[00:05] On September 2nd, 2010, 35-year-old Bishnu
Shrestha gazed out the window of a Maurya
[00:11] Express train as it chugged through the dense
jungles of West Bengal.
[00:16] Around midnight, the train came to a screeching
halt as gangsters poured aboard, armed with
[00:21] knives, clubs and firearms.
[00:24] Stomping up and down the carriage, they began
extracting cash, jewelry, laptops and watches
[00:29] from the terrified passengers.
[00:31] Initially, Shrestha kept his head down.
[00:34] It was only when the hijackers put their hands
on a helpless young woman that he could no
[00:38] longer stand idly by.
[00:40] He leapt up, drew his kukri knife and threw
himself upon the fiends.
[00:44] In the ensuing melee, Shrestha single-handedly
killed three gangsters and injured eight more,
[00:50] causing the rest to flee.
[00:52] Who was this humble superhero, whose badassery
could serve as the inspiration for a Die Hard
[00:57] movie?
[00:58] He was a Gurkha, a member of arguably the
single most elite fighting force of the 20th
[01:03] century.
[01:04] In this presentation, we will explore the
history of a revered community of modern warriors
[01:09] with a reputation that surpasses the Ancient
Spartans.
[01:13] Welcome to our video on the friendly, chipper,
and utterly fearless Gurkha Brigade, whose
[01:18] motto is “better to die than be a coward.”
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[02:20] Who are the Gurkhas?
[02:22] Indian Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw once was
quoted as saying: “If a man says he is not
[02:26] afraid of dying, he is either lying, or he
is a Gurkha.”
[02:31] The Gurkhas are elite soldiers native to Nepal,
a mountainous country which has long existed
[02:36] at the crossroads of the great Empires of
Eurasia.
[02:39] They are most famous for their 200-year history
of foreign service in the British Army and
[02:44] other global military forces, in which they
have earned a reputation as arguably the most
[02:50] reliable, disciplined and fearless warriors
of the 20th century.
[02:54] The title of ‘Gurkha’ is derived from
the historical Nepalese Kingdom of Gorkha,
[02:59] but has since evolved to refer exclusively
to Nepali nationals serving in a foreign army
[03:04] or police unit.
[03:06] Since time immemorial, the frigid peaks and
steep valleys of the Himalayan mountains have
[03:11] incubated many hardy peoples who developed
robust martial societies in an unforgiving
[03:16] high-altitude environment.
[03:18] A culturally diverse fighting force, the Gurkhas
are drawn from across Nepal’s many distinct
[03:24] ethnic minorities, most of whom speak their
own unique language and practice a unique
[03:28] variation of the Buddhist or Hindu faith.
[03:31] However, all Gurkhas are fluent in both English
and the national language of Nepal, an Indo-Aryan
[03:37] tongue of Sanskrit heritage.
[03:39] With an average height of five feet and three
inches, the Gurkhas are the world’s fiercest
[03:44] short kings.
[03:45] They are deadliest in CQC, wielding their
iconic weapon, the kukri knife, with fatal
[03:50] finesse.
[03:51] The Gurkha’s prowess with the curved blade
is the stuff of legend and spawned this amusing
[03:56] wartime gag: Locked in close combat in the
trenches, a squat Gurkha takes a swing at
[04:01] a tall German with his kukri.
[04:03] The German appears to side-step the swipe.
[04:05] “Ha!”
[04:06] He taunts, “You missed!”
[04:07] To this, the Gurkha wipes a drop of blood
from his knife and replies, “Shake your
[04:13] head.”
[04:14] An insanely rigorous training regimen ensures
that the Gurkhas are among the most physically
[04:18] fit humans in the world.
[04:20] In order to even qualify for training camp,
each prospective Gurkha has to be able to
[04:25] perform physical feats that would make a prime
Rocky Balboa look geriatric.
[04:30] These include performing 75 bench jumps in
one minute, 70 sit-ups in two minutes, and
[04:35] running three miles up the steep foothills
of the Himalayas while carrying 55 pounds
[04:40] of rocks on their backs in under an hour.
