On September 2nd, 2010, 35-year-old Bishnu
Shrestha gazed out the window of a Maurya Express train as it chugged through the dense
jungles of West Bengal. Around midnight, the train came to a screeching
halt as gangsters poured aboard, armed with knives, clubs and firearms. Stomping up and down the carriage, they began
extracting cash, jewelry, laptops and watches from the terrified passengers. Initially, Shrestha kept his head down. It was only when the hijackers put their hands
on a helpless young woman that he could no longer stand idly by. He leapt up, drew his kukri knife and threw
himself upon the fiends. In the ensuing melee, Shrestha single-handedly
killed three gangsters and injured eight more, causing the rest to flee. Who was this humble superhero, whose badassery
could serve as the inspiration for a Die Hard movie? He was a Gurkha, a member of arguably the
single most elite fighting force of the 20th century. In this presentation, we will explore the
history of a revered community of modern warriors with a reputation that surpasses the Ancient
Spartans. Welcome to our video on the friendly, chipper,
and utterly fearless Gurkha Brigade, whose motto is “better to die than be a coward.” This video is made available for free thanks
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you’ll consider joining in too. Who are the Gurkhas? Indian Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw once was
quoted as saying: “If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying, or he
is a Gurkha.” The Gurkhas are elite soldiers native to Nepal,
a mountainous country which has long existed at the crossroads of the great Empires of
Eurasia. They are most famous for their 200-year history
of foreign service in the British Army and other global military forces, in which they
have earned a reputation as arguably the most reliable, disciplined and fearless warriors
of the 20th century. The title of ‘Gurkha’ is derived from
the historical Nepalese Kingdom of Gorkha, but has since evolved to refer exclusively
to Nepali nationals serving in a foreign army or police unit. Since time immemorial, the frigid peaks and
steep valleys of the Himalayan mountains have incubated many hardy peoples who developed
robust martial societies in an unforgiving high-altitude environment. A culturally diverse fighting force, the Gurkhas
are drawn from across Nepal’s many distinct ethnic minorities, most of whom speak their
own unique language and practice a unique variation of the Buddhist or Hindu faith. However, all Gurkhas are fluent in both English
and the national language of Nepal, an Indo-Aryan tongue of Sanskrit heritage. With an average height of five feet and three
inches, the Gurkhas are the world’s fiercest short kings. They are deadliest in CQC, wielding their
iconic weapon, the kukri knife, with fatal finesse. The Gurkha’s prowess with the curved blade
is the stuff of legend and spawned this amusing wartime gag: Locked in close combat in the
trenches, a squat Gurkha takes a swing at a tall German with his kukri. The German appears to side-step the swipe. “Ha!” He taunts, “You missed!” To this, the Gurkha wipes a drop of blood
from his knife and replies, “Shake your head.” An insanely rigorous training regimen ensures
that the Gurkhas are among the most physically fit humans in the world. In order to even qualify for training camp,
each prospective Gurkha has to be able to perform physical feats that would make a prime
Rocky Balboa look geriatric. These include performing 75 bench jumps in
one minute, 70 sit-ups in two minutes, and running three miles up the steep foothills
of the Himalayas while carrying 55 pounds of rocks on their backs in under an hour. Every year, nearly 28,000 young Nepalese men
compete for just 200 spots in the British Army’s Brigade of Gurkhas, ensuring only
the toughest of the tough are inducted into the modern world’s most feared fighting
force. Examples of Gurkha Heroism
Gurkha history is utterly inundated with insane stories of military heroism, and we would
be remiss not to retell some of them here. In 1945, Lachhiman Gurung of the 8th Gurkha
Rifles was cut off and encircled by over 200 Japanese soldiers in the Burmese jungle. Alone in a trench with only two other comrades,
he held off the enemy hordes singlehandedly. Twice, the Japanese lobbed grenades into his
trench, and twice, he managed to return them to sender. A third grenade landed. This time, when he picked it up, it exploded
in his hand, blowing off most of his fingers and severely wounding his face, torso and
right leg. Disregarding his mortal wounds and operating
