How Do Foreign Powers Treat the Nepalese Soldiers? (Satis Shroff)

15,000 Nepalese are fighting for Russia at the moment. They have been misled by middlemen in Kathmandu and elsewhere in Nepal. The Nepalese are given a to-week training and sent as a vanguard and are confronted by the first round of artillery and die. The clever Russian troops, who also have colonial allures, remain behind the Nepalese lines, whose lives are offered to test the concentration and firepower of the Ukrainians. The ethnic people of Siberia suffer the same fate as cannon fodder for the Ukrainian war machinery. According to Sky News ‘2000 men from Nepal have already recruited by Russia to fight in Ukraine.’ After a two-week training they are sent to the Front and never return. Russian mercenaries are promised salaries far above the average Russian soldier, whose allowance ranges from 70,000 to 100,000 thousand roubles (750–1,075 euros) but if you go to the front and don’t return, neither you nor your dependents have any money. There is no social insurance. Russia is not a welfare state. The young Nepalese men are unaware of the grim and gruesome reality of the modern battlefield. The mercenaries are not given enough food. A 34 year old Nepalese soldier named Ganesh said to Sky News that he was beaten treated like a dog and added that many Nepalese have died. ‘ It was terrifying in the battlefield,’ said Ganesh. He tried to escape from the clutches of the Russians, after landing in Moscow with a student-visa, and managed to do so in his third attempt. This is a serious problem for Nepal. Sita, the wife of a Nepalese soldier was able to reach her husband per android phone. She hadn’t heard from him for a long while and came to know that he had been injured in the Ukranian Front. There is no guarantee of a safe return to far off Nepal. A CNN report stated that 19,000 Nepalese have joined Russia to fight its war. Many returned traumatized In an Al Jazeera report dated February 10, 2024, 12 Nepalese were killed and 5 other captured by Ukraine. According to the official version, the relations between Nepal and Russia are ‘close and friendly and are supposed to be characterized by ‘goodwill, understanding, mutual respect and cooperation.’ And yet a major world power is using the human resources of one of the least developed countries in the world to invade Ukraine without any formal partnership or agreement by allowing and misusing student- visas to lure innocent Nepalese with false promises of high salaries in roubles, but actually to serve as cannon fodder for its unjust war against Ukraine. Most Nepalese youth dream of cutting the throats of enemies with their curved khukri knives and being rewarded with medals in military ceremonials, like their forefathers in the First and Second World Wars. But the reality of modern warfare is different. You don’t have close-combats these days. Guns are useless against drone attacks. Your movements are recorded by the drone camera flying above and bombs dropped over you. There’s no eye-to-eye contact with the unseen enemy. It’s all artillery, drones, missiles and mines everywhere. Although the Nepalese have been warned by the government in Kathmandu and told repeatedly that it is illegal to join Russia’s war, the young men sign for the Russians secretly. In the past and now, the Nepalese government has asked Moscow to return the Nepalese soldiers and its dead. The sad part of the story is that poverty is rampant in this mountain country, and the inexperienced Nepalese just sign up for service in the Russian Army. Similar to the desperate migrants trying to reach the shores of Lampedusa in dingy boats, there are middlemen who lure and traffic them with tourist-visas to Moscow. · In this context it must be mentioned that 45,000 Gurkhas died in the two World Wars under the Union Jack and another thousand since then, even though the Gurkhas were reduced and demobilised to Brigade strength in the British and Regiment strength in the Indian Army. This was after the partition of India in 1947 after an agreement between Nepal, India and Britain, whereby four regiments from the Indian Army were transferred to the British Army, which then became the Gurkha Brigade. · But no such agreement was ever made between Nepal and Russia, and the recruitment of Nepalese men for Putin’s infamous krieg and invasion in Ukraine is illegal. This matter must be taken to the ICJ because it is the diversion of manpower from a poor country to a rich country, where the foreign soldiers are not given proper salaries, social and health security insurances. · Gorkha Regiments), protect the Palace of the Sultan of Brunei. The Gurkhas never ask why. Order is order (hukum). They are not interested in politics, and education level is low, but they are adaptable and sturdy