Aayo Gorkhali

Rifleman Tulbahadur Pun of the 3rd Battalion was just 21 years old when he won the Victoria Cross for extraordinary courage under fire during the Chindit campaign in Burma on June 23, 1944. An excerpt from his citation reads thus:

“… the whole of his section was wiped out with the exception of himself, the section commander and one other man … The section commander immediately led the remaining two men in a charge on the Red House but was at once badly wounded. Rifleman Tulbahadur Pun and his remaining companion continued the charge but the latter too was immediately badly wounded. Rifleman Tulbahadur Pun then seized the Bren gun and, firing from the hip as he went, continued the charge on the heavily bunkered position alone, in the face of the most shattering concentration of automatic fire, directed straight at him… he presented a perfect target to the Japanese. He had to move for 30 yards over open ground, ankle deep in mud, through shell-holes and over fallen trees. Despite these overwhelming odds, he reached the Red House and closed with the Japanese occupants. He killed three and put five more to flight and captured two light machine guns and much ammunition. He then gave accurate supporting fire from the bunker to the remainder of his platoon which enabled them to reach their objective…”

Medals Galore

250,000 Gurkhas in 42 Infantry battalions fought during the Second World War. Of these, 7544 were killed, 1441 were presumed dead or missing and 23,655 were wounded. The Gurkhas received a total of 2734 bravery awards. Out of 100 Victoria Crosses (VC) awarded in the Second World War, as many as 31 were won in the Burma campaign and of these, 9 went to soldiers and officers of Gurkha regiments. Two Gurkhas won the VC in the course of the Italian campaign. If not for the fact that until 1911, only British officers of Gurkha regiments were eligible for the Victoria Cross, one can assume that the Gurkhas would have won many more VCs. As it was, Lieutenant John Adam Tytler, 33, of the 66th Goorkhas, became on February 10, 1858, the first officer of a Gurkha regiment to win the coveted honor for his actions in Haldwani (in what is now Uttarakhand State of India) at the height of the Indian Mutiny.

During the First World War, there were 33 battalions of Gurkhas in the British Indian Army of which 20 battalions were of regular Gurkha regiments while the rest were deployed as civil and military police forces. 200,000 Gurkha soldiers fought under the British flag. They suffered 20,000 casualties and won 2000 awards for gallantry. Out of twenty-six VCs won so far by Gurkha regiments (from 1858 to 1965) thirteen have gone to native Gurkhas and thirteen have been awarded to British officers of the regiments. The Gurkhas have also been awarded two George Cross medals as well, in addition to thousands of other lesser ones. The Indian Gurkha regiments have won many gallantry awards like the Param Vir Chakra and the Maha Vir Chakra. For his heroic actions during the 1962 Indo-China war, Major Dhan Singh Thapa of the 1/8 Gurkha Rifles won the Param Vir Chakra. Captain Gurbachan Singh Salaria of the 1st Gurkha Rifles also won the Param Vir Chakra posthumously for gallantry in the Congo in 1961. Acting Captain Manoj Kumar Pandey of the 1st battalion of the 11th Gurkha Rifles won the Param Vir Chakra posthumously in the Kargil War. There was once a time when it was usual to find children in Gurkha villages playing games in dusty village roads using war medals as playthings. Such was the abundance of medals won by Gurkhas.

Gurkha History

According to some accounts, the founder of the Gorkha family was a man called Kancha. He, along with brother Mincha, was the great grand son of King Bhupati Rana Rava of Chittore in India. King Bhupati and one of his three sons, Fatte Singh Ranjit Rana, were killed during the Mohammedan invasion led by Emperor Alla-Uh-Din. Another son, Udayabam Rana Rava, founded Udaipur while the third, Mamath Rana Rava, went to Ujjain. The latter had two sons, one of who went on to settle in the hills of what is now Nepal. Kancha and Mincha were his progeny.