[04:43] Every year, nearly 28,000 young Nepalese men
compete for just 200 spots in the British
[04:49] Army’s Brigade of Gurkhas, ensuring only
the toughest of the tough are inducted into
[04:54] the modern world’s most feared fighting
force.
[04:56] Examples of Gurkha Heroism
Gurkha history is utterly inundated with insane
[05:00] stories of military heroism, and we would
be remiss not to retell some of them here.
[05:06] In 1945, Lachhiman Gurung of the 8th Gurkha
Rifles was cut off and encircled by over 200
[05:13] Japanese soldiers in the Burmese jungle.
[05:15] Alone in a trench with only two other comrades,
he held off the enemy hordes singlehandedly.
[05:20] Twice, the Japanese lobbed grenades into his
trench, and twice, he managed to return them
[05:25] to sender.
[05:26] A third grenade landed.
[05:28] This time, when he picked it up, it exploded
in his hand, blowing off most of his fingers
[05:32] and severely wounding his face, torso and
right leg.
[05:36] Disregarding his mortal wounds and operating
his rifle one-handed, the Nepalese warrior
[05:41] fought off wave after wave of Japanese assaults
for four hours, all the while screaming, “Come
[05:47] and fight a Gurkha!”
[05:49] By the time the enemy retreated, he had amassed
a final kill count of 31.
[05:54] He survived his wounds, was awarded the Victoria
Cross, and lived to the age of 92.
[06:00] Six months earlier, Tul Bahadur Pun of the
6th Gurkha Rifles was advancing on a Japanese-held
[06:06] railway bridge when his entire platoon section
was wiped out.
[06:10] As the last man standing, Rifleman Pun charged
alone into a hailstorm of enemy fire, barreling
[06:16] ahead over thirty yards of open ground while
ankle-deep in mud, weaving through shell holes
[06:22] and leaping over fallen trees.
[06:24] Miraculously, he reached the enemy position
without being hit.
[06:28] Leaping into a bunker, he killed four Japanese
soldiers with his Bren Gun and another three
[06:32] with his kukri.
[06:34] He then gave accurate supporting fire from
the bunker, which allowed the remainder of
[06:38] his platoon to advance.
[06:40] Rifleman Pun was awarded the Victoria Cross
and lived until the age of 88.
[06:45] Gurkha families are often warrior dynasties,
with sons and grandsons striving to live up
[06:50] to the deeds of fathers and grandfathers.
[06:53] As it turned out, Rifleman Pun’s grandson
would more than live up to the legacy of his
[06:58] fearless grandfather.
[07:00] In 2010, Acting Sergeant Dipprasad Pun was
standing guard on a roof checkpoint in Helmand
[07:05] province, Afghanistan, when he found himself
surrounded and under attack by up to 30 Taliban
[07:11] fighters armed with AK-47s and RPGs.
[07:14] Believing he was about to die, Sergeant Pun
resolved to kill as many of the enemy as he
[07:19] could before he went down.
[07:21] Fending off attackers from three sides, he
fired more than 400 machine gun rounds, launched
[07:26] 17 grenades, and detonated a mine.
[07:29] When he ran out of ammo, he resorted to using
his gun’s tripod as a club, smashing it
[07:34] against an insurgent’s skull as he scaled
the roof.
[07:38] Singlehandedly, Sergeant Pun fended off the
attack and was awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry
[07:42] Cross by Queen Elizabeth.
[07:44] Origins of the Gurkha - The Unification of
Nepal
[07:45] Having introduced the Gurkhas and provided
a sampling of the action-movie heroics they
[07:49] are capable of, let us explore their origins
and how they came to serve in the British
[07:54] Army.
[07:55] The story begins in the year 1743, with the
ascension of Prithvi Narayan Shah to the throne
[08:00] of the tiny Kingdom of Gorkha, one of many
petty statelets strewn about the Himalayan
[08:05] foothills at the time.
[08:07] Prithvi Narayan soon came into his own as
one of the greatest visionaries in the history
[08:11] of the Indian Subcontinent.
