The famed Gorkha Rifles, the renowned Nepalese warriors who formed an important part of imperial British and then modern Indian forces, were first formed two hundred years ago on April 24, 1815.
The origin of the Gurkha warriors in the British army dates back to the Anglo-Nepalese War of 1814-1816. At this time, the British East India Company (EIC) was expanding its territories in the subcontinent and had recently acquired what is today’s Uttar Pradesh, bringing it to the borders of the Gorkha or Nepali state. Nepal originated from the medieval Gorkha state in west-central Nepal. Prior to the 18th century, what is today’s Nepal was a patchwork of independent hill states, many of which were tributary to their larger neighbors in India or Tibet. In the wake of disintegration of the Mughal Empire, Prithvi Narayan Shah, king of Gorkha,conquered most of the Himalayan region of South Asia and began to expand outwards into the plains of northern India. The conquest of Kathmandu in the Newar or Nepal valley in 1768 gave the kingdom a new capital and eventually the Gorkha kingdom was named Nepal after the valley where its capital was located. Prior to this, the term Nepal only referred to a series of kingdoms in the Kathmandu valley.
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