The brothers were of Magar descent and their faith and customs were that of Magars although, undoubtedly, there was a healthy profusion of Rajput blood as well. While Mincha was chief of Nuwakot, Kaski, Tanahu and Lamjung, Kancha conquered the territory south of the Gandaki River, known as Mangranth, which included Gulmi, Dhor and Bhirkut. One can say that Kancha was the first known ruler of central Nepal, an area in which Magars and Gurungs were the predominant tribes. At this time in history, the Gorkha kingdom extended from Trisul Ganga in the east to the Marsyangdi River in the west. In the mid 18th century, King Prithvi Narayan Shah undertook a twenty-year odyssey that ultimately led to his rule over Nepal as a whole. His hill state of Gorkha gave its name to his followers, the Gorkhalis, while the name Gorkha itself took its name from its patron saint, Gorakh Nath.

In 1789, the Gurkhas pushed into, and annexed Sikkim, then invaded Tibet. However, in 1793, a massive Chinese and Tibetan army drove back the aggressive Gurkhas. Still, the Gurkhas’ lust for conquest was unquenchable. The Gurkhas invaded and occupied Kumaon and Garhwal in India, besides dominating for a short period, the Kangra valley (before being driven out by the Sikh army). As a matter of interest, with the conquest of Garhwal in 1794, the Gurkha kingdom extended from Bhutan to Kashmir and from the mountains of Tibet to the border of the British provinces of Agra and Oudh and Bihar to the south.
The Anglo-Nepal war
In 1814, the Gurkhas entered into a war with the British forces of India. And, this was when the British realized that here was an enemy that was worth its highest respects. Losing battle after battle and suffering immense losses to an army that was ill armed and numerically inferior was a testing time for British pride. As a matter of fact, in 1814, the entire Gurkha army was but 12000 in number and as far as arms were concerned, bows and arrows besides, of course, the khukri, were arms that were the most often used by the Gurkhas. In 1814, the British laid siege to the Khalanga-Nalapani fort in Dehradun (now in Uttarakhand, India). The battle of Nalapani was one of the most important milestones in the history of warfare. The British force consisted of a total of 20 battalions of British Infantry, Cavalry and Pioneer companies - an irregular force of about 6668 - supported by 20 pieces of artillery and two troops of the Horsed Artillery. The battle lasted for over 30 days (October 24, 1814 to November 30, 1814) in which many Gurkha soldiers, women and children made the supreme sacrifice. When General Gillespie’s men finally broke into the fort, his army was less by 750 men. Moreover, 31 of the officers had either been killed or wounded. It was a heavy price to pay for the defeat of a small force of only 600 Gurkhas.

The leader of the Gurkhas at Nalapani, Commander (General) Balbhadra Singh Thapa (Kunwar) escaped with 90 soldiers and retreated further west to Jyathak where they were joined by 300 fresh Gurkhas. Here, they were attacked by a combined force of three detachments of British soldiers under General Martindell, but when the smoke of battle had cleared, the British forces were in disarray, with 12 officers and almost 1500 soldiers dead or wounded. On February 17, 1815, Lieutenant Young, with some two thousand irregulars recruited from India’s Kumaon and Garhwal regions, was sent to intercept a party of 200 Nepalese Army reinforcements moving from Malaun to Jyathak. However, the soldiers panicked and ran away when coming face to face with the 200 Gurkhas under Ranjore Singh Thapa, and Young was taken prisoner.

The fall of Malaun (later in Himachal Pradesh, India) in May 1815, brought the British campaign of 1814-1815 to an end. But another was fought in 1816 when General David Ochterlony finally managed to defeat Amar Singh Thapa’s Gurkha army at the defile of Bichi Koh in Makwanpur of central Nepal. The war ended with the signing of the Sugauli Treaty on March 4, 1816. One of the conditions of which was that the British should be allowed to recruit Gurkha soldiers into their army. And thus began the international saga of the Gurkhas. However, another condition of the treaty was not as fortuitous; Nepal lost Sikkim, Garhwal, Kumaon and all of the Terai west of the Gandaki River. In 1857, fifteen officers and six regiments of the Nepalese army under Colonel Pehelwan Singh Basnet were dispatched to aid the British army in quelling the Indian Mutiny. That the Gurkhas played a pivotal role in putting down the mutiny is beyond doubt. As a token of their immense gratitude, the British ceded back the Terai to Nepal.

So impressed were the awed British that they admitted, “…as compared to other orientals, Gurkhas are bold, enduring, faithful, frank, very independent and self reliant men….” Brian Hodgson, an authoritative figure of the times, records further “…. and they possess preeminently that masculine energy of character and love of enterprise which distinguish so advantageously all the military races of Nepal.”

