Preparations have begun once again for talks with the UK government to address the demands of former British Gurkhas. Minister-level talks, which had not taken place since 27 March 2024, are scheduled for next week.
London-based Acting Ambassador Bipin Duwadi informed that a trilateral meeting between the governments of the UK and Nepal and representatives of the Gurkhas has been fixed for 16 December, in the afternoon, at the Ministry of Defence. The meeting will take place from 2:30 PM to 3:15 PM at the MOD building. The talks will be led by UK Veterans Minister Lewis Sander Jones on the British side, and Acting Ambassador Duwadi on behalf of the Nepal government. A few Gurkha representatives will also attend.
The UK government had repeatedly insisted that meeting the demand for equal pensions would require around £1.5 billion, which it could not afford. As a result, the former Gurkhas and the Nepal government have agreed to move ahead with the concept of an “affordable pension,” entering a new phase of negotiations.
Ahead of the minister-level meeting, the Group of Ten (G10), which includes various Gurkha organizations, held a meeting at the Nepali Embassy on Wednesday and prepared a draft of the agenda to be presented.
The meeting’s agenda on the “affordable pension” includes the following demands:
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A one-time payment equivalent to 15 years of pension
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Allowing those who retired after 1997 to switch from the Armed Forces Pension Scheme to the Gurkha Pension Scheme (GPS) if they wish
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A one-off package for those who retired under redundancy
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State pension for those who served more than 10 years
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Preserved pension for those who served at least 5 years since 1975
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Preserved pension for the 121 Gurkhas who were repatriated during the air incident
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Welfare and other non-financial issues are also included
The number of former Gurkhas, including widows, is currently estimated at around 16,000.
Acting Ambassador Bipin Duwadi said he is working to “break the ice” in a way that strengthens bilateral relations between Nepal and the UK while protecting the dignity of both the State and the Gurkhas. He said he has held three meetings over the past month with the G10-affiliated Gurkha representatives to reach a common understanding.
After Ambassador Chandra Ghimire was recalled by the Nepal government, Acting Ambassador Duwadi met with officials from the UK Ministry of Defence and several MPs, including Alex Baker, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Nepal, to seek support on the Gurkha issue. He also has scheduled meetings with Baker and other MPs on 17 December.
Krishna Bahadur Rai, Chief Coordinator of the Gurkha Satyagraha Joint Struggle Committee, said that since insisting on “equal pension like British soldiers” has yielded no results—like the Nepali saying “my ox is all horns”—a new strategy is being used to secure rights from the UK.
Former Gurkhas have been agitating for nearly 35 years, demanding that the UK government provide them pensions equal to British soldiers.
In 2016, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled in favour of the UK government, stating that there was no discrimination in the pension system. Following this verdict, only diplomatic and political avenues remain.
Gurkha activists Gyanraj Rai, Dhan Gurung, and Pushpa Rana Ghale had staged a hunger strike outside the British Prime Minister’s Office. After the UK government agreed to enter talks, they ended their hunger strike on the 13th day (19 August 2021).
Despite a dozen meetings at the technical level and nearly half a dozen ministerial talks over the past four years and three months during the trilateral process, the issue of former Gurkhas has yet to be resolved. Earlier, on 22 March 2018, both governments and the Gurkha representatives held staged meetings and submitted a 13-point technical report, but it has not been fully implemented.
