Majhgaon), and town (16000ft). Neither the pass Ting-Khyu (SI: Tingjegaon). nor this route, which goes from

8 Shey via Namgung to Saldang, the reach Sangdak. After one look at ‘capital’, is marked on the SI map. our route down the gorge I would Namgung is not marked either, cheerfully have taken the yak route, although it gives its name to the except that: (1) it was too cold, and whole district (SI: Nangung Khola). (2) it appeared impossible for f. D+11 arrived at Saldang: stopped anyone to cross the river. two days: changed porters. j. D+22 arrived in Kak (SI: Kagbeni) g. D+14 arrived in Tarap after a three after one day’s march from day three day journey over pass Sangdak involving crossing a pass (20000ft) via Namdo monastery (14000ft) and a steep descent in town. Stopped one day; changed half a day of 4000ft to Kak, passing porters. through a Tibetan (Dalai Lama) h. D+18 arrived in Tsarka (SI: Army camp for about 100 men on Chharkabhot gaon) after two day the way down. There was no-one journey over two passes, 20000ft there at the time here was another and 21000ft , at the head of the large camp on a pleasant grassy Lang Khola. This route and the two shelf near the Keha Lumpa gorge a passes are NOT shown on the map. few miles away. The normal route over the Charku- k. D+23 Climbed up to Muktinath and la and Moha-la passes was blocked back. by unusually heavy snow falls. The l. D+24 left with our baggage loaded route which I followed called a onto five donkeys and reached ‘new’ route by the guides, was an Dzong-sam (SI: Jomosom) Check ‘easy’ one, ie no harder than the post at mid-day. Stayed the night normal route might have been, and there, then left for Tukcha (SI: there was not a great deal of snow. Tukucha) next day, passing Tibetan The only disadvantage is that (Dalai Lama’s) Army Check post during the first few hours after the on the way. They gave us a friendly descent to the Bheri (Barbung) the wave and two of hem followed us route up the river to Tsarka is down later in the evening to ask for i mpassable for yaks. It even shook medicine for a nagging headache of the Sherpas bit. Spent a day in two month’s duration in one case, Tsarka: changed porters. and what appeared to be gout in i. D+19 reached Sangdak (SI: another. I was unable to help, but Sangdah) after a two day crossing they were very nice about it and of the pass on the watershed departed with polite expressions of (19000ft) and a hair-raising descent goodwill. of the Keha Lunga gorge. There is another route for yaks, the normal 5. PRINCIPAL PEOPLE MET trade route, from the pass, which climbs a thousand feet higher up to a. DUNIAHI Check post: 20,500 feet over the mountains to (a) The establishment was for five the north, and descends to Gunsa Indian police officers, of whom one (or Gok) – not shown on the map – was on leave in India and one in on the other side of the Keha India sick. Met the OSP, an elderly Lungpa, which has to be crossed to Sikh who was to retire in 6 weeks

9 time and had been four years in intimate. Nothing and no-one check posts. He was most amiable passed without their coming to hear and did all he could to make me of it. Significant of this welcome: he was assisted by a ASP ‘intelligence’ system was that the (a Brahmin) somewhat younger OSP and officers were all waiting with similar service in check posts, to greet me a quarter of a mile from and a Brahmin wireless operator. the check post when I arrived (b) They appeared to have nothing unexpectedly along the path over whatsoever to do and were entirely which there was no observation concerned with minor domestic possible from the post, and that economy and efforts to provide for they knew of my arrival in Tarakot day to day needs, including various the day before.. hobbies to pass the time such as (e) Owing to the unexpected running a tiny school for the local number of signals from Army HQ children, in a pl ace where there about me before my a rrival (six were no amenities, no rations days late) all were intensely supplied, and very little obtainable intrigued about my mission and locally to supplement the meagre personal importance. They turned stores of rice and flour brought out the Guard for my inspection on from India by members of the post arrival. They did not however returning from leave. They did bother me with pointed questions, some arrangement whereby reports though they were particularly of any unusual movements or interested to know if I was looking events reached them from Dolpo, for Khambas. They appeared to where the check post used to be but know nothing about Khambas was proved untenable. They sent or themselves which was not received Sitreps from the Indian surprising, as it turned out, for I embassy by radio about twice per met none myself in the part of week. They received a course in Dolpo with which they were Gurkh ali and Tibetan in Delhi, concerned. On the morning of my before they were posted to check dep arture the ASP left before posts. daybreak to meet the Nepalese (c) Describing themselves as there liaison officer with the Austrian purely for the protection of the Dhaulagiri Expedition; Lt Krishna Indian officers were a Nepalese Bom Rana, somewhere in the Army naik and a section of H. R. Tarakot direction. Company. There was also a section still there whom they had relieved, b. MURUWA and RINGMO with orders from the C-in-C to (1) The people in this region were remain till I had gone and to detach in every way the most ‘lato’ I have men to accompany me to Dolpo ever met; they had no political or should I require it. I politely civic consciousness and knew declined the offer. nothing about anything. The (d) The relations between the headman, in whose house I stayed Indians, Nepalese soldiers and local at Ringmo, and the people in people were the most amicable and general were genuinely loyal to the

10 government in a simple way and Namgung, which receives annual most knew a little Nepali but could contributi ons of money from him, not read or write. and for the rebuilding of the (2) The Lama of Kham and the monastery at Namdo, where the Ringmo Lama, the aging religious present lama, an incarnation leaders of the area, have gone to (Rimpoche) ordained by the Lama seed and seem to just exist in their of Shang, was persuaded by monasteries thinking only of chang Nyima-Tsering to take up residence and religion. There is no human and by whom part of his stipend is habitation between here and Shey paid. There were huge prayer walls in Dolpo. all over the countryside established by Nyima-Tsering, and artisans c. SALDANG working on a new one south of (1) I stayed in the house of Nyima- Namdo said that they were being Tsering, who was acknowledged paid by him. freely as far as Tsarka as the one When we asked the headman of whose word was law and whose Saldang to assist in arranging ruling was accepted b y all the coolie s he referred us to Nyima- village headmen. As far a way as Tsering, saying that he himself had Ringmo the headman referred to only authority to detail coolies as him as the Rajah of Dolpo. The far as the next village, but that acting headman of Tsarka said that Nyima-Tsering could arrange he was the wealthiest man in the coolies as far as Tsarka. land. He had a large house in its own grounds outside the village. In (2) In conversation with Nyima- the days of the Ranas he had Tsering and his grandson we learnt successfully organised the people that the Check Post at Duniahi had of Dolpo to drive out bands of originally been located near brigands from Tibet who used to Saldang with a company of terrorise and plunder the villages, Nepalese soldiers to deal with and in recognition of his efforts the Khamba bands who were making a Rana government presented him nuisance of themselves, but that with a rifle and ammo which he due to the intense cold winter and still kept suspended above his bed to the impo ssibility of obtaining in his fortress-like house. He is food in Dolpo the post had been aged 65 and lost his wife ten years withdrawn to Duniahi on Nyima- ago. His sons and sons-in-law are Tsering’s offer to undertake to deal prominent landowners and traders with the Khamba nuisance himself with houses nearby and one of his and render reports if necessary. I married grandsons over 30 lives imagine that the ‘arrangement’ with him in the house with the referred to by the OSP in Dunyer younger grandchildren and for obtaining info from Dolpo must manages his affairs, as he has tie up here somewhere. recently fallen desperately ill. Nyima-Tsering is also responsible (3) Last year a representative of for the upkeep of the monastery at the Nepalese government,

11 Karnasing Thakali, visited Dolpo to d. NAMDO explain to Nyima-Tsering the The Lama of Namdo, an panchayat system of government incarnation (Rimpoche), is devoted and the Gram Bikas project. to religion and was not unduly Nyima-Tsering readily undertook to worried about the close proximity explain the system to the headmen of the Chinese, as long as they and supervise its implementation stayed where they were. He was when the time came. As Karnasing happy assisting Nyima-Tsering and fell ill and left and another the Lama of Shang in organising government official was snowed up the spiritual life of the community in Tsarka for six months and could in Dolpo, which was the only place not leave, no further developments where the true doctrine of original have yet taken place, though I Buddhist culture remained intact. gather that this summer further He had recently paid his first visit moves may be made by the central to Kathmandu and met a number of government. The old man and his Europeans and was favourably grandson both declared themselves impressed with them. only too anxious to co-operate with the government to any extent e. TSARKA required to further any schemes for (1) There were two acting the betterment of the country. headmen. One was a rich merchant N.B. Nyima-Tsering went once to whose in terests were mainly Kathmandu as a boy; he is the only commercial and who was nearly member of his household who always in Tarakot or Tukcha. He speaks Nepali. and other merchants had little to say for themselves on any subject (4) Neither Nyima-Tsering nor any unless the Chinese happened to be of the people of Dolpo had had any mentioned, when with one accord cause to be worried about the close they spontaneously and proximity of the Chinese. vociferously condemned their behaviour in ruining their trade (5) As the acknowledged unofficial with Tibet. The other headman was link between the people of Dolpo a friendly straight forward honest and the central government, a peasant with a distrust of Chinese source of info and influence for and Khambas. good, Nyima-Tsering is a man of (2) The real headman of Tsarka unusual importance in a region appears to be the same Karnasing where powerful foreign influence mentioned above. He is a well- and disturbing elements are so educated, suave, absentee close at hand, while the central landowner who spends all his time government is far away and its trading. He is well-known in the authority or influence for the good Thak Khola, where he is a friend of of the people as yet nowhere the Sher Chans and we met him apparent. twice; once in Sasudhara, a village on the way up the Kali to Tukcha on business. He confirmed what

12 Nyima-Tsering had told us about f. DZONG-SAM ((SI: Jomosom) his visit to Saldang. He speaks Check Post Tibetan but does not write it. The people of Tsarka cannot read (1) The post was manned by a Nepali, so he had been unable to complete company (No. 4 H.K. give us letters of introduction. Company) under Capt Lalita SJB (3) A bold, jolly, intelligent- Rana, an amiable simple type who looking young man dressed like a slept when he had nothing better to prince rode into our camp near do. His sentries had their rifles Tsarka on a horse on which he sat chained to their waists. He greeted so well that he seemed to have me warmly, was not in the least grown from it and greeted me inquisitive but having received happily with the barely advance notice from the C-in-C of recognisable words ‘Good my arrival took me for granted. He morning’. They turned out to be the arranged rations, accommodation, only English he knew and he detailed a L/Cpl to guide me to understood no Nepali. He chatted Ka ji Govindra Sher Chan’s house for half an hour with my Sherpa in Tukcha next day, and gave me sardar however and was very dinner in his quarter. He did not pleased to meet me, he said, take me to meet the Indian officers because of all the help that we and who lived in separate quarters, but the Americans had given them. He we all met up by chance in the turned out to be the chief of a evening and chatted about nothing roving Khamba tribe. I asked what in particular. He told me that he had help he meant but he was not at all been stationed with a platoon in clear. He said that they had some Mustang last year but that there guns and that they occasionally was now no-one there. He had also ambushed Chinese patrols that been detailed to take a section and crossed the frontier and killed a register the numbers and needs of couple – it was good fun. Next day Khamba refugees in the mountains as we left for Sandak he appeared on the way to Tsarka off the main with his following: about twenty route, but had found the way men and women with children, two blocked by snow and the Khambas hundred yaks, two hundred sheep not co-operative. While and goats and a party of nomads investigating reports of Khamba (Dok-pas) who accompanied them raiders north of Tukcha a few for protection. There was no sign of months back they had been fired on weapons. They were going to a new while returning to camp by grazing ground in the mountains, he Khambas armed with machine said. They headed in the direction guns. They had no further trouble of the frontier (12 miles away). The and were confined to barracks Tsarka people told us that the pending any need for operations Khambas did no harm, but that they against marauding Khamba gangs. were afraid of them because of their Their job was to prevent the homicidal tendencies, and were very unauthorised use of the main road glad when they moved on. by gangs going south or north. This

13 was apparently the Nepalese g. TUKCHA (SI: Tukucha) Government’s effort to control Khamba activities, but as somebody (1) Here I stayed two days under was supplying them with arms and arrangements made by the Sher ammo it was difficult to do more, Chan family, of which the only since they were elusive and representative in residence was untraceable in the mountains. He Govindra Man known locally as the had no idea who supplied the arms Kaji. He is the younger brother of or how, but thought it was easy Angaman, who was in Kathmandu enough to accomplish. and Indraman who was in Pokhara. (2) The Indian police officers of Shankar Man was also away. I the post were on the same spent most of the time in his establishment of five as in the case company with Nar Sing Bhakta of of Duniahi, with two on leave; they the Tula Chan family, who is the were inquisitive to the point of Thak Khola’s elected representative suspici ousness, and their OSP, a of the National Panchayat and Rajput, asked me point-blank if I Mangal Sing Thakali the apostate had been looking for Khambas, and Lama of the oldest monastery in what I had seen, and did I know Tukcha, who is the father-in-law of where they got their arms from? It Karnasing. Their interes ts were is possible that they quite honestly mainly commercial, literary and did not know, and were trying to local and they were not in the least find out if it could possibly be the inquisitive nor inclined to discuss British who were behind it. I was political matters which I did in turn able to tell them no more than they not care to introduce. They were could see with their own eyes. No- interested in the current affairs of one knew anything about air-drops south Asia in general, however and (3) The relationship between the asked about the Malaysian Nepalese, the Indians and the local Federation. Kaji Govindra Mana people was obviously friendly was most friendly, fixed coolies for though by no means as cordial and my trip in spite of unusual intimate as at Duniahi. The only difficulty which compelled him to apparent reasons were: detail the hulak (the postal runner) (a) The Nepalese troops had to make up the number and their own officer and refused arranged introductions and to introduce me to the Indian accommodation all along the route. OSP on my arrival. They kept (2) The Lama runs a rest house and me waiting half an hour until trading post for tourists in his their own OC was available. gompa, where he also carries on a (b) The local people are not profitable business as MO to the Nepali but Lo-pa, Thak-pa and Tibetan soldiers and Khambas who mutually suspicious Tibetan frequent the area. He has a stock of groups. medicines acquired from expeditions and has had medical training.