First Recruitments

At the same time, the British were confused at first as to the identification of the real martial races in the mountain kingdom. What they did know was that in Nalapani in 1814, the six hundred Gurkhas under Balbhadra Thapa’s command were predominantly Magars. The British knew that the Magars made up the awesome Purana Gorakh Army.
Lieutenant Frederick Young was assigned to recruit Gurkhas into the British army. As prisoner, he had had the opportunity of making a close hand study of these fearless fighters. He had come to the conclusion that while the Nepalese as a whole were a courageous people, those in the western parts of the country, particularly Gurungs, Magars, Thakuris, Puns and Tamangs were best suited to be soldiers. It was only sometime later that the British realized that there were equally fierce fighters in eastern Nepal and among them, Rais, Limbus, Sunwars and Tamangs were exceptionally brave. As far as another ethnic group was concerned that was as impressive as the rest, the Chettris, they were to be found all over the country.

The first of three battalions raised by the British consisted of Gurkhas from General Amar Singh Thapa’s defeated forces. Young made the first recruitment near Dehradun on April 24, 1816. He was the first commander of the Sirmoor Battalion, later Sirmoor Rifles and later still, the 2nd King Edward VII’s Own Gurkha Rifles. The Sirmoor Rifles remained in service for the next 165 years and Young remained its commander for 28 years. Soon, other battalions were formed, among them, two Nasiri battalions that were later amalgamated to form the 1st Gurkha Rifles. Later, this became the 1st King Edwards V’s Own Gurkha Rifles. Another battalion was raised at Almora as the Kumaon Battalion that later was known as the 3rd Gurkha Rifles, then still later, the 3rd Queen Alexandra’s Own Gurkha Rifles. In the late 1800s, the British commissioned a Lieutenant Colonel Eden Vannistart to make a still more thorough investigation into the different races of Nepal and to come up with concrete recommendations for a policy to follow regarding recruitment into the British Army. Till 1887, most of the 6th, 7th and 8th Gurkha Rifles consisted of recruits from areas around the Darjeeling hills. Later on, however, more and more men from western and eastern Nepal began to be recruited into the British Gurkha Army.

Nepali, British and Indian Gurkhas

It was not that the Gurkhas were not well known as the bravest of the brave before the world wars. All those who have fought against the Gurkhas have, in the end, come out of the fight with greater respect for their adversaries’ prowess and have been awed by their sheer courage under the most trying of circumstances - awed to such an extent that even former enemies wished to have Gurkhas join their armies instead. And so, even after losing to the Sikhs in Kangra (in Himachal Pradesh of India) in 1806, the Sikh Maharaja, Ranjit Singh, began to recruit Gurkhas into his army in Lahore (origin of the word ‘Lahure’ that was to define Nepalese soldiers in foreign armies from then on). After the Anglo-Nepal War (1813-1816) the British started recruiting them in good numbers. By the time First World War started, there were 11 Gurkha regiments under the British Indian Army.