his rifle one-handed, the Nepalese warrior fought off wave after wave of Japanese assaults
for four hours, all the while screaming, “Come and fight a Gurkha!” By the time the enemy retreated, he had amassed
a final kill count of 31. He survived his wounds, was awarded the Victoria
Cross, and lived to the age of 92. Six months earlier, Tul Bahadur Pun of the
6th Gurkha Rifles was advancing on a Japanese-held railway bridge when his entire platoon section
was wiped out. As the last man standing, Rifleman Pun charged
alone into a hailstorm of enemy fire, barreling ahead over thirty yards of open ground while
ankle-deep in mud, weaving through shell holes and leaping over fallen trees. Miraculously, he reached the enemy position
without being hit. Leaping into a bunker, he killed four Japanese
soldiers with his Bren Gun and another three with his kukri. He then gave accurate supporting fire from
the bunker, which allowed the remainder of his platoon to advance. Rifleman Pun was awarded the Victoria Cross
and lived until the age of 88. Gurkha families are often warrior dynasties,
with sons and grandsons striving to live up to the deeds of fathers and grandfathers. As it turned out, Rifleman Pun’s grandson
would more than live up to the legacy of his fearless grandfather. In 2010, Acting Sergeant Dipprasad Pun was
standing guard on a roof checkpoint in Helmand province, Afghanistan, when he found himself
surrounded and under attack by up to 30 Taliban fighters armed with AK-47s and RPGs. Believing he was about to die, Sergeant Pun
resolved to kill as many of the enemy as he could before he went down. Fending off attackers from three sides, he
fired more than 400 machine gun rounds, launched 17 grenades, and detonated a mine. When he ran out of ammo, he resorted to using
his gun’s tripod as a club, smashing it against an insurgent’s skull as he scaled
the roof. Singlehandedly, Sergeant Pun fended off the
attack and was awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross by Queen Elizabeth. Origins of the Gurkha - The Unification of
Nepal Having introduced the Gurkhas and provided
a sampling of the action-movie heroics they are capable of, let us explore their origins
and how they came to serve in the British Army. The story begins in the year 1743, with the
ascension of Prithvi Narayan Shah to the throne of the tiny Kingdom of Gorkha, one of many
petty statelets strewn about the Himalayan foothills at the time. Prithvi Narayan soon came into his own as
one of the greatest visionaries in the history of the Indian Subcontinent. Embarking on a mission to unify all of Nepal,
he slowly conquered over 54 other principalities throughout the Himalayas, training up one
of the most well-drilled, disciplined and experienced armies in Asia in the process. However, Gorkha was not the only rising power
in the Indian Subcontinent at the time. By the late 18th century, the British conquest
of India was well underway, spearheaded by a private megacorporation, the British East
India Company. Back in 1757, this hydra of capitalism defeated
the last independent Nawab of Bengal at the Battle of Plassey, annexing all of Bengal
in the aftermath. This put the Gorkha Kingdom and the East India
Company on each other’s borders, causing their spheres of influence to overlap. In 1767, Prithvi Narayan Shah set his sights
on conquering the Kathmandu Valley. Seeking to curtail the expansion of their
regional rival, the British deployed a 2,500-man expedition under one Captain George Kinloch
to prevent Kathmandu’s capture. In the hilly jungle province of Sindhuli,
the Gorkhas ambushed their foe, pouring out of the thicket and wreaking havoc among the
enemy formation with kukri in hand. It was the first time that British redcoats
had faced the Gorkhas in battle, and it would be an experience they would not soon forget. Out of Kinloch’s 2500 men, less than 1000
returned to Bengal alive. With the East India Company knocked out of
the picture, King Prithvi Narayan Shah captured Kathmandu in 1768 and made it into his royal
capital. The great Nepalese conqueror-King died in
1775, and would go down in history as the man who had thoroughly humbled the British
Empire and unified all of Nepal. The Anglo-Nepalese War of 1814-1816
For the next few decades, the Kingdom of Gorkha and the British megacorporation maintained
an uneasy peace, but it was only a matter of time before their next clash. In November of 1814, during the reign of King
Girvan Yuddha Bikram Shah, an escalating frontier dispute led to the second and final showdown
between the two powers: the Anglo-Nepalese War. According to historians, the Gorkha army at
this time numbered around 12,000 to 14,000 strong. To contend with this force, the East India