14 6. MILITARY ORGANISATIONS uniform purchased from American, Swiss and Japanese expeditions. a. The Tibetan (Dalai Lama’s) Troops: They had light automatic weapons hidden in their bedding and kit. (1) The camps below Sangdak They were very friendly with the mentioned earlier flew the yellow local people and came and went as flag of the Dalai Lama. There were freemen. They looked very tough scores of horses visible. In Kagbeni and intelligent. I stayed in a large Tibetan house (2) They declined to talk freely on run on the lines of a Thakali bhatti their duties and stations but said which I shared with an officer and a that their pay and rations arrived fluctuating number of soldiers of regularly every month from the the Dalai Lama’s forces, about six ‘south’. They fed much better than at one time. They were all Lamas the local people, I noticed. They themselves, in the tradition of the said that they thought that their old ‘household’ troops of the arms came from the British and Tibetan r uler, and were cultured, Americans. (I learnt in due course courteous and congenial company. that this was the stock answer They spoke no Nepali but always produced.). They had camps conversed freely through my at various strategic points interpreter and gave no impression elsewhere. They also mentioned of either of inquisitiveness or of that there were other regular having anything to hide. They were Tibetan troops, ie ‘lay’ troops who obviously regular guests at the were rough, ill-disciplined men, house, had a private chapel on the many of them Khambas, who gave roof where they spent much time in them a lot of trouble as they did not devotions, their bearing was upright restrict themselves to obeying and easy, but they had the reserve instructions but sometime went expected in good soldiers in strange marauding inside the Nepalese company, while being otherwise frontier, even on occasion attacking very friendly. They all had good the Lama troops. horses, belonged to the camp up the hill and wore a kind of regimental b. The Khambas mufti. They were distinguished (1) Mention has been made of the from normal Tibetans by their short party near Tsarka. A number of haircut; the officer wore a yellow much smaller parties of travellers garment above the waist and a short were met between here and Tukcha American bayonet, whereas the but as there were no arms visible, others wore various Tibetan style their hair was long and they wore garments and no bayonets. Their no uniform they might easily have lower garments and the Tibetan been groups of traders or bands of style cape worn normally hanging nomads. down behind from the waist were (2) The area around Kagbeni, of khaki drill. They wore jungle Muktinath and the whole of the boots, American Army boots, and Thak khola was stiff with Dalai various articles of clothing or Lama or regular Khamba soldiery

15 in small parties of ones, twos and c. The Chinese threes, unarmed, all innocently but (1) There was no sign of Chinese determinedly going or coming, penetration or propaganda nearly always pleased to see us, anywhere. There are no Chinese sometimes carrying rations or, it merchants. was said, pay. All were (2) In addition to the people of distinguished by their short haircuts Dolpo, who are great middlemen (short by Tibetan standards), the and go freely into Tibet and south upright bearing of free men, jungle to Jumla, Tarakot and Tukucha, boots, American Army boots, Jap there is a great transit population of boots, khaki drill or expedition type nomads (Dok-pas) who also drift smocks or slacks. There were freely north to Tibet and south as always one or two loitering in far as Dhorpatan and of Tibetans every tea-shack. They said that who go into Dolpo as far as their camps were in the Mustang or Saldang or Tsarka and back. It is Muktinath area. Whoever they are, from these people and the villages they obviously have no trouble that I learnt any info about the passing through the check post at Chinese that appears below. Jomosom or the Dalai Lama’s (3) There are on ly very few troops check post south of Chinese on the border north of the Jomosom where they presumably Pansang valley, ie west and central have some system of checking Dolpo. Those who are there stress identity. I wonder what would be that they are not allowed across the the chances of a Tibetan-speaking border into Nepal, but that Dolpo Chinese or communist trained people are welcome to come and Tibetan moving around among trade as much as they like in Tibet. them dressed like them? They also boast of their victory (3) The answer to the query against India in NEFA and claim ‘Where do all the weapons, rations that they could occupy Dolpo in a and pay come from?’ was always day or two if they wanted to. They ‘Fro m the Dalai Lama’. Where emphasise however that ‘Chinese does he get them from? and Nepalese are brothers; we want ‘International subscription’. On the nothing better than to be friends’. subject of who supplies arms to the (4) The Chinese also urge that as irregular Khamba bands, I cannot the Khambas cause as much trouble do better than repeat the on the Nepalese side of the border observation made by Kaji Govindra as on their side, they should all be Man Sher Chan, who dismissed the sent back to Tibet, where they problem with the words ‘Nepal is would be kept under control. surrounded by India. It does not (5) The story from the other end, matter who supplied the arms; they north of Tsarka however, is quite can only reach Nepal with the different. Reports tell of masses of knowledge and connivance of border Chinese; incivility, violence India’. and high-handed treatment of traders going into Tibet so that they lose or give away goods or money

16 and are unwilling to return once through the routes indicated by they get back to Dolpo. It is Meerendonk, the Nepalese Army would possible that the Chinese have have had to face the same problems something to hide in this area; or it that the Indian Army encountered the could be that the activities of previous year, ie having to move from Khamba irregulars in this area have a lower altitude through harsh terrain in got the Chinese all worked up. an attempt to defend the passes with hugely difficult lines of communication 7. STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE and logistics involved. The Nepalese Army were even less trained and a. Dolpo is a natural fortress, with equipped for such operations than their easily defended passes, possession of Indian colleagues. There was an Indian which would give an invader a secure presence in Nepal on the border as the base from which to launch a winter Indians were concerned about border infantry offensive if desired down the security in the north, both police and Karnali gorge towards Jumla and army. At this time the Indian Military Nepalganj. Training and Advisory Group (IMTAG) b. One day would be sufficient to were present, commanded by an Indian occupy Tsarka, effectively cutting off Army Major General. I remember his Dolpo from one main artery of visit to Dharan in 1962/3 and hosting assistance, viz, the Kali valley, while his ADC, a captain in the Rajputana opening the way for a drive down the Rifles. There was considerable concern Bheri valley to Tarakot. At the same in Nepal and eastern India about time it is possible to advance from possible Chinese intentions. Talk in the Tsarka straight down a direct route via Yak & Yeti bar in the Royal Hotel, Sandak to Tukcha, thus bypassing Kathmandu was often rather gloomy, Jomosom and isolating the whole of something along the lines of: ‘One Mustang Bhot. Another five days would Chinese parachute battalion landing on take them to Pokhara. Gauchar Airport would spell the end!’ I c. From Tarakot, Jumla,Tilarikot and remember brushing up the drills Jajarkot can be reached in four or five involved in destroying certain items of days, thus opening the way for a double equipment in Dharan. The Deputy High drive down the Karnali and Bheri Commission in Calcutta started valleys. contingency planning for the evacuation of British personnel from Signed M Meerendonk the Calcut ta area. This was to involve Major travel down the Hoogly River to ships (M. MEERENDONK MBE) off shore in the Bay of Bengal. One JUN 63 hoped that there would be no monsoon storms at the time, should this be COMMENT necessary! There was quite considerable panic in NEFA and Assam As we now know the Chinese People’s amongst the local population which is Liberation Army (PLA), in the event, still remembered. There is continuing made no moves against Nepalese tension on the China/Tibet border with territory. Had there been an invasion India in this area. The Chinese still

17 claim large areas of what is now there were a few others including the Arunachal Pradesh and this is likely to botanist Oleg Polonin who published continue. Flowers of the Himalaya in 1984 based The Khambas operated out of northern on his earlier travels in 1952 with some Nepal, particularly in the Mustang area, excellent photographs of plants, these for a number of years supported by the include several taken whilst in Dolpo. CIA. Politics intervened with a change Tony Hagen travelled in Dolpo as he of regime in the USA. Kennedy came did in many of Nepal’s remote northern to power in 1960 and with it JK regions. As has been pointed out to me Galbraith became the American by Sam Cowan, only in the 1998 ambassador to India. Galbraith was not edition (revised by Deepak Thapa) of a lover of the Tibetan project. Support Hagen’s book Nepal, (first published in waned until the Chinese invasion of 1960) is mention made of his journey India in October 1962 brought about a across Dolpo. He was apparently very reversal of policy. The main rebel force ill at that time which explains why of Khambas operated out of Mustang there are no photographs of Dolpo in with some having been trained at a this work. Other early travellers to special camp in America and supplied Dolpo include Herbert Tichy an by air-drops coordinated by the CIA. Austrian mountaineer (1953), Giuseppe However this too dragged on into the Tucci (1954) and the splendidly named 1970s. Again American politics Christoph von Furer- Haimedorf (1962). intervened. President Nixon was Clearly there are more research anxious to re-establish diplomatic possibilities in respect of early relations with China, a condition of travellers to Dolpo. Further reading which was to cease support for the about Tibetan guerrilla operations guerrillas in Mustang. The Nepalese against the Chinese can be found in too were keen to have better relations Mikel Dunham’s heavily researched with China and following Chinese work, Buddha’s Warriors published in pressure, the Khambas were finally 2004 and the earlier work by Michel cleared out and disarmed in 1974 by Peissel, The Cavaliers of Kham. the Nepalese Army. A description of this operation has been described by Dr GDB Prem Singh Basnyat in his The Nepalese Army in the Tibetan Khamba Disarming Mission published in 2007. Evidence of the Khamba presence can still be found in the in the area of refugee camps and the marks of their old army camps in places like Kagbeni. Dolpo was for so long a very remote part of Nepal, virtually autonomous, with little control from the Kathmandu government. Although Meerendonk claimed to have been only the second European after Dr Snellgrove (1956), to have entered and explored Dolpo

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19 REMAINS OF THE KOSI PROJECT RAILWAY: AN OBSCURE GRICE By Mark Temple (This article first appeared in the ‘Darjeeling Mail’ - the magazine of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway Society) (A ‘gricer’ is slang for ‘train spotter’, hence the verb ‘to grice’.)

into the plains around Siliguri. During the later days of British India, around1937, there were plans for a barrage to tame the Kosi River, reduce the flood damage in the monsoon season in the neighbouring flatlands of Bihar and to provide water for irrigation. Not long after Indian independence and the coming of a less authoritarian regime to Nepal, this scheme was revised and a deal signed between the governments of Nepal and India in 1954. An article by John Benson in Industrial Railway Record of 1975 (with map, four photos of locomotives and a list of Thought to be near Phurse camp, the engines, builders etc.) gives an excellent construction camp set up during the description of the line in 1966 to 1968 building of Dharan cantonmemt when he was stationed at the British Army Among the narrow gauge railways that are camp at Dharan. The camp was a key link close neighbours of the Darjeeling in the line of communication for the Himalayan Railway, the Kosi Project Brigade of Gurkhas between Malaya, Railway is one of the most haunting Hong Kong and Nepal. This camp was because of its short and almost unrecorded constructed in the nineteen fifties after life and the fact that very little of it now Britain came under pressure to give up its remains. army facilities in Darjeeling. One branch I learnt of the existence of this railway of the Kosi Project Railway ended less in the year 2000 when on a family picnic than half a mile from this modern British to Kosi Tappu Game Park in Nepal we Cantonment and its existence must have came across its narrow gauge tracks been well known to many who served beside the Kosi River. “Ah,” said older there because the engines could easily be members of the family, “we used to hear heard whistling by those in the camp. the engines whistle from our house in The equipment for the Kosi Project Dharan”. I learnt it had been built to help Railway came second-hand from various construct an irrigation project. Indian Railways 2 ft. 6 inch gauge railway About 70 miles to the west of lines. In addition to seventeen British Darjeeling, the Kosi River emerges from built steam engines by Bagnall, North the foothills of the Himalayas into the British Locomotive Company Ltd and plains of Nepal in a landscape not Nasmyth Wilson and Co Ltd of the 4-4-0, dissimilar to the way the rivers emerge 2-8-2 and 4-6-2 wheel arrangements (all