British Gurkhas
Following India's independence in 1947, India, Nepal and Great Britain signed a Tripartite Agreement in November 1947, and six regiments of the Gurkha Rifles joined the Indian Army. The British held on to the 2nd King Edward VII’s Own Gurkha Rifles, the 6th Queen Elizabeth’s Own Gurkha Rifles, the 7th Duke of Edinburgh’s Own Gurkha Rifles and the 10th Princess Mary’s Own Gurkha Rifles (all of which existed till 1994, thereafter they became known as the Royal Gurkha Rifles). Known as the Brigade of Gurkhas, they were initially stationed in Malaya. During the Malayan Emergency, Gurkhas fought as jungle soldiers as they had done in Burma. In 1962, the 2nd Gurkha Rifles was stationed in Tidworth, Wiltshire. On December 7 of the same year, the unit was deployed to Brunei at the outbreak of the Brunei Revolt. Later, the battalion was transferred to Hong Kong to implement security duties during the turmoil of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The other battalions were stationed in the UK and Brunei. In 1971, the 7th Duke of Edinburgh's Own Gurkha Rifles, stationed at Church Crookham, Hampshire, became the first Gurkhas to mount the Queen's Guard. In 1974, the 10th Gurkha Rifles was sent to defend the British sovereign base area of Dhekelia when Turkey invaded Cyprus. In 1994, the Royal Gurkha Rifles regiment had three battalions. However, in 1996, the 3rd Battalion was amalgamated with the 2nd Battalion as part of run down of British forces in Hong Kong. Of the two battalions, one is based at Shorncliffe in Kent while the other is based at the British garrison in Brunei. In December 1999, the Gurkha Training Wing at Catterick Garrison in North Yorkshire became Gurkha Company, 3rd Battalion, Infantry Training Centre (ITC). Although traditionally Gurkha regiments have always had British officers, now there are many Gurkha officers as well.
Recruitment into the British Army is based on certain stringent criteria and goes through four stages. Firstly, hill selections are held at various locations in Nepal and it has been seen that there are usually 30 applicants for every place available. Potential recruits must be between 17 and 22 years of age, height must be at least 5 feet 2 inches (1.57 m), weight at least 50 kilograms (110 pounds), health must be in good stead and some educational background is required. The second stage is conducted at the Pokhara Selection Centre and lasts for three weeks. Candidates must pass the following tests: English grammar, mathematics, fitness test, initiative test and the final interview. At this stage candidates for the Gurkha Contingent Singapore Police Force, are also selected. The third stage is a nine-month long course at GTW Infantry Training Centre Catterick in North Yorkshire, UK, consisting of basic training, language training (three months), military skills and western culture and customs. The final stage is marked by the passing out parade of the successful recruits.
Indian Gurkhas

The 1st King George V’s Own Gurkha Rifles, the 3rd Queen Alexandra’s Own Gurkha Rifles, the 4th Prince of Wales Own Gurkha Rifles, the 5th Gurkha Rifles, the 8th Gurkha Rifles and the 9th Gurkha Rifles were transferred to the Indian Army. During the transfer period, soldiers of the 7th Gurkha Rifles and the 10th Gurkha Rifles, which recruited from Eastern Nepal, had decided not to join the British Army and, so as to retain a contingent from this area of Nepal, the Indian Army made the decision to re-raise the 11 Gurkha Rifles on January 1, 1948. The Gurkhas have fought in every major Indian army campaign winning numerous battle and theatre honors. The 8th Gurkha Rifles is one of the most celebrated regiments of the Indian Army, having received numerous citations for bravery in the field of battle, and even producing one of the two field marshals, Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, of the Indian Army.

Till some years back, the 11th Gurkha Rifles was made up of only Rai and Limbu soldiers, whereas, the 9th Gurkha Rifles consisted of Chettris and Bahuns. The other regiments had only Magars and Gurungs. At the present moment, the Indian army has no caste bars as far as recruitment is concerned. The only requirements are: the person should be aged between 17.5 and 21 years; that he should have a height of at least 160 cm; weight of 48 kgs; chest should be 77 cm which on inflation should be a further 0.05 cm. Additionally, the potential recruit is to have passed at least SLC (for sons of ex-army men, class eight pass is enough). According to Hon. Captain (Retd) Krishna Bahadur Kunwar, Supervisor of the Military Pension Branch at the Bharatiya Gorkha Sainik Niwas in Kathmandu, recruitment of Nepalese men into the Indian army has been on the wane since the last few years. India has only recently resumed recruitment this year after a lull of fully two years. According to Captain (Retd) Kunwar, figures of Nepali Gurkhas in the Indian Army is about 40,000 (27,000 according to the news website http://in.news.yahoo.com) while about 250,000 ex-Indian Gurkhas are on pension, which for retired captains could be as much as IRs 14,000 to IRs.15,000 every month.

Nepal Gurkhas

In 1763, King Prithvi Narayan Shah raised the Sri Nath Battalion as the first battalion of the Gorkha army. The Shri Purano Gorakh Battalion was also raised in the same year. In the next twenty years his army grew to ten ‘gans’ (infantry battalions) and some independent Himal companies called ‘gulmas’ (meant to defend and administer conquered territories). During the 1940’s the Nepalese army consisted of 15 infantry battalions and 25 independent companies. In 1952, it had 3 brigades, 30 battalions and 39 independent companies. The current numbers of the Nepal Army is said to be about 90,000 with six divisional headquarters: the Far Western Divisional HQ in Dipayal, the Mid Western Division HQ in Surkhet, the Western Division HQ in Pokhara, the Central Division HQ in Suparitar of Makwanpur District, the Valley Division HQ in Kathmandu and the Eastern Division HQ in Dhankuta.

