Tuesday, 29 September 2015

Dashain Tika





Dashain Tika

Dashain is celebrated for 15 days. However, first, seventh, eighth, ninth and the tenth are the most important days.


Day 1 - Ghatasthapana
Day 7 - Phulpati
Day 8 - Maha Ashtami or Durga Ashtami
Day 9 - Maha Navami or Durga Navami
Day 10 - Vijaya Dashami or Bijaya Dashami
Day 15 - Kojagrat Purnima

On Ghatasthapana day, which is also known as Sowing Jamara day, a divine Kalash is installed in the Puja room. This Kalash symbolizes the Goddess of Power i.e. Goddess Durga herself. On this day Kalash is filled with holy water which is then covered with cow dung and sewn with barley and other grain seeds. The Kalash is put in Puja room at the center of a rectangle sand block. These seeds sprout and grow to five to six inches yellow grass in next ten days. This sacred grass is known as Jamara.

Vijaya Dashami is the most significant day during fifteen days Dashain festivity. Vijaya Dashami Tika is performed on the very same day. On this day, rice, vermilion and Jamara, which is sewn during Ghatasthapana day, are arranged on a plate and this preparation is known as Tika. Elders put Tika and Jamara on the forehead of younger relatives to bless them with abundance in the upcoming year. This ceremony continues for next five days till Kojagrat Purnima.
http://www.hamrakura.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Dashain-Ko-Tika.pnghttp://www.himalayanglacier.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/dashain-tika.jpg

 

Traditional alcoholic beverage of Gorkhas

Traditional alcoholic beverage of Gorkhas 

1.Rakshi

http://www.nepaldaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/7195781438_98f00e9fa1_b.jpg
Raksi (Nepali: रक्सी) or Rakshi is a traditional distilled alcoholic beverage of Gorkhas And Nepalese. It is often made at home.
Raksi is usually made from kodo millet (kodo) or rice; different grains produce different flavors. It is a strong drink, clear like vodka or gin, tasting somewhat like Japanese sake.
In the CNN's list of World's 50 most delicious drinks, it was ranked 41st and was described as "Made from millet or rice, Raksi is strong on the nose and sends a burning sensation straight down your throat that resolves itself into a surprisingly smooth, velvety sensation. Nepalese of Nepal and Gorkhas of India drink this home brew to celebrate festivals, though we think that the prized drink itself is the reason to celebrate."
Because of its popularity, there exist various temperance movements in Nepal, including various women's groups. Raksi, however, remains an important requirement of various religious rituals and social events, due in part perhaps to its antiseptic properties.

Serving

Raksi is often served in a bhatti glass and during special occasions, the drink is poured from a great height via a pitcher with a small spout, making an entertaining spectacle.

Production

Raksi is produced, sold and mostly consumed at rustic distilleries scattered around the countryside. Usually it is not aged before consumption. A large amount of wood is used in the distillation process.




2.Chhaang

Chhaang

Chhaang or chang (Tibetan: ཆང་Wylie: chang, Nepali: छ्याङ) is a Nepalese and Tibetan alcoholic beverage also popular in parts of the eastern Himalayas.

Geographical prevalence

Chhaang is consumed by ethnically Nepalese and Tibetan people and, to a lesser degree, by the neighboring nations of India and Bhutan. It is usually drunk at room temperature in summer, but is often served piping-hot in brass bowls or wooden mugs when the weather is colder.

Ingredients and drinking

Chhaang is a relative of beer. Barley, millet (finger-millet) or rice grains are used to brew the drink. Semi-fermented seeds of millet are served, stuffed in a barrel of bamboo called a dhungro. Boiling water is then poured in and sipped through a narrow-bore bamboo tube called a pipsing.
When the boiled barley has cooled, some yeast or dried barm is added and it is left to stand for two or three days when fermentation begins; this concoction is called glum. The barm consists of flour and, in Balti, often has ginger and aconite added to it. After fermentation is complete, water is added to the brew and is then ready for consumption.
In Lahaul the glum is pressed out by hand instead of by filtering, yielding a rather cloudy drink. The residue of malt can be pressed through a strainer and then mixed with water or milk and used in baking bread or cakes.
Near Mt. Everest of Nepal, chhaang is made by passing hot water through fermenting barley, and is then served in a large pot and drunk through a wooden straw.
In Nepal, this beverage is called tongba by the Limbu,Rai,Gurung,magar..etc, or jand which refers to the turbid liquor obtained by leaching out the extract with water from the fermented mash. Unlike chhang or tongba, jand is served in large mugs. These alcoholic beverages are generated using a traditional starter called murcha. Murcha itself is prepared by using yeast and mold flora of wild herbs in cereal flours.
The brew tastes like ale. Alcohol content is quite low, but it produces an intense feeling of warmth and well-being, ideal for enduring the temperatures which go well below freezing in winter.

