Why weren’t madhesis historically allowed in Nepal army?

10 thoughts on “Why weren’t madhesis historically allowed in Nepal army?”

2. Madhesis were not even considered as citizens. Just look at the first Muluki Ain. When Junga Bahadur thought so much about people, whether or not they can drink water from this person or not, or can they have sex with this person or not. It doesn’t talk about Madhesis. It mentions Jha Brahmins, and few other upper caste people too. But the majority of the masses nope. If you do not even consider them as your citizens how do they get to join Nepal Army.

   People get pissed, angry, and rebellious when i say this but **Nepal is a country that is systematically built from caste relations upon which classes of people are formed.** In Nepal just because of geography two groups were oppressed, the people from Terai (not using Madhesi because Tharu people are too oppressed) & people from western Nepal.

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3. Please scroll down to last paragraph for TLDR.

   Ok, so I need to apologize to everyone. I was writing on mobile while walking purely from memory and didn’t bother to check the information beforehand. Please check the corrections section below TLDR as well.

   Hmm. I think the perspective is a bit flawed here because it’s never mentioned in social studies or anything. But basically until 1945 or 1946, the majority of Tarai used to belong to the British Raj. The British Raj gave the current size of Tarai (roughly 70-80%?) back to Nepal as a reward for Chandra Shumsher choosing to help Britain in World War 2 by sending more Gorkhalis. So, maybe the people who were talking to you forgot to mention that a huge portion of Madhesh Pradesh used to fall under British Raj hence the visa requirement. Also since basically 90% of Indians perceive that majority of Nepal is basically Madhesh Pradesh. A huge portion of Indians incorrectly believe that Nepal split off from India in 1945-46 when modern Nepal was actually formed in 1770s instead of 1946 which modern India was.

   Also from what I read, the core of Nepal, the hills. They are very steep and hard to navigate. That is still true now where we have modern vehicles and asphalt roads. Imagine back then when there weren’t even any roads! Journals of Governor Marquis Hastings note how his campaigning the first expedition due to Malla king of Kathmandu asking for help against Gorkha siege in Nepal around was disastrous from the start because even the elephants who are supposed to be the kings of off road wasn’t very useful in Nepal to cross the steep hills. Instead they had to dig the hill to make it less steep and push the cannon carrying elephants uphill and they had to repeat this countless times. Hilly Nepalese kingdom where they massively rely on infantry armies instead of even just cavalry which was massively restricted because of the terrain. They never even touched on using elephants at all.

   However if you look at Anglo-Nepal 1814-16 war which occurred nearly half a century later, the Nepalis used elephants with chinese style jingal guns (wall mounted fortress musket) to basically turn the elephant into a siege weapon and used it to penetrate the British makeshift fortress wall’s defences in the southern front and destroy their gunpowder ammunition cache. The Nepalis were using hit and run tactics with elephants and whether back then or till this day or in the Rana period, the masters of the elephants have always been the people of Tarai/Madhesh. Not to mention that the Anglo Nepal war was a four pronged attack from the British with two armies at the eastern front regarding Sikkim, one from central Terai and one from the far Western front which is somewhere around Jammu and Kashmir or East of that. If you look at it in terms of numbers, it would have simply been impossible to raise soldiers purely from just original Kathmandu and Gorkha territories to garrison and defend all of these locations thus it is highly probable that they raised garrisons from the local population including Madheshi compatriots to defend the local areas while still having pahadi Gorkha core commanding officers.

   Also at the end of the war, the British created the first “1st Royal Gorkha Rifles” regiment from the dismissed Nepali soldiers belonging to the territories that Nepal lost in 1816. (They were most likely dismissed because now their home territory belongs to the enemy). In 1816 the British also took a significant portion of Tarai because that is also where majority of Nepali fortresses were which were threatening the British because it would make British invasion into Nepal difficult and yet it would always bring fears of a Nepalese invasion as it made invasion and logistics simpler for the Nepalese. Thus we lost a significant portion of not only Far Western Nepal and Sikkim territories (which is taught) but also a majority of Tarai territories (which isn’t taught) in history. The fact that they were able to raise local soldiers from the captured territories for 1st Royal Gorkha Rifles must mean that the Gorkha army had utilized Sikkim, Far West and Madheshi people in their army.

