High spies

Military conquests are often led by business. In the last years of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century, the East India Company was convinced there were business possibilities beyond the high Himalayas. Tibet was a closed market. If it could somehow be opened, then goods made in the company’s factories could be shipped there in bulk. The problem was that the Tibetans were a xenophobic lot; it was impossible for a European to sneak onto the roof of the world.

The Company first sent a mission under Colonel Kirkpatrick to Nepal to find out if ‘friendly’ relations could be established with the kingdom and a route to Tibet secured. But the Gurkha rulers of Nepal were openly hostile. Kirkpatrick’s mission came to naught, but he left behind a wonderful account of his journey to Nepal (An Account of the Kingdom of Nepaul). It was then decided to find trade routes to Tibet from Kumaon and Garhwal (now Uttarakhand). The hitch was that these areas, too, were under Gurkha rule.

The first attempt was made by William Moorcroft, a British veterinary doctor and a ladies’ man. In 1812, he walked up to the Mana pass beyond Badrinath disguised as a Brahmin. He was accompanied by Hyder Jung Hearsey, an Anglo-Indian. Hearsey was born to an English father and Jat mother. His father named him after Hyder Jung, father of Tipoo Sultan. When Hearsey returned from England, he anglicised his name to Hyder Young Hearsey. He first joined service under the Marathas, then signed up with Perron, the French adventurer who wanted to set up Perronistan in India, and then joined the forces of the British freebooter George Thomas (headquartered at Georgegarh near Jhajjar in Haryana).

On their way back from Tibet, Moorcorft and Hearsey were stopped by a Gurkha contingent somewhere in Kumaon. The Gurkha commander, Hastidal, had been mauled by a bear. Hearsey administered first aid and Hastidal was saved. Three years later, the Anglo-Gurkha war broke out. Hearsey was sent to cut off the enemy lines at the river Kali, the current boundary between India and Nepal. His men were routed. Hearsey was captured and was sure to be beheaded when the Gurkha commander recognised him. It was the same Hastidal. Hearsey’s life was spared. (For a full account of their journey, see Peter Hopkirk’s Trespassers on the Roof of the World and The Great Game, John Pemble’s Britain’s Gurkha War: The Invasion of Nepal and Gary Alder’s Beyond Bokhara.)

For decades after, the British could not send their people to Tibet. Then they happened to chance upon Pandit Nain Singh, a teacher in the high reaches of Kumaon. He came from a community of traders who frequently crossed into Tibet, and were well versed in its customs and language. He was trained in spycraft by British officers in Dehradun, and sent to Tibet under disguise not once but three times. He walked all the way to Lhasa in measured steps, once from Kathmandu and the second time from Ladakh. His rosary had 100 beads to keep count of steps; mercury was hidden in his walking stick so that he could measure altitudes.

It was his third journey which was prompted purely by commercial reasons: the gold mines of Thok Jalung. For many years, the British believed there were large deposits of gold in Tibet. The Tibetans could be sold woollens and salt in return for gold. It was too lucrative a business opportunity to let go. Pandit Nain Singh was dispatched to find out the route to the gold mines and see how big the deposits were. Off went the intrepid spy, under a false identity of course, through the Mana pass into Tibet. He reached Thok Jalung. But the report he filed was uninspiring: the gold deposits were not substantial.

Pandit Nain Singh was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society. He was also a prolific writer. He kept diaries of all his journeys (in Hindi), which were, unfortunately, lost over the years.

(bhupesh.bhandari@bsmail.in)