20 tender engines) it received in about 1960 British Army at Dharan. Stone was new Class ZB 4-6-2 locomotives built in quarried at Phusre and carried by Jugoslavia by Duro Dakovic. (This cableway to the railway terminus at purchase doubtless reflecting Indian Ghopa. A series of bunkers were used for policy of the time. Ed.) storing and loading stone onto the railway The line ran from Bhimnagar on the wagons there. The cableway was soon Indian-Nepal border, which was adjacent abandoned after an accident. Lorries were to the new river barrage, alongside the then used to carry the stone the three miles river in a northerly direction to a junction from Phusre to the loading bays at the at Chhakraghatti and on to a point where railway terminus. the river emerged from the hills at From Bhimnagar a further branch ran Chhatra, a distance of about fourteen east on the Indian side of the border to miles. Stone was loaded at Chhatra from meet the Indian Railways metre gauge line quarries there and carried down to at Forbesganj. (Forbesganj is the last Bhimnagar for construction. There was a station before Jogbani. The latter was jetty (disused in the nineteen sixties) where all the depot passengers and stores which suggests that stone may have been were brought to from Calcutta. Ed.).The quarried upstream and floated in boats as line was to facilitate the supply of far as Chhatra. On emerging into the construction materials including railway plains the river becomes wide and shallow equipment from India. and hence the need for a railway to carry The railway never officially carried stone to the barrage site. Stone was passengers although many people probably also needed to help build the ‘hitched’ a ride on its trains, whether the river embankments and the river-training waggons were empty or full. My wife’s groins that project at right angles into the aunt and another relation are said to have river. once travelled on it from Dharan to From Chhakraghatti a branch ran Chhakraghatti and back to pay a family northeast to Dharan where it ended after visit. about eight miles at a stone loading area My brother-in-law Bijay, a former just northwest of Ghopa camp of the Gurkha Engineer, understands my interest in railways and so he suggested in early January 2007 that we go to see what remains of the railway. He had almost no memory or knowledge of the railway, so with me perched on the back of his motorbike we set off for the obvious start of our search, the area of Dharan still known as ‘Railway’. A road sign with ‘Relwai’ painted on it confirmed we were on the right scent and we headed west from Dharan and through a dried-up river bed towards Chhatra and in the distance we saw the piers of an abandoned bridge. The line close to Ghopa camp (Dharan) We had found the course of the railway

21 where it crossed the Shardu Khola. Benson records as follows:- “…a single track which crossed the wide river bed on a bridge whose nine piers were solidly constructed of stone and concrete. For most of the year the river bed was dry: however, during the monsoon the river became a raging torrent capable of submerging the bridge. The track was laid directly onto the girders: there was no floor, neither were there hand The old railway yard near Ghopa Camp rails.” (Dharan) The river had naturally widened and shifted to the west since Benson described sidings, a water tank and where at a place it. What was clearly the western abutment called “Reeting Wall” the stone had been to the railway bridge is now almost in the loaded. There we found the hoppers middle of a much widened river bed. To towering above our heads and clothed in the east of the bridge we found a creeper and bamboo, still largely intact but substantial culvert beneath the line of the surrounded by houses. We concluded railway. Benson made the point that there from the construction that ‘Reeting Wall’ were few earthworks and almost no ballast is a corruption of ‘retaining wall’ – the key and so it is not surprising that the line of feature of construction of the stone the railway is impossible to trace in many hoppers. After a quick reconnaissance of places. This part of the railway ran Phusre where we could see a substantial through tropical rain forest but it is now cement and stone structure in the river much depleted by small-scale (and illegal) bed, said to be the base of one of the logging. The whole area in which the towers of the cableway – we returned to railway was located is one that has seen home to feed the inner man. Even in 1968 much increase in population, not least Benson reported the remains of the with settlers arriving from the hills to loading bays at Phusre were crumbling occupy land which was formerly sparsely away. populated. A few days later I set off with other From the bridge site we worked our members of the family in a hired way back eastwards towards Dharan, Landrover and we roughly followed the picking up the line of the railway as we course of the railway to Chhakraghatti. approached the Dharan – Chhatra road The road through the rain forest was where there had been a level crossing. startlingly straight but I was not certain if People we spoke to confirmed that there it followed the course of the abandoned had been a railway and that beyond the railway. At Chhakraghatti there were no crossing there had been a stone loading remains of the railway to be seen though place. Two elderly gentlemen, Bakta everybody knew of its former existence. Bahadur Bhandari and Rewenta Shrestha From there we set off northwards towards aged 68 and 67 eagerly told us where the Chhatra. At a place called ‘Bich Pani’ tracks had run, where there had been (literally translates as – ‘middle of the

22 water’) we found where the course of the railway was caught up by a more modern irrigation scheme built in the early nineteen seventies. The original Kosi Project was much criticised for benefitting India but not Nepal because being constructed on the India – Nepal border its irrigation canals could Koshi project railway, engine in shed only reach lower lying land in India, not Nepal. By taking water had crossed tributaries of the Kosi River. from the Kosi River at Chhatra where the Finally we came to Chhatra and there on river emerges from the hills, this newer a mounded earthwork was a metal tank irrigation scheme supplies a main which I was assured had been used to fill irrigation canal which leads off eastwards the engines. There were no railway lines through the almost flat land on the Nepal on the ground but there were many in use side of the border. Considerable expense as telegraph and electricity poles near the had been involved to ensure that the Kosi site of the railway sidings and around the Project Railway, although diverted, was village of Chhatra, One had ‘Rhymney’ not severed by this new irrigation scheme. rolled on its web and another ‘Moss Bay At one point near Bich Pani where the Company’ – the original name of the railway had been diverted by the new company with the rolling plant at canals, we could see where a steeply Workington in Cumbria. Thus are the graded and curved piece of line had run, names of British steelworks preserved on with the marks of the sleepers still clearly third-hand rails in Nepal for the visible in the ground. At two different determined gricer to decipher. points along the route were the remains of After its construction in the nineteen bridges with two piers where the railway fifties and initial period of busy use for new construction, the railway was retained for many years to supply stone for maintenance. The Dharan branch had been abandoned by 1972 and the track removed according to news that Benson had received. The main line was said to be in periodic use in the nineteen eighties. The tracks observed in 2000 in Kosi Tappu Wildlife Reserve may still be Koshi project railway, disused engine at there because of the greater security of Chhatra the park which is guarded by the Nepal

23 Army. (They are in a few places. Ed.). Postscript Elsewhere the metal rails and fittings have Following the publication of the above been stolen. The railway was property of article, a photograph and letter appeared in the government of Nepal but once out of the Darjeeling Mail magazine in use it was vulnerable to metal thieves. November 2008 from Lionel Price of Steel is a valuable commodity in a very Oswestry. He had visited the Bhimnagar poor area, whether smuggled across the engine shed while on an enthusiast’s tour border and sold for scrap or used more of South Asia en route from the Darjeeling locally to smithy into knives and other Himalayan Railway to the Janakpur useful implements (Kukris? Ed.). The Railway. He found the depot lying thieving is said to have accelerated after derelict and containing a number of 1990 and the arrival of multiparty stored/dumped locomotives some of democracy in Nepal, which weakened the which were partially dismantled. Then authority of government officials and the twelve photographs taken in 2002 of police. locomotives at the same site by Sudan There have been reports in the Indian Dewan appeared on the web site of the press in the last few years of a local Darjeeling Himalayan Railway Society. development NGO pressing for the People I talked to in Dharan in 2011 said railway to be reopened – a most unlikely they have gone but I will not quite believe prospect for there is virtually nothing left. it until I go there to look with my own Meanwhile it remains an excellent eyes. location for a melancholy grice, if your satisfaction is in small remains Photos rediscovered. But an interpreter is The article in Darjeeling Mail Issue 40 of essential for the non-Nepali speaker since November 2007 had the following three guidance from the locals improves the photographs by me included. chance of finding where the railway ran. Picture of the road sign, caption “a road Direct your enquiries to the older sign with “Relwai” painted on it. First residents, since the young know little evidence of the railway in Dharan. about it. Your interest will cause Picture of a rail serving as a telegraph puzzlement – and perhaps even the vain pole, caption “There were no lines on the hope that another aid project may be about ground but many in use as electricity poles to appear. near the site of the railway sidings in Chhatra. Silt extraction ponds of the Reference: Benson, J. (1975) The Kosi second irrigation scheme in the Project Railway, Industrial Railway background.” Record no 61, August, pp. 65 – 71, Picture of bridge piers in the rain forest Industrial Railway Society, Greenford, “We had found the course of the railway Middlesex. where it crossed the Sadhu Khola.”

Mark Temple 27/1/2012

24 25 THREE VIRTUES By JP Cross (This piece first appeared in the 1975 edition of ‘The Kukri’ and is reproduced here by permission of the editor. The three stories are set in three different locations. The first takes place around a village called Norkum in what was formerly the old No 3 East. The second is in Malaysia at the Sungei Buloh leprosarium some 20 miles north of Kuala Lumpur and the third took place in the First Division at Pieman Mepu, Sarawak.Ed.)

I: FAITH to cross was not really high, they found One winter, in December, a Stranger their breath short and their limbs heavy. visited the hills of Nepal. A soldier, on Great banks of frozen mist whirled and leave, had volunteered his services as spun, like smoke from a giant cauldron, guide and the two men met each other at leaving fresh streaks of white where they the road head. Thence they moved north had brushed the hill sides. Near the top of for six days, spending one night in the the pass cloud was being driven in three soldier's home, to where the hoarfrost lay different directions as the cold air from the heavily until the morning sun removed it, snows met the warmer air from below. high up in the rhododendron and pine The last two hours lay up the side of a forests - serene, fresh and quiet. At the stream, whose banks were thick rimed and top of the high pass the snows came into where the water was a trickle with solid view, bleak, timeless and inscrutable. ice either side. Snow had fallen a while They were soon out of sight as the path back and as the place up which they led the two men down into the next valley. travelled saw little sun, it lay, caked and The Stranger's companion wanted to frozen. Progress was slow, but there was worship, so the two men decided to visit a no hurry. The soldier had picked some famous Buddhist monastery miles to the fern smelling of parsley and said to be north. It meant leaving the beaten track efficacious in warding off the sprits found and venturing into more remote areas. high up. The correct place to put it was Their route led through harvested rice behind the ear, but the Stranger sheepishly fields, now brown, bare and dusty in the put it in his pocket. winter sunshine, then near a river where From the pass they saw a settlement in an otter was seen fishing. Up and up, the valley far below them. There were until the houses were left behind and the three double-storeyed houses, a number of forests reached once more. Through them low shacks, few cattle but many potato they walked and then they were on cleared fields. Around the settlement were, on land where only potatoes grew with the one side, a sheer precipice and on the air, by now, thin and cold. A shack with a other two sides gentle slopes covered with Buddhist pennant outside was reached and trees. The fourth side was open, sloping a resting place for the night was sought. A down to a river beyond which rose the night's shelter was given in an out-house snows, much nearer by now. Mount which had walls and roof of plaited wattle. Everest, shielded, lay out of sight. It was a relief to be moving and to get Outside one of the large houses sat an warm again. Although the pass they had old woman sorting potatoes. Nearby was

26 a cow, one leg broken shorter than the consisted of a large gilt Buddha, in front rest. Shelter for the night was requested of which were many small ones. There and a wattle-girt shed was pointed out. were shallow cups set around a centre The Stranger had noticed that the house stand in which butter was poured, while had two rooms on the ground floor, one bowls and jars of many sorts lay in front. the family room and the other, strewn with Flanking the altar was the library, fifty- leaves, empty save for a ladder up to the four cubby holes either side, each with top floor. He was invited to inspect the sacred cloth-covered scriptures peering out upstairs room. It ran the length of the in yellow, red and blue symmetry. A pew house and, at the far end there were three ran down the centre of the room with resplendent Buddhas, gilt and large, and a conch, cymbals and gong to hand. The fourth, smaller, red one. They had been walls and ceiling garishly depicted the rise brought from China, long years before. and fall of man. The fallen were shown as Many smaller statues abounded. Grain having their limbs torn off and being eaten was also stored along the walls and, in one by ravenous demons, as being trampled on corner, was an empty bed. Twenty people and squashed, as being burnt. The risen could have fitted in the room but the were sitting in the lotus position, eyes Stranger was told that in winter the room inscrutably contemplating eternity. It was so caught the wind he could not sleep very cold. there. By now the three lamas were sitting "May we please sleep in the room with cross-legged on the bench of the pew. The the leaves?" he asked. "No," he was told, soldier was standing in front of the altar, that is reserved for the injured cow. You head bent, eyes closed, and the Stranger may have the place outside." was seated by the wall. None wore shoes. The night was very cold and very long. A low, murmuring chant started and an Early the next morning the soldier acolyte came in and laid fern-like leaves disappeared for a while, carrying towel in the vessels in front of the Buddha. The and soap. He returned, shivering, having soldier poured the butter into the shallow totally immersed himself in the freezing cups and the chant became louder and water, and he carried a bowl of clarified louder, then faded. The soldier was told to butter. light the lamps and this he did, his hand "As soon as the lama outside has had trembling. Again the chanting began, low, his head shaved, I'm going up to the main subdued and formless. It gradually rose to prayer house to pray," and he pointed out a crescendo and, in startling and horrific the largest of the three houses. "Come cacophony, the instruments suddenly along with me, do!" added their discordant threnody to the They went up the hill and reached the ululating voices of the lamas while the building. They waited for three red-robed sightless, staring eyes of the Buddhas, lamas to come and the door was unlocked. watched, blind and impassive. The As it was opened the sun streamed in and Stranger shuddered and was startled when the Stranger was amazed to see a riot of large pea-sized grains of maize were colour. Straight in front of the door, on suddenly thrown at the altar both by lamas the opposite wall, was the altar. This and soldier. Then there was quiet and