The Shri Kali Bahadur Battalion, raised in 1831, consists of only Gurungs while the Shri Purano Gorakh Batallion has only Magar soldiers. The Shri Bhairab Nath Gan (now called the Special Forces battalion deployed in Achham in the far west) has only Limbu soldiers. Till recently, the Kali Bahadur and the Gorakhnath Gans were assigned permanently as palace guard battalions, with one always deployed at the palace. The other palace guard battalion was chosen by the king - usually the battalion winning the King’s Banner in that year. Today, the Nepalese Army maintains a national character in terms of inclusion of all castes, ethnic communities, genders, regions and religions. Recruitment is voluntary and competitive. As of July 2008, 18 of the decision making level posts (Major General and above) included eight Chhetris, two Limbus, two Brahmins, two Gurungs, two Thakuris, one Rana, and one Newar.
The Nepalese Army’s combat operations to date have been the British – Nepal war in 1813-1816; the wars with Tibet in 1788, 1792 and 1855; the Khampa campaign in 1976, and of course, the recently concluded campaign against Maoist insurgency within the country. In the early 1970’s, some 9000 "Khampas” (Tibetans who were resisting Chinese authority) established high altitude camps in Nepal as launch pads for operations into the Chinese Autonomous Region of Tibet and by 1973, were using Mustang in remote Nepal as a firm base. Diplomacy having failed, Nepal, a brigade sized Nepal Army taskforce left Pokhara on 15th June 1974 and the Khampa surrendered on 31st July 1974.
The Nepalese Army participated in World War I with nine battalions under the commands of General Babar Shumshere, General Tej Shumshere and General Padam Shumshere. Additionally, Nepal also sent almost two hundred thousand troops to fight as part of the British Indian Army itself. In 1917, the Mahindra Dal Battalion and First Rifle Battalion were involved in the Waziristan War when the area was a NW Frontier of British India. Nepalese troops commanded by Gen Baber Shumshere also went to the aid of British troops in the Afghanistan War of 1919. Fifteen Nepalese battalions were involved in the Second World War led by the late Commander-in-Chief Kiran Shumshere Rana and ex-Commander-in-Chief and Field Marshall Nir Shumshere Rana.
When Japan got involved in this war in December 1940, four Nepalese battalions fighting under Allied Command were deployed against them. The Nepalese troops fought with great ferocity, particularly on the Burma front, and helped force the eventual Japanese retreat from the Indian subcontinent. After the British left India in 1947 religious violence between Hindu and Muslim communities erupted in many places and Indian Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru requested Nepal’s assistance to quell the situation. Twenty battalions led by Maj Gen Sharada SJB Rana were deployed in many parts of India where they contributed greatly in stabilizing the situation.

Singapore, Brunei, Malaya, Bahrain

On April 9, 1949, selected ex-British Army Gurkhas were recruited by the Singapore government to form the Gurkha Contingent (GC) of the Singapore Police Force. In its role as a specialist guard force, the Gurkha Contingent is deployed as a reaction force during times of crisis and its members are esteemed for their ‘display of courage, self-restraint and professionalism’. In the Sultanate of Brunei, the 2,000 strong Gurkha Reserve Unit makes for a special guard force of the small sultanate. Made up of British Army veterans, the unit functions basically as a praetorian guard to protect the sultan, the royal family as well as oil installations. After the independence of Malaya from the United Kingdom in August 1957, many Gurkhas joined the Malayan armed forces, particularly in the Royal Ranger Regiment. And in Bahrain, the United States navy employs Gurkha guards as sentries at its base there. The United States also employs Gurkhas sometimes to provide security for some U.S. Consulates and ships in foreign ports.