Myth

Chhaang is said to be the best remedy to ward off the severe cold of the mountains. It reputedly has many healing properties for conditions like the common cold, fevers, allergic rhinitis, and alcoholism among others.
According to legend, chhaang is also popular with the Yeti, or Himalayan Snowmen, who often raid isolated mountain villages to drink it.

Social correlates

Drinking and making offerings of chhaang are part of many pan-Tibetan social and religious occasions, including settling disputes, welcoming guests, and wooing.

Friday, 25 September 2015

Brief History of Nepali Speaking Community Gorkhas of Northeast India.

Brief History of Nepali Speaking Community Gorkhas of Northeast India. 

 



Assam
The historical name of Assam is Kamarup. In the Puranic Age, Nepal and Kamarup comprised a single domain. Matsyendranath, a great mystic yogi of Kamarup, is said to have gone to Nepal and settled there. This ancient link between Nepal and Assam was resurrected in modern times in the 19th Century. In the early days, the Gorkhas were cattle herders in the Assam valley, their grazing grounds spread from Baralimara to Bhavani Devithan. Bura Chapari of Tezpur was declared a professional grazing reserve in 1881. In 1920, the Gorkhas were ordered to vacate the land, but, after public pressure, the order was repealed in 1933.
After the success of tea gardens in Assam, the Assam Company began bringing in labourers from 1853. After passing several legislations in 1863, people from Nepal and other communities were given the freedom to enter the tea plantation in Assam. The Gorkha population in Assam naturally went up. Labour was hired not only in tea gardens but in the other fields also. In 1889, oil was explored at Digboi. Gorkhas were employed from the very beginning of the enterprise. Since the native people feared to enter the dense forest of Digboi., the British employed the Nepalese for the operational work.
Places surrounding Digboi, like Itabhatti, Rasthpati, Nalapatti, Muliabari, Topabasti, Agreement Line, Goru Phatak were all originally inhabited by Gorkhas. During World War I, when the native people fled from Digboi, the Gorkhas were appointed as security personnel at the oilfields. In 1923, Jitbahadur Pradhan was authorized to recruit labourers for the refineries. He brought in hundreds of Nepali workers, particularly from North Bengal.

Nagaland
Nagaland, Hari Prasad Gorkha Rai, an authority on the Gorkha community in the Northeast, written about how 400 hundred years ago, some men of Chiechama village were going to their fields when they came across three young, tired and hungry Gorkha boys. The villagers took pity on them and brought them home. Two of the boys died of cholera. The one who survived said his name was ‘Rai’. A villager elder adopted him and later even married him off to his daughter. In course of time, Rai became assimilated into the Angami tribe and his descendents are now called Metha Tophris, or non­Angami Methama clan.
Till today, it is a custom to give a male child in the clan the name ‘Rayi’. This commemorates the name of the clan’s original father. If this story is true, then the history of the Gorkhas in Nagaland begins in the early 17th Century. In the compound of the 3rd Assam Rifles at Kohima, Nagaland’s capital, there is a memorial stone that places the date of the base’s establishment in 1835. This means the Gorkhas have been in Nagaland since then. When the British marched in soldiers from the Native Infantry Cachar Levy and Artillery Force to Kohima, they stayed back and were rehabilitated at Chandmari.

