Kathmandu: For nearly two centuries, Nepal's valiant Gurkha soldiers have battled their foes with guns and their lethal kukri knives, which tradition demands must draw blood every time it is unsheathed.
But in a narrow lane off Nepal's parliament complex, they prepare for a battle of a different kind - not with weapons but printing machines and fliers. Their enemy: a life-altering new diktat from Nepal's rulers-elect, the Maoists.
The Maoists, who won a surprise election this month after a decade of civil war, want to stop a 200-year-old tradition of Gurkhas enrolling in the British and Indian armies, calling the practice humiliating and mercenary.
It is a charge the Gurkhas do not deny, but Nepal's crushing poverty and unemployment have pushed the valiant warrior tribe into a moral dilemma of choosing between dignity and livelihood.
Honour
"Nothing stirs a Gurkha more than his honour dared, but here we are in a fix," said Mahendra Lal Rai, the general secretary of the largest former Gurkha soldiers group.
"We do feel like mercenaries fighting for foreign armies, but who can deny our economic reality, our compulsions? We are caught between pride and practicality."
The Maoist threat is not yet set in stone. Chances are, if not the Gurkhas, the economic reality of Nepal will deter them.
Here is why: in Nepal's impoverished Himalayan foothills, Gurkha service is hugely popular. Last year some 17,500 applicants competed for 230 British army jobs. Gurkha privates in the British army begin their service on $28,000 (Dh102,760) a year, on the same pay scale and with the same pension as any British soldier.
After they retire, the longer-serving will also receive a British old-age pension, payable in Britain, where they may settle, or in Nepal. An average Nepali, by contrast, earns less than $300 a year.
Remittances from Gurkhas and some two million Nepalis working abroad, many as maids in the Middle East and security guards in Iraq, amount to more than $1.1 billion every year.
"What is there in Nepal? Even if we get a job, will it pay as much as an overseas one?" said Manender Limboo, a Gurkha youngster who aspires to go abroad, even if as a British soldier.
Another reason for Gurkhas looking for jobs in foreign armies is caste-based discrimination in jobs in Hindu-majority Nepal, including in the army where soldiers from the Gurkha tribe rarely make it to a senior rank.
Opportunities
The Maoists, however, say opportunities will be given at home so that the recruitment centres of the British army in Nepal can be closed down and also hiring by the Indian army can be stopped. "Such obnoxious practice of your citizens joining foreign armies as mercenaries, this will be stopped," said Baburam Bhattarai, a top Maoist leader
A tribe of about 3 million people living mostly in the Himalayan foothills of western and eastern Nepal, the Gurkhas' fierce combat skills, loyalty and courage made a strong impression on the British army during its unsuccessful invasion of Nepal in early 1800s.
The British actively recruited Gurkhas into their colonial army from 1815 and soon set up Gurkha regiments. About 3,400 Gurkhas serve in the British army today and another 40,000 serve in the Indian army.
History earned respect
- The Gurkhas are legendary fighters who have served in the British army since 1815 when a peace agreement was clinched by the British East India Company after it suffered heavy casualties during an invasion of Nepal.
- The Gurkhas took part in the two world wars, the Falklands conflict and British operations in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, East Timor and Sierra Leone.
- More recently they have been deployed in Iraq. In 2007 Britain's Prince Harry trained with Gurkhas and lived with a Gurkha battalion during his 10 weeks in Afghanistan.
- From a peak of about 112,000 men in World War Two, their numbers in the British army have dwindled to about 3,400. Tens of thousands of Gurkhas also serve in the Indian army, including in counter-insurgency operations in the Himalayan territory of Kashmir and the northeastern states.
- Known for their valour and loyalty, the Gurkhas' trademark is their lethal kukri knife, which tradition demands must draw blood every time it is unsheathed. Gurkhas say nowadays the fabled knife is used more often in cooking.
- Each year, thousands of young Nepalis apply for about 230 places in the Gurkha brigade of the British army.
