Since the Gurkha safety valve cannot operate indefinitely, it would be wise to start planning for the day when it will close. The announced reduction of British Gurkha down to two battalions is a warning.
Gurkha recruitment has allowed successive Kathmandu regimes over the last two centuries to evade the challenges of developing the national economy. With the best and the brightest of the mountain people finding easy escape into Gurkha regiments and their high volume remittances helping maintain the economy of the hills, there has been little incentive to push hard for developing the Nepali heartland.
The sun has long set on the British Empire, and it is waning on the British Brigade of Gurkhas. Thankfully, the rumblings thus far have emanated from London and not New Delhi, whose military and pare-military forces employ more than ten times the number of Nepalis than the 8,000 presently with the British Gurkhas. But it is entirely possible that India might, for economic, strategic or internal political reasons, decide one day to reduce, or eliminate altogether, the enlistment of Nepalis from Nepal into its military and pars-military forces.
THE MARKET