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Security forces are always been one of the major components of a nation’s security from ancient times to this modern era. Among them also, every nation mostly deploys a national army for most of the security roles and responsibilities. As primarily, the army of any country is responsible for the safeguarding of freedom, territorial integrity, sovereignty, and independence along with the nationality and dignity of the respective nation. But with the rapidly changing military practices and geo-political scenario, the role of the national army around the planet has changed drastically in past times, where roles like infrastructure development and nature conservation of the nation along with disaster management and many more according to the need of the relative nation are added in the list for the army around the globe. Along with the existing primary roles, all of these additional roles and responsibilities received with the changing time and situation are the present-day challenges and lessons to learn for all the military forces around the world in order to formulate modern military mechanisms for the transformation and modernization of its different units or wings, troops, weapons, and equipment.
History of the Nepali Army
The Nepali Army, the highly decorated military organization of the motherland, Nepal, with a history of over 250 years, seems to be an active organization since 1744 AD. The military organization which was established with the establishment of four companies in the year 1744 AD is presently having a total number of troops of about 97,000 who are serving the motherland under different units from command to company, while as a whole controlled by the army headquarters. To this day, the Nepali Army has been through a huge revolution in the field of modern military development and progress which took place in different phases in the past and is still continuous.
While going through the brief history of Nepal, the changes and the development of the Nepal Army seems to be very much progressive with time though those phases consist of both up and down, pros and cons as well. Ultimately, the Nepali Army’s progressive turnaround took place along with the start of the unification campaign for the Great Nepal which was led by the late King Prithvi Narayan Shah who is also known as the ‘Father of the Modern Nepali Army’. He led the process of the great reformation of the Nepali Army at that age as he was well known for the fact that there is no substitute for a properly trained and well-equipped soldier for his dream project of Unification of Nepal for which army was organized in Gorkha, while foreign technician and experts were brought from abroad for the essential training and manufacture of war materials, equipment, and ammunitions. Though there exists a history of the army and activities related to its reformation and development since the tenure of King Ram Shah of Gorkha during 1700’s BS which was later followed by his successor Shah Kings and after the unification campaign of Nepal still the time monarchy was overthrown in Nepal.
In the present context, the Nepali Army has continued to adopt and accept the challenges of the modern military era. The Nepali Army, which was initiated with a few hundred infantry troops in the past, has different trades and wings at present days like that of engineers, artillery, signal, and mechanical infantry which are very essential components of the modern army. Along with its primary role, the Nepali Army has been instrumental in the construction of a large number of roads and bridges along the plain of Terai to rugged mountainous terrain up to the base of the Himalayas for the last two decades and more. Similarly, as being in peacetime, the Nepali Army has also focused on nature conservation under the provision of the government of Nepal which has immensely assisted Nepal in the protection and conservation of flora and fauna. At present days almost all of the national parks, conservation areas, and wildlife reserves are being protected by the Nepali Army, while disaster management has been another field in which the Nepali Army has professionalized themselves with both skilled manpower and modern equipment, which was well tested during the earthquake of 2072 BS and other different natural disasters that occur every year around different parts of the country.
Modernization of the Nepali Army
All of the above additional responsibilities always have a positive impact on the Nepali Army. Moreover, these roles are working as lessons learned for the whole organization. So, in order to meet the standard to deal with the above-mentioned tasks, the Nepali Army has been conducting and participating in several training sessions at national and international levels in order to enhance and improve the individual skills of the soldier and the overall professionalism of the whole organization which includes exercise like ‘Ex#SuryaKiran’, ‘Cambrian Patrol’ and many more training and classes related to environment conservation and disaster management. As in the past time, the Nepali Army was all about fighting battles and wars, but the geo-political scenario completely changed for Nepali Army during the last quarter of the 20th century which is followed by the end of the civil war in Nepal and the process of modernization has also taken place on the same proportion.
Moreover, it’s very important to understand the fact that the modernization of the army is not just about modern arms and equipment but it also includes factors related to logistics supply and other basic as well as secondary requirements of the soldier along with other facilities that push or encourages each soldier towards their respective roles and responsibilities. In these fields, the Nepali Army has modernized and progressed to a great extent, which includes well-equipped training schools and qualified trainers for different trades or wings exist in the Nepali Army, such as engineering, artillery, signal to modern health facilities, well-balanced diets and uniforms according to the terrain and weather for each of the soldier, and many more facilities to mention related with their families as well.
Presently, the Nepali Army has inked another page of the book of modernization of the Nepali Army with the replacement of old SLR and INSAS by K2C series weapons at different units, which is estimated as one of the best and most appropriate reformations in the Nepali Army in recent days. And it has gone under 3 in 1 command formation for the betterment and more efficient execution of its day-to-day administrative activities, as well as in order to decentralize the operational task from the highest to the lowest unit around the country. In this manner, since the early time period, the progressive march of the Nepali Army has always moved in the forward direction. Even though the indicator of the speedometer of development and progress has been left and right during different phases of time in the past, the progressive manner has never changed for the Nepali Army in both the field i.e. arms and equipment, as well as the overall professionalism of the Nepali Army as a military organization.
As in the modern era, progressive reformation and development in the field of modern arms and equipment along with skilled manpower have no other substitute for the Nepali Army. Moreover, as per the geographical conditions of Nepal which is mostly a hilly landscape, professionally sized forces based on the concept of ‘lightly equipped and highly mobile’ are most effective for addressing external aggression as well as internal security challenges which include protection of social and wildlife environment and operation related with disaster management. Similarly, its appropriate time for the Nepali Army as the foremost security organization of the nation to review all of its infrastructure developed over the period of time, training, and working mechanism practiced these days at different levels and units in order to know whether all of those practices and mechanism are efficient and appropriate in the present context or not. And if not, they need to be addressed and replaced by the most suitable modern concept and mechanism which are reliable for the army of a nation like Nepal. Also, the decentralization of power and administrative workload within its different units is very much essential for the professional wise development of the Nepali Army which needs to be addressed to a higher extent than that of nowadays. Instead of trying to practice and follow large countries’ military practices, the Nepali Army should have to be focused on military practices which are prolonged and adopted by other small and landlocked countries around the world having similar geographical landscapes as that of Nepal for the best execution of military operations and practices. Moreover, as peacetime roles of the army are being developed as major roles these days, it is very essential for the governing body of the Nepali Army to focus in order to make the army well-equipped and well-skilled for participating in different nation-building projects, to conserve both social and wildlife environment and to deal with sudden disaster occurring within the country.
Conclusion
Since the time of the establishment of the Nepali Army, with the assistance of all the reformations and developments that occurred within the army, it’s very much fair to say that this military organization has always evolved as one of the leading actors in many of roles and responsibilities related to security purposes that are being handover by the government of Nepal. In a similar manner, it has still continued to evolve and maintained its pace of progress in the field of modern arms and equipment, which will ultimately lead the Nepali Army in the direction of becoming strong military power in the South Asian region with sufficient skilled manpower and efficient as well as enough modern arms and ammunition. So, all of these aspects concludes that the modernization process of the Nepali Army has been running on a different scale at different period of time since its establishment, which was as per the geo-political and economic situation of Nepal at that particular period of time. In the present scenario where world politics and military practices are evolving with new and modern techniques and tactics every day, it’s very much essential for a country like Nepal to modernize its army at its best level in order to safeguard the freedom, territorial integrity, sovereignty, and independence along with its nationality and dignity.
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