hillmen. · A lot of Nepalese worked died as construction workers in Katar and their children and wives received no compensation. It’s not only the lust of battles that drives a Gurkha. It’s also the chance to earn money, see countries foreign to Nepal. · Some Gurkhas have also joined France’ s Foreign Legion. There are a lot of youtube videos going around for those interested. · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DsJQWq-xS4 · Nepal’s soldiers who work in the British Army, play bagpipe melodies, and are known as highlanders and live in the foothills of the Himalayas. · The Gurkhas have been recognised as an integral part of the British Army after a long process. Till then they had lesser rights that migrants who survived the dangerous English Channel crossing in rubber boats and the blue ship that sank recently. 19,000 Gurkhas have died fighting for the British colonial power in World War I and II. · In the nineties during the Maoist Revolution the Monarchy was ousted and in the skirmishes that endued between the Armed Forces versus Maoists 17, 000 people were killed in Nepal l. Over 4,000 people were killed by Maoists from 1996 to 2005. · When it comes to money-matters, the Brits have always regarded the Gurkhas as cheap labourers and mercenaries that you can recruit in a matter of months, or even weeks. There are always 28,000 young Nepalese who want to join the Royal Gurkha Brigade. Only 200 are chosen annually. · What happens to the others? Do they join the Maoists to get battle experience? I knew one named Kunjo Lama who didn’t make it at the recruiting depot in Dharan (Eastern Nepal) and worked as a teacher in a Nepalese village in the hills rather than face the ignominy of returning home as the laughing stock of the hamlet dwellers. Losing one’s face is something serious in the Nepalese world, and for the Nepalese psyche. · But Kunjo made it at the next admissions and even took part in the Falklands War at Port Stanley against the Argentinians. He showed me a photograph from his wallet of himself and his fellow Gurkhas in front of a helicopter, armed to the teeth during the war at the Malvinas. · Sometime later during a trip to London I saw how the South Asian people were living in London’s East End, where the Cockneys used to live earlier, with its brick-houses (Monica Ali’s ‘Brick Lane’). Nay, the Gurkhas didn’t even enjoy the same status as the asylum-seekers from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Jamaica and other former colonies, settled in London’s East End or Southhall. · The Gurkhas are based in Church Crookham, Hampshire, but they are lucky if they can return to their home country after fighting Britain’s wars and police missions in the British Rhine Army, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Borneo, Cyprus, Falklands, Lebanon, Croatia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. · The Gurkhas did go to court and the MoD of Britain has conceded to their demands for more pay and rights in Britain. All is well for the Gurkhas in Britain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxp16HZStlk · A GURKHA MOTHER (Satis Shroff) (Death of a Precious Jewel) · The gurkha with a khukri But no enemy Works for the British Gurkhas And yet gets shot at

In missions he doesn’t comprehend. · Order is hukum, Hukum is life Johnny Gurkha still dies under foreign skies. He never asks why Politics isn’t his style · He’s fought against all and sundry: Turks, Tibetans, Italians and Indians Germans, Japanese, Chinese Argentinians and Vietnamese. · Indonesians and Iraqis. Loyalty to the utmost Never fearing a loss. The loss of a mother’s son From the mountains of Nepal. · Her grandpa died in Burma For the glory of the British. · Her husband in Mesopotemia She knows not against whom No one did tell her. · Her brother fell in France, Against the Teutonic hordes. She prays to Shiva of the Snows for peace And her son’s safety. · Her joy and her hope Farming on a terraced slope. · A son who helped wipe her tears And ease the pain in her mother’s heart. · A frugal mother who lives by the seasons And peers down to the valleys Year in and year out In expectation of her soldier son. · A smart Gurkha is underway Heard from across the hill with a shout · ‘It’s an officer from his battalion. · A letter with a seal and a poker-face “Your son died on duty,” he says, “Keeping peace for Her Majesty The Queen of England.” · A world crumbles down The Nepalese mother cannot utter a word Gone is her son, Her precious jewel. Her only insurance and sunshine In the craggy hills of Nepal. And with him her dreams A spartan life that kills. Glossary: gurkha: soldier from Nepal khukri: curved knife used in hand-to-hand combat hukum: Befehl/command/order shiva: a god in Hinduism Nepal Gurkha Russian Satisshroff War