22 April 2019
This article is a continuation of our previous article “Understanding Jean Baptiste Tassin’s Map of the country between Titaleea and Dorjeling”. Inside the map, there was an interesting label (I’ve referred to it as Mark I) referring to a portion of the territory as “Ceded and restored to the Rajah of Sikkim, 1816”. So what actually happened in 1816 ?
Before we try to answer that, let us be clear that the East India Company, during the 19th century was a major and emerging power in the Indian Subcontinent. Not only India, but East India Company had major interests in Burma (now Myanmar), Nepal, Tibet, North West Frontier Province comprising of Afghanistan and territory north of the Karakoram Range, Bhutan, and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). The East India Company represented themselves through their representatives, in almost every of these independent dynasties. The East India Company had sent many missions to all these places, specially Tibet.
But our question is what happened in 1816 ? Before 19th century, the ownership rights of that tract of land lay with Chogyal (monarch) of Kingdom of Sikkim. The only threat the Chogyal of Kingdom of Sikkim had, came from the Gurkhas, in the West. After overrunning the hills and valleys of Nepal, they marched east into Sikkim in 1780. The next 30 years, i.e, till the year 1810, the Gurkhas made repeated attacks. At the end of this period, they had overrun Sikkim as far eastward as the Teesta river, and had conquered and annexed the Tarai, i.e, the belt of the country lying along the lower hills between the river Teesta and the river Meitche. In the meantime, the East India Company was engaged against the Nepalese aggression throughout the whole length of their northern frontier. War finally broke out in 1814.
The tract, which the Nepalese had wrested from the Chogyal of Kingdom of Sikkim was ceded to the East India Company. The Chogyal of Kingdom of Sikkim was reinstated, and in 1817, a treaty was concluded at Titalya (today known as Tetulia Upazila in the Rangpur District of present-day Bangladesh), under which the whole of the country between the River Meitche and River Tista, was restored to the Chogyal of Kingdom of Sikkim.
The intervention of British was successful in preventing the Gurkhas from turning the whole of Sikkim and the hills west and south of the Tista into an outlying province of Nepal, and Sikkim including the present district of Darjeeling,was retained as a buffer state between Nepal and Bhutan.
But many repercussions followed after signing this Treaty (which i shall delve into in future articles).
REFERENCES:
- Bengal District Gazetteers, Darjeeling, L.S.S. O’Malley.
