Diaspora Theorizing

Diaspora has been theorized across a wide-ranging spectrum of scholarly research and various disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, area studies, literature, and queer theory. Beyond the archetypical Armenian, Jewish, and Greek cases that are invoked in earlier discussions on diaspora that stand for negative diasporic experiences (Rai 2014; Sahoo 2021; Vertovec 2009), diasporic groups and how they regard what constitutes as “home” has altered considerably. Homeland as predicated on territory only reveals a methodologically nationalist orientation (Brubaker 2005). Furthermore, there is a weakening of the “hold of modern nation-state on the identities and identifications of the populations who have come to live within their borders” (Ang 2007, 286–87). Diasporic groups today no longer perceive themselves as ethnic minorities within nation-states. Rather, they regard themselves as transnational subjects. Instead of pledging allegiance to a particular nation-state, these actors’ senses of loyalties and affiliations occupy the interstitial space between nation-states (Ang 2007). It follows that diasporic cultures and politics today have very much to do with transnational flows and connections brought about by intensified processes of globalization and technological communications via social media. We are therefore moving from diaspora and trauma, or “victim origin” (Cohen 2008, 4), toward diaspora as the condition of dispersion and continuity of ties across nations. Such a shift reflects an expansionist project to “reimagine the idea of diaspora” (Jung 2016, 77; italics in original). In tandem, Nieswand (2011) contends that since diasporas do cross the borders of a single nation-state, an examination of migrant lifeworlds that go beyond the confines of methodological nationalism is expedient.

Works on transnational mobilities in the fields of migration and cross-border studies have critiqued the paradigm of methodological nationalism and its nation-centered lens and bounded parameters (Amelina et al. 2013; Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2002). As an “ideological orientation that approaches the study of social and historical processes as if they were contained within the borders of individual nation-states” (Glick Schiller 2010, 110–11), it places migrants inside one nation-state (Weiss and Nohl 2013). If such an orientation is limited in analyzing flows and belonging, I adopt instead, the perspective of transnational history. To comprehend the dynamics of international migration and its flows, migration research is a “transnational undertaking.” This endeavor requires analytical toolkits that may be deployed to maneuver beyond the nation-state as a container (Castles 2007). Furthermore, the transnational history perspective is to be differentiated from that of global history, where the former “looks at individuals in various contexts, including nations” (Iriye 2013, 15). Therefore, my selection of transnational history as an approach arises as a result of scale—or what Struck et al. (2011, 574) call a “sub-world scale” in terms of focusing on a region. Moreover, as I show below, the history of Gurkha recruitment and service necessitates the adoption of a transnational lens in contextualizing colonial times as well as present-day global security and policing circuits. This is selected so I can situate the social mechanisms that have produced a Gurkha diaspora. By extension, I also address how Gurkha families settle in different parts of Asia and the United Kingdom. Such an approach is interested in flows and movements of people, as well as border crossings and diaspora. I bring forward extant criticism of methodological nationalism into an empirical realization of methodological transnationalism (Faist and Nergiz 2013; Khagram and Levitt 2007; Low 2015). As a conceptual approach, methodological transnationalism includes both historical and empirical accounts of migration that expose transnational processes and forms. This approach encompasses observations and evidence from new types of data that better capture the realities of transnationalism (Khagram and Levitt 2007; Schrooten 2012).

My use of military and policing histories below represents a source of data that furnishes the construction of a Gurkha diaspora. Closer attention is paid to transnational connections, thereby operating with and beyond the national box (Siu 2005; Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2002). Additionally, subscribing to methodological transnationalism implies that the idea of diaspora is not only about the binary of home/hostland (Beckles-Raymond 2020; Parreñas and Siu 2007). My treatment of diaspora instead acts as a critical inquiry into, inter alia, what constitutes homeland for both the Gurkhas and their children? I mentioned previously that while the Gurkhas may regard Nepal as their country of origin, the same sentiment cannot be applied to their children whose birthplace is Singapore, the United Kingdom, or Hong Kong. The latter’s connection to Nepal is perhaps only realized through their parents’ inculcation rather than by themselves to regard Nepal as their homeland. As a consequence of Singapore’s management of the Gurkha police contingent and their contractual service, both Gurkhas and their families would have to return to Nepal on the completion of service, early retirement, or when the Gurkha serviceman reaches the age of forty-five. In this sense, the bifocality of homeland/place of residence requires further interrogation. Similarly, Safran (2009) suggests that while diaspora is space-related, such a spatial feature ought to include a consideration of not one but several hostlands. I add to this the possibility of more than one homeland as well given that diasporans today inhabit an “intersectional position” (Siu 2005, 5). Diaspora studies and a more nuanced unraveling of home- and hostlands are therefore useful in challenging certain calcified assumptions about identity, belonging, and citizenship that are usually associated with territory.

