Sat Parkash Suri
Zorawar Singh’s memory is enshrined in the pages of India’s mountain warfare history. He as a celeberated army commander was the confluence of exemplary courage and fortitutde, of intellectual brilliance, soldierly bravery, ever ready to accept challenges and a patriot par excellence. The person who revolutionized military organization and training, Zorawar Singh belonged to a remote village Ansar who proudly used to say by thumping his chest that Jammu was his real home town. He criss-crossed all odds against him, became a close confidante of Gulab Singh by dint of hard labour and shrewed manouvres. Zorawar Singh was later on promoted as the Governor of Kishtwar by Gulab Singh and from this spring board, he along with his five thousand men invaded Ladakh, Baltistan and reached Central Tibet. His name assumes great significance because Zorawar Singh even superceded Napolean in his military campaigns and annexations of the rugged territories hitherto unconquered. Zorawar Singh has no other alternative and no exception in India’s warfare history
To keep his tight grip over the vast and completely disparate regions- Jammu, Kashmir, Ladakh and Balwaristan, Gulab Singh assembled around him a galaxy of talented and administratively most accomplished personalities and one of them was Zorawar Singh Kahluria, an intrepid and loyal Wazir. Indian history stands as a witness to the fact that no Indian ruler howsoever powerful might be ever dreamt of conquering Ladakh and Baltistan or even expanded India’s territories beyond the Northern Highlands of the Himalayas.
The expeditions conducted by Zorawar Singh were by no means an easy task as he had to climb rugged terrain, steep snow-capped cliffs of unusual heights where oxygen was so rare to inhale breath and to cross the swollen rivers on inflated animal skins, was completely a herculean task. After his conquests and reconquests of territories in the Northern Highlands, Zorawar Singh firmly established and achieved eminence in the court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh as an intrepid General.
Gulab Singh had a dream , a passion to establish and to expand his fiefdom since his youth and Zorawar Singh with the impassioned zeal of an explorer determinedly translated his worthy mentor Gulab Singh’s dream into flesh and blood
Ranjit Singh’s death in June 1839 initiated the process of Sikh Empire’s downfall because of internal strife among the heirs of Maharaja Ranjit Singh for the war of succession to the throne. After the first Anglo-Sikh war fought at Subraon in February 1845 that proved a Waterloo for the Lahore Durbar, one of late ruler Ranjit Sngh’chief lieutenants and war strategists, Gulab Singh exploited the situation in his favour to advance his own political career. Gulab Singh through his sagacity, ability and far-sighted vision and through his superb diplomacy which was the forte of the British, founded the composite state of Jammu and Kashmir.
The greatest merit of Zorawar Singh character was that he had no selfish motive and no love for materialism accept only to extend boundaries on the Indian map. His phenomenal victory in subjugating the inaccessible coldest regions of Ladakh, Balitstan and Tibet were welcomed as accomplishments in India’s military history by his contemporaries. His war-like strategy coupled with undaunted zeal for adventures that involved hazards helped him to achieve impossible for his master, Gulab Singh.
With Kishtwar under his control, ‘Zorawar Singh could not resist the temptation of conquering the adjoining Ladakh, ‘The Moon-Land’ country of Buddhis Lamas popular for its queer sects and mysterious monastriess. Baltistan, Ladakh and Naris (Western Tibet) were at that time closed to the civilized world and were dreaded as mysterious lands of enchantment and Tantric practices. Zorawar Singh undaunted by such supposedly formidable occult forces which could herald obstacles in his progress into the less known regions of the lofty Himalayas covered with century old snows and nor could the extreme difficult and rugged terrain cool down his enthusiasm for going ahead into Asia’s most esoteric and queer midlands
The Dogra army of Zorawar Singh faced hazards and hardships in the rugged terrain are now being keenly realized by our army who equipped with the most ultramodern weapons and necessary infrastructure are posted to defend our national fronts on that side of the Himalayas. This fact can be vividly visualized when we glance at the routes traversed by Zorawar Singh’s troops during their Himalayan and trans-Himalayan expeditions
Zorawar Singh was not satisfied with the conquest of only Ladakh and Baltistan so he undertook a more hazardous and a more difficult expedition towards Western Tibet that proved a Waterloo for him and for his troops. ‘The Dogra soldiers of Zorawar Singh, writes Alexander Cunningham in his Ladak, p. 354 who had a first hand experience of the winter ravages in those lands, ‘fought under very great disadvantagious conditions. The battle field was upwards of 15,000 feet above the sea and the time was mid-winter when even the day temperature never rises above the freezing point and the intense cold of the night can only be borne by the people well covered with sheep skins and surrounded by fire. For several nights, the Dogra soldiers had been exposed to all the bitterness of the climate. Many had lost the use of their fingers and toes and all were more or less frost-bitten. The only fuel procured was the Tibetan furze which yields much more smoke than fire and the reckless soldiers had actually burnt the stocks of their muskets to obtain the little temporary warmth.’
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