As the impasse over recruiting Gorkha soldiers from Nepal into the Indian Army continues, their brethren in the United Kingdom have opened a new chapter: the British Army has raised an artillery regiment composed exclusively of Gurkhas.
Named the King’s Gurkha Artillery (KGA) by King Charles III, the unit held its ‘Kasam Khane Parade’ for the first batch of 20 recruits directly selected from Nepal at Larkhill Camp in south-west England on April 20. Once trained, these Gurkha gunners will take part in exercises and operations in the UK and abroad. (The British Army spells the name as “Gurkha”.)
The 400-strong KGA was announced in 2025 and will be built up over the next four years, with first transfers of existing Gurkhas beginning this spring, according to the Gurkha Brigade Association. The new regiment initially formed at Larkhill, home of the Royal Artillery, and will expand to include further batteries over the next three to four years.
The association described the KGA as a fitting blend of two historic, proud organisations that will enhance the British Army’s fighting power and combat effectiveness. The KGA will provide close artillery support as part of the Royal Artillery and offer new opportunities to soldiers of the Brigade of Gurkhas, adding depth and diversity to artillery capabilities.
Currently, the British Brigade of Gurkhas numbers about 4,000 troops and includes the Royal Gurkha Rifles (three infantry battalions), Queen’s Gurkha Engineers, Queen’s Gurkha Signals, the Band of the Brigade of Gurkhas, Queen’s Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment, and Gurkha Staff and Personnel Support. These troops are recruited from Nepal, and officers assigned to Gurkha units, like Indian Army Gorkha Rifles officers, are required to learn Nepali.
The Gorkha/Gurkha legacy dates to the Anglo-Nepalese war of 1814–1816, after which Gurkhas began to be recruited into the British East India Company. For over two centuries they have served with distinction worldwide; more than 200,000 Gurkhas served with the British Indian Army in the two World Wars.
The Indian Army’s First Battalion of the First Gorkha Rifles (1/1GR), originally the 1st King George V’s Own Gurkha Rifles, is the oldest Gorkha battalion, raised in April 1815 under the East India Company’s Bengal Army. After India’s independence in 1947, four of the ten Gurkha regiments (2nd, 6th, 7th and 10th) were transferred to the British Army. In 1994 those four were amalgamated into the Royal Gurkha Rifles. The six regiments allotted to the Indian Army were reorganised as 1 Gorkha Rifles, 3GR, 4GR, 5GR, 8GR and 9GR; a seventh, 11GR, was raised in 1948 to include troops from the four British units who chose to remain in India. Each regiment, highly decorated, typically has five to six battalions consisting mostly of Nepal-domiciled troops.
A 1947 Tripartite Agreement among India, Nepal and the United Kingdom set terms for Gorkhas serving in the Indian and British armed forces. It stipulated that Gorkha soldiers would be recruited as Nepali citizens and broadly enjoy the same service conditions and emoluments as other soldiers in the two armies.
However, recruitment of Gorkha troops from Nepal has been suspended since 2020. The post-Covid intake hiatus was followed by India’s Agnipath scheme, which introduced short-term four-year enlistments instead of longer careers. Nepal rejected Agnipath for its citizens, saying it violated the tripartite agreement and raised concerns about veterans’ re-employability after four years.
The recruitment pause has strategic implications for India and socio-economic consequences for Nepal, and has been the subject of high-level discussions between the two countries. Before the halt, about 32,000 Gorkha troops served in the Indian Army at any time, with annual intake from Nepal reported at roughly 1,500–1,800 recruits and similar numbers retiring each year.
At independence, 90% of troops in Gorkha battalions were Nepal-domiciled, with 10% Indian-domiciled; that ratio has shifted to about 60:40 as intake of India-domicile Gorkhas increased. Even before the 2020 recruitment crisis, the Indian Army had started raising units made up exclusively of India-domiciled Gorkhas—beginning with the sixth battalion of the First Gorkha Rifles in 2016 at Subathu in Himachal Pradesh, the first new Gorkha battalion in 50 years.
