India to fork out $1b to US for 6 Hercules planes

NEW DELHI: In what will be the biggest defence deal with US till now, India is now firmly moving ahead to seal the contract for acquiring six C-130J 'Super Hercules' military transport planes for "special operations" at a cost of around $1 billion.

Defence ministry sources said the FMS (foreign military sale) contract — a government-to-government arrangement — for the C-130Js will be concluded "soon" since it had been catered for in the ongoing defence budget. "We are closely studying the offer after the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency notified the American Congress in May. The contract will be signed within this fiscal," said a source.

While the Left has managed to stymie the civilian nuclear deal, the UPA government has signalled that the Indo-US defence cooperation will continue unhindered despite opposition from CPM and CPI.

As earlier reported by TOI, the Indian and American armed forces have held as many as 50 joint military exercises in the last six-seven years to build "interoperability". In sharp contrast, India has held just a handful of exercises with Russia, the largest defence supplier to Indian armed forces by far.

And now, the US is aggressively trying to grab a huge chunk of the lucrative defence market in India. Talking about the impending C-130J sale to India, US said it will strengthen the bilateral "strategic relationship", which continues to be "an important force for political stability, peace, and economic progress" in South Asia.

On their part, IAF officers say the C-130Js, the latest version of Hercules with four powerful engines and greater payload-carrying capacity, will enhance India's rapid reaction capabilities.

The aircraft, which can even land on makeshift airstrips due to its rugged nature, will be used primarily for covert airlift missions for special forces. India has requested four Rolls Royce AE-2100D3 spare engines, eight AAR-47 missile warning systems, eight AN/ALR-56M advanced radar warning receivers among other equipment.

Nepalis, for sure. Indians of Nepali ethnicity, that is.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/india/rgt-gorkha.htm

The term Gurkha usually referred to soldiers of Nepalese origin who, over many generations, served in the legendary British Brigade of Gurkhas. Other regiments designated as Gurkha still served in the Indian Army as of 1991. As it has for more than 175 years, Nepal in the early 1990s served as a source of recruits for Indian and British Gurkha regiments. Retired British Gurkhas also served in specially raised security units in Singapore and Brunei.

Soldiers who served in the Royal Nepal Army usually were not called Gurkhas, although they also claimed to be the rightful heirs of many of the same martial traditions as their countrymen recruited to serve in foreign armies. The designation had no distinct ethnic connotation but derived from the name of the old kingdom of Gorkha (Gurkha), the territory that roughly encompassed the present-day district of Gorkha, in the mountains some fifty-six kilometers west of Kathmandu.

Legend had it that Gurkhas never drew their service-issued kukri (curved Nepalese knives) without drawing blood, even if it were their own. Although probably a tradition of a bygone era, the legend added immeasurably to the Gurkhas’ reputation for toughness. The exploits and legends surrounding the Gurkhas are among the more memorable of modern military history.

Robert Clive’s decisive victory at the Battle of Plassey in 1757 firmly established British supremecy in India thereby opening the door for expansion of the Honourable East India Company. Some 10 years after Plassey the British started to come into contact with a unique and vigorous power on the northern borders of its newly won territories in Bengal and Bihar. This power was the city-state of Gorkha led by its dynamic King Prithwi Narayan Shah. Gorkha was a feudal hill village in what is now western Nepal, the village from which the Gurkha takes its name. Prithwi Narayan Shah and his successors grew so powerful that they overran the whole of the hill country from the Kashmir border in the west to Bhutan in the east.

Soldiers from the kingdom of Gorkha established an international reputation for their martial qualities during the eighteenth century by their successful invasions of Tibet. As the Gorkha kingdom expanded eastward across the Himalayas to Sikkim, the king’s warriors, taken from all groups in the area, came to be known as Gurkha soldiers. Eventually, as a result of boundary disputes and repeated raids by Gurkha columns into British territory, the Governor General declared war on Nepal in 1814. After two long and bloody campaigns a Peace Treaty was signed at Sagauli in 1816.

