Rebuilding India’s Gorkha bridge with Nepal

The Gorkha soldier once served as one of the strongest human bridges between India and Nepal. Today, that bridge is narrower. Delhi’s challenge is to forge a new generation of substantive ties with Nepal — strong enough to withstand and absorb the shocks of future political upheavals, border disputes or diplomatic disagreements.

India-Nepal relations have never been merely a matter of treaties, trade figures or diplomatic communiqués. Geography made the two countries neighbours; history, culture and religion made them close, but for generations, one institution gave that relationship its most powerful human expression, ie, the Gorkha soldier in the Indian Army.

From Nepal’s monarchy through successive phases of Nepali Congress governments, Left parties of varying hues, the Gorkha soldier remained an extraordinary living link between Kathmandu and New Delhi. Young men from Nepal’s hills enlisted in the Indian Army, served with distinction, retired to their villages and carried home not merely pensions and memories, but a personal familiarity with India. This was soft power in its most organic form. It was also a relationship built on sacrifice, loyalty and shared military traditions. The Gorkha Regiments became one of the most visible manifestations of the India-Nepal relationship, while Indian Army recruitment gave the bilateral relationship a constituency that no embassy or foreign ministry could manufacture. That bridge, however, has been badly weakened.

The introduction of the Agniveer recruitment system has fundamentally altered the attractiveness of military service. Its implications for Nepal’s Gorkha recruitment cannot be brushed aside. This also coincided with a reduction in recruitment from Nepal. The consequence is more serious than a decline in numbers. A decades-old social ecosystem is being disrupted. The danger for New Delhi is that it may underestimate what this means politically. The Gorkha connection was never simply about manpower for the Indian Army. It was an instrument of familiarity and trust between societies. It gave India an enduring human presence in Nepal, and Nepal an enduring stake in India’s military institutions. If that channel becomes marginal, India loses something that cannot easily be recreated through conventional diplomacy.

The recent exchange of honorary Generalships between the chiefs of the Indian and Nepali armies was therefore welcome and heartening. Such gestures matter. Military institutions possess a special vocabulary of camaraderie, and public recognition by one army of the other can reassure both establishments that the foundational relationship remains intact. But symbolism has limits.

This question has become more urgent as Kathmandu’s political landscape evolves. Nepal has moved through monarchy, democratic parties, Maoist insurgency, republican transformation, coalition governments and competing Left formations. New political movements are now reshaping the country’s political vocabulary and its relationships. India cannot assume that the emotional capital accumulated over decades will automatically transfer to a new generation.

Nor should New Delhi imagine that geography alone guarantees strategic primacy. Nepal sits between India and China, and Kathmandu has considerable room to diversify its external relationships. China’s growing economic, infrastructure and political engagement has given Nepal alternatives that did not exist to the same extent earlier.

This is where India’s response to crises such as the recent floods assumes importance. When Nepal faces a natural disaster, India’s instinct to help is necessary and commendable. Cross-border humanitarian assistance is precisely what a close neighbour should provide. But aid during a crisis, however generous, cannot substitute for the patient construction of strategic trust during normal times. India therefore needs a broader Nepal strategy, one that moves beyond episodic crisis management and symbolic diplomacy.

The Gorkha relationship should be revisited imaginatively. If the Agniveer framework is to remain India’s model for recruitment, New Delhi and Kathmandu must explore mechanisms that preserve the attractiveness of service for Nepali citizens while respecting India’s new military requirements. The young Nepali who has little personal connection with an Indian Army veteran must nevertheless have compelling reasons to see India as a partner in his or her future.

India must recognise that Nepal’s strategic choices are increasingly shaped by a younger, more assertive and digitally connected generation. Shared history and cultural affinity remain important, but they cannot be the sole foundation of a modern bilateral relationship. Connectivity, economic opportunity, technology, education and mobility increasingly determine how young Nepalis perceive India.

This is why India should view the Gorkha relationship not simply as a relic of the past, but as a template for the future. The lesson of the Gorkha soldier is that durable influence is created when ordinary people have a personal stake in the relationship. India needs to recreate that principle across multiple sectors.

The relationship with Nepal has survived monarchies, republics, ideological transformations and political upheavals. It will survive the present phase too. But survival should not be confused with strength.

The Gorkha soldier once served as one of the strongest human bridges between India and Nepal. That bridge is now narrower. Honorary Generalships can remind us of its importance; humanitarian assistance can demonstrate goodwill; but neither can rebuild it on its own. Delhi’s challenge is therefore larger than repairing an old military arrangement. It is to create a new generation of substantive bonds with Nepal, strong enough that when the next political upheaval, border dispute or diplomatic disagreement arrives, the relationship has sufficient depth to absorb the shock.

That will require less symbolism, more substance, and above all, recognition that the most enduring foreign policy is ultimately built not between governments, but between people, like the gallant, loyal and trustworthy Gorkha soldier.

The Gorkha relationship should be revisited imaginatively. If the Agniveer framework is to remain India’s model for recruitment, New Delhi and Kathmandu must explore mechanisms that preserve the attractiveness of service for Nepali citizens while respecting India’s new military requirements

The writer is a former Lieutenant Governor of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Puducherry, and a military veteran; Views presented are personal.