[08:13] Embarking on a mission to unify all of Nepal,
he slowly conquered over 54 other principalities
[08:20] throughout the Himalayas, training up one
of the most well-drilled, disciplined and
[08:24] experienced armies in Asia in the process.
[08:27] However, Gorkha was not the only rising power
in the Indian Subcontinent at the time.
[08:32] By the late 18th century, the British conquest
of India was well underway, spearheaded by
[08:37] a private megacorporation, the British East
India Company.
[08:42] Back in 1757, this hydra of capitalism defeated
the last independent Nawab of Bengal at the
[08:48] Battle of Plassey, annexing all of Bengal
in the aftermath.
[08:51] This put the Gorkha Kingdom and the East India
Company on each other’s borders, causing
[08:56] their spheres of influence to overlap.
[08:59] In 1767, Prithvi Narayan Shah set his sights
on conquering the Kathmandu Valley.
[09:06] Seeking to curtail the expansion of their
regional rival, the British deployed a 2,500-man
[09:11] expedition under one Captain George Kinloch
to prevent Kathmandu’s capture.
[09:17] In the hilly jungle province of Sindhuli,
the Gorkhas ambushed their foe, pouring out
[09:21] of the thicket and wreaking havoc among the
enemy formation with kukri in hand.
[09:26] It was the first time that British redcoats
had faced the Gorkhas in battle, and it would
[09:30] be an experience they would not soon forget.
[09:33] Out of Kinloch’s 2500 men, less than 1000
returned to Bengal alive.
[09:39] With the East India Company knocked out of
the picture, King Prithvi Narayan Shah captured
[09:44] Kathmandu in 1768 and made it into his royal
capital.
[09:49] The great Nepalese conqueror-King died in
1775, and would go down in history as the
[09:54] man who had thoroughly humbled the British
Empire and unified all of Nepal.
[09:59] The Anglo-Nepalese War of 1814-1816
For the next few decades, the Kingdom of Gorkha
[10:03] and the British megacorporation maintained
an uneasy peace, but it was only a matter
[10:07] of time before their next clash.
[10:10] In November of 1814, during the reign of King
Girvan Yuddha Bikram Shah, an escalating frontier
[10:16] dispute led to the second and final showdown
between the two powers: the Anglo-Nepalese
[10:21] War.
[10:22] According to historians, the Gorkha army at
this time numbered around 12,000 to 14,000
[10:28] strong.
[10:29] To contend with this force, the East India
Company mustered an expedition of over 50,000
[10:34] men.
[10:35] That the British levied such a massive army
in preparation for their push into Nepal displayed
[10:40] just how highly they regarded the fighting
skills of their mountain-dwelling opponents,
[10:45] Kinloch’s doomed expedition no doubt still
fresh in their minds.
[10:49] As expected, the East India Company’s advance
into the Himalayas was slow, brutal and bloody.
[10:56] Despite being heavily outnumbered, the Gorkhali
army put up an extremely effective resistance,
[11:01] utilizing the mountainous terrain of their
native homeland to stymie the advance of their
[11:05] numerically superior foes.
[11:07] The first major battle of the Anglo-Nepalese
war took place at the fortress of Nalapani,
[11:12] where Gorkha captain Balbhadra Kunwar and
a garrison of 600 Nepalese men, women and
[11:17] children held the line against British General
Rollo Gillespie’s force of over 3,500 men.
[11:23] Outnumbered seven to one, Balbhadra withstood
the British bombardment for over a month and
[11:29] even managed to kill General Gillespie in
action.
[11:32] Throughout the battle, many British soldiers
developed a begrudging respect for their lionhearted
[11:37] enemies, not just for their fighting spirit
but for the honour they displayed in battle.
[11:42] James Baillie Fraser, a Scottish adventurer
accompanying Gillespies’ division, wrote:
[11:47] “There was here no cruelty to wounded or
to prisoners; no poisoned arrows were used;
[11:53] no wells or waters were poisoned; no rancorous
spirit of revenge seemed to animate them:
[11:59] they fought us in fair conflict, like men;
and, in intervals of actual combat, showed
[12:04] us a liberal courtesy worthy of a more enlightened
people.”
