The tale of Ghulam Rasool Galwan

Many travellers have written about their experiences. But I don't think a mere porter has. That too in a foreign language. That's what makes Galwan's diary so absolutely unique

Until mid-2020 only a handful of Indians had heard of the Galwan Valley. It’s in the vicinity of Ladakh and the Pangong Lake there.

In May that year the Chinese army started their usual games by blocking Indian army patrols on the border. There were repeated confrontations till one day there was a fight. Around 40 Chinese soldiers were killed.

Like thousands of Indians I, too, Googled “Galwan”. Pretty soon I came across a book by a man of that name. Amazon is selling the paperback for Rs 550. It’s more of a diary actually.

Please buy it.

His full name was Ghulam Rasool Galwan. He was what in those days was called a servant.

But, says Francis Younghusband in his Introduction, he was a “perfect gentleman” in every respect. Galwan had worked for him for many years and on many journeys, including one on which the sahib could have got them all killed when he chose to go through a mountain pass that no one used because it was so dangerous.

Galwan’s employers were Englishmen who went exploring and mapping. Younghusband was one of them and seems to have been a decent fellow because, according to one version, he named the river Galwan discovered after young Ghulam Rasool, rather than himself, which was the custom. Galwan wasn’t even 20 then.

But there’s another version. It says it was a fellow called Littledale who named the river after Galwan. But Younghusband or Littledale, it doesn’t matter. Galwan is immortalised now.

The stories of Galwan’s travels are fascinating. The British travelled a lot in the region and Galwan, after some initial disappointments, became their go-to man. He undertook many journeys looking after the sahibs who quickly saw how valuable he was.

It’s not clear what galvanised Galwan to write this diary. But he did and called the book Servant of Sahibs. He was their porter. It’s not quite the Queen’s or the King’s English. Far from it. But that doesn’t matter. Galwan tells a lot of good stories, including how he went to school and learnt what he thought was English.

Some of you may have read the book and can hop away now. But for those who haven’t, below is a quick overview.

The innocence: There are no dates in Galwan’s book. But it was all at the end of the 19th century and till about 1914.

Galwan narrates scores of stories. He doesn’t complain even about his imprisonment. He doesn’t judge. He doesn’t exaggerate.

The book drips innocence. When he got married, he says, there were so many people around that his wife didn’t know who her husband was till everyone had gone home. “Then she knew,” he writes.

He doesn’t also say that this sahib was better than that one. He just tells us what happened.

In general, he seems to have been quite happy, content and accepting of things as they were. After all, he has always wanted to be of “service to the masters”. As a result, we get a pretty accurate picture of it all.Apart from the native people of the region who flit through the book, there are Russians and Chinese and what not. It was an entirely different world without borders, passports or visas. You just got on your pony and went.

The footnotes — and the play:  If the main text is fascinating despite the language, the footnotes provided by the editor are riveting. There are scores of them.

They explain, contextualise, correct and add tremendous value to the book. In fact, if you like you can read the book just for these footnotes.

Wiki pales in comparison. That’s how detailed and painstaking they are.

I learnt, for example, that the Hunzas were also called Kanjuts. Or that Galwan wrote a chapter about a sahib and his daughters, which has been lost. Wonder what he had said about the girls.

That’s not all. Right at the end of the book there’s a play that Galwan wrote called “Testing the Sahibs”. Yes. A play. Don’t ask why. He just did.

It’s in five Acts. It has a full cast of characters, including one called “The Very Poor Duck” and the “The Very Poor Long-beard Sahib”. But, alas, there’s no dialogue.

One final note: Many travellers have written about their experiences. But I don’t think a mere porter has. That too in a foreign language. That’s what makes this diary so absolutely unique.

It’s the genuine subaltern view, a sharp poke in the Marxist eye.