At this juncture, I open a discussion on how to conceive of the Gurkha diaspora vis-à-vis extant works on South Asian diasporas. Mass migrations from South Asia in the last three centuries have taken place during two broad periods (Jacobsen and Kumar 2018; Vertovec 2000). The first occurred under imperialism with large numbers of South Asians serving as indentured laborers in various colonies, and the second phase (also taking place currently) has involved migrants of South Asian descent in various occupations who travel freely to Western countries and the Middle East. However, the South Asia diaspora that has been studied by scholars tend to eclipse the mobilities of Gurkhas and their families. This notwithstanding, I avoid using the rubric of South Asian diaspora in discussing the Nepali Gurkhas. This is because the Gurkhas’ experience of military/police work and migration has taken place under somewhat different circumstances in relation to regimental service. Besides, the term South Asian diaspora implies a “regional political identity” (Koshy 2008, 9), which should not be unreflexively conflated with being a Nepali or a Gurkha. Additionally, Brown (2006) questions if it is appropriate to speak of one South Asian diaspora given the vast diversity of migrants from the region (see also Sinha 2019) who are of different religions, linguistic backgrounds, and nation-states. The case of the Gurkha diaspora therefore differs from other South Asian diasporic groups such as the Sindhis (Cohen 2009), the Sri Lankan Tamils (Orjuela and Sriskandarajah 2008), or the Indians in South Africa (Lemon 1990). The difference is due to regimental structures as compared to different labor migratory circumstances of these other groups. Furthermore, I take heed of Siu’s (2005) position that “living in diaspora may not be a choice,” and instead diasporan networks and cultivated senses of belonging are engaged with and worked at as ongoing processes (cf. Al-Hilo and Marandi 2020). Following Brown (2006), I propose that the Gurkha diaspora is one of the many strands of South Asian diasporic formations that needs to be contextually analyzed.

Constructing a Gurkha Diaspora

Extant works on the Gurkhas as a “martial race” (Caplan 1991; Rai 2009) address their military experiences in colonial contexts, or draw attention to their rights to remain in the United Kingdom (Carroll 2012; Ware 2010). While these are important issues that I take up in other chapters, it is also pertinent to examine Gurkha biographies as migrants in the larger structural scheme of migratory flows both in historical and contemporary times herein. What are the streams of Gurkha recruitment and military mobility that build up to what we may delineate as a Gurkha diaspora? These streams are accompanied by shifting notions and ties of belonging, self- and national identity, and also the various migration cycles. I focus on transnational connections between the British and Asian countries. In doing so, I flesh out the migratory interpellations that structurally determine Gurkha security mobilities and where their families settle down.

The Anglo-Nepal war of 1814–16 was where the British first “discovered” the Gurkhas (Caplan 1991). Resulting in the defeat of Nepal, this war led to the discovery of Nepalese military prowess. Since then, Gurkha soldiers have served under the British crown with the East India Company as their first employer. Subsequently, they worked under the Indian Army after the Mutiny, and then with the British Army and the Indian Army following India’s independence (Uesugi 2007). In a way, Gurkha recruitment served as the beginning point from which Nepal subsequently became incorporated into the global capitalist economy (Shrestha 2018). When India achieved independence in 1947, a full-fledged “contract migration” between the employers, the British and the Indian Army, and the “supplier of Gurkhas, Nepal” was formed (Uesugi 2007, 386). The Gurkhas have since been regular soldiers in the British Army, where the 1947 Tripartite Agreement (TPA) “provides the basis for employment policies until today” (Uesugi 2007, 386). Under this agreement, the employment of Nepalese citizens by the British and Indian armies was governed. The agreement called for similar wages and conditions of service for Gurkhas serving in both the British and Indian armies (Bullock 2009). Bellamy (2011) notes that 176 out of around 11,000 applicants are selected annually by the British Army to serve as Gurkhas. India recruits about 2,000 candidates yearly, although the number varies based on need.

