NEW DELHI: THE thorny issue of recruiting Nepalese youth into Indian Army’s Gorkha Regiments is expected to be taken up during the visit of Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda to India next month, sources told TNIE.
Recruitment drives remain suspended in Nepal as Kathmandu has decided not to allow its citizens to join the Indian Army under the Agnipath scheme. “We have been trying to convince the senior functionaries of the Nepalese government to let the recruitments begin,” sources said.
Senior Army officers have visited Nepal in recent months to hold discussions with the Nepal Army brass. However, nothing much has happened on the ground as the political leadership in Nepal has reservations about the Agnipath scheme.
The issue remained unresolved also because of uncertainty over Prachanda’s India trip. He was supposed to come this month but the trip was postponed to June due to the fluid political situation there.
India introduced the Agnipath recruitment scheme in June 2022.
A recruitment rally of the Indian Army was planned in Butwal City of Nepal from August 25. However, Nepal’s foreign minister Narayan Khadka informed the Indian Ambassador in Nepal to keep it on hold, saying: “If the Nepalese youths are to be recruited for four years with no pensions, there is a need to discuss with all political parties in Nepal and build consensus.”
Prior to the introduction of the Agnipath, Nepalese youths were recruited under a tripartite agreement between India, Nepal and Britain, allowing continued recruitment of Nepalese into the armies of India and Britain.
According to Indian Army sources, Agnipath neither violates the tripartite agreement nor discriminates against anyone. “The Gorkhas would get the same salaries and facilities as what their Indian counterparts would,” they said.
Terming it a ‘sensitive matter’, Nihar Nayak, a research fellow at MP-IDSA, said India introduced the recruitment scheme keeping in view of the changing nature of modern warfare and geopolitical changes in the Himalayan region.