27 tension slowly unwound. Buttered tea they recognised the doctor. At the was brought in and offered to all five men. Gurkha's bed side the doctor called him Then it was all over. softy, "Here's a visitor to talk with you." An hour later they were gone, once The sick man brought his eyes into focus more on the move. That night they and gazed with utter uninterest at the camped in a cow byre near a frozen Visitor who turned to the doctor and said, stream in the forest. The Stranger then "Do you mind if I talk to him alone?" remembered that he had not entered up his "Please do," said the doctor, "as often diary since before leaving the soldier's and as long as you like. Excuse me, I have house, so he searched for it among his few work to do elsewhere. You can sit down belongings. And although he was warm on that chair near his bed but," he added as he sat by the log fire, he again solemnly, "touch nothing." shuddered when he realised that he had He turned to leave but, as an just been spending Christmas Day. afterthought, turned back and said, "Please do not talk to the Chinese behind the II: HOPE screen. He is serving a life sentence of The Visitor asked the doctor in charge of solitary confinement for murdering his the leper settlement how many Gurkha wife, who was also a leper. He is here patients there were. Ten were being only because this ward is emptier than any treated as out-patients, he was told, but of the others." one man was in a ward. His disease had The Visitor sat down and started talking not been diagnosed as contagious, nor was to the lacklustre, listless Gurkha. Gentle he disfigured in any way, but he was so prodding and sympathetic probing brought disheartened that there was no hope of answers to his questions. The pathetically recovery. Death would take one or maybe obvious yearning for compassionate two years to make up its mind. When it comforting was as fervid as the reciprocal did, its prize would only be a pitifully hope to inspire self-confidence. Half an wasted body. hour passed and the man was tiring. The The doctor took the Visitor into the Visitor got up to go, as he was also tired, ward, having warned him to touch having given some of himself. nothing. The ward held twenty beds, all "Listen, Gajendré, I'm coming back occupied. In one corner was a bed with next week. You said you had not seen screens on two sides, shielding the anyone for months, nor eaten for a long occupant from the rest of the inmates. time. I can remedy the former, only you The Visitor saw an elderly Chinese man, can remedy the latter." with ugly red weals on his back, sitting Next week the Visitor was greeted with cross-legged on his bed, staring fixedly a smile. The remains of a meal testified ahead. He seemed impervious to all that the return of an appetite. Animation was was going on around him. evident and conversation lasted for an The Gurkha lay in the middle of a line hour. Towards the end of his stay the of deformity. Noseless, fingerless and Visitor saw the sick man gaining strength hollow-legged humanity stared with as he himself felt correspondingly tired as apathy at the fit men, then smiled when his own strength was sapped once more.

28 "Gajendré, you're getting better. Keep enemy, but also the shrill and incessant trying. Next week you'll be sitting up." chirping of the small birds that allegedly A week later Gajendré was indeed predict rain made the journey nerve- sitting up, the week following he was racking. walking to the lavatory, and the week after They reached their destination around that, on his fifth visit, the Visitor had to go noon. They sat outside on the long to the out-patients' quarters to meet him. veranda and asked for the headman. Radiantly happy, although still very weak, Women and children and dogs took no he seemed well on the way to total notice of the two men but someone must recovery. have delivered their message because It was not long afterwards that there shortly afterwards an agitated headman was an Open Day at the settlement. All arrived. With scant ceremony he hustled was bedecked with bunting and the both men upstairs into the loft. inmates wore new clothes. Just before the "I have reports of enemy coming. You visitors' race, the Visitor went and sought must hide," he said. out the Doctor. The loft was airless and musty. The "Tell me, doctor," he queried anxiously, two men sat on the hard wooden floor and "Gajindra Bahadur. How would you now asked for details. After all, rumours were describe his condition?" many, but the troops were near by, so why "Miraculous." the worry? "Tell me, headman, where are the III: CHARITY troops?" It was part of the Traveller's charter to "Tuan, they left this morning...you are visit longhouses in the border areas of on your own...the enemy are on their Sarawak and Sabah. In the course of a way...you must hide." year he had walked many hundreds of So the long afternoon was whiled away miles and had, virtually, walked the whole in desultory conversation. Four times men inhabited frontier, visiting some places came with news of an imminent incursion more than once. and all were unaware of the others' One day he was told to visit a lonely reports. The Traveller had no means of house near the border. Troops stated to be communicating back to base so asked if already there would further brief him. He he could go and warn the nearest troops, had with him a young Dyak policeman, four hours and two ambushes away. The who was serving his probation. Their headman reiterated the necessity of route lay for four hours parallel to the remaining unseen. As a guest, albeit border along a rough track, mostly unwanted and unexpected, the Traveller through secondary jungle. They walked had little option but to do as bidden. through two Security Forces' ambushes. "What do the enemy want here?" he As it was most probable that the soldiers asked. "Have they ever said?" in the ambushes had not been forewarned, "They are looking for Europeans, it can only have been luck that prevented Government men and Border Scouts," said fire from being opened. Not only the fear the headman in reply. As the Traveller of more ambushes, nor the fear of the was all three he felt he probably qualified

29 as a worthwhile target. "They also want hole in the ground. As they tried to make to shoot down a helicopter," the headman themselves comfortable, the man lying added. directly above them urged silence. After sundown the Traveller and his "Quietly, quietly," he hissed down at them, Dyak companion were invited downstairs a vibrant urgency in his muted whisper. for a meal of rice and vegetable. Neither The Traveller had taken a towel down professed to having much of an appetite. with him to use as a pillow. Within a very As an enemy move against the short time both men were beset by rats so longhouse was expected, it was decided to the towel was wedged between head and shelter the two men in a shallow grave- wall and draped over his eyes. This like pit dug under the headman's room. It manoeuvre caused the two men, already had been dug for one man, now it was to jammed together, to wriggle excessively. hold two. There was no room for the The Dyak gave little whimpers of fear as men's packs which were hidden the rats ran up and down him. His elsewhere. Weapons would be carried, but tossings caused the earthen walls to start firing them from under the stilt-perched crumbling and all this drew more agonised house at night was adjudged too risky a requests for silence from above. The business. However, weapons would most longhouse dogs were barking now, not the certainly be needed if evasive action canine yapping at the moon, but became necessary. This pit had been dug suspicious man-induced yapping. The directly below a 'trap door'. This was part enemy were coming down the track. of the bamboo-slatted floor that could be Down below it smelt fetid. Under any rolled back when needs be. A man would longhouse human waste, pigs, curs, rats put his sleeping mat thereon once the and fowls each leave distinctive smells. Traveller and the Dyak were safely The Traveller reckoned that however hidden. He would act as a decoy for it uncomfortable it might be, sleep was was hoped the enemy would not suspect essential, if only to help pass the time anyone sleeping under any such rickety away. Much later he was awoken by a structure. It was decided not to get into large rat sitting on his face. The constant the pit until absolutely necessary. Soon movement of the rats over him probably after it was dark the lamps were blown out aided by subconsciously trying to shake and, no sooner had the Traveller taken off his head free, had resulted in the rats his jungle boots, then the dogs up the pulling the towel down and leaving his track started barking urgently. "Quickly face exposed. He blew up at the rat and hide. The enemy are coming," the shook his head vigorously. The rat headman said. scampered off and somehow he freed one In the dark the Traveller fumbled with hand to drape himself once more. the laces of his boots. "Oh hurry, hurry," It was a long night. said the Dyak in agitation. "Hurry, hurry," Next morning, at dawn, the two men echoed the decoy. The two men groped were called up from their hole. The Dyak their way to the opening of the now rolled looked relieved. "I never thought I'd see back bamboo slates, dropped a few feet daylight again," he said. The Traveller and squeezed themselves into the narrow looked less sanguine, but said nothing.

30 They were taken straight up to the loft now registered deep gloom. On each once more. By then it was raining report of the enemy being brought in, the heavily. Within half an hour three men difficulty of the situation struck the had come in with separate reports that a Traveller more and more forcibly - the large number of enemy had penetrated the border to the south, up to a hundred area during the night, skirted the enemy to the north. The routes out of the longhouse and gone deeper into Sarawak. longhouse were severely limited because They had come in at least two groups. of the swollen rivers. A ten-hour walk to Some were bearded. The owner of the the nearest soldiers if the enemy had only dogs that first started barking had spent gone to the place the two men had come the night in the crude hut that was used from the previous day. If the enemy had during harvesting to save going to and split...? from the main house, thinking it safer The morning dragged on. About under the circumstances. The Traveller midday the rain stopped, but the rivers felt that he should try to get his news back remained very full. During the course of as quickly as possible. It was now urgent. the morning the Traveller had found an His request to leave was politely refused. old religious poster. It had four pictures "This rain has so swollen the two rivers painted in garish colours. The first picture that join below our house that you cannot showed a man, obviously a sinner because cross them," explained the headman. of the black looks emanating from his There was nothing to be done. Men face, being chased by a tiger. The artist and children came up to the loft and had very cleverly given a Mephistophelian huddled in a tight circle around the grin to the tiger so no would-be convert Traveller and the Dyak. The local school need over-tax his imagination as to the did not open that day nor did the pepper allusion. The man was obviously about to pickers venture forth to their get caught because a chasm and thick smallholdings. The Traveller suddenly jungle completely blocked any escape felt the onset of early morning nature. route. The second scene depicted the man "Oh‚, headman. I am ashamed. I must kneeling in prayer, the tiger gathering go and relieve myself," he called down itself for a spring which would ensure from the attic. both its own dinner and the man's demise. "This I forbid. Wait," came the voice However, fresh developments were shown from below. in the third picture. An exclamation mark, Within a minute the headman appeared dropped by a European-looking angel, carrying a red, handleless pot which he hung conveniently over the desperate put on the floor in the very centre of the man's head. The tiger looked nonplussed. small crowd. The ensuing problems made In the fourth picture the exclamation mark the Traveller forget the enemy threat. had even more conveniently turned into a The rain continued. A morning meal step-ladder and the man, now a firm was offered and accepted, so as not to give Believer in the Faith, made the more offence. Both men merely picked at it. obvious by the smirk on the angel's face, The Dyak, whose face had portrayed was nimbly climbing up it. The tiger was happiness on leaving the earthen hide, disconsolately slinking away, his face

31 turned round with a vexed expression there are over a hundred enemy nearby caused by the unusual and unpredictable and they have threatened to shoot the first way his quarry had eluded him. helicopter they can. You are the first since Both the Traveller and the Dyak the incursion." wondered if there was a moral to the story. The pilot waited just long enough to Once more the headman was asked if allow the Traveller to get into the body of he would allow the Traveller to leave. the machine and took off faster than he The urgency of informing somebody had landed. There were tears in the about this incursion grew steadily. The Traveller's eyes which were not accounted answer was definite. "Please do not go as for by the wind as he was sitting sheltered long as there are enemy in this area. If from it. they were to know I had hidden you, they *** would punish me with my life. This is Some months later the Traveller returned their real threat." to Borneo and was told that a broadcast by At 2 o'clock in the afternoon, twenty- the enemy radio had demoted him two six hours after they had arrived at the ranks and announced his death. This had longhouse, they heard a helicopter. There also been reported in the local daily paper was an agonising wait to make sure it was the following day. in fact coming their way, followed by an The Traveller's battalion pandit (from exquisite feeling of relief when it circled the days when he did not have to travel the longhouse. It had obviously come for quite so much) was smiling when they the two men but equally obviously it had next met. not heard of the incursion. "We say that if a man is reported dead The two men ran to the small field two yet stays alive, he will live till he is a hundred yards away and the Traveller hundred years old. You have had two marshalled it to the ground. He flung his reports about you. This means that you kit and weapon in, pushed the Dyak in, can now be with us till you're a hundred climbed up the side and lifted up the and ten." surprised pilot's helmet. He put his mouth near the pilot's ear and bawled, "Hurry,

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32 Third Floor, 2 Cloth Court, London EC1A 7LS