Company mustered an expedition of over 50,000 men. That the British levied such a massive army
in preparation for their push into Nepal displayed just how highly they regarded the fighting
skills of their mountain-dwelling opponents, Kinloch’s doomed expedition no doubt still
fresh in their minds. As expected, the East India Company’s advance
into the Himalayas was slow, brutal and bloody. Despite being heavily outnumbered, the Gorkhali
army put up an extremely effective resistance, utilizing the mountainous terrain of their
native homeland to stymie the advance of their numerically superior foes. The first major battle of the Anglo-Nepalese
war took place at the fortress of Nalapani, where Gorkha captain Balbhadra Kunwar and
a garrison of 600 Nepalese men, women and children held the line against British General
Rollo Gillespie’s force of over 3,500 men. Outnumbered seven to one, Balbhadra withstood
the British bombardment for over a month and even managed to kill General Gillespie in
action. Throughout the battle, many British soldiers
developed a begrudging respect for their lionhearted enemies, not just for their fighting spirit
but for the honour they displayed in battle. James Baillie Fraser, a Scottish adventurer
accompanying Gillespies’ division, wrote: “There was here no cruelty to wounded or
to prisoners; no poisoned arrows were used; no wells or waters were poisoned; no rancorous
spirit of revenge seemed to animate them: they fought us in fair conflict, like men;
and, in intervals of actual combat, showed us a liberal courtesy worthy of a more enlightened
people.” The bill the British paid for Nalapani amounted
to over a thousand casualties and the life of an experienced commander. This pyrrhic victory would set the tone for
the rest of the war, in which the East India Company would continue to make slow, incremental
and costly advances into Gorkha territory, all the while growing increasingly impressed
by the gallant resistance put up by their fearless yet noble enemies. Indeed, the Gorkhas fought on with seemingly
no comprehension of their own mortality. In April of 1815, at the Battle of Deuthal,
74-year-old Gorkha General Bhakti Thapa repeatedly threw himself headlong into British cannon
fire until he and his warriors had been mown down to the last man. Out of respect for this old man’s incredible
courage, the British wrapped his body in an expensive shawl and ensured it was returned
to his people with due honours. The Treaty of Sugauli - The Gurkhas Join the
British Army Despite their seemingly inexhaustible font
of courage, the Gorkha Kingdom was eventually ground down by the British Empires’ superior
manpower and firepower. In March of 1816, the Anglo-Nepalese war came
to an end with the signing of the Treaty of Sugauli, which forced the Kingdom of Gorkha
to cede around a fourth of its recently conquered territory to the East India Company, reducing
it to the borders that mark present-day Nepal. Although the Nepalese war effort had been
a losing one, they had fought fiercely enough to maintain their independence, and would
remain a free nation even as the British extended their rule across the entire rest of the Indian
Subcontinent. However, while Nepal would not be colonized
directly, there was still one further price to be paid for their defiance. Incredibly impressed by the tenacity of the
Gorkha soldiers who had fought them so bravely, the British made it a term of the peace that
the Kings of Gorkha would have to allow British recruiters to roam the Nepalese countryside
and encourage their able-bodied warriors to volunteer in the British Army. In the British narrative, the creation of
the Brigade of Gurkhas is considered an event to be celebrated. Peace had been made with a gallant foe who
they had come to respect, and henceforth, Gurkha and Briton would no longer be enemies,
but fight side by side as comrades-in-arms. However, from the Nepalese perspective, this
watershed moment is often cast in a more sombre light. Tim Gurung, a modern Nepalese writer and Gurkha
veteran, claims that the policy of recruiting young Nepalese men into the British army “not
only took the sting out of the Gorkhali Army but also made the country into a toothless
tiger and crippled it for the foreseeable future.” “By depleting Nepal of its youth and able
men for generations,” Gurung says, Nepal would “never again be able to raise its
head against the British.” Gurung’s words are important to remember. For, as captivating as stories of Gurkha invincibility
are, we must remember that, at least originally, they were hired mercenaries serving an Imperialist
