Warren Hastings at the Himalayan Crossroads: Political and Economic Shifts

This paper explains how the colonial intervention in the Eastern Himalayas was initiated in the late eighteenth century through British Missions, which sought to renew the ancient Indian commercial ties with the Himalayan kingdom in its northern frontiers. Official missions were not only commercial, but also diplomatic and military. Such missions were deployed to Bhutan, Tibet, Nepal and Sikkim to identify political situation and ascertain prospects for commercial ventures. British Missions were organized which lasted for about one hundred and thirty years starting from George Bogle in 1774 to Francis Younghusband in 1904.The initiation of these missions were sanctioned under the stewardship of Lord Warren Hastings Governor of the Presidency of Fort William (Bengal, 1772) and later the Governor General of Bengal (1774-1785) which led to a series of events ultimately resulting in the socio-politico and economic change of seismic proportion. The decisions made by Hastings propelled the Imperial engine in the highlands of the Himalayas.