Nain Singh Rawat - Legacy

Legacy

On June 27, 2004, an Indian postage stamp featuring Nain Singh was issued commemorating his role in the Great Trigonometrical Survey.

Recently Dr. Shekhar Pathak and Dr. Uma Bhatt, have brought out a biography of Nain Singh together with three of his diaries and the RGS articles about his travels in 3 volumes titled Asia ki Peeth Par published by Pahir, Naini Tal - a belated but fitting tribute to the man.

Even today, after centuries of modernization, as China’s iron curtains, forbid the world the view of Tibet, it is with the eyes of these explorers that we still see this mysterious land. Their explorations are still the window to the world of Tibet.

Nain Singh was a man of strong character – where others admitted defeat, he persisted. Due to the clandestine nature of their work and because they were ‘Spy Explorers’ their work never gained the recognition due to such an important feat. As these ‘Spy Explorers’ worked for the British, after independence their work was not given due recognition. The clandestine nature of their work made such important discoveries look unpatriotic. This can be the only reason why it faded in public memory.

Life of Nain Singh Rawat, paraphrases the entire struggle for power not only in the plains of India but through the crucial and strategic Tibet, the high Himalayas and the Hindu Kush. British were in a way paranoid about Russia’s interest in Tibet. It was a race against time for the Tsarist Russia and British India to claim this yet untamed territory. The odds here were greater- Tibetians were no fools, with a relay system that surpassed many a superior security systems.

Messengers criss crossed the landscape with letters and messages. These men mounted on horses covered the 800 miles between Lhasa and Gangtok and were forbidden to stop other than to eat or change horses. They wore a long sleeved Chogas inside which were tucked letters, the breast fastening of their overcoats was sealed to ensure that they did not change clothes. The officer to whom the letter was addressed would break the seal. A message took just thirty days to travel from Lhasa to Gartok, a special message would reach even faster, in twenty two days. The news traveled very fast due to this system and any foreigner who attempted to enter Tibet was reported and forced back to the border. The explorers were thus required to tackle this local resistance, prior to attempting the hazardous travel in this most unfriendly terrain. However, this reluctance on the part of the Tibetian native did not always exist. Previously, the Nepalese Kumaon was the only resistance the explorers faced. Once inside Tibet, they always reported of very friendly, warm and deeply religious people. In Akbar’s time the first Jesuit mission left for the search of the origin of the river Ganges, their main concern though was the quest for the lost tribe of Prester John. The Jesuits had heard from wandering sadhus and yogis, of people in Tibet who had rituals and practices similar to those of Christians. To find out about this they were eager to reach Tibet.

In 1624 Jesuit father Antonio de Andrade along with Portuguese lay brother Manuel Marques and two Christian servants reached Badrinath disguised as pilgrims. After initial resistance from the officials of Raja of Srinagar, the two entered Tibet from Mana pass at 17,900 feet and were welcome in this isolated land. Andrade impressed the king and queen with his devotion towards his religion but could not persuade the king to convert. He returned in the summer of 1625 with more missionaries and the king laid the foundation of the first Christian church in Tibet. However, after Andrade left there was a revolt among Tibetan Lamas and the church was pulled down.

The tradition of employing natives for survey work started quiet accidentally. When the Maratha war ended the military engineers and draughtsmen became comparatively free to focus their attention on mapping newly acquired upper Indian lands. At twenty four, when James Rennell was appointed the Surveyor General of India, he assembled a band of surveyors and draughtsmen to map the subcontinent. Rennel was awestruck when he first viewed the Himalayas from the plains of Bengal. He was curious about the origins of the Ganges, Indus and Brahmaputra, which had their sources in Himalayas. He admitted his ignorance and even accepted the native belief that the Ganges had its source in the holy lake of Kailash Mansarovar. Though he left India in 1777 due to delicate health, he continued to play a major role in the development of Indian geography and so is correctly honored with the title of ”Father Of Indian Geography”.

Robert Colebrooke and Henry Colebrooke were cousins deeply interested in the Ganges. Robert was appointed Surveyor General of India in 1794 and Henry was posted as Assistant Commissioner of Purnea. He was a Sanskrit scholar and the first President of Bengal's The Asiatic Society. Robert spent his time either sailing on the Ganges or on its banks. He knew the river thoroughly and was eager to explore the source of the sacred river. His findings were a major contribution to Henry’s Asiatic researches. In1807 Robert Colebrooke sailed upstream from Calcutta. He was joined by twenty-two year old Webb of Bengal Native Infantry and fifty sepoys. They employed Captain Hyder Jung Hearsey, an independent freebooter who knew the terrain and the ways of locals well.