Action Stations

The Gurkhas have seen action in the humid jungles of Burma, Borneo and Malaya, the arid deserts of North Africa, the rocky mountains of Afghanistan, Baluchistan and the New Frontier, in and around the deep waters of the Mediterranean and the Pacific, the battle fields of France, Italy and Greece. The Gurkhas have delivered what has been asked of them in Palestine, in Jerusalem, in Hong Kong, in Singapore, in Persia, in Iraq, in India, in Tunis and in the Falklands. As an integral part of the United Nations Peace Keeping Force (UNPKF) Gurkhas have been deployed in some of the deadliest of the newer battlegrounds where civil, ethnic, political, religious and other strife has torn countries asunder and taken countless lives. In fact, of the about 90,000 soldiers in the Nepalese Army, almost half have UNPKF experience and have been part of peacekeeping forces in places like Congo, Liberia, Haiti, Burundi and Sudan besides other equally dangerous places savaged by horrific conflict.
In recent times, Gurkhas have also been in the limelight in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to Afghan sources, “Previously, Nepalis in Afghanistan worked only with the American private security companies. Now, in Shindand Airport (in western Afghanistan) they are under the direct command of US ‘Special Forces’. In Kandahar, they ‘work’ with Canadian forces, at the Provincial Reconstruction Team headquarters, in Ghazni they are associated with Polish forces, in Kabul and other regions they are linked with American private security companies.” During Prince Harry’s 77 day stay in Afghanistan, he was attached to the 1st Royal Gurkha Rifles battle group as a Forward Air Controller. One also recalls seeing on screen, the familiar sight of Gurkhas patrolling war torn streets during the Iraq war. However, much before then, it was the Falklands war in 1985 that really brought to mind Gurkha legends of yore, and created a new one as well in the process. At the end of it, here is what Brigadier David Morgan had to say about the whole affair, “It must never be forgotten that the much feared fighters from Nepal played a critical and decisive part in the final downfall of the Argentineans. It was the Gurkha’s reputation that helped win the war in the Falklands.” He also states, “Their reputation has always run before them – but the Gurkhas have always delivered. They have always shown that they have the mettle, the skills and all the courage to fight to the last.” Could one fault then, the Argentineans, for surrendering without a fight at the mere knowledge that the fearsome Gurkhas were coming? One of them later tried to justify the surrender by saying, “We didn’t want our heads to be chopped off.”
The Khukuri
And when there is talk of chopping heads and so forth can mention of the khukri be far behind? This weapon of choice of the Gurkhas has earned its own place in the annals of warfare and yes, has indeed done a lot of chopping. Unfortunately, not only wood. There is a story in which Gurkha soldiers were ordered to bring back severed heads of the enemy during the 1st World War. One stocky chap came back from the jungle and threw a dozen or so ears to the ground in front of the officer. “The heads were too heavy to carry,” was his short but succinct explanation. Similarly, there is another story in which a Gurkha with a khukri in his hand comes face to face with Japanese carrying a samurai sword. The Japanese manages to wound the Gurkha and even slices off his arm whereupon the Gurkha tells his foe, “You may have wounded me, but let’s see you nod your head.”
Well, this could indeed sound a bit far fetched but such are the legends built around Gurkhas and their khukris. Functioning as a cross between a knife and an axe, the khukri is designed for chopping and stabbing purposes in war, but can be used in daily tasks like cutting meat and vegetables or trees and so forth. The blade is deflected at an angle of 20° or more and although the size varies, the blade usually measures about 3 to 10 cm wide and 30 to 38 cm long. Its thick spine and sharp cutting edge greatly increasing chopping effectiveness. Khukuris are so balanced as to rest in a vertical position if supported on a fulcrum. The handles are often made from hardwood or water buffalo horn but, whatever the handles may be made of, the khukri has terrified all enemies since ages past. Not the least being the British when they first came face to face with the Gurkhas in 1814.
The Future
In the subsequent tide of a turbulent world history that included two great wars, and many lesser ones, the Gurkhas became legends in the annals of warfare. These were the times when an analogy was often made between the Switzerland of the middles ages and Nepal. In the middle ages the Swiss were poor but made fine soldiers and so, were in great demand as mercenaries throughout Europe. Similar has been, and unfortunately (?), continues to be so, with the Nepalese. It would be a good idea for people to consider this reason for the analogy before touting Nepal as the Switzerland of the East. The Afghan Maoists are objecting to the deployment of Gurkha soldiers from Nepal in the UN contingents deployed in Afghanistan as well as the British Army.
The world, and specially Britain (once, the greatest empire on earth), have reason enough to be grateful to the Gurkhas for their sacrifices in ensuring a freer world. However, who can stop the relentless changes that come with time? The handover of Hong Kong to China resulted in a drastic reduction in the number of Gurkhas in the British forces. While this was a mere required policy change for those in Whitehall, London, for the many Englishmen who had served so proudly with the Gurkha regiments, it was a most trying time to say the least. Especially when the reductions the politicians were asking for was a massive 70%. It was a distressing turn of events to be sure, because while initially, economic reasons preceded everything else in the desire to be a British Gurkha, in later times, becoming one had become more of a proud tradition among many families of the Nepal hills.

