The Anglo-Gurkha War and the making of British Himachal

The Anglo-Gurkha War of 1814–16 is the hinge on which the modern map of Himachal turns. Before it, the hills east of the Sutlej were under Gurkha occupation; after it, they were under British influence, and the pattern of princely states and British districts that lasted until 1947 was set.

Gurkha expansion

From the 1780s the kingdom of Nepal expanded west along the Himalaya. By 1804–06 Gurkha armies had crossed the Sutlej and taken Sirmaur, the Shimla hill states and Kangra's outer territory, and had besieged the Katoch ruler Sansar Chand in Kangra Fort. Ranjit Singh's Sikhs stopped them at the Sutlej in the west.

The war

Border friction in the Tarai led the British East India Company to declare war in November 1814. The first campaign in the Garhwal–Kumaon hills went badly, but in the west the Company had more success. David Ochterlony's force pushed the Gurkha general Amar Singh Thapa out of the Malaun and Arki ridges above the Sutlej, and a separate column took the Gurkha post at Jaithak near Nahan after hard fighting.

The settlement

The Treaty of Sugauli, signed in 1815 and ratified in 1816, fixed the Nepal border roughly where it runs today and ended Gurkha rule in the western hills. The Company did not annex the whole area. Instead it restored many of the old hill rajas as protected princely states, kept a few strategic tracts, and — within a few years — began using the ridge at Shimla as a hot-weather retreat. Gurkha soldiers who had fought in the campaign were recruited into the first Gurkha regiments, and the cantonment at Subathu became one of their earliest homes.

Sources

• Wikipedia — Anglo-Nepalese War
• Wikipedia — Treaty of Sugauli
• Wikipedia — David Ochterlony