Ganju Lama

Ganju Lama was born on July 22, 1920, in the small kingdom of Sikkim, then a protectorate lying between British India and Tibet in the eastern Himalaya ^[1]. His family belonged to the Buddhist hill communities of southern Sikkim, and his upbringing followed the rhythms of mountain farming villages, far from the political centres of British India. The name by which the world came to know him was, in fact, the product of a recruiting clerk's error: his given name, Gyamtso, was written down as Ganju when he enlisted, and the mistake stuck for the rest of his life ^[2].

Sikkim was not a traditional recruiting ground for the Gurkha regiments, which drew most of their soldiers from the hill districts of Nepal. Ganju Lama nonetheless presented himself for service as the Second World War expanded across Asia. In 1942, with Japanese forces advancing through Burma toward India's eastern frontier, he was accepted into the 7th Gurkha Rifles, a rifle regiment of the British Indian Army with a long fighting record ^[1]. He was in his early twenties, short and wiry like most Gurkha recruits, and by all accounts unremarkable on paper. The war would prove otherwise.

After training, Rifleman Ganju Lama joined the 1st Battalion of the 7th Gurkha Rifles, which was committed to the defence of India's border with Burma. By early 1944 the battalion formed part of the 17th Indian Division, the formation that bore much of the weight of the Japanese offensive against Imphal in Manipur ^[3]. The fighting there was close, sodden, and relentless: jungle tracks, flooded paddy fields, and Japanese infantry supported by tanks pressing toward the Imphal plain.

Ganju Lama's particular skill was with the PIAT, the Projector, Infantry, Anti-Tank, a spring-and-cartridge weapon that hurled a hollow-charge bomb barely a hundred yards. Using it effectively meant closing to almost suicidal range of an enemy tank. In May 1944, during an engagement on the Tiddim road south of Imphal, he stalked and knocked out a Japanese tank under heavy fire, an action for which he was awarded the Military Medal ^[2]. For most soldiers such a feat would have been the defining moment of a career. For Ganju Lama it was a rehearsal.

The award of the Military Medal made him known within the division, but it was the events of the following month that placed his name in the history of the Victoria Cross. Few soldiers of any army have won two separate gallantry decorations for destroying tanks at close quarters within weeks of each other ^[3].

On June 12, 1944, B Company of the 1st Battalion, 7th Gurkha Rifles was holding ground near the village of Ningthoukhong, south of Imphal, when Japanese troops attacked behind a screen of tanks and intense artillery, mortar, and machine-gun fire. The forward positions were overrun and the company was forced back. Ganju Lama, carrying his PIAT, moved forward on his own initiative through the bombardment to engage the tanks ^[4].

He was hit almost immediately. A wound broke his left wrist, and he took further wounds to his right hand and his leg. Despite injuries that left him barely able to load and aim the weapon, he crawled to within about thirty yards of the leading tanks and knocked them out one after another ^[4]. He then dragged himself on toward the tank crews who had bailed out, engaging them with grenades so that his comrades could retake the lost ground. Only when the position was secure did he allow himself to be taken back for treatment of his wounds.

The citation for the Victoria Cross, published in the London Gazette in September 1944, recorded that throughout the action he showed complete disregard for his own safety and that his determination was beyond praise ^[4]. Lord Mountbatten, the Supreme Allied Commander in South East Asia, later recalled the young rifleman with particular warmth, and the Viceroy of India, Lord Wavell, presented the decoration at a ceremony in December 1944 ^[2]. Among the many Ganju Lama facts repeated in regimental histories, one is singular: he received both the Military Medal and the Victoria Cross for actions fought within a single month of the same campaign ^[3].

Ganju Lama recovered from his wounds and continued to serve as the war ended and the British Indian Army was divided at independence in 1947. When the Gurkha regiments were split between Britain and the new Indian Army, the 7th Gurkha Rifles went to British service, but Ganju Lama chose India and transferred to the 11 Gorkha Rifles, the regiment raised in the Indian Army to receive Gurkha soldiers who elected to stay ^[5].

He rose steadily through the ranks of the post-war Indian Army, reaching the senior grades open to soldiers commissioned from the ranks. He was eventually granted the honorary rank of captain, and in recognition of his standing he was appointed an honorary aide-de-camp to the President of India, a distinction he held for life ^[5]. In independent India, holders of the Victoria Cross were treated with the same respect accorded to recipients of the country's own highest gallantry award, the Param Vir Chakra, and Ganju Lama appeared at national ceremonies alongside those recipients for decades.

He retired from active military service in 1968 after more than a quarter century in uniform ^[5]. His achievements were commemorated in both countries he had served: British regimental institutions preserved his story as part of Gurkha history, while India honoured him as one of the most decorated soldiers ever to wear its uniform.

After leaving the army, Ganju Lama returned to Sikkim, the homeland of his childhood, which in 1975 became a state of India. He settled near Ravangla in the south of the territory and lived quietly as a farmer and respected elder, a life not so different from the one he had been born into ^[6]. Visitors described a modest, devout Buddhist who spoke of his decorations without boastfulness and regarded his survival at Ningthoukhong as a matter of fortune as much as courage.

He remained a familiar figure at gatherings of Victoria Cross holders. He travelled to London for reunions of the Victoria Cross and George Cross Association, occasions at which the small surviving community of recipients from the world wars was received by the British sovereign ^[2]. His attendance connected two worlds: the Himalayan village society of Sikkim and the ceremonial heart of the Commonwealth.

Ganju Lama died on July 1, 2000, three weeks short of his eightieth birthday ^[6]. Obituaries in the British press recounted the Ningthoukhong action in detail and noted the passing of one of the last Gurkha Victoria Cross holders of the Second World War. He was mourned in Sikkim as a local hero and in Britain as part of a fading generation whose deeds had become regimental legend.

Any Ganju Lama biography returns to a single half hour of combat in June 1944, yet his legacy is broader than one action. He remains the only Victoria Cross recipient from Sikkim, and his story is often cited to illustrate the reach of the Gurkha soldiering tradition beyond Nepal's borders ^[1]. In Sikkim his memory is kept publicly: a memorial and park at Ravangla bear his name, and his life is taught as part of the state's modern history ^[6].

His medal group, headed by the Victoria Cross and the Military Medal, is among the most remarkable earned by any soldier of the Burma campaign, and accounts of his actions appear in regimental histories of the 7th Gurkha Rifles and in general histories of the Gurkhas ^[3]. Military writers studying Ganju Lama achievements point to the tactical value of what he did: at both the Tiddim road and Ningthoukhong, the destruction of Japanese armour by a single rifleman changed the local course of the battle.

For the Gurkha regiments of Britain and the Gorkha regiments of India alike, Ganju Lama endures as an example held up to recruits: a farm boy enlisted under a misspelled name who, twice in one month, crawled wounded toward enemy tanks and destroyed them. The plain record of the London Gazette, unembellished, remains the best summary of why his name survives ^[4].