Dhakal (2016) points out that the Gurkhas were the earliest Nepalis to migrate to India in large numbers, dating back to the Nepalese War of 1814–15. The recruitment of Gurkhas for the Indian Army was made possible through the 1815 Treaty of Sagauli signed between the East India Company and Nepal (Bammi 2009). Prior to that, the author also mentions that some of these Gurkhas were recruited by King Ranjit Singh of Punjab. There is however no clear indication of the recruitment volume in the king’s army. Singh records that this Sikh king had praised the Gurkhas’ agility when they fought against his Punjab army in 1809 (Singh 1962). When the Indian Rebellion broke out in 1857, Gurkhas fought on the British side and became a part of the British Indian Army (Farwell 1984; Purthi 2011). Gurkha units began to gradually expand between 1857 and 1900. They were recruited into the Assam Regiment and the Assam Military Police. The 1st Assam Rifles was raised at Changsil in the north Lushai Hills in 1889. Due to some problems of recruitment of Gurkhas from Nepal compared to other races who were serving in the British Indian Army, each regiment was allotted a “home” located in the hills of northern India.¹ The plan was that at least “some of the men might settle down with their families” and use these locations as their base to which they could return from active service in either Afghanistan or other places (Bammi 2009, 78). After retiring from the police forces and the army, the Gurkhas regarded the Lushai Hills as their homeland (Purthi 2011). Other “homes” or “stations” were established at Dharamsala, Dehra Dun, Almora, and Bakloh, where Gurkha wives and children began to settle.² Subsequently, many Gurkha pensioners took up residence in the vicinity, thereby forming a number of Gurkha communities in India. From these communities, many young, Indian-born Gurkha sons also enlisted into their fathers’ regiments (Bolt 1967).

Owing to an increase in Gurkha strength in the British Army, a Gurkha Recruitment Depot was established in Gorakhpur and Ghoom in the 1880s (Bammi 2009). The years between 1901 and 1906 saw a renumbering of Gurkha regiments from the 1st to the 10th, and they were then redesignated as the Gurkha Rifles (Purthi 2011). They were regarded as the “gold standard of Indian soldiering” (Callahan 2007, 33). By 1908, the regiments came to be known as the Brigade of Gurkhas, comprising twenty battalions that were organized into ten regiments (Bammi 2009; Purthi 2011). In order to maintain the battalions at full strength containing approximately 26,000 Gurkhas in 1914 (Bolt 1967), about 1,500 recruits were required annually (Farwell 1984). By the end of the First World War, many Gurkhas retired, but only a small proportion had returned from India to Nepal. Out of the 10,932 Gurkhas who were discharged, only 3,838 have been recorded as having returned to Nepal in 1919. For those who chose to stay on, they had hoped to secure better employment opportunities in India, which was lacking back in Nepal (Banskota 1994). This aside, soldiering continued to be considered an honorable profession. Gurkha families often had their members serving in the same regiment. Sons followed the footsteps of their fathers into the same soldiering profession.³ For example, Kulbahadur Gurung had enlisted in the 5th Gurkhas in 1898. In 1921, he retired as an honorary captain. Thirty years later in 1951, he had gone to a recruiting depot at Lehra, India, to speak with one of the recruiting officers. He might have lost two sons, but he was “quick to add that he had two grandsons who would soon be old enough to enlist” (Farwell 1984, 77). Since India’s independence in 1947, the original ten Gurkha regiments were split between the British Army and the newly independent Indian Army. Four were transferred to the former, and the remaining six to the latter. This reorganization arose from the TPA inked between the British, the Indian, and the Nepalese governments in August 1947 (Izuyama 1999; Rathaur 2001). The Gurkhas have subsequently fought in many of the post-1947 conflicts that India had faced, including the wars with Pakistan in 1947, 1965, and 1971, as well as against China in 1962 (Purthi 2011). About 32,000 Gurkhas serve in the Indian Army over seven Gurkha Rifle Regiments today.⁴ Chakraborty (2018, 34) observes that it was “technically easier for the young Gorkha men from Nepal to recruit themselves as soldiers in the Indian Army,” as compared to young Gorkha men from Darjeeling wanting to be recruited into this army. This was due to the Indo-Nepal treaty, and where the eulogization of the Bir Gorkha (Brave Gorkha) (Chakraborty 2018, 34) meant that they would have received preferential treatment when it came to army recruitment processes. The inflow of “Nepali/Gorkhas” to Darjeeling, mostly occurring during British times, also meant triggering ethnic sensitivities in the region of northern Bengal in terms of interests to protect cultural and linguistic identities (Chakraborty 2018, 33; cf. Sharma 2022). In concert, these factors add further to an understanding of the presence of the Nepalis in India in subsequent times. One should note also that there are native Nepali-speaking people in India who subscribe to a self-defined ethnic identity via Gorkhaland, Darjeeling (Chakraborty 2020). Such self-definition, the author argues, is connected to claims to belonging to the martial race of the Gurkhas or Bir Gorkha, enacted through literary sources including poetry and plays. In the present-day context, the Indian Army recruits approximately 1,300 Gurkhas annually.⁵