[12:08] The bill the British paid for Nalapani amounted
to over a thousand casualties and the life
[12:13] of an experienced commander.
[12:16] This pyrrhic victory would set the tone for
the rest of the war, in which the East India
[12:20] Company would continue to make slow, incremental
and costly advances into Gorkha territory,
[12:26] all the while growing increasingly impressed
by the gallant resistance put up by their
[12:31] fearless yet noble enemies.
[12:33] Indeed, the Gorkhas fought on with seemingly
no comprehension of their own mortality.
[12:39] In April of 1815, at the Battle of Deuthal,
74-year-old Gorkha General Bhakti Thapa repeatedly
[12:45] threw himself headlong into British cannon
fire until he and his warriors had been mown
[12:50] down to the last man.
[12:52] Out of respect for this old man’s incredible
courage, the British wrapped his body in an
[12:57] expensive shawl and ensured it was returned
to his people with due honours.
[13:01] The Treaty of Sugauli - The Gurkhas Join the
British Army
[13:02] Despite their seemingly inexhaustible font
of courage, the Gorkha Kingdom was eventually
[13:07] ground down by the British Empires’ superior
manpower and firepower.
[13:12] In March of 1816, the Anglo-Nepalese war came
to an end with the signing of the Treaty of
[13:17] Sugauli, which forced the Kingdom of Gorkha
to cede around a fourth of its recently conquered
[13:22] territory to the East India Company, reducing
it to the borders that mark present-day Nepal.
[13:28] Although the Nepalese war effort had been
a losing one, they had fought fiercely enough
[13:32] to maintain their independence, and would
remain a free nation even as the British extended
[13:37] their rule across the entire rest of the Indian
Subcontinent.
[13:41] However, while Nepal would not be colonized
directly, there was still one further price
[13:46] to be paid for their defiance.
[13:49] Incredibly impressed by the tenacity of the
Gorkha soldiers who had fought them so bravely,
[13:53] the British made it a term of the peace that
the Kings of Gorkha would have to allow British
[13:58] recruiters to roam the Nepalese countryside
and encourage their able-bodied warriors to
[14:03] volunteer in the British Army.
[14:06] In the British narrative, the creation of
the Brigade of Gurkhas is considered an event
[14:10] to be celebrated.
[14:12] Peace had been made with a gallant foe who
they had come to respect, and henceforth,
[14:16] Gurkha and Briton would no longer be enemies,
but fight side by side as comrades-in-arms.
[14:21] However, from the Nepalese perspective, this
watershed moment is often cast in a more sombre
[14:27] light.
[14:28] Tim Gurung, a modern Nepalese writer and Gurkha
veteran, claims that the policy of recruiting
[14:33] young Nepalese men into the British army “not
only took the sting out of the Gorkhali Army
[14:38] but also made the country into a toothless
tiger and crippled it for the foreseeable
[14:43] future.”
[14:44] “By depleting Nepal of its youth and able
men for generations,” Gurung says, Nepal
[14:49] would “never again be able to raise its
head against the British.”
[14:53] Gurung’s words are important to remember.
[14:55] For, as captivating as stories of Gurkha invincibility
are, we must remember that, at least originally,
[15:02] they were hired mercenaries serving an Imperialist
power in colonial wars often fought to subjugate
[15:07] the homelands of indigenous peoples, and that
this has resulted in the Gurkhas having a
[15:12] complex and controversial legacy both in their
own homeland and beyond.
[15:16] History of Gurkha Military Service
Indeed, the Gurkha’s reputation among the
[15:20] British public for loyalty and reliability
began coming into form during the Great Revolt
[15:25] of 1857, when a massive uprising against the
British East India Company erupted across
[15:30] the Indian Subcontinent.
[15:33] As some of the only native troops who remained
loyal to the British, the Gurkhas played a
[15:37] significant role in putting down the insurrection.
[15:40] From the end of the Great Revolt to the start
of World War I, British Gurkha Regiments were
[15:44] deployed to fight in colonial wars in Afghanistan,
Burma, Tibet, and China.
