What will be the cost to the economy of halting recruitment of Nepali youths, mostly male, into the British and Indian armies, as planned by the current government? Gurkha remittances have long been dwarfed by the remittances sent by Nepali non-mercenary labourers toiling all over the world. But it has to be admitted that Gurkha recruitment still represents an attractive livelihood opportunity for many. The around 30,000 Nepali servicemen currently in the Indian army and the around 3,800 Nepalis serving in the British army may be remitting about NRs 6 billion annually. The transfer of pensions, as reflected in the current account of the balance-of-payments, are mostly transfers to retired servicemen or their widows numbering probably more than 150,000, and amounted to NRs 29 billion in FY 2010/11. The total transfers attributable to the Gurkha recruitment could be about NRs 35 billion annually (although remittances from British Gurkhas are declining since the British government decided to allow retired Gurkhas and their families to settle in the UK, and are set to fall further as retirees increasingly choose to take up residency in the UK). That’s about 8% percent of current account income in 2010/11 or 14% of "workers' remittances" sent home by non-mercenary workers, more than the current account deficits recorded in 2009/10 and 2010/11. Every year, the British army recruits about 175 Nepali youths, and the Indian army between 2,500-3,000. Amidst acute un/underemployment, being a mercenary in these foreign armies is as much an attractive option for a Nepali youth now as it was when Gurkha recruitment started in the early 19th century. To this scribe, if the late King Mahendra—the architect of Nepal’s modernization as a sovereign, independent nation state against all external odds, the man who oversaw the removal of foreign military checkposts from Nepali soil—did not deem it imperative to end Gurkha recruitment then (though he must not have liked it), the case for ending it is not any stronger now.
2. While the long-term goal should be to create enough decent and productive work for Nepalis on their own soil, the Gurkha recruitment is not the most serious of threats to our nationalism at the moment. The Maoists can help revive their severely battered nationalistic credentials by taking action on other more serious issues of national interest, some of which directly featured on or are intimately related to their long-forgotten charter of demands they had submitted to the government of the day before launching their people’s war in 1996. Addressing them would also help make serving in foreign armies less attractive. They include: ending the pro-export bias of hydropower policy in practice so that high-quality and relatively cheap electricity generated from choice hydropower projects, built optimally, is used for domestic consumption and industrialization purpose instead of exporting it at dirt-cheap rates and along with it exporting away all the potential multiplier benefits (without this, industrialization efforts will come a cropper; the industrial policy will be lame); regulating the open border, if not sealing it (there will at least be a record of who comes in and who goes out), to be able to better implement national policies, protect domestic industry if required and control cross-border crime, among others; strictly enforcing the labour law to secure formal sector jobs for Nepali citizens (those who think the 1950 treaty is a boon for Nepal, don’t get agitated at this suggestion; neither party has implemented the treaty in toto; moreover, the labour law has provisions for according priority to Nepali citizens for formal sector jobs, so if you think the provisions should not be there, then openly call for their removal). The act of giving free rein to militant trade unionism and presiding over an unprecedented scale of crime and corruption—which have eaten into the vitals of the economy—but rushing to end Gurkha recruitment by opportunistically appealing to nationalism serves only to strengthen the hands of samparanbaadi intellectitutes out to discredit other, more germane, patriotic calls (such as asking for the country’s hydroelectricity to be first used to meet its huge power deficit before mulling exports) as andho, ugra rastrabaad.
3. Although pushing for a halt to Gurkha recruitment without providing alternative employment opportunities would appear to be sheer irresponsibility, some reforms and precautionary measures in connection with recruitment practices and implications are in order. The government should ask the foreign governments concerned to ensure that the Gurkha recruitment process is inclusive, ending the bigoted practice of racial selection in the hiring of Nepali boys into the two foreign armed forces, particularly one of them (you know which). Indeed, Nepal’s national army, supposed to be in dire need of democratization and constantly told to be “more inclusive”, would beat both the foreign armies’ Gurkha recruitment practice hands down in terms of ethnic inclusiveness. The point is that all Nepali ethnic groups should have a fair chance of making it to the two foreign armies. The practice of according preference to certain ethnic groups because of the “history” of valour exhibited by their forefathers should end forthwith. That would be a great service to all those un/underemployed deserving youths interested to join the foreign armies but are at a severe disadvantage because of their ethnicity. But isn’t tradition something? May be; in that case, what would your reaction be if the communities that rule the roost in the Nepali Army were to insist on maintaining the status quo on the ground of tradition—after all, their forefathers had made a yeoman’s contribution to the establishment and strengthening of the national army instrumental to the nation's unification, and they too would love to rest on their ancestral laurels? The current Gurkha recruitment process does not befit a country that is considered to be the mother of parliament or a country that prides itself on being the world’s largest (read most populous) electoral (if not functioning) democracy. Do they subscribe to the essence of the late KP Bhattarai's response more than two decades ago as prime minister when confronted during his India visit with the question as to why Nepal’s army did not recruit enough members of a certain community?
4. Are there any takers in the mainstream media, mostly manned by political party activists? Most unlikely. They are most likely to criticize the government’s decision to pursue a halt to Gurkha recruitment, but are most unlikely to even entertain the argument made here regarding the recruitment process. They would not want to rub foreign shoulders the wrong way, for all their superficial moral grandstanding. But then what can you expect from, for example, a bunch of Kangressi hacks who carried a front-page story asking if the late Bhattarai had gone senile simply because he would not subscribe to their partisan political views on another issue, but who conveniently forgot that (mis)judgment of theirs when penning eulogies to him only six years later. [The apparent revision to their judgment would not have come about were it not for their dear party’s trouncing in the constituent assembly polls, which produced results that rubbished the predictions of armchair analysts wearing political blinkers].
5. The Nepal government would also do well to monitor, and check, moves to use ex-servicemen for advancing ulterior extraneous interests and agendas, ranging from spreading the Word to fomenting ethnic discord to outright intelligence gathering. Setting up units for dispensing pensions and welfare benefits in strategic and sensitive locations is one way the Gurkha connection is being leveraged for the grinding of vested foreign interest axes.
6. Let’s not forget that Gurkha recruitment is not aid or charity; benefits flow both ways: Nepalis are getting paid for their hard, often risky, work entailed in serving in foreign armies where the risks they face are systematically higher than what their fellow soldiers of host-country nationality ever face. Theoretically, the foreign governments concerned have the alternative of taking in recruits from the families of ex-servicemen who have domiciled on British or Indian soil if the Nepal government actually bans recruitment from its soil. But let’s not forget that they would be loath to forego a well-established channel of influence with so many possibilities—for the same investment! The Gurkha connection is likely to remain.