In Singapore, the first Gurkha Contingent (GC) of the Singapore Police Force (SPF) was assembled on 9 April 1949 (Kiruppalini 2016; Rai 2009). Prior to this, 144 Gurkhas, who were due to be discharged from the army in Malaya, were recruited to set up the force, as they were willing to stay on (Gould 1999). The GC was raised to take over a Sikh unit that had operated throughout the Second World War and formed an important contingent of the SPF (Rai 2009). The GC of the SPF recruited service personnel in Nepal through the agency of the British Army (Gould 1999).⁶ By 1952, the GC grew to a total of 300 Gurkhas (Leathart 1998). When race riots broke out in Singapore in the 1950s and 1960s, the Gurkhas were looked on as a neutral group to maintain order (Bellamy 2011). Elon Thule, a former Singapore Gurkha wrote in Nepali about his Gurkha experiences.⁷ He explains in his book that the Gurkha Contingent within the Singapore Police Force is maintained and respected as a neutral force that has contributed to maintaining peace in several riots in Singapore (Thule 2011, 6–7). Such outbreaks included the 1950 Maria Hertogh riots, the 1955 Hock Lee Bus riots, and the 1956 Chinese Middle School riots (Nedumaran 2017). As the following media article summarizes:

“You have, in the Gurkha Police—although they are from another land—very great friends,” Mr. Lee That, Officer in Charge of the Gurkha Contingent in Singapore, said in a talk over Radio Malaya last night. “They like Singapore and they like its people, and they dislike anyone who plots to disturb or destroy your way of life, your homes or your property,” said Mr. Lee That. “They may not be able to converse with you fluently but they understand when you want help and they will give you that help to the best of their ability,” he added.⁸

Throughout riotous moments in Singapore’s history prior to independence in 1965, the Gurkhas “proved their ability to perform as dispassionate keepers of the peace, who being untarnished by communal or sectarian bias, carried out their duties without fear or favour” (Nedumaran 2017, 279). The loyalty of these Gurkha police was broached through their children’s generation, seen in a media report: “This little lad [referring to a photograph of a Gurkha’s son] is the son of a Gurkha policeman in Singapore and a member of the Gurkha police camp in Cantonment Road, where thirty-seven families live. They are intensely patriotic and the youngster above has already been taught to salute.”⁹

In 1958, the British, Nepalese, and the new Singapore government reached an agreement concerning the terms of Gurkha service. One of the items agreed on was that the Gurkha contingent was to be led only by British and Gurkha officers. The intention was to sustain “political impartiality essential in a para-military unit of a police force” (Leathart 1998, 261). Over time, the security duties of the Gurkhas also expanded. An elite Gurkha unit known as the Prison Gurkha Unit was formed in 1978. This unit comprised Gurkhas who worked as prison wardens serving in Changi Prison and Moon Crescent Centre (Lim 2009). In 1981, the unit was absorbed into the GC, and subsequently underwent six months of basic police training. This marked the beginning of their duties in the prison as policemen and no longer as warders.¹⁰ In addition, they also perform guard duties that continue until today, and Gurkhas in Singapore secure important facilities in the country, and also guard the residences of top politicians. They function as a paramilitary force in maintaining internal security, comprising approximately 1,850 officers (13 percent of the total police force). In neighboring Malaysia, Gurkhas form a substantial portion of those who work in security businesses (Low 2020). Perumal (2018; cited in Low 2020) estimates that about 150,000 out of half a million Nepalese workers in Malaysia were hired as security guards. They also work in the manufacturing sector. The majority of foreign labor stems from Nepal, totaling almost 51 percent of the total foreign labor force in 2015 (Samsi, Abdullah, and Lim 2020).

The GC recruits eighty Gurkhas annually (Bellamy 2011). Gurkhas and their families reside in a camp (Mount Vernon camp) in central Singapore. The camp serves both as a training and a self-contained residential complex that is out of bounds to Singaporeans and other non-Nepalese. In 1950, the camp was described as a “little Nepal in Singapore” as “Gurkhas keep to themselves [within it] and speak nothing but Gurkhali.”¹¹ Facilities in this complex include a Nepali Hindu temple, a clinic, a minimart, an officers’ mess, and a family welfare center. Further to these outfits, the camp also comes with a wide range of sports amenities that include a gymnasium, basketball court, soccer field, a large swimming pool, track and field stadium, and some playgrounds. There is also a Gurkha Children School, known as bhitra school (“inside” school), as well as a GC Boys’ Club and Girls’ Club where “bhānjās and bhānjīs can interact and organise dance, games, and cultural shows” (Kiruppalini 2016, 264). In order to remain as a neutral force, Gurkhas are discouraged from integrating with locals. They are also not allowed to marry Singaporeans. It is for these reasons that they are permitted to bring their wives and family from Nepal to Singapore. Most of the children, however, are born and educated in Singapore. A majority of the children attended school at Bartley Primary, where about one-third of its student population were constituted by the children of Gurkha policemen. In 1985, it was reported that there were 121 Gurkha children who schooled at Bartley, coming from the 650-strong Gurkha contingent.¹²