33 THE DIGITAL HIMALAYA PROJECT: COLLECTING, PROTECTING AND CONNECTING ENDANGERED ARCHIVES AND KNOWLEDGE ABOUT NEPAL, BHUTAN AND TIBET By Dr Mark Turin, University of Cambridge & Yale University (Following the Britain Nepal Academic Council study day at Cambridge University, Dr Mark Turin introduced me to this project and has agreed to upload editions of the journal to the Digital Himalaya site. Ed)

The project’s origins materials were collected. To this end, we In December 2000, together with applied for a grant to set up the Digital Professor Alan Macfarlane, Sarah Himalaya Project as a strategy for Harrison and Dr Sara Shneiderman, I archiving, digitising and disseminating established the Digital Himalaya Project at online legacy ethnographic materials the University of Cambridge to develop concerning the Himalayan region. digital collection, storage and distribution A little seed-corn funding, a small strategies for multimedia anthropological research team and a growing sense that information from the Himalayan region. what was still being referred to with awe The plan was simple enough and we felt as ‘the World Wide Web’ was robust that the timing was right: many archival enough to deliver compressed video on ethnographic materials, such as 16mm demand all came together to energise our films, still photographs, videos, sound fledgling project. Alongside the recordings, field notes, maps and rare preservation aspect mentioned above, we journals were fast degenerating in their had two other primary aims: to make our current formats. As we were digital resources available over broadband anthropologists who worked in Nepal— Internet connections for researchers and with the Gurung (Tamu) and Thami students, and to return copies to source (Thangmi) communities—it was logical communities in the countries of origin — that we focus our attention on the such as Nepal, Bhutan, the Tibetan Himalayas. Autonomous Region and the Himalayan During our research we had noted a states of India. When we started the peculiar paradox. Even though project, we had naively imagined that the anthropologists were becoming ever more West would have the Internet, and ‘the concerned about cultural endangerment Rest’ would have DVDs and CD-ROMs. and the damaging side-effects of How wrong we were. globalisation, and funds were available for scholars to document indigenous cultures Technology as a master class in Buddhist that were fast disappearing, very few non-attachment social scientists were working to ensure Archivists specialising in the curation of that anthropological collections from moving images use the phrase “nitrate previous generations were maintained, won’t wait” to describe the urgency of refreshed and made accessible, both to the migrating silver nitrate film to more research community and to the durable digital formats. Not only were descendants of the people from whom the anthropological collections dating from

34 the early 20th century fast degrading, but would be split apart when it returned they were also becoming orphaned, as the home, according to the format of the technology needed to view them was now recording medium: text, to the library; obsolete and ever harder to find. The pace sound, to the audio archives; photographs, of technological change provides a to the photo collections; and cine film, powerful if brutal lesson in impermanence often nowhere. The fast-developing web and non-attachment: it’s still possible to was the natural site for these diverse read a book that is 500 years old (as many materials to be reintegrated and served up scholars of classical languages and in a rich, searchable and retrievable cultures regularly do), but close to multimedia format. impossible to find a computer anywhere within the University of Cambridge that Film collections can read an ‘old’ 8-inch or 5¼-inch floppy In the first phase of the project, five disc dating back to the 1980s. The rate of ethnographic collections were selected for innovation and obsolescence moves ever digitisation, along with a set of maps of faster, and few fieldworkers pause to Nepal and some important journals on reflect on issues such as the longevity and Himalayan studies. One of the most persistence of their recordings before they valuable collections was that of the 16mm travel to remote locations around the films taken by Christoph von Fürer- world to document endangered cultures. Haimendorf, Professor of Anthropology at There was a further irony in what we the School of Oriental and African Studies planned to do. While ‘audio-visual’ was a (SOAS) in London, which spanned from big technology buzzword in the 1990s, the 1930s to the 1980s. While Fürer- ethnographic fieldwork had been Haimendorf's specific interests included ‘multimedia’ or ‘multimodal’ for about the Naga communities of India and the 100 years, with early anthropologists Sherpa of Nepal, he travelled far and wide using still cameras, wax or plastic cylinder across the region, taking over 100 hours of record phonographs and copious film throughout his career. Extraordinary notebooks to document their personal in both its breadth and its depth, his reflections. When these scholars returned collection is one of the finest extant home, though, they were expected to write ethnographic film collections that books in which precious little of the document Himalayan cultures. material that they had recorded could be We started digitising Fürer- accommodated. And when anthropologists Haimendorf’s films in a cheap and retired, and later passed away, their cheerful way ourselves by projecting the collections of recordings and photographs footage and then filming the output were left in shoeboxes in their attic, only through a box of mirrors, and hosting to be passed on to university libraries and video clips on our website. These snippets archives that didn’t really want them or caught the attention of the British know how to catalogue them. So while Universities Film and Video Council fieldwork was inherently immersive, (BUFVC) who then paid for the making use of all manner of technology, professional digitisation of the footage an anthropologist’s holistic collection using telecine projection. Herein lay

35 another lesson: digitisation is a and their insights added enormous value continuous and ongoing process, not a to the collections. Returning to source simple one off; and we began to think of communities with DVDs and hard discs, digitising a subset first before committing then, was never a mechanical process of to undertake the digitisation of an entire cultural repatriation in digital form, but collection. rather an exciting opportunity for Another important early collection for partnerships by which collections were the project was that of Frederick enriched and better understood, and Williamson, a British Political Officer copies of the footage distributed to the stationed in Sikkim in the 1930s. He was communities who had a stake in its also an ardent photographer and amateur maintenance and content. filmmaker. Between 1930 and 1935, he and his wife, Margaret, took Himalayan journals online a pproximately 1,700 photographs It became apparent that we were in a throughout the region. As well as position to expand Digital Himalaya to documenting the Williamsons’ travels, benefit an ever-wider base of individuals their photos provide an unusually well around the world who were connected to preserved and well-catalogued insight the Internet. As scholars, we were into social life in Sikkim, Bhutan and frequent users of online archives Tibet during the 1930s. Of particular containing digitised versions of academic interest to us were the 23 reels of 16mm journals, but we were surprised to cine film that Williamson shot while on discover that no publications that official trips. We first digitised these originated in Himalayan countries could films and then returned to Sikkim, be found in such online archives, Bhutan and Tibet with sets of DVDs to severely restricting access, impact and make them available to institutes, visibility. Moreover, users had to be universities and colleges in the region, as associated with an established university well as to the descendants of some of the or institution of higher education to have people we could identify from the access to such portals, which essentially footage. restricts the readership to a tiny Through the Fürer-Haimendorf and proportion of users. With the agreement Williamson’s film collections, interesting of editorial boards and publishers, we and unexpected collaborations began to started sourcing and scanning back issues take place. The custodians of such of a large number of journals, magazines collections back in the UK often had only and publications on Himalayan studies limited knowledge about the context of from Nepal, Bhutan, India and Tibet, as the footage that they held, based on a few well as publications relating to the region quickly scribbled notes on a film canister that originated in Europe and the United or from an ancient accession form. Back States. in the Himalayas, however, descendants After several years of scanning, we of the individuals who featured in these now host back issues of many important films could often provide a great deal of publications online for free download, additional information about the footage, including but not limited to: Ancient

36 Nepal, Adarsha; Bulletin of Tibetology; (Kailash - Journal of Himalayan Studies Contributions to Nepalese Studies; was the first), we quickly established a European Bulletin of Himalayan momentum and visibility such that others Research; Gochali, Himal; Himal wanted to join the initiative. Now that we Southasian; Himalayan Journal of run optical character recognition software Sciences; Journal of Bhutan Studies; over each article, it’s possible to search Journal of Newar Studies; Journal of the the content of a journal (as long as was Tibet Society; Kailash- Journal of originally printe d in a Roman script), and Himalayan Studies; Martin Chautari all articles are indexed by Google. Policy Briefs; Mulyankan; Nation Together with Dr Ken Bauer, we also Weekly; Nepalese Linguistics; Nepali produced a series of maps of each of Times; Newsfront; Occasional Papers in Nepal’s 75 districts based on GIS layers Sociology and Anthropology; Peace and showing rivers, roads, settlements and Democracy in South Asia; Purnima; elevation, all of which are widely used Read; Regmi Research Series; Revue and freely available through our website. d'Etudes Tibétaines; Sharada and We also built an online tool to query data Shikshak. In this context, we are from the 2001 National Census of Nepal, particularly happy to have made contact allowing users to download data on with Lt. Col. Gerry Birch, Chairman of economic activity, literacy, marital status, the Britain-Nepal Society. At Gerry’s religion, population and school status in request, we scanned the back issues of four different file formats. These this splendid journal (at our own cost out resources are proving to be very popular of appreciation for the work of the the world over, and particularly among Society) and we are now privileged to students, NGOs and journalists in South host the entire back archive of the journal Asia itself, which is very satisfying. on our website, for free, for anyone, anywhere to download: Our team there were two other founding members The idea is simple: we want to of the project: Sarah Harrison and Sara stimulate sales and subscriptions to Shneiderman, both scholars of Nepal, and journals by digitising and hosting back coincidentally also our wives. Sarah and issues (at no cost to publishers and Sara did an enormous amount of the editors), many of which are now out of early work—includ ing designing and print, and thus provide a web presence hosting our first web presence and for publications that might otherwise not preparing collections for online have made it online. We have found our distribution. As the project developed and PDF archive of journals and magazines changed direction over the years, many to be amazingly popular, especially other people have become involved. I within Himalayan states themselves, would like to mention in particular where access to good libraries and full Daniel Ho of New York, a very talented collections of printed matter is often artist and web designer (a rare poor. Having started with a few journals combination in one person); Hikmat

37 Khadka, a skilled translator and user of day, we receive between 200-300 visits to Nepali Unicode who joined us for 6 our site, and many people spend some months in Cambridge some years back; time downloading movies, audio files or and Komin Thami, our office manager documents from our servers that they can and principal scanner based in view on their own computers or handheld Kathmandu. Digital Himalaya has devices once they are no longer matured from being a UK-based connected to the web. university initiative to a multi-sited online portal with team members in three The unexpected continents making use of Skype, Gmail While the project began as a strategy for and file transfer services like YouSendIt salvaging, archiving and disseminating to work together and ensure that new the products of (primarily colonial) collections can be hosted online as ethnographic collections on the eff iciently as possible. Himalayas—both for posterity and for heritage communities—Digital Himalaya Project movements has become a collaborative digital From 2002 to 2005, the project moved to publishing environment which brings a the Department of Anthropology at new collection online every month. The Cornell University and began its website has grown from being a static collaboration with the University of homepage with occasional updates to a Virginia. From August 2011, Digital dynamic content delivery platform for Himalaya has been colocated at over 40GB of archived data. Similarly, Cambridge and Yale Universities. These our website has moved from being various moves have added a great deal to almost exclusively used by members of the project and our collections. I will Western universities to providing a range never forget my joy at seeing the first of services to a global public, with a automatic document feeder scanner, particularly strong user base in Asia. which ingested A4 print o uts and spat out Digitisation has been ‘off-shored’ to a perfect PDF! We made good use of this Nepal, dramatically reducing operating machine, along with many other tools, costs, increasing productivity and and we now have well over 3,000,000 improving connectivity with local pages of text online. communities. And perhaps most importantly, our funding no longer comes Our users from national grant-giving bodies in For a long time, we had no idea of how Europe or the States, but from users, Web many users we had and where they were referrals and individual donations from based, but through Google Analytics, we around the world. It’s been an exciting, now have a much better sense. Most of unexpected and very rewarding process. our users come from four countries: We continue to receive as many grateful India; Nepal; the United States; and the emails as we do frustrated emails from United Kingdom; but there are sizeable users when links don’t work (do tell us, numbers of repeat visitors from Europe please), alongside recommendations of and South America a lso. On an average areas into which we might expand.

38 Website: www.digitalhimalaya.org To clarify: you incur no extra costs, but For further information, please contact: Amazon.com pays Digital Himalaya a Dr Mark Turin: commission of up to 4% on your purchases: To support us, please visit: A message from Dr Turin on behalf of the Digital Himalaya Project Team: And then search the Amazon.co.uk box at the bottom right of the page. Any As potential users of the resources purchases that you complete through this provided online for free by Digital original search will earn us a commission. Himalaya, I thought that you wouldn't Please make sure that you choose the mind being approached about an easy way correct Amazon box (the first search box of supporting this collaborative project. is the US, the second one for the UK and Amazon.co.uk has an affiliates scheme Europe). which earns our project a tiny commission And do forward this message on to when purchases on Amazon are routed others who might use Digital Himalaya if through the Digital Himalaya site. you feel it to be appropriate. We have joined the programme, and have found that this simple link has helped Thanks in advance for supporting us. to bring in some modest funds for site upgrades and our ongoing webspace needs.

