Singaporean authors ask why their country treats Gurkha commandos who defend their country so shabbily
When Chong Zi Liang was interning at Nepali Times in Kathmandu 2009, he met young college students who looked and behaved like fellow Singaporeans, spoke English with a Singaporean lilt.
But they were not from Singapore. They were sons and daughters of Nepalis who had served in the Gurkha Contingent of the Singapore Police Force, and had returned to Nepal. Chong’s journalistic instincts kicked in, and after profiling them for this newspaper he went on to do a final year project, and finally a book on them.
“I was struck by how alike we were, they were exactly like my friends from school,” Chong recalled. After four years shuttling between the two countries and many interviews later, Chong and his classmate from Nanyang Technological University, Zakaria Zainal, have produced The Invisible Force: Singapore Gurkhas -- an intimate and endearing portrait of Gurkhas and their families, their hopes and aspirations, and their nostalgia for Singapore.
Chong, who now works for the digital edition of The Straits Times, finally found a publisher (Ethos Books) and The Invisible Force was launched recently in Singapore.
“The Gurkha involvement with Singapore is more than 65 years old, it is older than independent Singapore itself,” Chong said in an interview soon after the book launch. “This is a story that needed to be told because so few Singaporeans are aware of the Gurkhas.” ”
Although the number of Gurkhas in the British Army has gone down, in Singapore it has grown from 700 in 1990 to 2,000 as the Nepali soldiers take on more tasks in guarding important facilities, and serve in the Special Action Group and the Special Tactics and Reserve.
As portrayed in Kesang Tseten’s 2012 documentary, Who will be a Gurkha, more than 15,000 young Nepali men aspire to be Gurkhas, and after a gruelling selection process, only 400 are chosen every year. One hundred of these are actually for the Singapore Gurkha Contingent.
Chong Zi Liang
with Zakaria Zainal
Ethos books, 2014 Singapore
90 pages, illustrated
www.ethosbooks.com.sg
As Chong cites in his book, there is no formal agreement between Nepal and Singapore about Gurkha recruitment, and the Singapore government subcontracts their selection to the British Army. British officers command and manage the Contingent in Mount Vernon in Singapore.