‘... local knowledge that the Tsangpo and the Brahmaputra or Luit were the same river seemed to have evaporated into thin air’

Had it been any other country but India they would have erected a statue in his honour. Or, at least, made a documentary on him! But here the likes of this doughty little Sikkimese are consigned to the anonymity of forgotten history, the tale of their courage and fortitude lying only within the dusty confines of official archives.

I refer to the Darjeeling-born Sikkimese named Kinthup, known only as KP in official British survey records, the undercover agent who spent four years from 1879 to 1882 in Tibet, trying to uncover the secrets of the Tsangpo. Those were the days of the British Raj, with the thrill-loving bulldog breed ready to sniff at the slightest whiff of adventure. One such scent-trail was provided in the fact that by the time the boga bongals or white men from Bengal had arrived, local knowledge that the Tsangpo and the Brahmaputra or Luit were the same river seemed to have evaporated into thin air.

Sages of ancient times were familiar with the Himalayas, especially with river routes which facilitated travel from one place to another. This knowledge led to myths which always contained the kernel of geological truths, and those regarding the son of Brahma clearly established that what was Tsangpo in Tibet was the Brahmaputra or Luit in Assam.

But such knowledge apparently had been forgotten in 19th century Assam and explorers and amateur geologists had a field day speculating where the latter originated from.

Puranic accounts had correctly placed the origin of this river close to Mount Kailash, but by 19th century native accounts it was sited in Burma, thereby revealing that the tributary Lohit was considered to be the main stem of the Brahmaputra. Though the famous 18th century cartographer, Maj. Rennell, had in the 1760s theorised that the Tsangpo and Brahmaputra were one and the same, and had even drawn a map showing its probable course, sceptical British geologists took such “theories” with a pinch of salt. Thus, the air grew rife with speculations — that the main source of the Brahmaputra was the Irrawady river, or that the Tsangpo actually descended down the Subansiri!

Even as late as 1841 William Robinson, in his celebrated book A Descriptive Account of Assam, could write: “The Brahmaputra is fed principally by three great streams… the last of these streams is the southernmost, and that which Hindoos have adopted as the chief branch, having sanctified it with admission into their mythology. It retains the name of the great river, from its falling straight into the axis of the main trunk ….. the other great sources of the Brahmaputra are the Dihong and Dibong rivers …..”

The nation of shopkeepers also had their heads in the clouds as far as the enigma called the Brahmaputra was concerned. If the Tsangpo of Tibet did descend from enormous heights to the Brahmaputra valley which was almost at sea-level, somewhere in its course must lie the highest waterfall in the world! Another utilitarian objective was the possible opening out of another trade-route to western China, a dream which gave rise to quirky visions such as that to be found in Thomas Holdis’s book Tibet the Mysterious (1906). In it, the author not only visualised a Tibetan section of the Assam Railways laid along the Tsangpo, but also a luxury hotel built for tourists beside the waterfalls of that river, in the lines of such hotels beside the Victoria falls of Africa!

Such inducements resulted in a frantic endeavour on the part of the British to unravel the enigma surrounding the Brahmaputra. But exploring the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra course was easier said than done, for Tibet then was a “forbidden kingdom” for foreigners, and a white man was liable to be murdered if he set foot in Tibetan territory. The British, therefore, sent trained undercover agents with Mongoloid features to Tibet on espionage missions, their mandate being to gather as much knowledge of the region as possible. These “spies” were taught to speak the Tibetan language as also undertake basic survey work using improvised techniques and equipment, and record them as concisely as possible to aid memory. For instance, their normal disguise was that of a Tibetan lama; their prayer wheels each carried a prismatic compass hidden inside it, as also rolls of paper to keep notes. Instead of the 108 beads required by Tibetan tradition, their rosaries had only 100, so that they could easily count paces while thumbing the rosary beads!

The contribution of these spies such as Nain Singh, Kishen Singh, Mani Singh, Hari Ram, Ugyan Gyatso and others towards unravelling the mystery of the course of the Brahmaputra and other rivers originating from the Tibetan plateau is legion, though, not too many of us know about their courageous exploits.

The most thrilling of these undercover excursions was that of KP or Kinthup, whose mandate was to travel in disguise as far east along the Tsangpo as possible, and cut and float specially marked logs down that river. Survey officials would be on the lookout for those logs on the lower reaches of the Siang, and if these duly arrive, would provide conclusive evidence that the Tsangpo and Brahmaputra were in fact a single entity. Kinthup’s exploits made for stuff of high adventure! He first travelled disguised as the servant of a Tibetan lama, reaching Lhasa and then following the course of the Tsangpo up to a point called Gyala-Dzong, the furthest point previously reached by spies sent before him. From there, the intrepid adventurer pushed further eastward till he reached Onlow, almost 120km lower than any previous traveller and just 60km from the Indian plains. But at Onlow he suffered a setback — the Tibetan lama secretly sold him to a Tibetan official and made off, leaving Kinthup to become a slave. However, while with the lama, Kinthup had surreptitiously carried out the preliminary aspect of his mandate: “I, Kinthup, have prepared 500 logs according to the orders of Capt. Harman and am prepared to throw 50 logs per day into the Tsangpo river from Bipung in Pemako, from the 5th to the 15th of the 10th Tibetan month of the year called Chhuluk.”

Having made a daring escape from the clutch of the official, the courageous Sikkimese trekked back to Lhasa and sent to his superiors his message in secret through a traveller, who however failed to deliver it. Displaying the highest integrity and devotion to duty and at considerable risk to his life and freedom, Kinthup then returned to Pemako and managed to float the logs down. But since those who were supposed to have kept watch were not alerted, the logs floated down without being detected. In all fairness to Kinthup’s mentor, H.J. Harman, of the Survey of India, he had kept watch day and night for two long years, but then he fell ill and had to leave India, after which the vigil was abandoned. Thus, the outcome of enormous toil and confronting danger on the part of Kinthup finally came to nothing.

After four long years, Kinthup with great difficulty succeeded in returning to India having “successfully” completing his mission, however to a somewhat cold reception from his superiors. Since Harman was gone and he had kept no records, the British officials were not inclined to believe his story or to give him credit and reward for his incredible courage and loyalty. Had he not been sold as a slave and had the message he sent from Lhasa been delivered, Kinthup may have gone down in history as the first individual to have conclusively proved that the Tsangpo was linked to the Brahmaputra. Despite this, the doughty little Sikkimese remains the most romantic figure among the host of brave men who helped the British in tracing out authentic maps of Asia, China, Mongolia and Tibet.