India’s ancient gateway to central Asia

In the spring of the year 1889, a rather unusual application for help was received by the Darbar (King’s court) of the princely state of Kashmir, in British ruled India. What was unusual about this application for help was the fact that the applicants, generally known as Kirghiz people then, were not even citizens of the princely state of Kashmir, but actually were inhabitants of a place called ‘Shahidulla’ in Chinese Turkistan. The region of Chinese Turkistan ( presently known as Xinjiang) lies just east of the Ladakh region of Kashmir. These Kirghiz people essentially were traders and carriers who regularly ran pack animal caravans between Leh (a city in Ladakh) to Yarkand and back. A new threat had emerged for the trade caravans as Kanjut tribesmen from the state of Hunza (Presently in the Pakistan occupied part of Kashmir) had started increasingly, raiding and looting the caravans. The traders had initially applied to the Chinese authorities for protection from these Kanjut raiders. The request was however refused by the Chinese authorities. Because of this, these Kirghiz traders had now made a petition to the Kashmir Darbar.

Kashmir Darbar immediately forwarded this application to the Britsh Government of India at Shimla. Sir Mortimer Durand, the foreign secretary of the Government of India then, decided to undertake an exploration on the northern frontier of Kashmir and chose a young British officer, Francis Edward Younghusband to lead a team of Gurkha soldiers for the job. Francis Younghusbnd and his team, consisting of 19 men, mostly of Kashmir and Balti origin, made all their preparations at Leh and finally left on the expedition on 8^th of August in that year. After traveling for eleven or twelve days through one of the most grueling and tough terrain on the face of the earth, the team reached a very desolate and barren mountain pass.Francis Younghunsband describes this mountain pass with these words.