Chandigarh: The government’s latest changes to the Agnipath scheme, extending Agniveers’ four-year tour of duty by two more years, and offering them the option of permanent enrolment, could remove a major stumbling block to restoring the traditional intake of Nepali Gurkhas into the Indian Army.Military sources said the resumption of Gurkha recruitment could feature in discussions during Nepal Prime Minister Balendra Shah’s official visit to New Delhi later this month, offering an opportunity to break the long-running deadlock that has soured ties between the two countries and halted the intake of Nepali recruits since the Agnipath policy was introduced in 2022.Kathmandu has strongly – and consistently – opposed the four-year tenure prescribed for Agniveers and the prospect of 75% of these recruits being summarily demobilised with just a one-time, tax-free Seva Nidhi payment of around Rs 11.71 lakh, but no assurance of a regular military career or pension. Successive Nepalese governments had objected to what they regarded as India’s ‘unilateral reneging’ on a major historic military agreement dating back to the immediate aftermath of Independence, without prior consultation with Kathmandu.Shah is scheduled to arrive in Delhi on November 22 for a three-day stay, his first foreign trip since taking office in March and follows Indian foreign secretary Vikram Misri’s November 4–5 visit to Kathmandu, during which the two sides discussed possible outcomes and initiatives across their bilateral relationship. Official sources said restoring Gurkha recruitment could be a significant step towards repairing strained ties between Delhi and Kathmandu, particularly in light of the fact that Nepal was broadening its strategic and military engagement with China.Demand to revivive the longstanding arrangementThe Gurkha recruitment freeze has, over the past four years, become a major irritant in an already troubled bilateral relationship, burdened by mutual mistrust over territorial disputes involving the Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura border regions alongside Delhi’s serious concerns over China’s growing security, political and diplomatic engagement with Nepal. These strains were also evident in the postponement of Misri’s planned May visit to Nepal amid differences over protocol and the border disputes.There has also been enduring pressure from Nepal’s Gurkha veteran community to revive the longstanding arrangement under which Nepali youths could enlist in the Indian Army on the previously established terms, that include full-length service tenures and lifelong pension rights. During Indian Army Chief General Dhiraj Seth’s visit to Nepal in August, Gurkha veterans had raised the recruitment freeze with him in Pokhara, a major recruitment centre in western Nepal, and urged him to lift the suspension.Also read: Agnipath: Four Years On, the Damage Control BeginsGaj Bahadur Thapa, vice-president of the Nepal Bharatiya Gorkha Sainik Board, made a specific appeal to General Seth at a gathering of veterans, but he declined to comment. Media reports of Gen Seth’s visit also made no mention of the issue featuring in his formal discussions with Prime Minister Shah, who also holds the defence portfolio, or Nepal’s Army Chief, Gen Ashok Raj Sigdel.“Restoring the traditional intake of Nepali Gurkhas would carry significance well beyond the respective armies “ said a retired one-star Gurkha regiment officer in Chandigarh. “It could also help revive one of the oldest and most tangible institutional links between the two countries,” he added, “declining to be named and the recent changes to the Agnipath scheme, could well help break this deadlock”. The longstanding military association between the two countries is pegged to the Tripartite Agreement between Nepal, Britain and India, concluded by the Joint Partition Committee in November 1947, three months after India’s independence. Under this arrangement, the Indian Army routinely recruited over 1,400 Nepali Gurkhas annually. Before the recruitment freeze in 2022, 32,000–36,000 Nepali Gurkhas were serving in the Army’s seven Gurkha regiments, making their presence a durable bond between the neighbours.This relationship also has a significant economic dimension. An estimated 1,25,000–1,35,000 former Indian Army Gurkhas, living in Nepal received annual pensions estimated at around $620 million — significantly more than Kathmandu’s yearly defence expenditure of approximately $436 million in 2024–25. India’s Military Pension Branch, headquartered in Kathmandu, channelled these payments through two Pension Paying Offices, at Pokhara and Dharan in the east and in recent years, via online banking channels.Collectively, these pensions are a crucial financial lifeline for tens of thousands of Gurkha families in Nepal, keeping economies afloat in communities that have a long tradition of sending their sons to serve in the Indian Army. And while the pension flow continued uninterrupted after Gurkha intake into the Indian Army was suspended in 2022, the freeze cut off the pipeline of future Gurkha aspirants across large parts of Nepal’s traditional recruiting heartlands.The revised Agnipath arrangement announced on Wednesday by Chief of Defence Staff General N.S. Raja Subramani, following government approval, could to a large degree address many of Kathmandu’s objections by allowing Nepali Gurkha Agniveers to serve for two years beyond the initial four-year tenure, and then pot for regular colour service. “For Kathmandu, this would be a highly acceptable proposition from the original scheme,” said the retired Army officer quoted earlier. Whether the revised terms go far enough to satisfy Nepal will eventually emerge from