Number of words: 508

The Rawats of Johar valley claim that their ancestors were part of the large-scale Hindu exodus from Rajputana following the invasion of Mohammed Ghori in the twelfth century. In about 1680 a leading member of the clan named Hiru Dham Singh went on a pilgrimage to Kailas-Manasarovar. He took with him a large party of retainers and fellow-pilgrims and while he was in Tibet he joined with local forces to help drive out Chinese marauders. For this service he was rewarded by the Lhasa government with a trade agreement that gave him a virtual monopoly of the cross-border trade with Gartok in Western Tibet- an advantage that was exploited to the full by his descendants right up to the early 1950s, when the Chinese finally closed the borders. 

On his way back from that eventful pilgrimage Hiru Dham Singh entered a valley east of Nanda Devi which he later occupied and made the home of his clan. Here in the Johar valley the Rawats traded and prospered, living in the lower villages during the winter months and moving up in early summer to Milam, a small settlement below the 17,500-foot Unta Dhura pass leading indirectly into Tibet (see Map A). They mixed and intermarried with people of Tibetan origin called Bhotias or Shokpas already settled in that region but maintained a dominant position as a ruling caste. As effective rulers of the valley and leaders among the trans-Himalayan traders they maintained a position of supremacy during the period when Gurkhas overran Garhwal and Kumaon and when the British succeeded them in 1816. An Englishman who could claim with good reason to know these Bhotia peoples of Kumaon and Garhwal ‘perhaps better  than anyone else’ was Kumaon’s first Education Officer, Edmund Smyth. It was he who first recognized their unusual qualities as the go-betweens of the Central Himalayas:

The Bhotias have Hindu names and call themselves Hindus but they are not recognized as such by the Orthodox Hindus of the plains. While in Tibet they seem glad enough to shake off their Hinduism and become Buddhists, or any- thing you like. They pass their lives in trade with Tibet and they are the only people allowed by the Tibetan authorities to enter the country for purposes of trade. From June to November they are constantly going over the passes, bringing the produce of Tibet (borax, salt, wool, gold dust, also ponies) and taking back grain of all kinds, English goods, chiefly woollens and other things. The goods are carried on the backs of sheep, goats, ponies, yaks and jhoopoos (a cross between the Tibetan yak and the hill cow). Their villages are situated at an elevation of from 10,000 to 13,000 feet, at the foot of the passes leading into Tibet, though only occupied from June to November in each year. During the remainder of the year they move down to the foot of the hills and sell their produce to the Buniahs or traders.

Excerpted from page 120 – 121 of ‘A Mountain Tibet ’ by Charles Allen