Manipur
The entry of the Nepalis and their settlement in Manipur can be traced to 1819 at the earliest. It is quite probable that some scattered Nepali families were already settled in Manipur before this date. Some scholars push back the history of the Gorkhas in Manipur to the beginning of the 16th Century. Lore also has it that the first Nepali came to Manipur at the beginning of the 10th Century. He married a Meitei girl called Kumbi, who belonged to the Mayang Heikong Ningol, a popular Manipuri clan. Since this man reared cows and buffaloes in the Khuti, or the goth (cowshed), his descendants are knowns as gotimayan.
The first batch of Gorkhas came to Manipur during the time of Raja Gambhir Singh. In 1824, the Gorkhas of the 16th Sylhet Local Battalion, later to become the 8th Gorkha Rifles, were included in the Police Levy of Gambhir Singh. During the first quarter of the 19th Century, Manipur was much troubled by Burmese intruders and troops. To secure Manipur, Gambhir Singh raised an army in 1825 and recruited Gorkhas from Sylhet for it. The militia was named the ‘Victoria Paltan’. The nomenclature is a clear indication of the preponderance of Gorkhas in the army since the word paltan is a Nepali corruption of the English ‘platoon’. Having earned the trust of the British, Gorkha soldiers were detailed to protect all the Political Agents. They were also brought in as cooks, milkmen, traders and agriculturists.
The number of Gorkha soldiers in Manipur increased when the East India Company moved the 23rd, 43rd and 44th battalions of the 8th Gorkha Rifles to Manipur around 1880. Later, according to the records of the Chief Commissioner of Assam, 400 Gorkha soldiers from Golaghat and 200 from Silchar were brought in. In 1891, more were relocated to the region from other places in Assam. Maharaja Chandrakriti’s reign too saw many Gorkhas coming in.
At the beginning of the 20th Century, Gorkhas were being recruited in the Assam Military Police, where 82 of them were posted at Tura in the Garo Hills Battalion, 730 were at Dibrugarh in the Lakhimpur Battalion, 331 at Kohima in the Naga Hills Battalion, 111 at Silchar in the Silchar Battalion, and 105 at Dhaka in the Dhaka Battalion.
In 1915, the 2nd Gorkha Rifles stationed at Imphal was replaced by the Darang Military Police when the renowned fighters were deployed for action somewhere in Europe. This very Darang Military Police stationed at Manipur was converted into the 4th Assam Rifles in 1917 and 80 per cent of its personnel comprised Gorkhas.
Almost all the Gorkhas who came to Manipur on active service settled there permanently after retirement. The British government allotted land to the personnel of the 4th Assam Rifles first in Thangmaiband and later in special colonies in Eroisembe, Chink, Tangri, Kalapahar, Torbung, Maram, Imphal, Irang and Kanglatombi. After 1945, many personnel from Subhas Chandra Bose’s INA also made Manipur their home.
The fact that Nepali literature’s first poetical work in print came from Manipur is proof that the Gorkhas were fully assimilated into Manipur society and its social pursuits by 1894, the year that Tulachand Alay wrote and published Manipurko Sawai.

Mizoram
The Gorkhas have been in Mizoram at least for a century and a half. In 1865, Colonel T.H. Lewin wrote, “I had formed a high opinion of the little Gurkhas, who under Col. Macpherson, had done the fighting of the expedition, and I obtained permission to send to Nepal and get immigrants from there to colonize this frontier waste.” Gorkha colonies were established on the Myani river, a northern affluent of the Karnaphuli, now in Bangladesh. Colonel Lewin wanted to establish a number of villages along the “frontier waste” between the plains and the hills so that a well­defined boundary between the local and British territories could be established. Colonel Lewin records that “the country where the villages were located had previously been uninhabited, for fear of the marauding Lushais, and my idea had been to establish there a good stockade villages of courageous, stiff­people like the Gurkhas, who should serve as the buffer between the Mong Raja’s territory and the independent Lushais to the east.”
After the construction of stockades at Lungai and Aizawl, peace was restored in most of the hills. The government needed man­power—traders, masons, dak­runners, chowkidars, farmers and others—for which they turned to the Gorkhas, fearing that the natives were not yet fully docile. The Gorkhas also reached Mizoram as personnel of the Frontier Police Battalion. It is also recorded that by 1891, hundreds of people freely moved across the frontiers of Manipur and Chittagong hill tracts. The Gorkhas were not among them, however. They were imported by the British themselves. There is a case recorded in 1872 when the Gorkhas rescued the kidnapped Mary Winchester, daughter of the manager of the Alexandrapore Tea Garden, from the hands of Lushai chieftains. This act of loyalty won the Gorkhas the trust of the British, who recommended that they settle in the area for good.
The Surma Valley Military Police Battalion, later known as 1st Assam Rifles, was raised at Changsil in the north Lushai Hills by General Tregears in 1889. Its ranks were mainly filled by Gorkha soldiers. The Gorkhas, after their retirement from the army and the police forces, accepted the Lushai Hills as their homeland. Today, they form the most socially organized Gorkha community in north­east India.

