Foreign Minister NP Saud has said that the issue of Gurkha recruitment in the Indian Army under the Agneepath plan will be decided only after a national consensus is reached in Nepal.
The plan aims to keep 25 percent of the soldiers who have been recruited into their army after completing four years of service, and the remaining 75 percent will be sent home with a fixed sum of money.
Since India is of the opinion that Nepalis should also be recruited into its army according to the plan, the process has been stalled for some time.
Experts say that due to the covid-19 epidemic, Gurkha recruitment has not been done in the last three years.
When will the deadlock break?
Some high-ranking officials have been saying that although the tripartite treaty between Nepal, India and Britain in 1947 had been guiding the recruitment of Gurkhas, the latest deadlock was seen because New Delhi tried to change it unilaterally.
Indian Sthal Army Chief Manoj Pandey, who visited Nepal last September, discussed the implementation of Agneepath with the then Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba along with high government officials.
After returning home, he also commented that if the Gurkha recruitment process in Nepal could not be carried out according to the predetermined program, they might be forced to distribute the posts allocated for that purpose to others for the time being.
The Indian army chief said that he informed Nepal that 75 percent of the soldiers who are currently enrolled under the Agneepath scheme under the Seva Nidhi package will get a 'benefit' of around 1.85 million rupees during their retirement.
At that time, Deuba was of the opinion that the new government formed after the election would take a decision on the issue of Gorkha recruitment under the Agneepath scheme.
But almost 6 months after the election and the formation of the government led by Prime Minister Prachanda, no concrete decision has been taken.
Officials said that even when Prime Minister Prachanda visited India at the invitation of his counterpart Narendra Modi a few weeks ago, the issue was not formally discussed.
Speaking to BBC News Nepali, Foreign Minister NP Saud said that the government will now take a decision on Agneepath only after gathering political consensus.
He says, "In terms of which rule and under which law to proceed with this issue, since the recruitment process has been going on traditionally between the two countries, it becomes a policy only after our national consensus about it."
He said that the government will formulate its approach only after discussions with other agencies in the country.
He says, “I don't want to directly go into what conditions should be admitted or not. But we have the necessary bodies within our government and we will make our approach based on the national consensus."
Talking to reporters in New Delhi, Prime Minister Prachanda said that he would have something to say about Gorkha recruitment when he reached Nepal.
In a press conference held after the meeting between the Prime Ministers of India and Nepal, Indian Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra expressed the opinion that the two sides did not talk about Gurkha recruitment.
What is the position of the opposition party?
A leader of the opposition CPN-UML said that now is the best time to cancel the Gurkha recruitment that Nepal is proceeding with according to the tripartite agreement with Britain and India.
UML MP Deepak Prakash Bhatt, who was a member of the International Relations Committee of the House of Representatives in the past, says, "Based on a belief of the colonial period, taking a certain caste as a fighting caste, even after the independence of India, the recruitment of Gurkhas was divided into sections. Why should our youth go to fight for their country? Nepalis are also used by India in war with China or Pakistan. It is not appropriate to continue this any longer.”
The Government of Nepal has already started discussions with Britain regarding the review of the tripartite treaty.
But in recent years, there have been reports of Nepalis getting employment in the armies of America, France and some Gulf countries, apart from the armies of India and Britain.
More recently, details have come to light that many Nepalese have shown readiness to join the Russian army during the ongoing Russian attack on Ukraine.
Former MP Bhatt personally thinks that the government should take a policy to discourage those who want to join the army of different countries and increase employment opportunities within the country.
There seems to be no discussion between the ruling party and the opposition parties in Nepal about the future of recruitment of Nepalese youth in the Indian Army.
Foreign Minister Saud believes that a decision will be reached on this matter at the appropriate time.
He added, “That happens at the right time. The moment our national consensus is formed, that's when the exit will be. We will solve it only on the basis of national consensus."
How many Gurkhas are there in the Indian Army?
Currently there are seven regiments in the Gurkha Brigade of the Indian Army.
More than 38,000 Gurkha soldiers are said to be serving in more than 40 battalions, including the National Rifles.
According to some retired Indian military officers, 60 percent of the Gurkha soldiers to be recruited in that battalion will be selected from Nepal and 40 percent will be selected from Nepali-speaking areas such as Kumaon and Garhwal in India.
Nepal for the past three years, currently only Nepali-speaking people from areas like Kumaon and Garhwal in India have been recruited into the Gurkha regiment, retired Major General Ashok Mehta of the Indian Army told the BBC.
Stating that India has not given any indication of any change in the Agneepath plan, he added, "There has been no new recruitment for three years, which is a risk to the entire Gurkha brigade."
He mentioned that Nepal has the option of rejecting Agneepath or making efforts to recruit its youth into the Indian Army under Agneepath with conditions of additional service facilities.
Mehta added, “If India does not change its policy of four-year service period and only 25 per cent continuation, risks may arise. If there is no agreement on Agniveer, the discussion has started in India that Gurkha recruitment from Nepal should be stopped gradually. If the enrollment cannot be continued, there have been talks of canceling one battalion of each regiment."
Stating that there are separate regiments for Kumaon and Garhwal, he said that it is not possible to start the recruitment process only from those areas.
Some experts associated with ex-Gorkha soldiers like Mehta, who believe that the presence of Nepalese youth in the Indian Army has a strategic importance, are of the opinion that Gurkha recruitment should be continued even if it is separated from the Agneepath plan.
According to a report published in the Indian newspaper Times of India, the annual recruitment of Nepali Gurkha soldiers from India has started to decrease even before the announcement of Agneepath in mid-June.
Earlier, about 4,000 people were to be recruited annually, but the last time it was reduced to 1,500, according to the statement.
