The Peace Pact after the Sino-Sikh War (1841-42)—The Treaty of Chushul, 1842

The Treaty serves as the foundation of Ladakh’s integration with India—traced through Dogra conquest, Sikh sovereignty, British suzerainty, and the post-Independence Instrument of Accession.

AI-generated representational image.

By Karan Bir Singh Sidhu
Retired IAS Officer (Punjab Cadre), Former Special Chief Secretary, Punjab Government; Student of history with a focus on Sikh history, geo-strategy, and the correction of distorted or popular narratives; Writes on law, governance, defence, and India’s frontier policy.

The Peace Pact with Tibet (China) after the Sino-Sikh War (1841-42)

Prelude: The Khalsa Darbar Looks North

In the closing years of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s reign the Khalsa Darbar stretched from the banks of the Sutlej to the snowy crests of the Karakoram. Kashmir had been integrated in 1819, and Ladakh—gateway to Central Asia’s lucrative pashmina routes—was annexed in 1834. By then the Lion of Punjab was ailing, yet his ambitious feudatory, Raja Gulab Singh of Jammu, kept the frontier flame alive. Gulab Singh’s eyes turned instinctively toward Western Tibet, where trade, tributary claims, and prestige converged.

Zorawar Singh’s Ladakhi Campaign Turns East

To execute that vision Gulab Singh chose his most audacious commander, General Zorawar Singh Kahluria. A proud Dogra Rajput, Zorawar was no baptised Sikh; yet he led Dogra, Ladakhi and Khalsa contingents under the scarlet triangle flag of the Khalsa Darbar of Lahore. In May 1841 he set out from Leh with about 6,000 men, bridging Pangong Tso, storming Rutog and Gar, and unfurling the Darbar’s banner at holy Lake Mansarovar. For a brief Himalayan summer, the snow passes echoed with war-cries of “Jo Bole So Nihal” and “Har Har Mahadev” spoken in the same breath.

Triumph, Tragedy and the Turn of Fortune

But empire in the Himalayas is earned in blood and supplies. The fighting season closed early; blizzards cut lines to Leh. In mid-December 1841, at Taklakot (Purang), a fresh Sino-Tibetan host struck back. General Zorawar Singh fell in that battle, sword in hand, his severed head reportedly carried to Lhasa as proof of victory. The Dogra tide ebbed; Tibetan forces now pressed into Ladakh, determined to erase the insult and—if possible—absorb the region into the Qing orbit, if not domain.

Dogras, Sikhs and the Shadow of Maharaja Ranjit Singh

News of Zorawar’s death jolted Jammu and Lahore alike. Diwan Hari Chand and Wazir Ratnu hurried north with fresh detachments. Although the Dogras still owed fealty to the Khalsa Darbar, the Maharaja’s passing (1839) and the court intrigues that followed had already loosened their leash. In the popular imagination the exploits of Hari Singh Nalwa against the Afghans loom large, celebrated in Punjabi ballad and gurdwara art; the Tibet campaign, lacking permanent annexations and occurring under semi-autonomous Dogra leadership, slipped into comparative obscurity.

The Battle of Chushul and the Road to Peace

The climactic clash came on the cold plain of Chushul in August 1842. The reinforced Dogra–Khalsa army broke the Tibetan line, killing its general and recapturing forward posts. Both sides, bled white and distracted—China by the First Opium War, Lahore by rising British pressure—readily accepted mediation. In Leh, on 17 September 1842, envoys exchanged sealed scrolls that ended hostilities.

The Treaty of Chushul (1842): Text, Spirit and Boundaries

The compact—variously called the Treaty of Chushul or the Ladakh-Tibet Agreement—declared that “old established frontiers shall be respected for ever.” Each party pledged non-interference, safe passage for traders, and refusal to shelter the other’s enemies. Significantly, it was witnessed before Buddhist and Lamanist divinities as well as by the Sikh Gurus’ hukam—the sacred sanction that gave the pact moral heft on both sides of the range. Ladakh remained with the Dogras under Sikh suzerainty; Tibet kept its historic domains.

Hari Singh Nalwa in Memory, Tibet in the Shadows

Why then does every Punjabi child know the charge of Jamrud but not the march to Mansarovar? First, Nalwa rode under the living Maharaja, his Afghan foes fitting neatly into the epic of Sikh resistance to centuries of invasions. Second, the Dogra venture, though breathtaking, ended without new lands flying the Nishan Sahib. Finally, by 1842 the Khalsa Court had entered its tragic spiral; chronicles written later under British-Indian influence paid scant heed to a campaign that complicated the simple “North-West Frontier” narrative.

General Zorawar Singh: Legend Confirmed

Historians agree: Zorawar Singh was a Dogra, not a Sikh, though many Sikh soldiers marched with him. His death at Taklakot cut short what might have become a Himalayan empire rivalling Ranjit Singh’s western conquests. Among Dogras he is revered as the “Napoleon of the Hills”; among Sikhs he is remembered, when remembered at all, as a fearless comrade-in-arms who pushed the Khalsa banner to the very doorstep of Lhasa.

Chushul: Sentinel of the Treaty Line Today

Perched at 14,270 feet and scarcely five miles from the Line of Actual Control, the village of Chushul occupies the same corridor where the 1842 peace scrolls were exchanged, integral part of the Republic of India. Today, it hosts its own Gram Sabha, a primary-health centre, and projects under the Vibrant Village Programme. An all-weather airstrip and a Border Personnel Meeting hut underscore its role as both logistics hub and diplomatic counter on the high-altitude chessboard where Delhi and Beijing still negotiate patrol protocols. Chushul is living evidence of the “old established frontiers” the treaty sought to preserve.

Statue of General Zorawar Singh in Jammu.

Whose Statue on Pangong’s Shore?

When a 30-foot bronze of Chhatrapati Shivaji was unveiled by the Indian Army authorities beside Pangong Tso in December 2024, Ladakhi councillors and veterans asked why the lake’s own conqueror, General Zorawar Singh, remained ignored or unhonoured. Their case is compelling: Zorawar’s columns once crossed that very shoreline, wrested Ladakh from Tibetan suzerainty, and—by igniting the Sino-Sikh War (1841-42)—set the stage for the Treaty of Chushul. If a monument is meant to inspire soldiers and civilians alike, they argue, none fits the landscape better than the Dogra General who fought valiantly and fell in these mountains under the colours of the Khalsa Sarkar of Lahore.

Relevance Today: A Boundary China Once Solemnly Accepted

India’s assertion of its sovereignty over Twang (Tawang) in 1951, shortly after Independence in 1947, and India’s more recent standoffs with the People’s Republic at Galwan in 2020, make the 1842 Treaty of Chushul newly resonant as well as relevant. Unlike Beijing’s subsequent repudiation of the McMahon Line in the years following Independence, the Qing Court, and for decades thereafter Republican China, never explicitly disavowed this agreement. It remains one of the rare instances in which Chinese Communist State clearly recognised a historically fixed colonial era Himalayan boundary with a neighbouring power—albeit while subjecting the phrase “old established frontiers” to dubious and ambiguous interpretations.

For New Delhi, the treaty serves as a documentary reminder that Ladakh’s alignment with India—traced through Dogra conquest, Sikh sovereignty, British suzerainty, and ultimately the post-Independence Instrument of Accession signed by Maharaja Hari Singh—has a deeper and firmer legal pedigree than Beijing now concedes. It also stands as an important bargaining chip, grounded in the invaluable sacrifices made by the soldiers and generals of the Khalsa Sarkar of Lahore, whose blood once marked these frozen frontiers.