8 Gorkha Rifles - 150th Anniversary

The 8 Gorkha Rifles is a Gorkha regiment of the Indian Army comprising Gurkha soldiers of Nepalese origin.. It was raised in 1824 as part of the British East India Company and later transferred to the British Indian Army after the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The regiment served in World War I and World War II, before being one of the Gurkha regiments transferred to the Indian Army after independence in 1947. Since then it has served in a number of conflicts including the Sino-Indian War of 1962 and the Indo-Pakistan wars of 1965 and 1971. Today the 8th Gorkha Rifles is one of the most celebrated regiments of the Indian Army, having received numerous citations for bravery in the field of battle, and even producing one of the two field marshals, Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, of the Indian Army.
The "Shiny Eight", as the regiment is popularly known in the Gorkha fraternity of the Indian Army, can trace its history back to the 16th Sylhet Local Battalion, which was raised in 1824 as part of the British East India Company and since then the identity of the Regiment has undergone a number of transitions before reaching its present designation as the 8 Gorkha Rifles, which it achieved in 1907.