power in colonial wars often fought to subjugate the homelands of indigenous peoples, and that
this has resulted in the Gurkhas having a complex and controversial legacy both in their
own homeland and beyond. History of Gurkha Military Service
Indeed, the Gurkha’s reputation among the British public for loyalty and reliability
began coming into form during the Great Revolt of 1857, when a massive uprising against the
British East India Company erupted across the Indian Subcontinent. As some of the only native troops who remained
loyal to the British, the Gurkhas played a significant role in putting down the insurrection. From the end of the Great Revolt to the start
of World War I, British Gurkha Regiments were deployed to fight in colonial wars in Afghanistan,
Burma, Tibet, and China. Throughout all these campaigns, the Gurkhas
slowly cultivated their reputation as some of the most resilient, adaptable and indomitable
soldiers in the known world. Throughout the First World War, over 200,000
Gurkhas served in the British Army. They fought with all the discipline and bravery
that had come to be expected of them, suffering around 20,000 casualties and receiving almost
2,000 gallantry awards for feats of both individual and regimental heroism. The Gurkhas threw themselves against the Germans
in the trenches of Ypres and Loos, and bloodied their kukri against the Turks at the meat
grinder of Gallipoli, where they were among the first to arrive and the last to leave. Throughout the Second World War, over 250,000
Gurkhas served in almost every theatre of battle, suffering around 32,000 casualties. They fought Hitler’s Nazis and Mussolini’s
Fascists in Syria, North Africa, Sicily and Greece, while bloodying the nose of Imperial
Japan in Burma and Singapore. Earlier in this video, we told the stories
Lachhiman Gurung and Tul Bahadur Pun, two Gurkhas whose insane feats of bravery against
the Japanese in the Burmese jungle earned them the Victoria Cross. These were just two of a mind boggling 2,734
bravery awards the Gurkhas earned throughout World War Two. After India achieved its independence, the
British lost their monopoly on Gurkha invincibility when some of the Gurkha regiments that had
formerly formed part of the British colonial army in India were transferred to the newly
independent Indian army. Meanwhile, in Singapore, a unit of British
Army Gurkhas was formed as an riot-control and counter-terrorism wing of the local police
force in 1949, and played a crucial role in stabilizing the city-state in its turbulent
road to independence. The Gurkha regiments that remained in the
British army continued to see action in every conflict the United Kingdom took part in. They were in Cyprus in 1974, the Falklands
in 1982, participated in the Gulf War of 1991 and were deployed into Afghanistan in 2001. Legacy of the Gurkhas
After over 200 years of loyal service to the British crown, the Gurkhas have undoubtedly
been immortalized as some of the modern era’s most lionized soldiers, with a reputation
of immortality that rivals the ancient Spartans. However, despite being celebrated as heroes
by the British public, their relationship with the British government has not been quite
as rosy. In retirement, the Gurkhas have long been
subject to unequal treatment by their British paymasters, their military pensions only a
fraction of what British veterans of equal rank received. Moreover, Gurkha veterans seeking to immigrate
and live in the UK, a country they had fought and killed for, faced significant barriers
to entry. After decades of protests, the British government
agreed in 2007 to start providing pay and pensions on par with British soldiers. Then, in 2009, the House of Commons passed
a motion allowing all Gurkha veterans the right to residence in the UK. In their home country of Nepal, the Gurkhas
are considered in some circles to be a source of national shame, a consistent drain on the
country’s best and brightest, and a major contributor to economic stagnation back home
. However, despite the controversies, many in Nepal hold the Gurkhas in high regard,
and take pride in the reputation for fearlessness and invincibility they have earned for the
Nepalese people on the world stage. Thus, it seems that for the foreseeable future,
young men throughout Nepal will continue to enlist in foreign Gurkha brigades, where they
will cultivate themselves into some of the physically and mentally toughest people on
the planet, living up to the legacy of their Gurkha fathers and grandfathers as the fiercest
soldiers of the modern age. More videos on history’s deadliest warriors
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