Yallingup

I should right out confess that I’ve never been to Australia. Indeed, I know very little about the place per se, beyond what little I can remember from school geography lessons, long ago. Thus, like the redoubtable Messrs Sellars & Yeatman (who wrote those great classics, 1066 and All That, And Now All This), all that I do know about Australia (oddly referred to as ‘Oz’ by its natives) is all that I can remember.

So what do I know/remember of Australia? Mainly, that it’s the “Antipodes”—like, in the old days, when people didn’t like someone and they’d wish them ‘at the Antipodes’—and that it’s largely inhabited by marsupials i.e. a popular local term for the selfsame natives, which include such notable creatures as Kangaroos, Koalas, Wombats, Wallabies, Captain Cook, Shane Warne, Mark Waugh and Steve Waugh etc. Apparently, because they have pouches and extra toes, these odd Australian creatures are supposed to be very good at cricket; which is a game they play a lot in the Outback, a sort of blasted heath surrounded by ocean and comprising of most of Australia. According to a friend who’s a bit of an expert on this bizarre land, “they have nothing else to do down there” and that’s why Australia is also sometimes referred to as ‘Down Under’ or ‘Under Wear/Where’ and so on.

But the strangest thing—or place?—in Australia, is Yallingup. I am attaching a photo of this place or thing, taken recently by yet another friend, who was brave enough to go to Yallingup, ‘Down Under [Wear]’. We must accord such bravery due recognition. Now, Australia has many places and things with strange, outlandish names, “imbued with mystic significance”, again according to my expert-friend. Names such as Opal, Offal, Awrful, Oh-phal, Awpull, O-pulo, and many others of similar provenance are rather common there, and generally encouraged by the government, for reasons of its own (also mystical); but one may also find unlikely and exciting place-names such as Didgerry-doo, Ooohoohoo, Yahoo, Poo-Poo, Loo (named after the second most famous battle of the Napoleonic Wars c 1815, in which Australian or ‘Ozzie’ troops, mostly blonde women archers with only one breast called ‘Anzacs’, participated with glee)—and then, again, who can forget Alice Springs (named after the famous Australian movie star, Sharon Stone, who used to ‘spring’ upon people here, rather suddenly) ; or Wollangong? Or for that matter, Wikileakia? But, as every ‘Ozzie’ will tell you, there’s “Only One Yallingup!” (Thank God).

So there you are. Yallingup. The most famous place or thing in Australia, where everything is ‘Down Under [Wear]’ but only Yalling is ‘Up’. Nobody seems to know, what or where exactly Yalling is ‘Up’ but does that really matter very much? Suffice to say, Yallingup is in Western Australia (as opposed to the Eastern side) and is an ancient locale, almost 50 years old, with a beach, some water, some sky painted rather nicely behind it, and some rocks and things to one side. You can see it for yourself thanks to the photo taken by my intrepid friend. Take a look.

Photo, courtesy ICF, 2011

A National Treasure for Sale?

All nations around the world celebrate and honor the deeds of military bravery of their troops by awarding special medals for gallantry through which these brave soldiers are forever commemorated. In Pakistan, too, we have several such medals for military gallantry awarded to a select band of heroes, since Independence in 1947.

However, the historical antecedents of the Pakistan Army (and the present Indian Army too) are even older than Independence/Partition and have their origins in the old British (colonial) Indian Army; dating back to the ‘raising’ or founding of some of the most prestigious cavalry and infantry regiments, generally in the 1840s and 1850s and in some cases, even earlier. Thus, many of the famous regiments of our brave forces today e.g. 5^th Cavalry (Probyn’s Horse), 6^th Cavalry (DCO’s Lancers), Guides Cavalry, 19^th Lancers (King George V’s Own), the Punjab Regiment, the Frontier Force Regiment, the Baluch Regiment and so on, had their beginning in colonial roots and traditions. Indeed, some of the brave sons of this soil proved their valor in various military campaigns even back then—in particular, during the First (1914-18) and Second (1939-45) World Wars and their deeds still live on.

During the two World Wars, native soldiers from these parts (especially the former NWFP and Northern Punjab) won great renown for their bravery and were awarded many medals by the British government, of which the highest, rarest and most coveted was the Victoria Cross (VC)—awarded to only a handful of soldiers between 1914 and 1947. Of this brave handful of recipients of the VC, the most significant , perhaps, was the very first such medal ever awarded to a native soldier i.e. that given to Sepoy Khudadad Khan, a gallant Minhas Rajput from the Salt Range, serving with the old 129^th Baluchis (later the 4^th Btn, 10^th Baluch Regt) at Hollebeke, Belgium, in October 1914. According to Dr S.D Najmuddin, a military historian, this medal “was earned for truly exceptional courage, after being surrounded and attacked by vastly superior numbers and left for dead…Khudadad Khan alone survived and reached back his battalion”.

Khudadad Khan was greatly honored and respected throughout Pakistan, UK and the Commonwealth even after 1947, as a brave man, and he went to many countries as a guest speaker to speak of his own experiences and was received by many heads of state and famous people. Then, alas, to our shame, a shocking tragedy occurred—in 1950, in Pakistan, his VC and some other medals, were stolen by some unscrupulous thief, or thieves. Despite registering an FIR back then, neither the thief/thieves not the stolen medal were ever found.

Many decades have passed since then. Khudadad Khan also passed away, his medal stolen but his name forever enshrined in history; and his family settled in the UK. Today, the very few VCs awarded to native soldiers are deemed as ‘national treasures’ and generally to be found in big museums, or preserved faithfully by the families of recipients. In the rare cases where these medals are sold they are extremely valuable and in major auction houses in the West, might fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars. But selling them is not easy. Prof. Khan, a colonial studies expert, informs us that “Medals such as the VC have a special historical value that goes beyond just rarity or material considerations. Often, a sense of national honor, national prestige, is associated with these. International auctioneers and dealers are very hesitant to sell them, without the prior approval of the recepients’ families and that of the government of the country they belong to. There are certain very strict international laws and procedures that are involved”.

Yet, despite such dire warnings, greed seems to be a strong motivation. Recently, according to confidential sources, Khudadad Khan’s VC, stolen in 1950 and never recovered by the police, has suddenly reappeared in the market. It has supposedly been ‘offered for private sale’ to rich collectors in Pakistan and abroad, secretly, but it is not clear who is the party making this sale. Sources believe that it is some jeweler or goldsmith either in Rawalpindi or Haripur area of Hazara. Would such a sale be legal, as the medal is a stolen one and, moreover, there are larger issues and international laws and procedures involved, as already mentioned?

Finally, another question: Pakistan has already been denuded of many precious antiques, historical relics and artifacts dating from ancient times. Will Khudadad Khan’s VC also fly away out of the country, forever, or will someone act now to trace and save this national treasure for posterity?