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Gurkhas have a reputation for being ferocious in combat and cool under fire. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
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New Delhi - Nepal's famed Gurkhas have faced down foes as far afield as the jungles of Malaysia, the Falklands and Afghanistan.
But today the challenges they face are closer to home: a new government hostile to them offering their services to foreign governments, and what some see as a slow erosion of the discipline and fighting spirit that have made the Gurkhas world-famous.
The reputation of the Gurkhas - ferocious in combat and cool under fire - is such that they continue to be the troops that officers under siege turn to. International security firm Blackwater, for instance, uses Gurkhas in Iraq.
A year and a half ago in Afghanistan, Gurkhas figured in the battle of Nawzad, where the British military has a strategic post in southern Helmand.
In one of the tales from that battle that has passed into legend, Gurkha rifleman Nabin Rai was wounded in the face by Taleban fire. Although his commander wanted him evacuated, the 20-year-old would not get down from the roof.
Later, an enemy bullet slammed off his helmet. He apparently sat down for a smoke and then went back to his post.
Such stories about the hardiness of Gurkha soldiers abound in the military messes of Britain and in India, which deploys the largest contingent of Gurkhas, a mispronunciation of Gorkha, a town in western Nepal.
About 3,400 Gurkhas serve in the British Army today and another 40,000 serve in the Indian Army.
One story told by Gurkha historian Byron Farwell is about a soldier who was kicked in the face by a mule whose hooves were shod in iron.
The Gurkha 'complained of a headache and that evening wore a piece of sticking plaster on his forehead', according to Farwell. 'The mule went lame.'
Gurkha troops are instantly recognisable by caste names such as Rai, Limbu, Magar, Gurung and Thapa.
Gorkhas form 15 per cent of Nepal's population of 28 million. Raised on the middle hills of Nepal amid great hardship, they are of Indo-Tibetan stock.
Their skill with the curving khukri knife for which they are so feared owes in part to a life spent clearing hill shrubs for cultivation and fighting off big cats that prey on cattle or children.
'A real Gurkha is a compact, lithe and short character,' said Mr Sharad Chandra Shaha, a former minister and royalist whose late father was one of Nepal's most-respected army chiefs. 'The whole body can be used as a weapon. That is a natural advantage enjoyed by no other ethnic group.'
When there is a challenge, added Mr Shaha, something snaps in the Gurkha. 'This produces a foolhardiness or bravery not seen in any other race.'
Indian Army officers from Gurkha regiments swear by their men.
Yet they acknowledge that modernisation and rising materialism have affected the Gurkhas. 'You pick up on the occasional grumbling,' said a serving brigadier. 'You also get the rare insolent one too these days.'
Mr Mahendra Rai, a veteran- turned-lobbyist for the Gurkha cause, detects a change in the attitude of younger Nepalis.
'They want to go to Japan, Korea or America. When they fail, they think of an army job,' Mr Rai, who served in Britain's 10 Gurkha Rifle, told Reuters.
Mr Padam Bahadur Gurung, president of the Kathmandu-based Gurkha Ex-Servicemen's Association, says the good life abroad may be diluting some of the sterling qualities and values of the Gurkhas. 'The old Gurkhas were different,' he said.
Even so, those who aspire to join the ranks of Gurkha troops abroad have to undergo gruelling selection tests. Those hoping to join the British military, for instance, must not only possess good paper qualifications but also pass a three-week assessment of their fitness.
Only those able to run 5km up the steep hill slopes of the Himalayas while carrying 35kg of rocks will make the cut, and that is just one of the tests.
Last year, not just men but hundreds of Nepalese women turned up for the British Army entrance exams in Pokhara. Only 50 places were set aside for women, but it was a first and yet another milestone in the martial history of the Nepalese warriors.
Maoist rebels who came to power recently want to add another: an end to Gurkha recruitment into foreign militaries abroad.
Analysts say that is easier said than done given the inability of the government to provide alternative employment.
'A Gurkha in the Nepal army can afford to feed only himself. If he is in the Indian Army, his family feeds, and if he works for the British Army, there is enough for his whole clan,' said retired Indian Army Gurkha Bhim Thapa.
Besides, the overseas pay is far too tempting. Royalist Sharad Shaha says his former personal security officer used to earn 16,000 Nepalese rupees (S$340) a month. Now he is in Afghanistan and earning the equivalent of 400,000 Nepalese rupees a month.
'Do you think he is going to listen to the government?' he asked. 'Other parties also have come to power romancing of a ban on overseas recruitment of Gurkhas but have had to bow to reality.'
velloor@sph.com.sg
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