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NepalRelations with Britain
Nepalese-British relations spanned more than two
centuries and
generally were friendly and mutually rewarding
(see
From the Anglo-Nepalese War to World War II
, ch. 5). Since the Treaty of
Sagauli
of 1816, when Britain began recruiting Gurkha troops, the
British
have had continuous official representation in Kathmandu.
In 1855
a convention required the Rana prime ministers to seek
unofficial
British confirmation before assuming the powers of their
office.
The Ranas offered military assistance to the British
during the
Second Sikh War (1848-49), the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857,
World War
I (1914-18), and World War II (1939-45). During the Rana
period,
Nepal recognized Britain's leadership in foreign relations
through
numerous treaties and agreements. The Treaty of Sagauli
was
superseded in 1923 by the Treaty of Perpetual Peace and
Friendship,
which reconfirmed Nepal's independent status and remained
virtually
unchanged until Britain's paramountcy over India ended in
1947 and
India inherited Britain's historic interest in Nepal.
Britain
endorsed Nepal as a zone of peace in 1980.
A minor irritant in the steady relationship between
Kathmandu
and London was Britain's policy, begun in the late 1980s,
of
gradually phasing out its employment of Gurkha soldiers.
Remittances from the Gurkhas based in Britain and Hong
Kong served
as a stable source of foreign exchange earnings for Nepal.
The
dismissal in 1988 of more than 100 Gurkha soldiers based
in Hong
Kong caused such a furor in Nepal that the British
minister of
state for army supply visited Kathmandu. The minister
stated that
the incident was atypical and that the 5,000 Gurkhas
stationed in
Hong Kong would be maintained and assigned to Britain,
Brunei, and
elsewhere after 1997 when Hong Kong reverted to China.
Britain
announced in 1989, however, that the strength of the
British
Brigade of Gurkhas would be cut by 50 percent.
Data as of September 1991
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