THE FAMOUS GURKHAS

Waikato Independent, Volume XLIV, Issue 6105, 24 September 1947, Page 8

THE FAMOUS GURKHAS

STURDY INHABITANTS OF NEPAL SERVICES DESIRABLE TO BRITAIN For nearly 100 years Gurkhas, of Nepal, have served in British armies, winning unsurpassed prestige. No part of Mr Attlee’s recent statement on the Independence of India Bill was more welcome than the one in which he said that, though quitting India, Britain must still manage to keep the services, of the Gurkha troops.

And it is significant that Great Britain and Nepal agreed to raise their respective Ministers to the rank of Ambassadors. Few foreigners have ever entered Nepal, buried among the Himalayas, between India and Tibet, a country of terrific mountain ranges and fertile valleys, in all a little smaller than England, with a population of perhaps 6,000,000 people who boast that their history goes back to the beginning of time. A British envoy lives in Kathmandu, the capital, but for diplomatic work only. Now and then a specially favoured hunting party is allowed in the Terai, in the south of Nepal, the finest big game ground in the world.

Some foreign inventions, too, are welcomed in Kathmandu—electricity X-rays in the hospitals, and some motor cars; but no cinemas, wireless or aeroplanes. Parts of the capital are well laid out, with broad clean roads and spacious mansions that outwardly suggest a Western influence, against a background of Hindu temples rich with colour and intricate carvings. But foreigners are not

wanted. The Prime Minister, who wields all power —the King being more or less a figurehead—is firm for the preservation of Nepal’s ancient culture. No missionaries are admitted and especially no foreign political nostrums.

In the mountains there are no carts, and all freight is carried by human porterage; hence the Gurkhas' deep ches'ts and strong legs. Their pretty, dainty womenfolk add to their charms by decorating their hair with flowers. Courage, faithfulness and self-reli-ance are the unfailing qualities of the Gurkhas as soldiers. Their favourite weapon, the kukri, a curved knife, the peculiar deadliness of which is that it is broadest and heaviest towards the point, is famous. But the Gurkha is also a first-class shot with a rifle. In the late war 120,000 Gurkhas served with British armies in Ethiopia, in North Africa —where one of them won the V.C., and was decorated with it by the King himself—in tne sad retreat in Malaya, where, though their rifles were useless against tanks, they fought on in the gloomy forests with unimpaired steadiness' and endurance—and in the triumphal return of the Fourteenth Army in Burma.