Meghalaya
The primal settlement of the Gorkhas in Meghalaya, once called the Khasi­Jaintia Hills, can be dated to the establishment of their social organizations there—the Gorkha Thakurbari (1824), Gorkha Durga Puja Committee (1872) and Gorkha Union (1886). The Thakurbari certainly from records appears to be the oldest organization of Gorkhas in the whole of the Northeast. It still runs two temples and one middle school for girls. The Gorkha Durga Puja Committee was started by the Gorkhas of the 1st and 2nd battalions of 8 GR. In 1940, when the platoon was shifted to Quetta, now in Pakistan, the committee was handed over to the civilians and ex­servicemen residing in and around Shillong. Another older organisation is the Gorkha Union, later known as the Gorkha Association.
The history of 8th Gorkha Rifles reveals a lot about the Nepalis in Meghalaya. Major Alban Wilson writes: “In 1845, an outpost of the regiment was established at Umbai in the Khasi Hills, under the command of Subedar Deoraj Alay, who was given the civil powers of a third class
magistrate. He died after he had been two years at Umbai, Cherrapunji, but in that short time, he had endeared himself so much to the inhabitants that they erected a large tomb over his grave by the road side, and to the present day, every inhabitant of the place worships at his grave, and when passing by, places a chew of supari on it”
In 1866, Lieutenant W.J. Williamson was appointed the commissioner of Garo Hills. He set up a police force in Tura comprising two inspectors, two sub­inspectors, six head constables and 100 constables. Most of the constables and coolies brought to Tura were Gorkhas from Goalpara in Assam. In an entry in his diary on December 25, 1867, Williamson notes, “... The Nepalee coolies and the constables worked quite to my satisfaction....” The Nepalis were employed in trees felling and road construction also. When the American missionaries reached Garo Hills, they had taken 12 Gorkhas with them from Dhubri in Assam. A.G. Phillips wrote in his diary on December 12, 1876: “I am at Tura at last. I left Goalpara November Seventh, reaching Dhubri on the following day, where I stopped to get coolies for building, as this is a place to which many Nepalese come seeking work.”
When one goes through the history of the 8 GR, Shillong of 1867 could not have shown any resemblance to the charming cantonment and civil station that so many subsequently came to know it as. Asked what the place was like when he marched into Shillong with the 44th battalion of 8 GR, Captain Kalu Thapa replied, “There was not a rat there.”
Along with the servicemen, Gorkhas were ‘invited” to rear cattle in the Northeast. Lyndred Shira, a writer based in Tura, discloses this in the following words: “When Tura was first occupied by the American Baptist Mission in 1876, there was hardly anything out here. The present site of the school was a thick jungle, infested with wild and dreaded elephants that roamed at large breaking the silence of the atmosphere with their vocal trumpets. Goshai, a Nepali fellow, must have occupied this plot of land sometimes towards the beginning of this century. He must have been invited by the British Government to start a cattle farm here, purposely for supply of milk to the residents of the locality.” Goshai’s grazing farm was known, till late, as Nippal adding, or ‘Nepali hill’.
In 1872, Shillong had 1,363 inhabitants, 935 in the active service. Of those in the services, 772 were Gorkhas. By now, The Nepalis had made homes in almost all the places of Meghalaya, though there was no single area inhabited fully by them. Manorath Upadhya, a third grade ‘jemadar’ of the Garo Hills Military Police Battalion, wrote Tirthavali in 1915. As in Manipur, this once again testifies to the social and literary pursuits of the Gorkhas living with the Garos and Khasis from very early on.
 
 

The Fundamental Rights

The Fundamental Rights.

