Dharamshala | Mcleodganj and Forsythganj

Mcleodganj is a hill station near Dharamshala, popular among trekkers. Its culture is a beautiful fusion of Tibetan with some British influence McLeodganj (also spelt McLeodGanj or Mcleodganj) is a suburb of Dharamsala in Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh, India.

It is known as “Little Lhasa” or “Dhasa” (a short form of Dharamshala used mainly by Tibetans) because of its large population of Tibetans.The Tibetan government-in-exile is headquartered in McLeod Ganj. It has an average elevation of 2,082 metres (6,831 feet). It is situated on the Dhauladhar Range, whose highest peak, “Hanuman Ka Tibba”, at about 5,639 metres (18,500 feet), lies just behind it.

After the British gained control of Kangra in 1846 after first Anglo- Sikh war , the wooded slopes above Dharamshala slowly developed into two prominent colonial settlements known as McLeodganj and Forsythganj. The upper settlement, McLeodganj, was named after Sir Donald Friell McLeod, a senior member of the Punjab Commission who later became Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab in 1865, while the lower administrative and market area, Forsythganj, took its name from William Forsyth of the Punjab Settlement Department, who supervised surveys and revenue organisation in the region during the 1850s and 1860s.

Both settlements became closely tied to the life and final days of Lord James Bruce, the 8th Earl of Elgin, who served as Governor-General and Viceroy of India from 1862 to 1863. Lord Elgin admired the cool climate and deodar forests of Dharamshala so deeply that he suggested shifting the summer capital of British India to this region, giving the settlements an unexpected prominence.

However, during a journey in the Himalayas in 1863, while travelling on the rugged route between Kullu and Lahaul, he suffered a fatal heart attack while crossing a swinging rope-and-wood bridge over the River Chadly, a remote mountain stream on that route.

His body was brought back to the Dharamshala area, and he was buried in the churchyard of St. John in the Wilderness, located to the north east of Forsythganj, making him the first Viceroy of India to die in office and the only one buried in the Himalayas. Prior to this the major development was in 1860 when the 66th Gurkha Light Infantry was shifted to Dharamshala, establishing it as a subsidiary cantonment; this regiment would later be known as the 1st Gurkha Rifles.

One century later, McLeodganj entered a new phase when His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama established the headquarters of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile here, turning the former colonial settlement into a global centre of Tibetan culture, learning, and Buddhist spiritual leadership.

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Writer is Physics Teacher