It will be big news when an ethnic Gurkha becomes chief of Indian Army, but this is not likely for many years to come.
KARACHI: I was surprised to read in the article by Muhammad Ali Ehsan “India’s new army chief” that General Dalbir Singh Suhag is the second Gurkha soldier to become India’s army chief; the first being Field Marshal Sam Maneckshaw. Allow me to point out that Maneckshaw may have started his career in a Gurkha battalion and commanded the same as a Lt Colonel, but he is ethnically a Parsi, not a Gurkha. I don’t think the present chief, General Dalbir Singh Suhag, too, is an ethnic Gurkha; he may also be from a Gurkha regiment. In fact, it will be big news when an ethnic Gurkha becomes the chief of the Indian Army, but this is not likely for many years to come, as far as I can see.
Zafar Ullah Poshni
Published in The Express Tribune, August 24th, 2014.
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