   TL:DR; the visa requirements were most likely not due to pure discrimination (although I’m not saying it didn’t exist entirely) but probably due to a significant portion of Terai (60-80%) being lost to the British Raj in the aftermath of Anglo-Nepal war 1816 along with Sikkim and Far Far Western Nepal. Then for helping the British in WW2, British returned most of the current Tarai territory back to Chandra Shumsher in 1946 as a gift / reward. So the passport was probably to check whether they were from inside the new Nepali border or outside. 1816 till 1945 is basically a century and a half. Before 1816, it’s highly probable that Gorkha Imperium employed Madheshi soldiers as well as Sikkim soldiers (though not sure about Far Far West). The proof of this can be taken as Gorkhali army using war elephants armed with fortress wall muskets, the jingal guns on elephants to turn them into a ranged mobile siege tower. And the pahadi kingdoms most likely had no experiences with elephants but only the people of Tarai area. Even during the Rana period, all the hunting from elephant back areas were all in Terai proving the unrivalled expertise of the Madheshi people regarding elephants as well as the fact that 1st Royal Gorkha Rifles of the British were entirely recruited from former soldiers belonging to the newly lost territories of Nepal which would mean they would have to be either Far Far Western, Madheshi or Sikkim former Gorkhali soldiers.

   Correction:

   1. Like someone else said, the British had difficulty governing the land or something thus they returned the majority of the eastern Tarai lands in 1816 CE which was only lost in 1815 CE. All the Terai lands between the rivers of Kushwaha and Gandak.

   2. Ranas came to power around 1846. After the Indian mutiny of 1860s, because of Jungabahadur’s support in putting that mutiny down. In 1860 treaty, they returned Banke, Bardiya, Kailali and Kanchanpur. This is the majority of current Sudurpaschim province. Although in the articles of the treaty it also mentions giving the district of Gorakhpur to Nepali Maharaja. I do not know how true this is or how much they gave because we do not have maps showing the before and after territories of the treaties.

   3. Chandra Shumsher was WW1 and not WW2. So I confused the treaty of 1860 with Chandra Sumsher’s 1923 treaty with Britain and Nepal. That treaty gave us international independence and sovereignty as well as free reign of our foreign policy. It did not give any lands. I mistakenly believed that it did give lands and I thought Chandra Sumsher was WW2 so 1946 instead of 1923.

   So technically speaking although our west and east bothers have always been mechi and mahakali. We did lose 60-80% of our modern Tarai lands in 1815. But the parts containing Madheshi brothers were returned soon after 1 year which is 1816. So I cannot answer why mukti alin had no mentions of Madheshi or why people there required visa. Were these people talking about only after 1816? Or were they talking about as far as 1850 to 1940? I cannot answer that. I think someone else mentioning that Tarai back then were full of Malarial jungles instead of vast Madheshi cities could also be plausibly a valid answer. But I also think that the presence of war elephants in the 1810s Gorkha Imperium proves that Nepal did employ Madheshi soldiers in its national armies and garrisons.

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4. me self being a madheshi wants to say wtf were they doing in durga prasai aandolan, jo aafno hak ko lagi ladna sakdaina, tyo 4-5 hazar ma bikera raja aau desh bachau. tbh madheshi people have least brotherhood is what i want to say.

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5. Racism. Next question, please.

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6. >for them

   not just for them, for everyone.

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7. That visa thing was for everyone from outside of Kathmandu valley. They would be issued 15 day permit which could not be extended.

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8. Because when Raja will “aao” he will “desh bachao”

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9. Simply, they are not loyal, trustworthy. Believe it or not. Dont call me racist! Based on my experience.

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10. That’s because people of hilly and mountain reason had undeveloped pea sized brains due to low oxygen at higher altitude.

    There seems no other logical explanation. 🙂 🙂 🙂

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    EDIT: Still those pea sized brains have not developed it seems.

    The post was about something in long past, and people today got offended!!!! and this proves the brains are still pea sized.

    If people had really improved and gone above the racism, classism, and other forms of animal thinking, my comment shouldn’t have offended them. They should have replied “it was in the past, not today”. But the evidence of underdeveloped pea sized brain is aplenty in below comments.

    EDIT 2: It seems my comment is still burning people.. 

    In the past Nepalese were known for loyalty, honesty and bravery, but that has changed in today’s context. Even people abroad don’t trust Nepalese anymore, the most elaborate thugs are Nepalese and Nepalese are looted by Nepalese.

    And also people on r/nepal should read new more, news of people of Nepal actually selling Nepal can be found on daily basis, and extremely extremely rarely the sellers are Madhesi people. So we know who is more loyal to Nepal anyway.

    And one more thing, people commenting here should know what the term MADHESI means. FYI it does not denote to cast or creed of People, its actually a name for geographical region. And people living in that region despite being any cast or race or origin are MADHYADESHIS, yes its MADHYADESHI not MADHESI !!!!!!

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11. Madhes Janta bhana bhai. Madhesi na bhana.

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