A bust of Captain late Bahadur Singh Baral was unveiled on the premises of the Guru Gorakhnath Temple in Bhagsu, Dari in Dharamshala, India on the occasion of his birth anniversary on Sunday.

A Nepali poet and a retired commissioned officer of the 2nd Battalion of the 1st Gorkha Rifles of the then British Indian Army, Baral hailed from the then Palpa (now Nawalpur) district.

He established the temple in April 1955. The guest of honour at the unveiling programme was Khagendra Prasad Luintel, head of the department of Tribhuvan University. Former MP Dilkumari Rai Bhandari and Bikram Pandey Kaji, the goodwill ambassador of Lumbini, attended the event as chief guest and special guest respectively.

Baral, who was directly commissioned as a Jamdar in the 2nd battalion of the 1st Gorkha Rifles in 1913, retired as a subedar major in 1935.

After that he was active in social works as the president of All India Gorkha Association as well as president of Gorkha Dhoghabhet-Satsang Pracharini Sabha.

With the beginning of WWII, upon the government’s request, he re-entered military service and served till 1952. During this period, he was awarded the rank of an ‘honorary captain’.

Whilst serving as a subedar major, with the start of WWI in 1914, he led his battalion into battle in France.

He was decorated with the 'Member of Victorian Order (MVO)' and 'Order of British India (OBI)'.

When Nepali Congress was fighting against the autocratic Rana autocracy in Nepal in 1951, he provided financial support to the top Nepali Congress leaders including BP Koirala. During the early phase of the revolution, he and his youngest son Khadgajeet Baral, who later became chief of the Nepal Police and residential Nepali Ambassador to Myanmar, participated in the Bairgania convention of the party in Bairgania, India.

Bahadur Singh was known as 'Shankhaswar' in the Gorkha Army. The book ‘Baral ko Ansu’ is a collection of songs, gajals and bhajans composed by him in Nepali language.