Titel
What Can a Song Do to You? A Life Story of a Gurkha Prisoner in World War I
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.
Stichwort
Gurkhalife-writingNepalPOWssongsWorld War I
Objekt-Typ
Sprache
Englisch [eng]
Persistent identifier
Erschienen in
Titel
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies
Band
43
Ausgabe
3
ISSN
0085-6401
Erscheinungsdatum
2020
Seitenanfang
392
Seitenende
406
Publication
Informa UK Limited
Erscheinungsdatum
2020
Zugänglichkeit
Rechteangabe
© 2020 The Author(s)

Herunterladen

Universität Wien | Universitätsring 1 | 1010 Wien | T +43-1-4277-0