General Zorawar Singh
Dogra general who led armies across the high Himalaya: Ladakh from 1834, Baltistan in 1840 and western Tibet in 1841, where he was killed at To-yo in the snows.
Zorawar Singh Kahluria was born in 1786 in the Kahlur hills, Bilaspur, and entered the service of Gulab Singh of Jammu as a soldier, rising to become governor of Kishtwar.
In 1834 he marched into Ladakh over the high passes, and in a series of campaigns over five years brought it under Dogra and Lahore rule. In 1840 he conquered Baltistan, and in 1841 he led an army of some five thousand into western Tibet, taking Gartok and Taklakot and reaching the sacred lake of Mansarovar.
In December 1841, surprised by a Tibetan and Chinese army in the bitter winter at To-yo near Taklakot, with his men freezing and starving, he was killed in battle. He is regarded as one of the great generals of Indian history, who fought at altitudes no army had fought before; the Tibetans built a memorial at the place where he fell.
