The Religious Life of the Gorkhalis of Myanmar

By Sushma Joshi

Gorkhalis (people of Nepali origins, mostly Hindus and Mahayani Buddhists) have lived in Myanmar since the late 1800s. They came with the British Army and fought through the World Wars, then stayed on in the aftermath. This essay explores some of the recent conflict created by newly converted Hinayana Buddhists who are trying to convert faith-based communities to their own religious ideology.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sushma Joshi
• Release date: Mar 31, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301745708

Sushma Joshi

Sushma Joshi is a writer and filmmaker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. She received her BA from Brown University, Rhode Island, USA. She also has an MA in English Literature from Middlebury College's Breadloaf School of English.

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INTRODUCTION

Between 2010 and 2011, I traveled twice to Myanmar with the support of the Asian Scholarship Foundation, which had given me a 9 month fellowship to do research and write about the Nepali community in Burma and Thailand. My aim was to find out about the social, cultural and political histories of the Nepali diaspora living in Myanmar. Although I also wanted to learn about the Nepali diaspora in Thailand, my research there was much more limited because the people, mostly Burmese Gorkhalis who were working in Bangkok illegally, were afraid to talk. My interviews with Burmese Gorkhalis in Thailand therefore took place exclusively in Chiang Mai. In this paper, I will concentrate on the Gorkhalis of Myanmar.

During the time of my travels, Myanmar was still ruled by the military junta and the current reforms had yet to take place, therefore much of my inquiries were open-ended and left open for people to answer in the way they thought comfortable. The sense of unease in Yangon was palpable, and it was clear people were not comfortable being taped or video-recorded inside the city. Outside the capital, however, it was different. People spoke openly about their feelings—from the discrimination faced through the Myanmar state which didn’t promote Gorkhalis to the same ranks as native Burmans, to the sense of ease and comfort they felt in the place they knew as home.

During my two visits, I traveled through eight cities, small towns and villages: Yangon, Bagan, Mandalay, Pwe Oo Lin, Lashio, Hsipaw, Sankhai, and Myitkyina, visiting many communities in small villages as well as in the centre of the cities. What I found was a palpable affection for Nepal, which they identified as the country of their forbears. Nepal was the fatherland, or the one that gave birth to them, the place of their origins. But I also found a deep-rooted comfort and sense of home in Myamnar, which they identified as the motherland, or the land which fed them mother’s milk, brought them up and nurtured them. The Fatherland versus the Motherland dichotomy was clear—while clearly feeling a great deal of love, affection and respect towards the land of their origins, all people I spoke to said they would never choose to go back to Nepal, and that Burma was the country in which they were born and in which they would die. This sense of security in Myanmar, which I sensed from the majority of Gorkhalis, was one which not even the most oppressive of political situations had been able to shake. Gorkhalis were part of the ethnic tapestry of Myanmar, and through a complex interweaving of historical, religious and geographic reasons had come to be one of the most accepted communities in a country which otherwise had xenophobic feelings towards the Kala, or dark-skinned foreigners.

From the first day, it became apparent that religion was a major binding factor for the Nepali (or as they identified Gorkhali) community in diaspora in Myanmar. I was picked up and taken to the Nepali embassy, which was holding a gathering. The Nepali Ambassador, who was both a woman and of the Dalit caste, had invited the women’s group of Yangon to attend a small meeting at her residence to discuss women’s empowerment. All the women belonged to the Akhil Myanmari Deshiya Gorkhali Hindu Dharmic Sangh. The Sangh, which had 36 different affiliate networks across the country, was a well-organized network which included all Hindus and also Mahayani Gorkhalis within its membership.

This community network, centered in the Gorkhali dharmashala in Mandalay, was the central binding force of all Gorkhalis’ lives in the country. A number of important functions, from dukha nivaran (eradication of suffering) to education, culture, religion, language preservation, to the roles of women and youth was shaped and promoted through this institution.

START OF NEPALI LANGUAGE CLASSES IN TEMPLES

In Mandalay, Mr. Thakur Guragain, a writer and scholar who has also authored a book Myanmar ko Janjeevan about the history of Gorkhali life in Myanmar, gave me a brief history of the teaching of the Nepali language in Myanmar. Mr. Guragain’s grandfather arrived 90 years ago from Terathum district, and Mr. Guragain himself was born in Sailung, Chandrakotay, in Mogok. According to him, when the military junta took over, it nationalized the banks and factories. The only aspect left untouched was religion-each group was allowed to continue their religious practices and beliefs without interference. In 1966, Myanmar nationalized the schools. All the private schools were closed down and became government schools.

Private schools had