The Fundamental Rights are defined as basic human freedoms that every Indian citizen has the right to enjoy for a proper and harmonious development of personality. These rights universally apply to all citizens, irrespective of race, place of birth, religion, caste or gender. Aliens (persons who are not citizens) are also considered in matters like equality before law. They are enforceable by the courts, subject to certain restrictions. The eight fundamental rights recognised by the Indian constitution to its citizens are:-

1. Right to equality: Which includes equality before law, prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, gender or place of birth, and equality of opportunity in matters of employment, abolition of untouchability and abolition of titles.
2.Right to freedom: Which includes speech and expression, assembly, association or union or cooperatives, movement, residence, and right to practice any profession or occupation (some of these rights are subject to security of the State, friendly relations with foreign countries, public order, decency or morality), right to life and liberty, right to education, protection in respect to conviction in offences and protection against arrest and detention in certain cases.
3. Right against exploitation: Which prohibits all forms of forced labour, child labour and traffic of human beings
Right to freedom of religion: Which includes freedom of conscience and free profession, practice, and propagation of religion, freedom to manage religious affairs, freedom from certain taxes and freedom from religious instructions in certain educational institutes.
4.Cultural and Educational rights: Preserve the right of any section of citizens to conserve their culture, language or script, and right of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice.
5. Right to constitutional remedies: Which is present for enforcement of Fundamental Rights.
6.Right to life: Which gives the right to live with human dignity. This includes rights such as right to education, health, shelter and basic amenities that the state shall provide.
7. Right to education: It is the latest addition to the fundamentals rights.
Right to Information:RTI stands for Right To Information and has been given the status of a fundamental right under Article 19(1) of the Constitution.
Fundamental rights for Indians have also been aimed at overturning the inequalities of per-independence social practices. Specifically, they have also been used to abolish untouchability and thus prohibit discrimination on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth. They also forbid trafficking of human beings and forced labour. They also protect cultural and educational rights of ethnic and religious minorities by allowing them to preserve their languages and also establish and administer their own education institutions.


Wednesday, 23 September 2015

If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or is a Gurkha. .

"Gorkhas of North-East Blogging"

 Lighting Gorkhalism


'Kafir hunu bhanda marnu jati"



If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or is a Gurkha.
The British had identified the Gorkhas as a 'martial race' for their sterling qualities of toughness and fortitude. The Gorkha soldier is famous the world over for his ferocity and unflinching courage in battle. One author has described the Gorkhas as "small of stature, large of heart, accustomed to hardship, good-natured with a keen sense of humour, loyal to death, more disciplined than any fighting force in the world, brave and capable and absolutely without fear." These hardy troops are undoubtedly tough, bold and durable under withering fire, and they are extremely well-disciplined . Close family ties within each battalion ensure that they fight not only for the paltan'sizzatbut also for their own kith and kin. 'Kafir hunu bhanda marnu jati' (better to die than be a coward' ) is the motto of the Gorkha soldiers who continue to serve in the British, Indian and Nepalese armies with pride and professionalism of a very high order.

The Gorkha regiments of the British Indian Army played a key role during both the World Wars. They saw action in Africa, Europe and in Asia and earned battle honours everywhere. Following Partition in 1947, under a tripartite agreement between Britain, India and Nepal, four Gorkha regiments —2 , 6, 7and 10regiments —were transferred to the British Army, eventually becoming the Gorkha Brigade. Of the total of 10 regiments, six (1, 3, 4, 5, 8and 9regiments) joined the Indian Army. 11 GR was raised later. Currently there are 39 battalions serving in seven Gorkha regiments in the Indian Army. While Gorkhas in the Indian Army hail both from Nepal and India's hill regions, the Nepalese Gorkhas have helped to build strong bonds of friendship between the two armies.

Though all the Gorkha regiments have performed creditably in India's wars since independence, the 5Gorkha Rifles has a legendary record. The 5/5 GR (FF) fought gallantly in the Hyderabad Police Action in 1948. In this action, Naik Nar Bahadur Thapa was awarded the first Ashok Chakra Class I of independent India on September 15, 1948. The 4/5 GR (FF) earned the distinction of becoming the first battalion of the Indian Army to participate in a heliborne attack in the Battle of Sylhet during the 1971 war for the liberation of Bangladesh. Besides the major wars, the Gorkhas have served in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, at the Siachen Glacier and in the UN peacekeeping missions in Lebanon and Sierra Leone . In October 2011, the 4/9 GR won the gold medal in the annual Cambrian Patrol Competition held in Wales, UK.
The Gorkhas still carry into battle their traditional weapon —an 18-inch long wickedly curved, broadbladed heavy knife known as the khukri. It is the world's most renowned fighting knife. It's said: "Often the mere sight of an unsheathed khukri is enough to discourage any further action by causing a cold, cramped feeling in the nether regions of the stomach." Legend has it that once a khukri was drawn in battle , it had to 'taste blood' . If it did not, its owner had to cut himself before returning it to its sheath.