Although the children go to school in Singapore, both wives and children are forbidden from seeking employment locally. Given expectations that the Gurkhas will “exercise impartiality in the event of a racial riot,” such a logic underpins the requirement that Gurkha families “reside as a gated community” within the perimeters of Mount Vernon camp and not take up Singaporean citizenship (Kiruppalini 2016, 260). The condition of impartiality is recorded in a teleletter dated 2 May 1980 issued by J. D. Hennings Esq CMG to the SEAD, Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Kathmandu. It states: “In a civil disturbance the PGC (Police Gurkha Contingent) will be used as an impartial and deterrent force to patrol riot-torn areas, to search and flush areas for trouble-makers and to escort postal vans, oil tankers, ambulances and fire-engines.”¹³ Expectations of their neutrality have also been raised by Singapore’s first prime minister, the late Lee Kuan Yew: “When I returned to Oxley Road, Gurkha policemen (recruited by the British from Nepal) were posted as sentries. To have either Chinese policeman shooting Malays or Malay policemen shooting Chinese would have caused widespread repercussions. The Gurkhas on the other hand were neutral, besides having the reputation for total discipline and loyalty” (Lee 2000, 21–22). Upon their Gurkha father’s retirement from service at the age of forty-five, the whole family would have to be repatriated to Nepal. Overall, Singapore state policies ensure that the Gurkhas and their families remain as insularized “sojourners … ironically treating them as an exquisite and yet dispensable and renewable source of labour” (Kiruppalini 2016, 265). According to the Ministry of Defence, UK, website, the plan was to recruit 140 Gurkhas for the GC in 2021 and 2022.¹⁴

Gurkha presence in Brunei began in 1962 through defense arrangements that led to their postimperial security of the Brunei Sultanate (Menon 1988). Prior to this, Brunei was a protectorate of the British Empire based on the September 1959 Brunei Constitution. The United Kingdom was responsible for handling Brunei’s foreign relations, defense, and security (Lim 1976). In December 1962, due to dissatisfaction with the prospect of the British Protectorate of Brunei becoming a part of the then-proposed Federation of Malaysia, which was to include Singapore (Lim 1976), the Partai Rakyat (Brunei People’s Party) staged a revolt. The revolt was put down with the aid of British Gurkha troops—the 1st/2nd Gurkha regiment—who were “flown in from British bases in Singapore” (Lim 1976, 159). They had arrived “into Brunei Town in the darkness of the night of 8 December” (Nedumaran 2017, 283). The sultan of Brunei and his family were “quite literally saved from physical harm … [as the Gurkhas] arrived at his palace in the nick of time and successfully rescued both him and his family” (Nedumaran 2017, 280). Ever since the revolt, the Gurkha battalion has remained in Brunei on the basis of a bilateral defense agreement with the British (Hamzah 1989). The sultan had remarked that since young Bruneian men were too occupied with studying to take up arms, it was thus “desirous” to form Brunei’s security forces by recruiting Gurkhas.¹⁵ The upkeep for the Gurkha battalion is paid from Brunei’s oil revenues (Kershaw 2003). This arrangement has since been renewed every five years and also continued after the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, thereby providing the British Gurkha troops a permanent base in Southeast Asia (Kershaw 2003).

Throughout the 1960s, the Gurkhas were involved in Brunei, fighting against guerrillas and also guarding oil installations (Dutt 1981). They also used to work alongside the Royal Brunei Police and the Royal Brunei Malay Regiment in securing essential buildings as well as government and private sector installations (Gurung 2020). As the sultan of Brunei wanted to fortify the security of the country, he later recruited retired British Gurkhas to form the Gurkha Reserve Unit (GRU) (Croissant and Lorenz 2018; Kershaw 2003) or Unit Simpanan Gurkha (in Malay; Nedumaran 2017). This provided a platform for what is known as a second career for Gurkhas who have retired from service to continue as economic migrants. Yamanaka (2000) estimates that about 2,200 former Gurkha soldiers serve as the Bruneian sultan’s security guards. They safeguard the royal families and royal palaces as their main duty (Gurung 2020). At present, the British Army in Brunei comprises one infantry battalion of Gurkhas, in addition to an Army Air Corps Flight of Bell 212 helicopters.¹⁶ A Jungle Warfare Division serves at the army’s jungle warfare school where courses such as Jungle Warfare Instructor and Operational Tracking Instructor are held. The resident Gurkha Battalion—the 1st Royal Gurkha Rifles (1RGR)—resides at the Tuker Lines, which is also where the garrison headquarters are located. Once every three years, 1RGR and 2RGR arms rotate between Folkestone (Kent, England) and Brunei.¹⁷ Gurkha presence in Brunei comprises connections between the United Kingdom, Brunei, and Singapore, their entanglements have been explained using a transnational historical approach (Struck et al. 2011).

