Abstract
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.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 392-406 |
Number of pages | 15 |
Journal | South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies |
Volume | 43 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 3 May 2020 |
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 602018 Indology
- 601022 Contemporary history
Keywords
- Gurkha
- Nepal
- POWs
- World War I
- life-writing
- songs