Nepal’s legendary Gurkha mountain men, whose service in the British army helps support tens of thousands of people in their impoverished homeland, will now get to fight another day.
The country’s new Maoist leaders, former far-left rebels who oppose foreign imperialism in all its guises, had threatened to end what they see as the humiliating recruitment of young Nepali men into the British armed forces.
But in what appears to be a nod to hard-nosed practicality in a country where the annual average salary is US$470, the Maoists have backed off, saying they must first oversee the new republic’s “economic revolution.”
PHOTO: AFP
“We don’t have any immediate plans to stop the recruitment of Nepali youths into the British army,” said Nanda Kishore Pun, a deputy commander from the Maoist’s People’s Liberation Army.
“For the next few years we will be concentrating on bringing an economic revolution,” said Pun, whose party is poised to form Nepal’s first government following the abolition of the centuries-old monarchy.
“Then we will deal with this issue,” he said, adding that a review of the recruitment policy would not come for “five to seven years.”
Another deputy Maoist commander, Janardan Sharma, described their recruitment as “shameful and humiliating.”
“It’s wrong to sacrifice Nepalis to protect the sovereignty of foreign countries,” he said.
But the Gurkhas themselves don’t necessarily agree.
“At least 30,000 families depend on the salaries and the pensions of the British Gurkhas,” said Lok Bahadur Gurung, from the Nepal chapter of the British Gurkha Welfare Society.
“They have been significantly contributing to Nepal’s economy since the practice started nearly 200 years ago.”
Nepalis were first recruited into the army of the British East India Company after the short but bloody Anglo-Nepali war that ended in 1816.
Impressed by the bravery and ferocity of their foes, the British saw to it that a peace deal gave them the right to enlist prisoners of war in a private army.
The East India Company’s troops were eventually merged into the British Army, and the Gurkhas have fought in all of Britain’s conflicts since, from Africa to Argentina — often on the frontlines.
Their reputation for loyalty and fearlessness is legendary, as is their use of the khukuri, a long, curved knife employed in hand-to-hand combat. Approximately 200,000 Gurkhas fought for Britain in the two world wars, and more than 45,000 have died in action.
Entire front lines of Argentine troops were said to have surrendered during the Falklands war on the mere whiff of a rumor that they would be facing the Gurkhas.
A Nepali entering the regiment today will get the same US$24,000 annual salary as his British contemporaries — more than 50 times the average annual salary in Nepal.
About 3,500 Gurkhas are serving in the British army, but the pensions of retirees support tens of thousands of people in some of Nepal’s poorest places.
Thousands of former Gurkhas have landed jobs as private security guards in war zones like Afghanistan and Iraq, adding to Nepal’s income from remittances.
Last year, with about 230 places on offer, 17,000 potential recruits applied, subjecting themselves to rigorous mental and physical entrance tests, which include hauling sacks of rocks up a mountain.
“There are very, very few job opportunities here,” said 49-year-old Ram Prasad Koirala, a retired British Army Gurkha who now works as an airline security chief in Kathmandu.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
SECRETIVE SECT: Tetsuya Yamagami was said to have held a grudge against the Unification Church for bankrupting his family after his mother donated about ￥100m The gunman accused of killing former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe yesterday pleaded guilty, three years after the assassination in broad daylight shocked the world. The slaying forced a reckoning in a nation with little experience of gun violence, and ignited scrutiny of alleged ties between prominent conservative lawmakers and a secretive sect, the Unification Church. “Everything is true,” Tetsuya Yamagami said at a court in the western city of Nara, admitting to murdering the nation’s longest-serving leader in July 2022. The 45-year-old was led into the room by four security officials. When the judge asked him to state his name, Yamagami, who
RSS