TY - JOUR
T1 - What Can a Song Do to You?
T2 - A Life Story of a Gurkha Prisoner in World War I
AU - Chudal, Alaka
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2020/5/3
Y1 - 2020/5/3
N2 - We have heard and read much about the wartime bravery of Gurkha soldiers, the idea of the Gurkhas as a martial race and how British recruitment practices targeted them. But much less is known about the experiences of Gurkha prisoners of war in World War I. The Germans captured thousands of soldiers fighting in the British Indian Army, and among these were a large number of Gurkhas. This imprisonment of soldiers not only served German strategic goals, but also offered a good opportunity to collect source material for research. This paper will briefly shed light on the scholarly activities engaged in by German scholars in Halbmondlager (Half Moon Camp), with a focus on the self-referential writing of one of the Gurkha prisoners of war, Jas Bahadur Rai, who never returned from the camp, but who did bequeath to posterity a song which he sang for the Germans. We will discuss whether Jas Bahadur had freedom of agency while recording his song, and if this song indeed qualifies as life-writing.
AB - We have heard and read much about the wartime bravery of Gurkha soldiers, the idea of the Gurkhas as a martial race and how British recruitment practices targeted them. But much less is known about the experiences of Gurkha prisoners of war in World War I. The Germans captured thousands of soldiers fighting in the British Indian Army, and among these were a large number of Gurkhas. This imprisonment of soldiers not only served German strategic goals, but also offered a good opportunity to collect source material for research. This paper will briefly shed light on the scholarly activities engaged in by German scholars in Halbmondlager (Half Moon Camp), with a focus on the self-referential writing of one of the Gurkha prisoners of war, Jas Bahadur Rai, who never returned from the camp, but who did bequeath to posterity a song which he sang for the Germans. We will discuss whether Jas Bahadur had freedom of agency while recording his song, and if this song indeed qualifies as life-writing.
KW - Gurkha
KW - Nepal
KW - POWs
KW - World War I
KW - life-writing
KW - songs
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85085030827&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/00856401.2020.1752974
DO - 10.1080/00856401.2020.1752974
M3 - Article
SN - 1479-0270
VL - 43
SP - 392
EP - 406
JO - South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies
JF - South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies
IS - 3
ER -