That the Gurkhas have had their day as an integral part of Britain’s army would be a statement that could be a bit premature. Nevertheless, today, only a handful is recruited every year at the one solitary recruiting camp in Pokhara (the Dharan camp was closed a long while ago, it not being found justifiable taking into account the low numbers to be recruited) and the numbers continue to dwindle every year. In the meantime, in the light of such a disappointing future scenario, a protracted but quite successful court battle for equal pension as their British counterparts has been cause for some succor. At the same time, with the recent policy changes giving permission to many ex British Gurkhas to live and work in Britain, there is a certain amount of concern at the loss of the useful remittance hitherto received in Nepal. Without doubt, Nepal has benefited significantly from the remittances from its soldiers abroad and in the case of the British Gurkhas, especially, there have been many positive changes in the villages of Nepal, they bringing in new found knowledge and awareness besides of course, investment. The rapid development of cities like Dharan and Pokhara particularly, owe much to the Gurkhas serving on foreign shores.

There is reason now to believe that a similar situation could arise regarding recruitment into the India army, an important employment avenue for many now, and in the past. The irony is that, the skills, the bravery and the prowess of the Gurkhas can only be demonstrated in times of war and, naturally, the value and the worth of Gurkhas rise a thousand fold during such times. However, as Hon. Captain (Retd) Kunwar says, “There have been no major wars since 1971.” Seeing that he served in the 4/9th Gurkha Rifles in India, he must of course be referring to the three Indo-Pak wars of 1947, 1965 and 1971 as well as the Indo-China War of 1962, wars in which Gurkhas won two Param Vir Chakras (India’s highest war honor) besides many other gallantry awards.

As far as things like rank and career progressions are concerned, according to Captain Kunwar, “I believe that up to now, the highest ranking Indian Gurkha has been Brigadier Giri Prasad Pun. However, there are many senior Gurkhali officers nowadays in the Indian army.” It is also interesting to know that in December 1995, Lieutenant-Colonel Bijay Kumar Rawat became the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, the first Nepalese to become a battalion commander in the Royal Gurkha Rifles. He oversaw the departure of the battalion from Hong Kong just before its transfer to Chinese control in 1996.

Nonetheless, taking cues from all that’s happening around the world, including the ways of modern warfare, it would be justifiable to believe that perhaps one might not come across many newer legends of the fearless Gurkhas in the days to come. Perhaps, one will have to now take recourse to the stories as recounted in the hundreds of laudatory books. Perhaps one will have to remain content knowing that the Gurkhas will forever be regarded as the ‘Bravest of the Brave’ and be proud of the fact that their motto ‘Better to Die than be a Coward’ has been proven a ringing truth countless times in the killing fields of many wars. And finally, the following high praise by one who served with the brave Gurkhas during World War One, really says it all:

“As I write these last words, my thoughts return to you who were my comrades, the stubborn and indomitable peasants of Nepal. Once more I hear the laughter with which you greeted every hardship. Once more I see you in your bivouacs or about your fires, on forced march or in the trenches, now shivering with wet and cold, now scorched by a pitiless and burning sun. Uncomplaining you endure hunger and thirst and wounds; and at the last your unwavering lines disappear into the smoke and wrath of battle. Bravest of the brave, most generous of the generous, never had country more faithful friends than you

Professor Sir Ralph Turner, MC
3rd Queen Alexandra's Own Gurkha Rifles

Sources: The Gurkhas (W.Brook Northey and C.J.Morris)
The Gurkhas, The Inside Story of the World’s Most Feared Soldiers (John Parker)
The Royal Nepal Army: Meeting the Maoist Challenge (Ashok K Mehta)