Head Clerk Lala Ram Rakha, Military Works Service

[Ed_Haynes]

Head Clerk Lala Ram Rakha Singh, Military Works Service

Now properly dressed:

1- BEM (civil) - "LALA RAM RAKHA"

2- BWM - "RAM RAKHA, M.W.S."

3- Victory - "RAM RAKHA, M.W.S."

4- IGS 08 "Afghanistan NWF" - "CLK. RAM RAKHA, M.W.S."

B.E.M. is in London Gazette 12 June 1941 to "Lala Ram Rakha, Head Clerk, Office of the Commander, Royal Engineers, Waziristan District, North-West Frontier Province" - the recommendation has not been captured but it lies (absconding) in PSV file 10(2)-H/1941 in New Delhi - I am 100% certain it is a retirement gift for someone whose salary was below the threshold for a title.

Maybe not "sexy" by all tastes, but this is the person whose work made the empire function!

[Ed_Haynes]

One thing that makes the group espoecially interesting is the quantity of documentation that came with it. Not normal stuff (no BEM certificate, for example), but exotic and "real" stuff. It came all rolled up inside a tin tube and not in the best of condition.

Some samples follow.

His education, part one:

[Ed_Haynes]

Education, part two:

[Ed_Haynes]

Having obtained his third class matriculation at the University of the Panjab in 1912, Ram Rakha seems to have entered pretty directly into British service.

On 7 January 1913, he received the first of his (eventually twenty surviving) "chits", testimonials of good behavior and competent performance from a string of British engineering officials. These would stretch through 1923 and -- as this first specimen does -- attest to ". . . a young man of sober habits . . . . [Who] is hard-working & intelligent & also writes a good hand . . . ."

[Ed_Haynes]

Through the war, all of his work seems to have been in the area around Bannu, and some was rather mundane indeed. The work of the usual clerk.

[Ed_Haynes]

By 1919 he is reassigned, in the context of the Third Afghan War, to Dera Ismail Khan where he continued to preform well.

In the context of this service, he received two awards we frequently see mentioned but rarely see documented.

A grant of land on 8 March 1920 (in poor shape and too large to fit easily on the scanner).

[Ed_Haynes]

On 16 May 1920 he received a certificate of notice from the commander of the Waziristan Force.

[Ed_Haynes]

By (about) 1922, he received promotion to First Grade Clerk.

He also served in Waziristan in the early 1920s and received a second commendation on 1 April 1923.

This suggests a missing clasp "Waziristan 1921-24".

[Ed_Haynes]

After this, with the notable (and elusive) exception of his 1941 BEM, Ram Rakha drops back into the shadows. But it is nice to be able to illuminate, however slightly, the career of an otherwise invisible Indian clerk.

Edited July 20, 2007 by Ed_Haynes

[Guest Rick Research]

Indeed, and delighted indeed to see a lifetime of service rescued and preserved. Where would we burrowers in archives be, without the work of all those dutiful human computers?