It is the Gorkha connect and magic that General MM Naravane’s visit to Nepal will nurture and preserve besides creating an ambience for normalising ties
by Ashok K Mehta
The chief of Army Staff, General MM Naravane’s visit to Nepal, starting today, is being seen as a clear attempt by both countries to revive bilateral relations, which are at a new low due to the map and road rows and their repudiation as Kathmandu printed its own map, incorporating disputed areas of Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura. General Naravane’s visit is a part of the unique tradition that began in 1972, when the Army chiefs of both countries were ceremonially appointed chiefs of each other’s armies. It was Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, the legendary Sam Bahadur, who institutionalised the unique military relation that had both political and strategic ramifications. “When a soldier says he is not afraid of death, he is either lying or a Gorkha,” Sam would say. No two countries are privileged with similar bonding as the Gorkhas of Nepal, who serve and even die protecting India’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. The strategic military relations are at two levels — between the two sovereign armies and the Indian Army’s Gorkha connect.
For India, Nepal is geo-strategically the most important neighbour, dominating avenues to the Indo-Gangetic heartland. The security concerns emanate from the north of the Himalayas and have constituted the core worry. In 1959, the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had said that an attack on Nepal and Bhutan will be deemed as an attack on India. The Chinese have made equivalent remarks.
Nepal faces only an internal threat as the Maoists posed two decades ago. The hijack of IC-814 demonstrated Nepal’s fragile internal security system. Fortunately, it has no external threat.
In 1952, King Tribhuvan invited India to establish a military training mission, which included occupying 22 border posts along with Nepal Army but Kalapani was not one of them. By 1970, under pressure from the Communist lobby in the palace, the training facilities were withdrawn. In 1965, King Mahendra, and in 1990, King Birendra requested India to modernise the Nepal Army, which is equipped 80 per cent with Indian military hardware provided at friendship prices — 70 per cent aid and 30 per cent payment, which over time has become near gratis. According to treaty arrangements, Nepal acquires military equipment from abroad only when India is unable to provide them. But this is not sacrosanct as the US, the UK and east Europe have provisioned the Army.
The Nepal Army was tested during the counter-insurgency campaign against the Maoists, when it initially failed to meet the challenge. The Indian Army provided tactical advice and military equipment in staving off the threat which ended in a stalemate. As part of tactical consultations in September 2003, the Bilateral Security Cooperation Mechanism was established, which is supposed to meet twice a year. After King Gyanendra staged the royal coup in February 2005, military supplies were suspended, resulting in a rift between Army chief General JJ Singh and the Foreign Office as General Singh pointed out that blocking the flow of weapons and equipment would undermine Nepal Army’s counter-insurgency operations. Though overruled, he defended the military ties zealously.
The bulk of Nepal Army’s specialised training is held in India and it bags maximum training slots. Joint training has reached the battalion level under the Surya Kiran series and military exercises are held in both the countries. The Indian military has become the first responder during crisis or calamity in Nepal. In the 1990s, there was a horrible aviation tragedy at the Tribhuvan International Airport. The IAF rushed in several helicopters to help trace victims of the accident. Similarly, in 2015, after the earthquake, the Indian military’s immediate response was acknowledged by Nepal Army chief, General Gaurav Rana.
The second strand of bilateral relations is the recruitment of Gorkhas from Nepal in the Indian Army, which is a continuation of the British inheritance through the Tripartite Agreement of 1947, whereby Nepalese get into British, Indian and their own armies. The British had insulated the Gorkhas from the rest of the Indian Army by not allowing Indian officers to lead them. At the end of World War II, there were 51 Gorkha battalions which were divided between the British and Indian Armies. Today, the 43 Gorkha battalions, which are larger than the entire British infantry, which has two Gorkha battalions, make up the largest infantry regiment of the Indian Army. While initially all were recruited from Nepal, gradually the Nepali Gorkha content reduced to 70 per cent and currently is 60 per cent while the remaining comes from Indian domiciled Gorkhas from Dharamshala to Darjeeling. In 2015, a Gorkha battalion composed entirely of Indian Gorkhas was formed.
On an average, India recruits annually 1,500 to 2,000 Nepali Gorkhas with unending queues of aspirants. Indians have officered the Gorkhas with panache and passion that British Gorkha veterans now envy. These battalions have won gallantry awards that outmatch other Indian regiments and those Indians who doubt their loyalty should have their heads examined.
The Indian embassy has created a wealth of facilities for the 1.25 lakh ex-servicemen (10 lakh if you add families) in Nepal, who are exceptionally organised, disciplined, lately, affluent after One Rank One Pension (OROP) and beholden to India. A special Gorkha cell in Army Headquarters monitors their welfare. Pay and pensions account for the third-largest remittance after trade and tourism, and this has remained unaffected by the pandemic or other crises.
Nepali politicians with Leftist leanings, especially Maoists, have invariably raised the question of stopping recruitment in foreign armies, especially the Indian Army. The Chinese influence in Nepal has grown dramatically since the Communist Government is in place. It has been seeking parity with India, including joint military training which started in 2017. China may object to the use of Nepali troops of the Indian Army against a friendly Chinese People’s Liberation Army. An echo was heard during Doklam.
With the Nepal Communist Party in power, the recruitment issue keeps popping up. One suspects there would be a mini-revolt in the countryside for contemplating a sacrilege as heinous as stopping Gorkhas from showing off their valour. A proposal that had emanated from the Kathmandu Embassy in 1974, recommending this infamy, was axed in New Delhi with alacrity for its potential to rob India of a vital strategic asset. The serving Gorkhas and the ex-servicemen community together constitute the one reliable pro-India constituency in Nepal that New Delhi can count on, especially when India-Nepal relations have hit rock-bottom. It is this Gorkha asset and magic that General Naravane’s visit will nurture and preserve besides creating an ambience for normalising ties.
(The writer, a retired Major General, was Commander IPKF South, Sri Lanka and founder member of the Defence Planning Staff, currently the Integrated Defence Staff)
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