Sanjeev Chopra
In his Foreword to Col Ajay K Raina’s book , ‘Beyond the Frozen Frontier : General Zorawar Singh’s Life & His Forays Into the Himalayan Mountains’ , military historian and film maker Shiv Kumal Verma asserts that if one looked at the challenge of the terrain, and the logistics of warfare, Zorarwar was miles ahead of the contemporary French general Napolean who , like him added many a principality to his domain, but finally lost to an adversary called ‘General Winter’. Like Napolean , Zorawar also extended his battle zone well beyond his established supply lines – a lesson which historians have reinforced from the Gibbon’s narrative in the ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’.
‘Beyond the Frozen Frontier’ is not only very well researched ; its strength also lies in opening newer avenues for younger scholars to track hitherto unassessed manuscripts and folios , not just in the Bharat Kala Bhawan in the BHU at Kashi , but also the many unexplored bundles of historical records in the Mubarak mandi Complex in Jammu. Reading the book also gives us an idea of the very complex times in which Zorawar was born . For though he was born into the Kahluria Hindu Rajput family in the princely state of Kahlur (Bilaspur) in the present-day Himachal Pradesh in September 1784 he was named ‘Zorawar’ , a Persian word which means victory . And victorious he was in all but his last campaign . Raina also shows how the late eighteenth century was an amalgam of so many influences in the region of the present-day Punjab, Himachal J&K and Ladakh. From the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries there had been a keen ‘spiritual’ as well as ‘temporal’ contest between Shia Islam and Buddhists , but by the early seventeenth century , Leh saw the resurgence of Buddhism, while in the rest of the areas the Noorbakshia Islam became the norm . This was also an arena of multiple contests : the Sikhs under Ranjit Singh, the remnants of the Afghans ,the growing power and influence of British in the cis Sutlej areas of Punjab and hill states , the Tibetan Gyalpos in Ladakh with the Chinese and Nepalese also trying to protect their turf at Taklakot on the Manasarovar route. And though both Jammu and Kashmir were under the Sikh Durbar of Lahore, their respective governors were often at loggerheads with each other over the control of the extremely profitable Pashmina trade .
Zorawar was just a lad of fifteen when Ranjeet Singh took over the Lahore kingdom , and expanded it towards Afghanistan and Kashmir because Sutlej River to the East was his settled boundary with the British. But Zorawar was not a direct recruit of the Khalsa army . He had taken up service under Raja Jaswant Singh of Marmathi (modern Doda district and placed under the commandant of the Reasi fort (Bhimgarh fort). According to G C Smyth ‘While delivering a routine message to the Gulab Singh, Zorawar told him of the financial waste occurring in the fort administration and boldly presented his own scheme to effect savings by making a provision for cooked meals , instead of dry rations for the soldiers. Gulab Singh was impressed by Zorawar’s sincerity and appointed him commandant of Reasi.
Zorawar Singh fulfilled his task and his grateful ruler made him commissariat officer of all forts north of Jammu. He was later made governor of Kishtwar and was given the title of Wazir (minister . Thus, by his mid-thirties , he had gained the confidence of Gulab Singh, who in turn was the rising star of the Lahore Durbar . Soon thereafter he was appointed as the Governor of Kishtwar, whose boundaries touched principalities Kargil and Leh which paid tribute to the Gyalpo of Ladakh (King). In 1834 one of these, the Raja of Timbus, sought Zorawar’s help against the Gyalpo. This was just the opportune moment Zorawar was looking for , although the hagiographic account Gulab Nama in honour of Gulab Singh mentions the drought in Kishtwar which led Zorawar to extract food reserves, ponies and treasures through war. In the spring of 1835, he defeated the large Ladakhi army of Banko Kahlon and marched his victorious troops towards Leh. The Gyalpo now agreed to pay 50,000 rupees as war-indemnity and 20,000 rupees as an annual tribute to the Lahore Durbar .
After winning Ladakh , Zorawar Singh was presented to Ranjit Singh, and together with Gulab Singh they sought permission to invade Tibet which would have extended the borders of the Sikh kingdom with the Hindu kingdom of Nepal – a possibility which sent shivers down the spine of the British. However, Ranjit Singh advised both Gulab Singh and Zorawar to exercise restraint . But this fiat did not apply to Baltistan, which was taken by the Dogra troops supplemented with Ladakhi contingents who had been recruited by Zorawar , and by the winter of 1839/40 the fort of Skardu which was captured followed by that of Astor .After the death of Ranjit Singh , Gulab Singh left Lahore for Jammu, and was virtually ‘independent’ of the Durbar. This is when Zorawar mounted his Tibet campaign achieving victories right up to Taklakot . In hindsight, it appears that this is the place where he ought to have stopped and consolidated . But when he left for his pilgrimage to Mansarovar, his flanks were exposed, and he died a fighter’s death in the peak winter of 1841 ( December 12, 1842). Such was the terror that the Tibetans waited for a while before approaching his dead body, after which they severed his head from his body and cut his ears : they feared that his body may have some ‘magical powers’ of resurrection . But he had fought so bravely that even the Tibetan adversaries decided to honour him with a chortem (memorial). But within a few weeks of his death, the famous treaty of Chushul was signed which proclaimed ‘ the relationship between Maharaja Gulab Singh of J&K and the Lama Guru of Lhasa (Dalai Lama ) is now established’ and that both promise to ‘recognize ancient boundaries which should be looked after by each side without resorting to warfare.’
But though Zorawar was dead, his legend lived on, and the Dogra troops have always looked up to him for inspiration . this heritage was acknowledge by Field Marshal William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim who wrote : The Dogra proved themselves yet again a hardened and courageous fighter. Like his predecessors, he has been proud of his military heritage and has shown himself well versed in the art of war. Nor did he fail to live up to his age-old reputation of combining courage with modesty and good manners as a gentleman should. I know from personal experience that in an army with many fine battalions, the Dogras have not merely upheld their brilliant reputation, but have added lustre to the pages of history of both their own regiment and of the Indian Army.
(The author is ex-Director LBSNAA)
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