discussions between the two governments and military establishments, he added.An opportunity for India to resolve the impasseOther Indian Army Gurkha regiment veterans advised caution.They said Nepal would almost certainly want clarity on whether the revised arrangement met the provisions of the 1947 agreement relating to length of service, pensions and retirement benefits. “For now, it also remains unclear whether the extended six-year Agniveer tenure, by itself, would qualify a soldier for pension entitlements,” said a three-star officer. Simply announcing an extension, without spelling out what it means for long-term service and retirement benefits, is unlikely to be enough to persuade Kathmandu to agree to the resumption of Gurkha recruitment, he cautioned, requesting anonymity.Also read: Agniveers Can Marry, But if Killed No Pension to Family, Dependents: ReportGurkha service in the Indian Army began under colonial rule in the early 19th century, when the British began recruiting soldiers from Nepal following the Anglo-Nepal War and the Treaty of Sugauli in 1816. The first Gurkha regiment had, in fact, been raised a year earlier, in 1815, by the British East India Company as the Nasiri Regiment, later renamed the 1st King George’s Own Gurkha Rifles. The British Indian Army retained the Gurkha regiments until Independence, after which their future was settled under the 1947 agreement between India, Britain and Nepal referred to earlier. Of the ten regiments, six opted to remain with the Indian Army, while four — 2GR, 6GR, 7GR and 10GR — transferred to British service. India subsequently raised a seventh Gurkha regiment from among those who had declined transfer to the British Army.Unlike the British Army, the Indian Army imposed no restrictions on Gurkhas becoming commissioned officers, and many eventually rose to senior command positions. A separate agreement also provided for Gurkha soldiers serving in both armies to receive equal pay and comparable pension benefits. These arrangements were revised in the early 2000s, after a prolonged campaign by the media and veterans’ activists led the UK to substantially hike pensions for its retired Gurkha pensioners.Alongside, till the mid-1990s, gallah-wallahs or recruiting sergeants from the Indian and British armies annually traversed eastern and western Nepal’s hilly regions, talent spotting Rai, Gurung, Limbu, Tamang and Magar Gurkhas for enlistment into their respective armies. But in recent years, only a fourth of the Gurkhas recruited annually in the Indian Army were from Nepal. So much so that in April 2016, when the Army commissioned its Sixth Battalion of the First Gurkha Rifles (6/1GR) at Sabathu, 64 km north of Chandigarh, it comprised locally domiciled Gurkhas and other recruits from the northeast.Military analyst Lieutenant General H.S. Panag (retired) is of the view that Gurkha soldiers were not only fighting men for the Indian Army, but Delhi’s ambassadors to Nepal upon retirement and had ‘contributed immensely’ towards maintaining good relations between the neighbours. “China,” he declared on The Print in late 2022, “is waiting in the wings and India cannot afford to forsake this diplomatic leverage”.However, long before the British began recruiting Gurkhas, Nepali soldiers had served in the army of Maharaja Ranjit Singh at Lahore in the early 19th century. They came to be known as Lahure — a term derived from Lahore, then the capital of the Sikh kingdom- and one that has lived on in Nepal as a colloquial description of men who leave home to serve in foreign armies.Ranjit Singh had recognised the legendary fighting potential of the kukri-wielding Gurkhas, with their blood-curdling ‘Ayo Gorkhali’ (The Gurkhas are upon you) battle cry and their motto ‘Kaphar hunnu bhanda marnu ramro‘ — it was better to die than to live like a coward. The late Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, who served with the 8 Gurkha Rifles after independence, added to this folklore by declaring that if a man said he was not afraid of dying, he was either a liar or a Gurkha.In the meantime, a more disturbing aspect for India over the Agnipath/Agniveer spat with Nepal was a spate of media reports that China was considering recruiting Gurkhas into its People’s Liberation Army (PLA). These concerns first surfaced prominently in April 2021, when local and overseas media reports revealed that Beijing had made an informal proposal to Nepal to establish a special relationship with its army, modelled on its arrangement with India. This issue resurfaced in May 2023, after Nepal had suspended recruitment under Agnipath, but the claims were never substantiated and in May 2023, The Kathmandu Post too debunked these assertions. Nepal’s Ambassador to China, Bishnu Pukar Shrestha, also denied that any such proposal had been received or discussed, while a senior foreign ministry official also dismissed the reports, but a haze still persist over this matter. In conclusion, Shah’s forthcoming Delhi visit offers India an opportunity to resolve the Gurkha recruitment impasse politically, rather than allow it to languish in bureaucratic limbo between military headquarters and foreign ministries. It also offers both sides a chance to repair strained bilateral ties and strengthen India’s position in a neighbourhood where almost all its relationships have become increasingly toxic and tenuous.“Delhi needs to spell out clearly how the revised Agnipath arrangement would apply to Nepali recruits,” said a two-star Army veteran from the Gurkhas. Kathmandu, for its part, must decide whether the new terms adequately address its objections and whether age-old military ties between the two sides can be restored, he added, declining to be named.