Meeting the gurkhas, nt, 1967

[Peter Laidler]

Personally and not speaking from any experience and only ever 'worked' with them once for an hour or so (see above) I always thought of Gurkhas as jungle fighters. After all, that's why, since the war, their recruit training base was at Pasir Panjang in Singapore and JW cantre in Johore. Yep, Jungle fighters.
It was also said while I was in Malaya, that the Fijians were pretty good too. Not in my time there, but politics and all that..........

[Gil Boyd]

Peter,

Yes they were part of the Jungle Warfare School at Pulada, north of Jahore Bahru, where we went a number of times.
Like any unit they had those that excelled and also those that were not so brilliant and 'followed' any command, due I believe to a type of cast system back in Nepal, where there would be those who would be subserviant to others in their culture or traditions!!

[mrclark303]

Peter,

Yes they were part of the Jungle Warfare School at Pulada, north of Jahore Bahru, where we went a number of times.
Like any unit they had those that excelled and also those that were not so brilliant and 'followed' any command, due I believe to a type of cast system back in Nepal, where there would be those who would be subserviant to others in their culture or traditions!!

The 'cast' system mate, it's the ultimate class system. One that, if you are unfortunate to be in the lower cast, you can't break the shackles of, no matter how bright you might be...
It's a peculiar facet of certain countries, a particularly unpleasant and unsettling one, when viewed from our Western perspective.

[Gil Boyd]

John,
I had the displeasure of experiencing a similar CAST system in India where my daughter got married at Fort Goa.
There was so much food left over, that I decided to get the drivers from all the small minibuses that had ferried my daughters friends who had come from the UK.
It was like WW3 the Indian hotel manager spent some time trying to convince me this could not happen.
My view was, rather than waste it all surely poor Indian people could benefit in a show of thanks.....................nope IT COULD NOT HAPPEN!!
and it didn't....awful embarassment experienced first hand. Thought I would share that which is my one and only time!

[mrclark303]

It's a difficult one Gil... It's such a hard cultural thing to understand....

[Surpmil]

The 'cast' system mate, it's the ultimate class system. One that, if you are unfortunate to be in the lower cast, you can't break the shackles of, no matter how bright you might be...
It's a peculiar facet of certain countries, a particularly unpleasant and unsettling one, when viewed from our Western perspective.

That is why up a third of India was controlled by "Maoist" guerrillas until recently. Being mostly from the "untouchable" castes they have nothing to gain or lose from the present worse than feudal society. Broken People: Caste Violence Against India’s “Untouchables” | HRW https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/...nalCode=ccsa20

Many from the "untouchable" castes are converting to Christianity, not that you'll ever hear anything about that in the "Western" press. A surprising number of Muslims and Hindus as well, though violence is the usual response in both India and Pakistan.

Imams in North Africa lament that something like six million muslims a year are converting.

Same in China: 200+ million and growing by at least 10% a year.

So, while the West goes a-whoring after various idols, others have a better sense of value and what makes a society just and livable.

[Mk VII]

The 'sausage' BFA was the one that worked reasonably well, in as much as it didnt hurtle off the end at unpredictable intervals like the two varieties of clip-on one did. Was heavy, though.

[browningautorifle]

The 'sausage' BFA

I believe that, the ones we found likely fell out of ammo pouches as they weight lots and like a club. It was a live fire range so they were just rattling around.