TOP SECRET
Nepal
total disbandment
57. One of the consequences of withdrawal would be the of the Brigade of Gurkhas by 1975-76. The Gurkhas provide
Nepal with about
30 per cent of her convertible foreign exchange though the importance of this should not be exaggerated since Nepal receives for more substantial resources
The Nepalese in non-convertible form, i.e. in tied aid and Indian rupees. have already been told that the Brigade is to be reduced from 14,500 to 10,000 by 1969 and have accepted this, They are also aware that we are contemplating further reductions below 10,000, though we have not indicata that we may propose a complete rundown. The Ministry of Defence will compensate individual soldiers discharged prematurely, and the Ministry of Overseas Development will provide limited resettlement training under the British aid programme,
The new plan would entail the rundown of the Gurkhas from 10,000 to nil between 1969 and 1975. Compensatory aid on the Ministry of Defence Vote is estimated at just over £3 million of which about £900,000 would be attributable to the rundown from 14,500 to 10,000, and the rest to the rundown from 10,000 to nil.
58. The Ministry of Defence compensation is unlikely to satisfy the Nepalese. Apart from the foreign exchange consequences, complete rundown would have severe social consequences. (The Gurkhas are recruited from high unemployment areas in some villages practically all the men between 18 and
There will be strong 35 are away with the British or Indian armies.)
The
pressure on us for mitigating aid to the Government of Nepal in addition to payment to individuals. It seems unlikely that such aid could be provided within the framework of our existing aid projections for Nepal. proposal currently under study that Britain should build a 75-mile stretch of the Asian Highway may, if approved, help to absorb some ex-Gurkhas during the 1970s, particularly those with relevant skills, but would hardly provide work for them all, There is also the possibility that the Indian Army might
absorb some individual Gurkhas.
59. The need for compensation to Nepal should presumably be added to the balance-sheet, together with some indication of the political stresses which would result from complete rundown (the latter would probably include regional tensions within Nepal, between the Gurkha communities and the Central Government, as well as the strain to which Anglo-Nepalese relations would be subject during the period of the rundown).
-21-
TOP SECRET