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40 VICTORIA CROSSES AWARDED TO BRITAIN’S INDIAN ARMY GURKHAS 1911- 1947 By Richard Cawthorne

The deaths of Havildar Lachhiman to an Indian sepoy during the Waziristan Gurung VC late 8th Gurkha Rifles in campaign in 1921; and twenty eight December 2010 and Honorary Lieutenant Victoria Crosses were awarded during the (QGO) Tulbahadur Pun VC late 6th Second World War, of which ten were to Queen Elizabeth’s Own Gurkha Rifles in Gurkhas. Of the twelve Victoria Crosses April 2011, has closed a chapter in the to Gurkhas, three were awarded history of the Victoria Cross. Lachhiman posthumously, all in the Second World was the last soldier of the Indian Army to War. be awarded the Victoria Cross and In the First World War, the Victoria following his death Tulbahadur was the Crosses awarded to Gurkhas were both to sole survivor of Britain’s Indian Army riflemen of the 2nd Battalion 3rd Queen who had been awarded the Victoria Cross. Alexandra’s Own Gurkha Rifles; one in Tulbahadur’s death also occurred in the France in 1915 and the other in Palestine centenary year that the eligibility for the in 1918. In the Second World War, award of the Victoria Cross was expanded Gurkha recipients were from six of the to include Indian and Gurkha officers and ten regiments of Gurkhas for actions in soldiers of the Indian Army. North Africa, Italy and Burma. The first Initially the award of the Victoria Victoria Cross to be awarded to a Gurkha Cross to the Honourable East India in the Second World War was for an Company and later Britain’s Indian Army action in North Africa in 1943; two were was restricted to British officers and awarded to Gurkhas, both posthumously, soldiers. Native officers, non for actions in Italy in 1944; and the commissioned officers and sepoys were remaining seven Victoria Crosses were only eligible for the Indian Order of Merit awarded to Gurkhas for the Burma (IOM), which had been instituted in 1837. campaign. Of the seven Victoria Crosses The expansion of the award to include for the Burma campaign, four were native officers, non commissioned awarded during a two week period in officers and men was notified in The 1944 – two of which were awarded to a London Gazette on 12th December 1911, single battalion in the same battle. which coincided with its announcement at Gurkhas of 5th Royal Gurkha Rifles the Coronation Durbar of HM King (Frontier Force) were awarded a total of George V at Delhi on the same day. four Victoria Crosses for actions in Over the next 35 years, until Partition Burma and Italy, which was more than and the Independence of Pakistan and any other regiment in the Indian Army; India in 1947, a total of forty Victoria and its 2nd Battalion was the most Crosses were awarded to Indian and decorated battalion in the Indian Army, Gurkha officers and soldiers. Eleven having been awarded three Victoria Victoria Crosses were awarded during the Crosses during the Burma campaign. First World War, two of which were to Six of the twelve Victoria Crosses Gurkhas; one Victoria Cross was awarded awarded to Gurkhas of Britain’s Indian

41 Army are now held by The Gurkha Tulbahadur Pun 6th Gurkha Rifles and Museum. These are the Victoria Crosses Ganju Lama MM 7th Gurkha Rifles. awarded during the First World War to Havildar Lachhiman Gurung and Riflemen Kulbir Thapa and Karanbahadur Honorary Lieutenant (QGO) Tulbahadur Rana, both of 3rd Queen Alexandra’s Pun were the last of a special breed and Own Gurkha Rifles, and for the Second their deaths represent the end of an era. World War to Subadar Lalbahadur Thapa and Riflemen Bhanbhagta Gurung 2nd (“The Story of Gurkha VCs” is available King Edward VII’s Own Gurkha Rifles, from The Gurkha Museum.)

ADVERTISEMENTSINTHEJOURNAL Why not advertise in the Britain-Nepal Society Journal There is a membership with a large range of interests related to Nepal You never know who may be interested!

Please contact Dr Peter Trott, Treasurer/Publicity Manager [email protected]

42 GURKHA SETTLEMENT IN UK – AN UPDATE By Colonel William Shuttlewood, Director GWT

The Gurkha Settlement Programme (GSP) individuals, especially those over age 60, is now in its fourth year. It applies only to seek settlement to take advantage of the those ex-Gurkhas who left the Brigade on UK’s benefits system and retain the or before 30 Jun 97, the day prior to the hope/anticipation that their wider family, transfer of sovereignty in Hong Kong. especially children over age 18 years, will Those who left the Brigade on or after 1 be allowed to join them in due course. Jul 97 were already entitled to settle in UK A substantial number of those seeking under the HM Forces Immigration Rules settlement are over 60 years. These are the (HMFIR) issued in 2004. Authoritative most vulnerable group and from the outset figures are difficult to establish but the of their time in UK they remain dependent Trust estimates that circa 11,000 heads of on benefits and support from the Service family have sought settlement in UK either charities. These individuals generally do under GSP or HMFIR. Individuals are not speak any English, lack the skills to allowed to be accompanied by their wives secure employment and are unable to and dependant children up to the age of 18 integrate into wider UK Society. Many years. have sought to settle in the In support of the GSP the MOD has Aldershot/Farnborough area to a linfe o established in Kathmandu a Gurkha welfare support. The extent of benefits is Settlement Office (GSO). Its primary task such that, in many cases, individuals are is to ensure those considering settlement able to remit funds to Nepal to repay loans make informed decisions. Once an and to support the wider individual declares his intent to move to family/community. But we should not UK the GSO will also assist with the visa forget that many others seek and acquire application and arrange for a fast-track work and become well-placed to integrate issue of a National Insurance Number to into UK Society. enable the individual to access benefits and The Gurkha diaspora is increasingly other support as necessary on arrival in well established across the country. It is UK. The cost of settlement to the estimated that 94% of those seeking individual is substantial: in the region of settlement who are able to work acquire £5,500 for a married couple (visa employment and, with their wiv es and fee/airfare/initial living expenses). Many children, begin the process of integration. intending to move to UK therefore borrow The concentration of large number of money in anticipation that work or their elderly ex-Gurkhas in Aldershot/ entitlement to benefits will enable them to Farnborough, and its attendant political repay their loan. and social implications at both national The motives of those seeking settlement and local government levels does not are not clearly defined. At one level they always reflect well on the Brigade, past, are a mix of: curiosity, entitlement, pursuit present and future. There is particular of a better life (especially for children), to concern that the public’s perception of the be with wider family, to access medical Gurkha soldier could be affected, treatment, to seek employment. There are especially when combined with the also increasing signs that many political activities of various Gurkha ex-

43 Servicemen’s organisations in UK seeking The Trust continues to support the GSP equal pensions and settlement for by providing advice and counsel in UK for dependants over the age of 18 years. those in need, leaving the established There are some early signs that the Service charities to deliver welfare support numbers seeking settlement is in decline, that is required (the Trust makes an annual that life in UK (especially on benefits) is grant -currently £200,000- to ABF in not quite the paradise expected, and that recognition of this work). This is an work is in short supply. Some individuals arrangement that enables the Trust to retain are beginning to return to Nepal, having its focus on Nepal where there remains a “been there, done that and worn the T different order of poverty and distress. shirt”. But for many, the Programme has enabled them to seek a new life, to secure emp loyment and to integrate with wider UK Society.

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44 WOMEN WITHOUT ROOFS By Anna Townsend (Anna Townsend is Chair of Trustees, Women Without Roofs – Nepal, a UK registered charity No. 1132931)

My husband Simon (Major Townsend of the first group passed on to us by QOGLR) and our two children returned to Eileen around half had suffered from Nepal for three weeks in May last year leprosy. The social stigma of leprosy had (2012) and on this occasion it was my meant that their husbands had abandoned work that took us back. Since living in them, leaving the women to raise their Nepal six years ago, when Simon was children alone. Since that time we have stationed in Kathmandu, the charity that I steadily taken on more women and founded has grown and we returned to see discovering their problems and the issues the amazing work being carried out by the they face has been a challenging learning charity’s staff and friends in the country. experience. We have helped a human Whilst living in Patan in 2005 I was trafficking victim who had been drugged approached by an elderly missionary and smuggled to work in brothels in called Eileen Lodge, who is famous for Delhi. Other women have suffered rape being one of the founding staff members and there are countless widows, both of Shining Hospital in Pokhara. Eileen young and old, who remain on the was 80 years old in 2005 and lived in margins of Nepalese society and suffer Patan near our house. With her own from harsh discrimination. means she was supporting a small group We spent two weeks of our trip in of destitute women with their rent and Kathmandu visiting the women in their medical bills. These women were her homes and took the children along too and friends and quite simply Eileen was they were warmly welcomed into the concerned about what would happen to humble rooms in which the women live. these women when she died. Having no The level of poverty can be shocking; social provision, Nepal is a difficult place some women, at the time they are referred to survive if you are vulnerable and to us (we always try to move them unable to work, and Eileen provided vital somewhere better though it is not always support to these women. possible) live in cellar rooms without Eileen asked if I would take on the windows where the walls have been financial support for these women, which blackened with smoke from cooking. All I did, and thanks to the kind support of of them have to endure endless dark my family and friends found sponsors for evenings due to the multiple power cuts the women and were able to continue to across the city. Most of the women have paying their rent and medical bills. Eileen children to support as well and we have named the charity Women Without Roofs come across young girls who work instead (WWR) and in 2006 we were registered in of going to school and even at the age of the UK. It seemed I was now the chair of ten have grey hair due to their poor diet; it an official charity and we have continued is deeply saddening. to expand ever since. Thankfully though we have been able All the women supported by WWR are to help them and the highlight of our trip alone and have no one else to help them; was our visit to the Anugraha Ashram

45 (Grace Women’s Home) in Godavari that Trek around Begnas Tal and Rupa Tal. WWR established in 2011 to provide a We all adored the scenery and the safe and pleasant place for our neediest company of our porters who were great women to live. The home has a beautiful fun. Our five year old daughter Bethany view over the southern Kathmandu valley not only managed to walk the entire way and not only has clean rooms but space but also managed to talk the entire time for a market garden so that vegetables can too. She was never out of breath! Zach, be grown and animals kept. There are who is eight, was very proud of himself hens, goats, bees and two cows called for keeping up with the porters but we did Angela and Bob - a donor in the UK have to remind him that he didn’t have to wished to name them! It was marvellous carry anything! to see the women there, some of whom As a family we are all firmly have suffered enormously, smiling and committed to Nepal and know it won’t be caring for each other so tenderly. long before we visit again, whether for my WWR operates across Kathmandu and work or with Simon’s Army also runs two sewing and literacy courses commitments. We would absolutely love in Bansbari that teach women a valuable to be posted there again. It is our adopted skill so they can provide for their families. home and our children even think they are There is also a small shop where the a little Nepalis. It is a source of great joy graduates of the course can work and earn to us that we can be involved in helping, some income. One of the benefits of ever so little, to make the country better. being a small and relatively new charity is In 2009 I decided to gain a better that we can respond quickly to the needs understanding of development and so I of the women we support and we are keen began an MSc in Poverty Reduction and to help them as much as we can, Development Management with especially when they have their own ideas Birmingham University. My work with to make their lives better. Women Without Roofs was also leading WWR’s work is growing most in the me to interesting situations and so it was area of education. All of the women we that I found myself in the City of London support receive an allowance per child per in 2011 at a Charity Dragons’ Den event month (rather like child benefit in the UK) trying to raise some funds. It was and we are now looking to support however a propitious evening, not least children through college and beyond. because the Dragons liked our charity, but Education is the key to breaking the cycle also because I was introduced to Jeremy of poverty within families so we wish to Lefroy, MP for Stafford, who is a member invest in this area. However it seems most of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for students in Nepal wish to leave the Britain and Nepal. When it came to country and work abroad and this is writing my dissertation I offered to carry dispiriting. We long for Nepal to sort out out research on their behalf, and so it was its problems so that those with skills will that whilst all my fellow students flew off stay in the country and help it to develop. to sunnier climes for their dissertation Our trip was not all work and we also research, I made the journey to Stafford spent a week in Pokhara at the British on the train! Camp at the home of Lt Col Johnny Fenn Both Jeremy and I were aware that the and with our children managed the Royal decision to allow Gurkhas to settle in the

46 UK following their service in the British now and are perceived as having great Army, famously fought for by Joanna potential for raising development finance. Lumley, had had a negative impact on Nepal Rastra Bank (the national bank of Nepal. Gurkhas now look towards their Nepal) has tentatively made them future in the UK and therefore no longer available for purchase by its Diaspora and send large amounts of money home to I was able to meet and interview their Nepal to be invested there. Towns such as Executive Director of Public Debt whilst Dharan, that I had visited whilst living in visiting Nepal – I made it beyond Stafford Nepal, were orderly and booming thanks eventually! Sadly his answers to my to the influence of the retired Gurkhas questions about the bond gave me no resident there. Council services, such as confidence in the worthiness of the rubbish collections, were introduced and product at present. I can only hope that the entire town population benefited. once greater stability is achieved some My research quest therefore became to progress can be made. understand what influence the Gurkhas, Other suggestions that Gurkhas could now in their new role as a Diaspora, could be involved in disaster response and use have on Nepal’s development from afar. sport for development play to their At no point did I take for granted that particular strengths as a Diaspora group. Gurkhas should be helping Nepal develop, Gurkhas serve in the British Army as but I did assume that Gurkhas would want infantrymen and also as logisticians, to make a meaningful contribution to signallers and engineers, all of which, Nepal and this assumption was justified coupled with their language skills, would by the enthusiasm I met with in focus make them extremely useful in the wake groups with the Gurkhas and their wives of a disaster in Nepal. Given that the serving in Stafford. country sits on a major fault line this is a The research identified eight areas in high probability. The Gurkha Major in which Gurkhas could aid and assist Nepal Aldershot had a keen desire to see Nepal to develop. These were, in summary: compete on the global sporting stage and Advocate and lobby on behalf of he wished to copy the success of Kenya Nepal. by finding and training great runners from Increase the value of remittances impoverished backgrounds. He hoped this through charity giving. would help Nepalis to feel proud of their Invest in a Diaspora or public bond. nation. Plan for and participate in disaster As a military wife I was most response. encouraged by the compassion yet Build trade links with Nepal. worldliness of the Gurkha wives. They Use sport for development. were aware of the problems of human Involve themselves with the wider trafficking in Nepal and were keen to do development community. what they could to raise awareness of the Several areas of policy that could be issue in their home villages. My research amended to help development. suggests that it is they who have the most time and enthusiasm for the solutions I Diaspora bonds, a savings bond issued recommend and my hope is to continue by national banks to the overseas workers, working with them both in Stafford and in are in vogue with the World Bank right Aldershot where I now live.

