Army honours Gen Zorawar’s legacy in high-altitude warfare

Nearly two centuries after Dogra General Zorawar Singh led his audacious campaign into Tibet in 1841, the Indian Army today hosted a symposium to commemorate the numerous military campaigns carried out in high-altitude.

Unconnected to events of 1840’s, the Indian Army and China today hold strategic positions in the icy heights along both sides of the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Titled “General Zorawar Singh: Up, Close and Personal,” the symposium was held at the Manekshaw Centre in Delhi Cantonment. It was jointly hosted by the Jammu and Kashmir Rifles and the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS). Speakers at the event emphasised how Zorawar’s high-altitude campaigns across the Himalayas laid the foundation for principles later adopted in ‘mountain warfare’ by Indian forces.

A few years prior to the Tibet campaign, General Zorawar, in 1834, had extended the limits of the Dogra kingdom by capturing Ladakh, then part of the Sikh Empire headquartered in Lahore.

In 1839, Zorawar Singh turned his attention to Baltistan, the Lahore Durbar and Dogra King Gulab Singh were okay with it.

By February 1840, Dogra forces under Zorawar Singh had moved into Baltistan, then ruled by Ahmed Shah.

After fierce combat, the Dogras captured Skardu and surrounding valleys by June 1840.

In April 1841, Zorawar Singh launched his expedition into Tibet, reaching the northwestern edge of Nepal by September.

The British were getting edgy over this progress.

In October 1841, the British Government wrote a letter to Lahore Darbar asking that forces led by Zorawar Singh need to withdraw from Tibet , resulting in a scheduled withdrawal from Tibet on December 10, 1841—ultimately halting what could have been a march toward Lhasa. The British, did capture Lhasa in 1904 only to give it up three years later

These high-altitude battles laid the groundwork for future administrative and strategic cohesion in the region with India.

Today, at the event General Zorawar Singh’s pivotal role in shaping the boundaries of the modern-day state of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh was highlighted.

At today’s event, Indian Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi was the the Chief Guest. He released two military history books during the ceremony, “The Warrior Gurkha” by Madhulika Thapa, daughter of Param Vir Chakra awardee Lt Col Dhan Singh Thapa (1962 Sino-Indian War) and “A Kashmir Knight and the Last 50 Years of the Princely State of J&K” authoured by Lt Gen Ghanshyam Singh Katoch (Retd).

J & K