Haaland and Gurung (2007) note that as a result of Gurkha service with the British Army since the 1800s, descendants of these Gurkha settlers may be found in parts of India such as Assam, Sikkim, and Darjeeling, as well as Myanmar (Burma). During the colonial period, the Gurkhas in Burma constituted part of the larger process of Nepali migration. They were recruited into the Military Police Force, which was raised in 1886, enlisted in the four battalions of Burma Rifles in World War I, the Burma Frontier Force in the 1930s, and fought in the Burma campaign of World War II (Gurung 2016). After retirement, pockets of Gurkha settlements were formed as they were permitted to reside near the military headquarters and outposts. The census of 1901 recorded in the Myitkyina district in Kachin State of Burma that almost 10 percent of the population comprised so-called “others,” where a majority of this group was composed of settled pensioned Gurkha soldiers and their families (Gurung 2016). These retirees found that settling in Myitkyina was an attractive alternative compared to the densely settled valleys in Pahad (hills of Nepal) or the malaria-infested Tarai (lowlands of Nepal) (Haaland and Gurung 2007). These retirees practiced Hinduism and carried out “ritual forms current in the home country” (Haaland and Gurung 2007), representing diasporic connections maintained with Nepal. Prior to 1935, family arrangements for the Gurkhas were very limited. Major Rakamsing Rai recalled the limited family welfare avenues during time spent in Maymyo with the 1st/10th Gurkhas in which his father had served. His childhood anecdotes provide a glimpse into early Gurkha family life in Myanmar:

Before 1935 family arrangements only existed for the barest essentials. There was a room and a kitchen for each family. There was no family hospital, family welfare room … or dhai [nurse]. So if the women and children were ill or dying, or babies were being born, it all took place in the one room. As there was no dhai, the women had to get together and help one another. (cited in Forbes 1964, 189)

In terms of household sundries, however, there was always an abundance:

There was no shortage of food and drink or clothing. In order to make the fire in the cooking place husband and wife had to go out into the forest and cut firewood. The women sat at home all day long knitting stockings and scarves. Their chief responsibility was cleaning the house, caring for the children and helping their husbands prepare the curry and rice. (Forbes 1964, 189)

In 1941, an estimated 200,000 Gurkhas were domiciled in Burma (Gurung 2016). This figure comprises a mix of both military and civilian Gurkhas. Not only did they serve in the armed forces, they were also vegetable growers, dairymen, and miners employed in the Bawdin mines and the Mawchi mine in Karenni (Gurung 2016; Tinker 1967). There were some among them who married Burmese women as well (Gurung 2016). Although there was relative peace between the Nepalese and other ethnic groups in Kachin hills under British colonial rule, the situation changed after independence in 1948. The state-controlled economy ended in a state of high inflation. Movements organized by students and ethnic groups soon took place as a critique of the government. With these periods of unrest and following the Kachin Independence movement, as well as the student movement of the 1970s and 1980s, many Nepalese left Myanmar and looked for opportunities elsewhere. Where some of them returned to Nepal, others went to India (such as to Manipur and Assam) and some also went to Thailand (Haaland and Gurung 2007).¹⁸ These various vicissitudes, representing both colonial and local contexts of empire and governance, set the stage for non/return migration and also step migration. These different cycles and routes of movements further explain how the Gurkhas and their families and descendants are dispersed in the region.

British imperialist presence in Hong Kong commenced after the Opium War of 1841, when Hong Kong was transformed into a colony. Gurkha troops were stationed there since 1948 (Rai 2009). When the Chinese Communist Party took power in China in 1949, masses of refugees from China went to Hong Kong. There was also a fear of the Chinese communists taking Hong Kong back by force. It was then that the first battalion of Gurkhas—the 2nd/10th Gurkha Rifles—was transferred from British Malaya¹⁹ to Hong Kong on 17 March 1948 for a two-year tour (Gurung 2020). The Gurkha engineers built the border that stood between mainland China and Hong Kong (Bellamy 2011). Tim I. Gurung (2020), a retired Gurkha who previously served with the British Army notes that while the battalion was initially stationed at Whitfield Barracks (the Kowloon Park of today), they were later moved to a horse stable located near the Beas River, New Territories.²⁰ After having cleaned up the stables and with the horses removed, the Gurkha battalion had to make way for the 1st Middlesex Battalion of the British Army. They then relocated to a tented camp near San Wai, which was unfortunately hit by a typhoon:

Once the tented camp was up, it was hit by a severe typhoon, and they had to take refuge in the nearby camps. Thankfully, the small group of Gurkha families was safe back at the Whitfield barracks … the brigade had no ready-made camps for the troops during their first stay in Hong Kong, and the Gurkha battalions had to do with the tented camps in the open grounds of the New Territories… . The daily routines mostly involved guarding frontier police stations, training recruits, army training, sports, maintenance of the camps, inter-battalion competition within the garrison and ceremonial parades. (Gurung 2020, 138)²¹