47 (If you would like to know more about in the article who may be known to you, is Women Without Roofs or even make a still alive though bed-bound at her home donation, please visit www.wwr-nepal.org. in Kathmandu. A full copy of Anna's Anna regularly speaks to groups about the dissertation is available if you wish to charity and its work; if you would like to read more about the many ways that book her to speak please contact her at Gurkhas can aid Nepal to develop. [email protected] Contact Anna at the e-mail address Eileen Lodge, the missionary mentioned above.)

FROM THE EDITOR’S IN-TRAY

The Kosi Bird Observatory (KBO) – The Jim Edwards Memorial Fund A report from the journal British Birds Members will remember that following (February 2012) the death of Jim Edwards of Tiger Tops Following a worldwide appeal the Kosi fame, a memorial fund was established in Bird Observatory has been established 2009. The trustees have now started their after only one year of fund raising, a first project that reflects Jim’s strong remarkable effort. It is a 10 hectare site interest in conservation education. In located just north of the Koshi Thappu Nepal there is an umbrella organisation Wildlife Reserve. Dr Hemsagar Baral, SENSE – School Environment Nepal’s leading ornithologist and Conservation Education Network Nepal president of Himalayan Nature (expanded which is committed to spreading practical from Bird Conservation Nepal) said: awareness about current issues of “The site is now, in essence, a mini bird environmental conservation and bio- reserve complementing the conservation diversity through the involvement of efforts achieved by the Government of school children. One of the schools that Nepal when Koshi Thappu Wildlife have signed up to this network is in Reserve was established to protect the Bardia and in the village closest to Tiger rich natural heritage further down the Tops Lodge, Karnali. The fund has river. The KBO is flanked by two provided a building named the Important Bird Areas, the Dharan Forest ‘Jagadamba Jim Edwards Conservation to the east and Koshi Thappu and Koshi Education Information Centre for this barrage to the south. Most importantly it village and its school. One of the lies in an ideal place for studying Nepal’s Society’s vice presidents, Mrs Pat Mellor, birds at a point where the mighty Koshi is the Trust’s secretary. River finally opens out after meandering through the high mountains and hills of Nepal.”

48 Figures on the Nepalese Population The Vulture Crisis Update living in Great Britain According to the latest bulletin of the At the Britain-Nepal Academic Council Oriental Bird Club, BirdingASIA, the study days in Edinburgh (18/19 April) the decline in the vulture population had following figures were quoted by slowed and may be, in the case of the presenters: in the. 2001 census there 5938 White-rumped Vulture (Gyps Nepalese recorded in UK, this had risen bengalensis), possibly reversed, in both to 60,002 in the 2011 Census. It is India and Nepal. This was one of the estimated that there were likely to be findings of the SAVE (Saving Asia’s around 100,000 Nepalese now living Vultures from Extinction) meeting held here. in November 2012 in Kathmandu. Surveys had shown that current Gorkhaland population trends show a statistically Recent reports (August 2013) indicate significant change in the rate of decline there has been more trouble in the form rapid to slow. Survival rates have Darjeeling area. The Gorkha Janmukti apparently improved with the reduction Morcha (GJM) has been angered by the in the use of the anti-inflammatory drug Indian government’s establishment of a diclofenac. new state in Andhra Pradesh but have again ignored demands from the GJM for recognition of a Gorkhaland state. The GJM have indicated that that it will attempt to stop the transport and export of any tea from the Darjeeling hills. This action could shut down the tea estates leaving stocks to rot and damage the next year’s leaves. This would seem to be counter productive since it could leave the tea pickers and workers, some 25% of the working population, without a job. Seventy per cent of the local population live on tea estates. Darjeeling produces over 9 million kilograms of tea every year with over one hundred thousand workers involved in the tea industry.

49 www.brinos.org.uk Registered Charity No. 800453

50 BOOK REVIEWS

Gurkha Tales, From Peace and War, and well, perpetuated by stories about 1945-2011. By J.P. Cross. Frontline retired Indian army officers and South Books, an imprint of Pen and Sword African women of Indian origin. Another Books Ltd, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, story recounts how on a visit to UK. 2012. Pp x + 278. Hb. Illust. £19.99. Kathmandu, his name (Lieutenant Cross), ISBN: 978-1-84832-690-3. was mistaken for a winner of the Victoria Cross. The stories were published This book is called ‘Gurkha Tales’ but as through the years in The Kukri, the John Cross explains in his introduction, it journal of the Brigade of Gurkhas while is not tales of or about the Gurkhas, others are from letters to friends and rather tales the Gurkhas tell and there is a family and depict noteworthy events. subtle difference. The Nepalis are John Cross served throughout the Far predominantly a mountain race who East and the Tales reflect his time in a traditionally like telling stories and in variety of locations including Malaya their mountain villages after dark and during the Emergency and his time as round the fire, the tales begin. The commandant of the Jungle Warfare stories are competitive i.e. one ‘caps’ the School. In jungle warfare the participants other so that imagination sometimes are taught to talk only in whispers and bends the truth and the adage that a good never interfere with nature. One Tale tells story should not be spoilt by strict how the dislodgement of a single leaf adherence to the truth is occasionally was the only sign that revealed enemy maintained. The stories cover the life presence in deepest jungle. There are experiences of the author Lieutenant stories about the early days of Gurkha Colonel John Cross who was recruited recruitment, soldiers’ superstitions and into the 1st Gurkhas in 1944 and retired life with the Border Scouts raised by to live in Pokhara in 1986. Colonel Cross for service in Sarawak and Thechapter s (each representing a Sabah in 1963. Following the end of Tale) cover a wide range of subjects. WWII and Japanese surrender, the They are in rough chronological order presence of a large number of Japanese and represent a sort of curriculum vitae soldiers presented peculiar problems of Col. Cross’s professional career with before they could all be repatriated. One subsidiary adventures thrown in. Each solution was to incorporate them into the chapter is autonomous but such is the British Army and Col. Cross describes subject and style one is seduced into how he discovered he was commanding a reading one after the other. Highlights large contingent of Japanese troops who include a description and comments of a had ‘changed sides’. His literary style visit to Laos in March 1975 when the includes curious phrases e.g. ‘more than Vietnam War was ending and a trip to a dogs lifetime’ whose meaning is not Ootacamund in Tamil Nadu during the obviously clear and many puns, such as India/Pakistan War of December 1971. ‘slim thread’ referring to General Bill Evidently here the British Raj was alive Slim and a poem referring to a hornbill

51 and an ashtray. There are references to illustrated in the 226 colour plates (73 Spencer Chapman, as well as a more than in the original edition). The description of ‘Longhouse Culture’ in order in which species are listed has been Borneo from the inside. This is an amended from the less familiar Sibley & experience of life that is unique and Munroe to the Howard & Moore listing. probably can never be repeated. The biggest improvements have been the John Cross is a prolific author and has placing of the species descriptions and written books on Nepali history as well distribution maps opposite the as historical novels and Gurkhali illustrations and there are fewer dictionaries. He is a linguist of repute illustrations on each colour plate. Many and is said to have learnt Temiar an of the illustrations are new and also obscure aboriginal north Malay language improved. On a recent trip to India I still in five days. The breadth of his had the first pocket edition but other knowledge is reminiscent of Kipling in members of the party had the updated that he knows of cultures living in version which was easier to use and was regions that are uncontaminated by well received. I shall be buying the latest Western civilisation and is able to edition for my next trip. A full review can communicate with them. I warmly be found in BirdingASIA No. 17 June recommend this book to all with even a 2012, the bulletin of the Oriental Bird passing interest in Nepal. Furthermore, Club. his final paragraph in the book includes GDB an invitation to all travelling in Nepal to visit him and his extended family in Pokhara where he now lives. Dr. PA Trott

Birds of the Indian Subcontinent 2nd edition. By Richard Grimmett, Carol Inskipp and Tim Inskipp. Christopher Helm, London, 2011. 226 colour plates, 1288 distribution maps. Paperback . £35.00. ISBN 978-0-691-15349-3.

I reviewed the first edition of this work in the 2001 journal (Edition No. 25) along with the pocket guide or field guide edition of the work and the ‘Birds of Nepal’ which was the extract from the main work of those species to be found in Nepal, also in a field guide format. Helm have produced a much improved field guide in this second and much updated edition. A total of 1,375 species have been covered and have been

52 OBITUARIES

he was only 17. She was the girl next door, literally, and when her house was full of visitors she stayed next door with my father’s family. It was then that my father starting bringing her cups of tea in bed in the morning, a tradition that endured throughout their lives together when they later married in 1965. She became an Army wife and willingly followed my father to wherever he was posted. This involved living in 8 countries (Singapore, Malaya, Germany, Hong Kong, UK, Belgium, Holland and Nepal) and required 17 house moves over a 29 year period. During this time her interest in other people and other cultures flourished. She gave up her career to follow my father around the world and she proved Sheila Marian Birch to be an outstanding Army wife, always Sheila Birch, a life member of the interested in other people and cultures Society, was born in 1935 and lived wherever she went. through the Second War as a child; this After my father retired she retained experience shaped her approach to life, as her support and interest in the Army, she it did for many of her generation. Her was a SSAFA case worker for 16 years, childhood was spent in Leicester and she always helping those worse off than her was educated at the Wyggeston Girls and was very recently called back to Grammar School. She retained an assist in a specific Gurkha case. interest in her Leicester roots throughout Back in Ickleton she became a her life, particularly via her family member of the village society and served history research. on the committee for many years and for During her early adult life she became a time was Chairman. She was also a a Fellow of the Institute of Medical Parish Councillor for 17 years. Sadly in Laboratory Technology and trained in the early 2011 she was diagnosed with Department of Pathology of Leicester cancer. She responded well to her initial General Hospital before working in treatment but the cancer returned in the medical research laboratories in Oxford, spring of this year. This time the Montreal, London and Cambridge. treatment was not successful and the During this time she made many friends decision was taken to halt it. She was for life. It was during this period she met determined to attend the wedding of a my father for the first time, she was 20 close and dear friend in Germany and the

53 Gurkha Passing Out parade in Catterick, service in 43 Gurkha Lorried Brigade in both of which she achieved. Finally she the Middle East and southern Europe and my father had a few days together in during World War II. After attending the Cley, Norfolk. It was there that her Staff College Camberley he served on the condition deteriorated more quickly and staff of 48 Gurkha Infantry Brigade in she was transferred to the Arthur Rank Hong Kong. Subsequently he Hospice in Cambridge and died commanded a rifle company of 2nd peacefully there after less than 24 hours Goorkha Rifles and then in 1st Royal on the 24th October 2012. Gurkha Rifles on amalgamation. After an James Birch operational tour on the staff in Bosnia he returned to 1st Royal Gurkha Rifles as second-in-command in time to take part in the Bosnia operation. Other operational tours included both Northern Ireland and latterly Afghanistan. However it is for his service in Nepal that he will be principally remembered. On his first appointment in Nepal as second-in-command of British Gurkhas Pokhara he began to establish a reputation as one of the Brigade’s experts on Nepal, its culture, language and people. He spent ten years of his service in appointments on the staff of British Gurkhas Nepal. He served there during the Maoist insurgency and it was whilst escorting a BBC film crew that he was kidnapped by a group of insurgents and held for a period of three days. His final and longest appointment was Field Director of the Gurkha Welfare Scheme. Lt Col Adrian M P Griffith He invigorated and reorganised the The untimely death of Lt Col Adrian Brigade’s welfare work and created a Griffith came as a great shock to all who lasting legacy to the country and the knew him. He was commissioned into people he loved so much. He was held in 6th Queen Elizabeth’s Own Gurkha very high regard by all the officers and Rifles in 1979 and filled a variety of men of the Brigade, almost unique in his regimental appointments. He was generation having such a detailed appointed ADC to the Major General knowledge of Nepal and the Brigade. Brigade of Gurkhas and also served with The tragic loss of Adrian will be keenly 14/20th Kings Royal Hussars, the felt by many especially as he had so regiment’s affiliated cavalry regiment, an much to give as a result of his association that dated from 2/6th GR’s experiences. He was a member of the