During the war a deep feeling of mutual respect and admiration had developed between the British and their adversaries, the British being much impressed by the fighting and other qualities of the Gurkha soldier. Under the terms of the Peace Treaty large numbers of Gurkhas were permitted to volunteer for service in the East India Company’s Army. From these volunteers were formed the first regiments of the Gurkha Brigade.

The Gurkha reputation for martial prowess and obedience to authority was firmly established during the 1857-58 Sepoy Rebellion, which seriously threatened British ascendancy in South Asia. Some 9,000 Nepalese troops under Prime Minister Jang Bahadur Rana, in power from 1846-77, rendered valuable service to the British. Nepalese exploits in relieving the British resident in Lucknow made a lasting impression on British officials and strategists. Nepalese troops were awarded battle honors, and two additional regiments were raised.

Recruiting continued, and the adaptability of the Gurkha troops to various types and conditions of combat was demonstrated by their performance in the Second Afghan War (1878-80) and in the Boxer Uprising (1900). By 1908 the fabled Gurkha brigade had been formed. A flexible unit, the brigade numbered about 12,000 troops in peacetime and was organized in ten regiments, each consisting of two rifle battalions. Other Gurkha units included the Assam Rifles, Burma Rifles, Indian Armed Police, and Burma Military Police. Regiments and battalions were designated numerically. For example, the Second Battalion of the Seventh Gurkha Rifles was commonly referred to with pride by its members as the 2/7/GR.

In 1919 at the height of a civil disobedience campaign called by the Indian National Congress, Gurkha troops serving under British brigadier R.E.H. Dyer brutally suppressed a pro- independence political gathering in a walled courtyard outside the Sikh holy temple in Amritsar. Acting under Dyer’s orders, the Gurkhas killed some 300 persons and wounded approximately 1,200 others. The episode generally was considered a watershed in the Indian independence movement. The Indian public, however, held Dyer and the British government responsible for the massacre and did not blame the soldiers who carried out the order to fire on unarmed civilians.

Under a tripartite agreement signed in 1947 by Nepal, India, and Britain, the Gurkha brigade was divided between British and Indian forces. Four regiments remained in the British service, and six passed to the new Indian Army, which recruited an additional regiment for a total of seven.

Gurkhas in the service of India have also played an important and colorful role in national defense, despite the early complaints of Indian nationalists that Nepalese soldiers were acting as British mercenaries or tools of the Ranas. However critical the Indian Congress party may have been about the use of the Gurkhas by the British, their value was quickly recognized. The Rana regime sought to counter Indian criticism by specifying that Gurkhas in the Indian Army could not be used against Nepal, other Gurkha units, Hindus, or “unarmed mobs.” No restrictions were imposed, however, on their use against Muslim mobs or against external enemies, including Pakistan and China.

Gurkhas, some of whom came from Nepalese families resident in the Indian Tarai, served with distinction in India’s three wars with Pakistan (1947-48, 1965, and 1971). Many Indian Gurkhas also were stationed in the former North-East Frontier Agency (Arunachal Pradesh) when Chinese forces overran beleaguered Indian outposts along the disputed Sino-Indian frontier in 1962. A battalion served with distinction in the Congo (now Zaire) in the 1960s as part of the Indian Army contingent in the United Nations Operations in the Congo. Several battalions served with the Indian Peacekeeping Force in Sri Lanka from 1987 to 1990.

Despite Nepalese sensitivities over domestic and foreign criticism of allowing foreign armies to recruit “mercenaries” in Nepal, various Gurkha units continued to serve outside Nepal in the early 1990s. British recruiters attracted the best candidates for military service because of improved prospects for advancement and higher pay. Those unable to land positions in the Brigade of Gurkhas usually opted to serve in the Indian Army, leaving the Royal Nepal Army with the remaining large pool of recruits from which to choose.

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