Where the first wave of South Asian migration to colonial Hong Kong comprised different Indian ethnic groups such as the Parsis (who did business with China), Sikhs (who filled up security posts), and also Muslims from Punjab who worked as policemen and prison guards, the second wave occurred when the Gurkhas were moved from Malaya to Hong Kong (Law and Lee 2013). The independence of India from British colonial rule meant that employing Indians in the police force in Hong Kong became problematic for the colonial government. Moreover, it was easier for the British to recruit Gurkhas since they had an agreement with Nepal. Consequently, the introduction of Gurkhas into Hong Kong changed the demographic landscape of South Asian minorities in the colony (Law and Lee 2013). The primary policing duties of the Gurkhas were to protect the population of Hong Kong and to deal with illegal immigrants (Suen and Rana 2020). The Gurkhas patrolled the British Hong Kong–China border in the 1950s and 1960s when massive streams of Chinese immigrants left China due to famines and economic calamities. Security duties were also carried out by the Gurkhas during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966–76), when they formed boat troops in order to manage refugees attempting to enter Hong Kong by water. By the late 1970s, the British had deployed five Gurkha battalions along the border in order to round up illegal immigrants. Where the Gurkha engineers constructed barbed-wire fences that laid across the border, the Gurkha signals provided the necessary radio and communications systems, and the Gurkha transport supported with supplies and logistics (Gurung 2020). Over a two-year period, 27,500 illegal immigrants were caught by the Gurkhas. The numbers peaked in 1979 “when 90,000 flooded across the border” (Parker 1999, 214) into the already overcrowded British colony. Apart from handling the influx of illegal immigrants from China, the Gurkhas had to manage another group, the Vietnamese boat people. In this context, they were involved in building and operating new refugee camps, and in assisting the police and providing requisite security reinforcements (Erni and Leung 2014; Gurung 2020).

Apart from these security tasks, Hong Kong also served as a training center for the Gurkhas. They supported with crowd control during the Star Ferry riots of 1966 (O’Neill and Evans 2018). Arising from the Hong Kong Leftist riots that broke out in 1967 (initially over a labor dispute that later escalated into a “full-blown civil disobedience and unrest movement” Gurung [2020, 139]), four Gurkha battalions were deployed in the country. The military camps were mostly located in the New Territories of Hong Kong, housing approximately eight thousand Gurkha troops (Gurung 2020). Barracks were located in the areas of Jordan, Shek Kong, and Yuen Long (Erni and Leung 2014). Similar to the British soldiers, the Gurkhas lived in camps apart from the local community as they had their own temples, restaurants, sports grounds, kindergartens, and schools among other facilities (O’Neill and Evans 2018)—which are mirrored in the Singapore Mount Vernon camp context as mentioned above. There were but limited opportunities for them to learn Cantonese or to mix with the local Chinese population arising from cultural differences and language barriers (Suen and Rana 2020). Furthermore, there was a British Military Hospital situated at King’s Park, Kowloon, meant for Gurkha service personnel and their families and at which “the mothers enjoyed excellent pre- and post-natal care” (O’Neill and Evans 2018, 145). There was also a Gurkha high school housed in Shek Kong camp. Gurkha children from all the military camps were ferried by bus on a daily basis to attend the high school (Gurung 2020).

Before Hong Kong was due to be handed back to China in 1997, it was the main home for the Gurkhas, the “last major area of traditional Gurkha deployment in the Far East apart from Brunei” (Parker 1999, 239) with numbers then standing at eight thousand (Law and Lee 2013). Gurkhas were able to have their families live with them in the married quarters of the military barracks in Hong Kong. Their children were born in Hong Kong, but families were allowed to stay with the Gurkhas for no more than three years. They would have to return to Nepal thereafter (Law and Lee 2013). Accordingly, children of Gurkhas born in Hong Kong before 1983 were able to attain Hong Kong residency. Based on the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, local-born babies automatically acquired Hong Kong citizenship (Tang 2009). From the 1990s onward, these children were given a “right to abode” status, thereby enabling Gurkhas to bring their spouses and children as their dependents to become residents in Hong Kong (Rai 2009). Interestingly, this provision generated not only substantial migration numbers to Hong Kong by children of Gurkha soldiers, but also by many non-Gurkhas who managed to obtain fake Hong Kong birth certificates. Many youths over the age of sixteen moved to Hong Kong.