54 Society, supporting its aims though as he command of 23 SAS Regiment, the was abroad for so much of his service he territorial unit of the regiment and this was not often able to attend. without previous service with British Special Forces. Thereafter he remained Brig Tony Hunter–Choat OBE with Special Forces. He was appointed Brig Tony Hunter-Choat died in April OBE for his work as Special Forces 2012. Not many members will have liaison officer between C-in-C BAOR known Tony Hunter-Choat as he would and Commander US Forces in Germany. appear to have spent so little time in UK, After retiring from the British Army as especially having read his obituary in The Colonel, he took command of the Sultan Daily Telegraph. This reads like a ‘Boys of Oman’s Special Forces in the rank of Own’ story. After completing his Brigadier, retiring in 1997. Thereafter he education at Dulwich College and took a number of security related posts in training as an architect at Kingston Kosovo, with the Aga Khan and with the Collegeof Art, he holidayed around US forces in Iraq and later Afghanistan. Europe and discovered an interest in He was a noted lecturer on both security foreign languages and craved a more and leadership. His many awards and adventurous life than that of an architect. appointments include Officer of the He went to Paris in 1957 and joined the Legion of Honour (2001), Commander of Foreign Legion. He spent the next five that order in 2011, Fellow of the Royal years as a parachutist on operations in Society of Arts, Freeman of the City of Algeria during the Algerian War of London, former president and secretary Independence. Over this period he was general of the British Branch of the wounded on occasion and was awarded Foreign Legion Association. He the Medaille Militaire and the Cross of maintained his interest in Nepal as a Valour and two bars to that medal. After result of his service with 7th Gurkha his five year term of service he returned Rifles. His last attendance at a Society to UK and joined the British Army. function was the Nepali Supper in 2011. Initially he was considered too old by He would have been very proud that his MOD but he was granted a special case. daughter, Sarah Hunter-Choat won the After Mons Officer Cadet School, having Sword of Honour when she passed out of passed out top of his intake, he was RMA Sandhurst in December 2012, commissioned into the 7th Gurkha Rifles thereby continuing the family military and saw service in Borneo during the tradition. Indonesian Confrontation. He converted GDB to a regular commission but age was once again against him for such in the Mr Ranjitsing Rai, MBE OStJ infantry so he transferred to the Royal Ranjitsing Rai who died aged 84 on 20th Artillery. His postings included time as December 2011, was the linchpin of the 2IC of 3rd Royal Horse Artillery and as British Military Hospital in Dharan, an instructor at the junior division of the Nepal for virtually all the 30 years of the staff college at Warminster. The next step hospital’s life. For at least 25 of those in this most unconventional career was years he was the hospital’s administrative

55 early 195 0’s and this resulted in a medical discharge from the army in 1954. Following treatment he applied for and was accepted as a medical assistant in Lehra, one of the Gurkha recruiting centres in northern India. In the late 1950’s British recruiting depots for Gurkhas were established in Paklihawa in south west Nepal and in Dharan in the east of the country. After initially working as a medical assistant in Paklihawa, he transferred to the new 80 bedded British Military Hospital in Dharan as the wardmaster. His administrative skills were soon recognised and he became the hospital Mr Ranjitsing Rai, MBE OStJ administrative officer in 1962, a post that he filled for the rest of the hospital’s officer, in which capacity he toiled with existence as a military establishment. As calm efficiency on behalf of all members the administrative officer he was of staff, whether British or Nepalese. primarily responsible for the smooth Once the Army Medical Services had left running of all hospital activity. Just as in December 1989 with the closure of importantly he fulfilled the crucial role of Dharan cantonment as the Headquarters welcoming successive military doctors, British Gurkhas Nepal, Ranjit, the name nurses and midwives as well as those by which he was known by all who knew from the professions allied to medicine, him, continued to support the Overseas and introducing them to their Nepalese Development Agency which inherited the colleagues, many of whom had been hospital temporarily before handing the trained in the hospital. For the majority hospital over to the Nepalese working in a developing country was a Government inearly 1993. completely new and potentially daunting Ranjitsing Rai was born at Baragale experience. Many patients presented Kaman near Darjeeling on 1st September with very severe and untreated medical 1927, the eldest of 15 children. His problems: grossly wasted and cachectic father, Dhanraj, was the assistant children were a shock to many. manager of the Teesta Valley Tea Estate. Frequently patients took several days or After education in Darjeeling, Ranjit even weeks to reach Dharan so poor were enlisted into Britain’s Brigade of Gurkhas the transport facilities, which resulted in at Jalapahar in October 1948. Having the onset of very severe complications completed recruit training he became a before admission to hospital. Accepting clerk in 1st /6th Gurkha Rifles. He such cases was very difficult for some reached the rank of Sergeant but staff members. However Ranjit was able developed pulmonary tuberculosis in the to calm the concerned and encourage and

56 counsel staff as appropriate to the point Ranjit was a mentor to all his staff, a whereby all members of staff became man of infinite patience and kindness but accustomed to dealing with severely sick who was never afraid to correct or even and maimed patients. As a result chasten those who shirked their virtually all members of staff left BMH responsibilities. Dharan with great regret and yet full of Guy Ratcliffe memories of the rewarding experiences to which they had been exposed. Ranjit (I am grateful to Brigadier Guy Ratcliffe, acted with compassion and sympathy for late RAMC for permission to reproduce staff and patients alike. Some patients this piece originally written for the were so poor that they were given money, RAMC magazine and the QARANC or where necessary, shoes or clothing gazette. During his service in the RAM C funded by the welfare slush fund which he served as Regimental Medical Officer he ran. of 7th Gurkha Rifles 1969-74 and in Like most hospitals BMH Dharan had BMH Dharan as physician 1977/78 and a major incident plan. This was due to consultant physician and commanding be practised in early 1986. Regrettably officer 1985/87. Ed.) there was a major bus crash a few miles away one Sunday evening, which meant that the plan was implemented for real and several casualties were received over a few hours. What became immediately obvious was that the hospital’s small A & E department was too small as an ideal area for triage. The plan was subsequently amended to provide a triage area close to but outside the main hospital complex. This became of crucial importance in 1988 following a major earthquake in east Nepal with its epicentre about 50 miles away. The hospital could so easily have become inundated with casualties, but Ranjit’s administrative skills were again to the fore, which resulted in a well controlled system of admissions to the hospital for more formal assessment and treatment. He was also a source of authoritative advice about social and welfare issues involving Gurkha ex-servicemen living in the hills, and in this regard he offered support to young British Gurkha officers working in Dharan.

57 USEFUL ADDRESSES

The UK Trust for Nature Conservation in Nepal The Britain-Nepal Medical Trust c/o Conservation Programmes 130 Vale Road Zoological Society of London Tonbridge Regent’s Park Kent TN9 1SP London NW1 4RY Tel: (01732) 360284 Tel: (020) 7449 6304 www.thebritainnepalmedicaltrust.org.uk Fax: (020) 7483 4436 The Britain-Nepal Chamber of Commerce The Gurkha Welfare Trust 35 St Philip's Avenue PO Box 2170 Worcester Park 22 Queen Street Surrey KT4 8JS SALISBURY SP2 2EX Tel: 020 8241 0313 Tel: 01722 323955 email: [email protected] Fax: 01722 343119 www.nepal-trade.org.uk www.gwt.org.uk The Gurkha Museum School of Oriental and African Studies Peninsula Barracks University of London Romsey Road Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square Winchester London WC1H 0XG Hampshire SO23 8TS Tel: (020) 7898 4034 Tel: (01962) 842832 www.soas.ac.uk www.thegurkhamuseum.co.uk

The Britain Nepal Otology Service Student Partnership Worldwide (BRINOS) 17 Deans Yard Greensand Cottage London SW1P 3PB Puttenham Road, Seale Farnham GU10 1HP The Royal Society for Asian Affairs Tel: (01252) 783265 2 Belgrave Square www.brinos.org.uk London SW1X 8PJ Tel: (020) 7235 5122 Yeti Association www.rsaa.org.uk (Nepali Association in UK) 66 Abbey Avenue Bird Conservation Nepal Wembley PO Box 12465 Middlesex HA0 1LL Lazimpat Email: [email protected] Kathmandu The Esther Benjamin’s Trust Nepal Third Floor Tel: + 977 1 4417805 2 Cloth Court www.birdlifenepal.org/ London EC1A 7LS Website: www.ebtrust.org.uk

58 NOTES ON THE BRITAIN-NEPAL SOCIETY President: HRH The Duke of Gloucester KG GCVO

The Britain-Nepal Society was founded in Britain-Nepal Society’s functions. 1960 to promote good relations between However we do not have reciprocal the peoples of the UK and Nepal. We membership. especially wish to foster friendship Members of the Yeti Association which between UK citizens with a particular provides equally for Nepalese residents or interest in Nepal and Nepalese citizens those staying in this country are also resident – whether permanently or welcome to attend the Britain-Nepal temporarily – in this country. A much Society’s functions, and can become full valued feature of the Society is the ease members of the Britain-Nepal Society in and conviviality with which members of the usual way. The Yeti is a flourishing every background and all ages mingle organization and they publish their own together. attractive journal. Members are drawn from all walks of Throughout the year, the Society holds life including mountaineers, travellers, a programme of evening lectures, which students, teachers, returned volunteers, aid are currently held at the Medical Society workers, doctors, business people, of London, Chandos Street, off Cavendish members of the Diplomatic Service and Square where members are encouraged to Armed Forces. The bond they all share is meet each other over a drink beforehand. an abiding interest in and affection for The Society holds an Annual Nepali Nepal and the Nepalese people. Supper, usually in February and in the Membership is open to those of all ages autumn we hold our AGM. The Society over 18 and a particular welcome goes to also holds receptions and hospitality for applications from those under 35. visiting senior Nepalese. Ordinary members pay a subscription Those interested in joining the Society of £20, joint (same address) members £30 should write to the Secretary, Mrs Jenifer per annum. Life membership is a single Evans at [email protected] payment of £350, joint life membership a Website: www.britain-nepal- payment of £550; corporate business society.org.uk members £75 per annum. Concessionary membership of £15 per annum is available to those under 25 or over 75 on production of proof of age. The annual journal includes a wide range of articles about Nepal and is sent free to all members. We keep in close touch with the Nepal- Britain Society in Kathmandu and their members are welcome to attend all the

59 THE BRITAIN-NEPAL SOCIETY

President: His Royal Highness The Duke of Gloucester KG, GCVO

Vice-Presidents Brigadier AB Taggart MC Mrs Celia Brown** Colonel JM Evans MC Sir Neil Thorne OBE, TD, DL Mrs Pat Mellor Sylvia Countess of Limerick CBE Lieutenant Colonel Gerry D Birch*

Committee (2012/13) Chairman: Mr Roger M Potter MBE Vice-Chairman: Colonel John SK Swanston Acting Honorary Secretary: Mrs Jenifer Evans Honorary Treasurer: Dr Peter A Trott Mr Ashley Adams Lieutenant Colonel GC Bicket Mr Gavin Edgerley-Harris Mr Balmukund Joshi Miss Jane Loveless Mrs Maggie Solon Mrs Frances Spackman Dr Mark Watson

Mr Tej B Chhetri, (Minister Counsellor), the Nepalese Embassy (ex officio) Ms Sarah Wrathall, FCO (ex officio) Major Nigel JD Wylie Carrick MBE, HQ Brigade of Gurkhas (ex officio) Mrs Celia Brown Archivist** (ex officio)

Editor of the Journal: Lieutenant Colonel GD Birch* (ex officio)

60 ACORN Nepal Trust (Aid for Children of Rural Nepal and Educational Trust) Charitable Society Regd. No. 701/1999

President Rtn. Hari Bivor Karki

Vice-President Prof. Dr. Bharat B. Karki

Secretary Anjela Nepal Karki

Treasurer Mrs. Bimala Katuwal

Executive Members Dr. Yagya B. Karki Mrs. Shova Subedi Mrs. Sushila Khadka

Hon. Members Lady Morris of Kenwood Rtn. Gerald Hughes Mr. Brian Mayhew Ms. Diana Reason Dr Abhiram Bahadur Singh

Founder President Main Office U.K. Contact Prof. Dr. Bharat B. Karki Rtn. H.B. Karki Balkhu, Ring Road, Kathmandu - 14 21 Victoria Road, Aldershot Tel: 279762, Post Box: 3046 Hampshire GU11 1TQ Fax: 977-1-282688 Tel/Fax: 01252 316058 Printed by Moreton Hall Press, tel 01284 767442 www.moretonhallpress.co.uk