[15:50] Throughout all these campaigns, the Gurkhas
slowly cultivated their reputation as some
[15:54] of the most resilient, adaptable and indomitable
soldiers in the known world.
[15:59] Throughout the First World War, over 200,000
Gurkhas served in the British Army.
[16:04] They fought with all the discipline and bravery
that had come to be expected of them, suffering
[16:09] around 20,000 casualties and receiving almost
2,000 gallantry awards for feats of both individual
[16:16] and regimental heroism.
[16:18] The Gurkhas threw themselves against the Germans
in the trenches of Ypres and Loos, and bloodied
[16:23] their kukri against the Turks at the meat
grinder of Gallipoli, where they were among
[16:27] the first to arrive and the last to leave.
[16:30] Throughout the Second World War, over 250,000
Gurkhas served in almost every theatre of
[16:35] battle, suffering around 32,000 casualties.
[16:38] They fought Hitler’s Nazis and Mussolini’s
Fascists in Syria, North Africa, Sicily and
[16:44] Greece, while bloodying the nose of Imperial
Japan in Burma and Singapore.
[16:49] Earlier in this video, we told the stories
Lachhiman Gurung and Tul Bahadur Pun, two
[16:54] Gurkhas whose insane feats of bravery against
the Japanese in the Burmese jungle earned
[16:59] them the Victoria Cross.
[17:01] These were just two of a mind boggling 2,734
bravery awards the Gurkhas earned throughout
[17:07] World War Two.
[17:10] After India achieved its independence, the
British lost their monopoly on Gurkha invincibility
[17:15] when some of the Gurkha regiments that had
formerly formed part of the British colonial
[17:19] army in India were transferred to the newly
independent Indian army.
[17:23] Meanwhile, in Singapore, a unit of British
Army Gurkhas was formed as an riot-control
[17:28] and counter-terrorism wing of the local police
force in 1949, and played a crucial role in
[17:34] stabilizing the city-state in its turbulent
road to independence.
[17:39] The Gurkha regiments that remained in the
British army continued to see action in every
[17:43] conflict the United Kingdom took part in.
[17:45] They were in Cyprus in 1974, the Falklands
in 1982, participated in the Gulf War of 1991
[17:52] and were deployed into Afghanistan in 2001.
[17:55] Legacy of the Gurkhas
After over 200 years of loyal service to the
[17:59] British crown, the Gurkhas have undoubtedly
been immortalized as some of the modern era’s
[18:04] most lionized soldiers, with a reputation
of immortality that rivals the ancient Spartans.
[18:10] However, despite being celebrated as heroes
by the British public, their relationship
[18:15] with the British government has not been quite
as rosy.
[18:18] In retirement, the Gurkhas have long been
subject to unequal treatment by their British
[18:22] paymasters, their military pensions only a
fraction of what British veterans of equal
[18:27] rank received.
[18:29] Moreover, Gurkha veterans seeking to immigrate
and live in the UK, a country they had fought
[18:34] and killed for, faced significant barriers
to entry.
[18:38] After decades of protests, the British government
agreed in 2007 to start providing pay and
[18:43] pensions on par with British soldiers.
[18:46] Then, in 2009, the House of Commons passed
a motion allowing all Gurkha veterans the
[18:51] right to residence in the UK.
[18:54] In their home country of Nepal, the Gurkhas
are considered in some circles to be a source
[18:58] of national shame, a consistent drain on the
country’s best and brightest, and a major
[19:03] contributor to economic stagnation back home
. However, despite the controversies, many
[19:09] in Nepal hold the Gurkhas in high regard,
and take pride in the reputation for fearlessness
[19:15] and invincibility they have earned for the
Nepalese people on the world stage.
[19:19] Thus, it seems that for the foreseeable future,
young men throughout Nepal will continue to
[19:24] enlist in foreign Gurkha brigades, where they
will cultivate themselves into some of the
[19:29] physically and mentally toughest people on
the planet, living up to the legacy of their
[19:34] Gurkha fathers and grandfathers as the fiercest
soldiers of the modern age.
[19:39] More videos on history’s deadliest warriors
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