The legitimacy and morality of Gurkha recruitment in British and Indian army has always been a hot topic of debate within the Nepalis political and intellectual circle. There has been vociferous opposition of this tradition from the leftists, while many educated people feel dismayed by the fact that their fellow citizens are fighting for some foreign country. Many others view this as a prestigious employment opportunity for the downtrodden communities of Nepal. Every customs are viewed according to the interest and perception of individual people and this holds true for this too. However, although Britain has started recruiting females in the Gurkha brigade from this year, there are concerns about whether Nepal should allow this tradition to continue or not.
History informs us about the events but one doesn't have to approve of what happened at that period of time. Hitler is also a history but few would agree with what he did. Also things that happened two hundred years ago may have been relevant then, but they may not necessarily be now. That's the reason why new rules/laws/ conventions were/are adopted on security matters, including others. As far as the Gurkhas are concerned, the first recruits were prisoners of wars who were defeated by the British troops.
There may have been some locals too,but the majority of them were soldiers of the then government of Nepal in captivity of the British. In the course of the 18th century the Gurkhas took over the wealthy Katmandu valley and began a course of expansion which put them in control of all of Nepal by 1804. In 1814 they came into conflict with the English East India Company, were defeated, and surrendered some territory by the treaty o Segauli (March 1816). Three battalions of Gurkhas (the Malaun, Sirmoor, and Kumaon Rifles) had already been raised from prisoners of war by Lts Ross, Colquhoun, and Young, and by Maj Gen Sir David Ochterlony.' - The Oxford companion to military history. Thus from the British point of view, they had effectively forced soldiers taken prisoners of war to fight for themselves, which is definitely not a proper treatment of POWs. The British Empire was at the pinnacle of her power at that time so they could have done what they wanted anyways. Some can argue that the British did a big favour to the Gurkhas by employing them. But for those who view things in a different perspective, the Gurkhas were lured to fight for the British ONLY TO STRENGTHEN THEIR OWN EMPIRE. There was no love affair as such between them and us. Today we have an impoverished Nepal in one side and a monetary equation of £1=135 Rs in the other side, with around 200 of the best fighters of the world having a chance to get into the equation. But there was a time when there were 200 000 Gurkhas fighting for the British in France, Gallipoli, Middle East, Burma, India and so on. Thousands of them died for wars that had no connection with the security interest of Nepal. Who did they die for? For the Gora Sahebs who treated them unfairly for almost 200 hundred years. Remember, they were denied equal pensions as their white counterparts and citizenship rights as long as till 2006. The Tul Bahadur Pun (The VC winner whose visa application was first denied and then accepted after a furore) story is a sad reminder of how the Gurkhas were treated off the battle ground. Therefore, the conclusion that the British were compassionate to the Gurkhas is hypocritical.
Why would I subscribe to the history that has been interpreted by a British serviceman?
History informs us about the events but one doesn't have to approve of what happened at that period of time. Hitler is also a history but few would agree with what he did. Also things that happened two hundred years ago may have been relevant then, but they may not necessarily be now. That's the reason why new rules/laws/ conventions were/are adopted on security matters, including others. As far as the Gurkhas are concerned, the first recruits were prisoners of wars who were defeated by the British troops.
There may have been some locals too,but the majority of them were soldiers of the then government of Nepal in captivity of the British. In the course of the 18th century the Gurkhas took over the wealthy Katmandu valley and began a course of expansion which put them in control of all of Nepal by 1804. In 1814 they came into conflict with the English East India Company, were defeated, and surrendered some territory by the treaty o Segauli (March 1816). Three battalions of Gurkhas (the Malaun, Sirmoor, and Kumaon Rifles) had already been raised from prisoners of war by Lts Ross, Colquhoun, and Young, and by Maj Gen Sir David Ochterlony.' - The Oxford companion to military history. Thus from the British point of view, they had effectively forced soldiers taken prisoners of war to fight for themselves, which is definitely not a proper treatment of POWs. The British Empire was at the pinnacle of her power at that time so they could have done what they wanted anyways. Some can argue that the British did a big favour to the Gurkhas by employing them. But for those who view things in a different perspective, the Gurkhas were lured to fight for the British ONLY TO STRENGTHEN THEIR OWN EMPIRE. There was no love affair as such between them and us. Today we have an impoverished Nepal in one side and a monetary equation of £1=135 Rs in the other side, with around 200 of the best fighters of the world having a chance to get into the equation. But there was a time when there were 200 000 Gurkhas fighting for the British in France, Gallipoli, Middle East, Burma, India and so on. Thousands of them died for wars that had no connection with the security interest of Nepal. Who did they die for? For the Gora Sahebs who treated them unfairly for almost 200 hundred years. Remember, they were denied equal pensions as their white counterparts and citizenship rights as long as till 2006. The Tul Bahadur Pun (The VC winner whose visa application was first denied and then accepted after a furore) story is a sad reminder of how the Gurkhas were treated off the battle ground. Therefore, the conclusion that the British were compassionate to the Gurkhas is hypocritical.
Why would I subscribe to the history that has been interpreted by a British serviceman?
(Hodgson, Brian Houghton 1800 - 1895 English Orientalist : Born near Macclesfield, Cheshire, he entered the East India Company's service in 1818, was resident in Nepal (1820-43), and settled in England in 1858. He wrote some 170 very valuable papers on the technology, languages and zoology of Nepal and Tibet, sent home 354 manuscripts, on which our knowledge of northern Buddhism is mainly based, and made a collection of 10,500 birds.) And from the Nepalese point of view, the first lot of recruits could be called traitors because they agreed to join the enemies for pay and benefits. I wouldn't say them traitors but they could be called traitors according to the military ethics of the west. What would the British establishment call the Navy officers seized by Tehran if they had started serving for the revolutionary guard? Traitors of course. Also, the British continued to recruit our men without the consent of the Nepalese government until 1886 - for more than seventy years. The history also tells us that Prithvi Narayan Shah 'sealed his border and maintained peaceful but distant relations with the British, refusing to trade with them'. For me he was right not to shake hands with them. Later on Jung Bahadur came into power, helped the British crush the Indian mutiny in the 1850s and then authorized the recruitment process. It was only Jung Bahadur and the subsequent Rana regime that benefited from the British involvement. Without British support, Nepal wouldn't have gone through the turmoil for 104 years. Perhaps without Jung Bahadur's illicit support, India would have gained independence much earlier. And of course the loss of the huge territory cannot be compensated by the paltry amount of 200 000 Rs. Some British proudly speak about spreading education and civilization around the world. But many argue that they plundered much more from their colonies than what they left behind. And the later is TRUE. This holds true to Gurkha recruitment too. So we can go on and on with all sorts of arguments. But the bottom line is while one can be very grateful to the British for letting our 200 strongest men in their army every year, others have every rights and reasons to disagree. There is as much weight in the argument against the recruitment as it is in favour of it.
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