Is this Assam Rifles sword based on a European design?

[Jim McDougall]

Ulfberth is of course spot on with the identification on this most well known French cavalry sabre form, and the later adoption by the Russians.
It is indeed most curious to see a French influence rather than the expected British in regions of Assam.
I am wondering, even if tenuously, if the French presence in Indo-China (now Viet Nam) might have in some way contributed to this interesting sabre of Gurkha units. While the British presence in SE Asia was of course well established, Indo-China was distinctly French, thus predominantly influenced Vietnamese swords of military forms and in degree other.

It seems many SE Asian anomalies extended westward to the Indian subcontinent, and I have even seen katanas from these areas and of course Japanese infuences filter into incidental presence in India. Some years ago I recall trying to discover what in the world a katana was doing in a grouping classified from India