Many second-generation Gurkhas went back to Hong Kong (their birthplace) after the mid-1990s.²² For instance, Rana Ray, a second-generation Nepalese, returned to Hong Kong in 1994 in pursuit of better job prospects after spending fifteen years in Nepal. While overseeing a construction company, Ray took evening business courses. His wife joined him in Hong Kong in 1997 and began working in grocery store management. By 2000, the couple converted the construction company and started their New General Bouddha Store as a response to demands for a grocer’s in Yuen Long (Erni and Leung 2014, 164). In the post-1997 Hong Kong context, Britain drastically reduced its Gurkha Brigades. With the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, many Western countries including Britain no longer needed large armies (O’Neill and Evans 2018). Consequently, the British regiments lobbied aggressively to be saved. They “argued that foreign soldiers like the Gurkhas should be laid off before British ones” (O’Neill and Evans 2018, 46). About six hundred Gurkha retirees now work in the security industry in Hong Kong (Yamanaka 2000). Notwithstanding the decrease in Gurkha numbers in the context of Hong Kong, Yamanaka (2000, 70) notes that as a result of Nepal’s culture of emigration in which Nepalese young men follow their fathers’ footsteps to become Gurkhas in foreign lands, this tradition has fostered the “construction of extensive information networks—often called ‘the Gurkha connection’—throughout the Asia-Pacific region where troops were stationed.” The center of these networks, according to Yamanaka, may be traced to Hong Kong, which was once home to more than ten thousand Gurkhas and their families.

Many Gurkhas who were born in Hong Kong could therefore return there from Nepal as civilians and found work as security guards, bodyguards, drivers, valets, and on construction sites (Gurung 2020; O’Neill and Evans 2018). Compared to their grandfathers, they did not have to go back to farming and were about to seek out “opportunities from various nations” (Gurung 2020, 149). As Gurung further explains, Gurkhas had concerns for the future of their children. Hong Kong was deemed to be an ideal as well as familiar country where they “felt comfortable [in] establishing their new home” (2020, 149). According to Adhikari (2007), most of the Pokhara citizens who work outside of Nepal are found in Hong Kong. Many of the Pokhara youths are able to work and live in Hong Kong because of being “born there while their fathers were working in the British Army” (2007, 33). As for those who were not born in Hong Kong, they had no right to stay, even if they had already lived in the country for more than seven years. This is a prerequisite for foreigners prior to being able to obtain an identity card for taking up permanent residence. Given that the Gurkhas were not required to go through Hong Kong immigration either on entering or exiting the colony, there was therefore no record of how long they had lived in the country (O’Neill and Evans 2018). At that time as well, Britain had not yet offered the option for retired Gurkhas to live in the country that they had served for almost two hundred years. Thus, those who were not eligible to stay in Hong Kong and who were not able to secure work in other places had to return to Nepal. It was only in 2004 that the Gurkhas were allowed to settle in the United Kingdom, owing to the British government’s policy of allowing this option for those who have retired after 1997. A further concession was provided after the Gurkha justice campaign led by actress Joanna Lumley (the daughter of a Gurkha officer who served as a major in the 6th Gurkha Rifles) successfully won the right for Gurkhas to settle in the United Kingdom in 2009 (Gellner 2018; Seeberg 2016). The British home secretary announced on 21 May 2009 that Gurkha veterans who retired before 1997, and with minimally four years’ service would be allowed abode in the United Kingdom (O’Neill and Evans 2018; Purthi 2011).

While I have presented national contexts where the Gurkhas are located, the above accounts also unveil local and transnational configurations. Different sets of cross-border relations and institutional arrangements among these countries in the context of colonial and postcolonial vicissitudes led to the subsequent diasporic dispersal of the Gurkhas and their children in the region over time. These include security and cooperative policies, military recruitment and agreements, residency rights, and second-career options. A diasporic community of Gurkhas has therefore emerged under such entangled historical circumstances and contract migration, which determine their country of sojourn and/or settlement. These varied diasporic routes have inadvertently created multiple host/home countries for Gurkhas and their families, which I shall now address.

Gurkha Connections and Diasporic Features

If the preceding accounts illustrate the imbricated dispersal and migratory routes of Gurkha families, how is this diaspora experienced in terms of their everyday practices, their further/future mobilities, and their identity construction? As a preliminary overview, I examine here, the lives of Gurkha diasporans by disrupting the home/hostland binary. Further data and analysis on diasporic experiences will be presented in subsequent chapters. Drawing on my narrative interviews generated over the years, along with secondary materials from print and online sources, I also locate newer platforms of diasporic connections and practices through such online media as Facebook and blogs. Three themes are employed for analysis: (1) notions of return/step migration; (2) notions of home/land; and (3) e-diasporic connections. Overall, the data that I analyze below are useful in empirically realizing methodological transnationalism as well as shedding light on how bracketed belonging transpires across a spectrum of social actors. The analyses to follow illustrate the practices and strengths of transnational links and differentiated meanings of “home.”