His mounted irregulars also provided them protection against robbers and marauders. While surveying these unhealthy jungles of Terai, Robert Colebrooke fell ill. This development prevented him from going any further, so Webb along with Hearsay and an old friend Felix Raper from the old regiment traveled towards Himalayas with the instructions to explore the Ganges. They were assisted from Haridwar to Gangotri. At Haridwar, they were lucky to meet the Gurkha Governor of Nepalese Srinagar who was visiting the Kumbh Mela. After initial reluctance he gave way and this party headed for Gangotri. The trail was difficult to say the least and just forty miles short of their destination, for reasons unknown, Webb decided to turn back. Here was the start of a novel method of surveying when "An intelligent native", most probably Hearsey’s Hindu munshi was briefed about the use of compass and sent to look for the famous ‘Cow’s Mouth’. The remaining party of Webb, Hearsey and Raper moved towards Badrinath to locate the source of Alaknanda. They reached the Bhotia village of Mana and from here proceeded towards the source of Alaknanda with a local guide. They found the source in a narrow valley at the foot of Badrinath massif. The purpose of the mission was achieved, as Hearsey’s munshi brought back the information that there was no cow’s mouth at the Ganges' source at Gangoutri.

Thus the theory that the Ganges had its source in Mansarover was proved a fable. There was indeed a Cow’s mouth – a vast cul-de-sac discovered by Captain John Hodgson and his assistant Captain James Herbert in 1817. This as the traditional source of the Ganges called Bhagirathi here, with an enormous glacier shaped like a snout. of a cow. With the Ganges' origin finally traced back to the source, the focus of the British surveyors was on the inner Himalayas and on Tibet though it was a forbidden land as the Nepalese Kumaon did not take British presence lightly. These conditions led to the British policy of non-interference in these areas and when Hearsey and Dr Moorecroft, Veterinary Doctor entered Kumaon for ’Tour of hills’ as they called it, it clearly was not appreciated. Moorecroft was over forty, he was Vet Surgeon to the Government of Bengal, he had been irritating the Agent to the Governor General with plans of a journey into the hills to find new blood from the hill strains and goats with long hair for wool.

They were assisted by two native surveyors Harballabh and his nephew Hurruck Dev and the latter was given the unpleasant task of keeping a tally of the number of steps he took. He was directed to stride, the whole of the road at paces equal to four feet each because the Indian pace is recorded each time the left foot touches the ground, which is every two steps. Hearsay and Moorecroft were disguised as pilgrims Mayapori and Haragiri.

They reached the Bhotia village of Neeti but were stopped from going any further. The Bhotias the traditional go between of the western Himalayas refused to offer any assistance to these suspicious looking men. While waiting here Moorecroft started treating anyone who came to him. He cured a young Bhotia boy for dropsy and this won him the gratitude of the boy’s father, a trader from the Johar valley, Deb Singh Rawat. Deb Singh Rawat and his brother, Bir Singh were among the wealthiest and most influential Bhotias in the region. Thus Moorecroft set the seal on the friendship between the British and the Bhotias.

They reached Mansarovar via Daba, where they traded the goods brought from India, with the large flock of sheep and fifty Pashmina goats. They promised the authorities at Daba to stick to the pilgrim routes. Moving ahead they reached Rakas Tal or Ravan Hrudb and found that none of the tributaries of Sutlej had its source in the lakes (it was later in 1846 that Henery Strachey would meet Deb Singh at Milam on his way to the lakes and find out that Sutlej did take its source from Mansarovar).

They measured Mansarovar and found it to be an oval shaped lake and by circumnavigating the lake found that the two lakes Ravan Hrudb and Mansarovar were not connected by any channel (This was corrected by Henry Strachey, when he discovered that there was a large stream three feet deep and hundred feet wide flowing from Rakas Tal to Masarovar. This seepage of water was missed entirely by Moorcroft and Hearsey as they had stuck to the shores and failed to see what was on the other side of the raised bank of Shingle). This brought to close the mysteries related to the holy lake Mansarvar and the belief that Sutlej took its source from the holy lake of Manserover was finally proved correct.