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Of the many roads built by the British in India, there were perhaps few as ambitious as what was to be the very first mountain highway in this part of the world. For that matter, this may well be the first major highway commissioned in India after Sher Shah Suri built the Grand Trunk Road in the sixteenth century. Styled ‘The Great Hindostan Thibet Road’, this road connected the Gangetic plains from the town of Kalka to the Tibetan border.

It was Governor-General of India, Lord Dalhousie (1848 - 1856) who ordered work to begin on this in June 1850. Various reasons are cited for the initiation of the road. The system of ‘begari’ prevalent in the hills, where unpaid labourers were pressed into service - including for the transport of timber and files to Shimla - is said to have upset the Governor-General so deeply that he wanted to improve the track these men trudged. It is also believed that Lord Dalhousie also wanted to create trade ties with Tibet – and this is felt to be the real reason for building the road.

The immense machinery at the disposal of the East India Company was pressed into service and work began under the charge of the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Charles Napier. Major Kennedy, Napier’s secretary was handed the task of executing the task. For a long time it was locally known as ‘Kengree Sahib Ka Surruck’. This was the road that inspired Kipling’s ‘An Old Song’,

So long as ‘neath the Kalka hills,
The tonga horn shall ring,
So long as down the Solan dip
The hard-held ponies swing,
So long as Tara Devi sees
The lights of Simla town,
So long as pleasure calls us up
Or duty drives us down …

While Kipling’s horse-drawn tongas are long gone, the road from Kalka to Shimla via Dharampur and Solan remains unchanged. People travelled in mind-boggling combinations that included carriages, elephants and camels up to Kalka. Then came the horse drawn tongas and ekkas, and bullock carts. There were palanquins – the dandies and doolys. As the road became more demanding and treacherous and required plain old foot slogging.

And yet, beyond Shimla to the Shipki Pass on the border, the trace of the road rarely remained the same. At one time Bagi and Khadrala in the thick forests beyond Narkanda, were important posts and a yet few years down the line, they were ignored. From Shimla the trace passed through the mellifluous sounding villages of Fagu, Theog, Matiana, Narkanda, Kotgarh, Nirath, Rampur, Sarahan, Tranda, Paunda, Nichar, Wangtu, Kalpa (Chini ), Rarang, Akpa and then Jangi, where the road came to an end. After this point, a rough track continued to Labrang, Sugnam, Namgea and finally Shipki – the last was described in Major Gordon’s Guide (1893 ) as: “A large Tartar village; good milk, flour, pumpkins, and sometimes sheep can be obtained; wood and water plentiful”. This route traversed 228 miles from Shimla, while the one that took Bagi in its stride and arrived at Sarahan through Tachlech, added another 22 miles to this distance. In the early years, it seems that the route through Bagi was more popular and was known as the Upper or Forest Road - and even today, makes for a wonderful trek.

A major achievement was the construction of the Sanjauli-Dhalli tunnel. Again, this seems to have been a first of sorts. If one discounts the numerous underground passages and tunnels that worm their way around practically every one of India’s old forts, this was the first tunnel to be built in the country. Some 18,000 convicts and free labourers were employed in boring this thorough solid rock. Work began in 1850 under the supervision of a Major Briggs, and was completed in the winter of 1851-52. For several years it remained nothing but a hole in the hill, till Lord Kitchener arrived as the Commander-in-Chief in 1902. While ‘Snowdon’ in Shimla was his official residence, Kitchener spent most of his time at ‘Wildflower Hall’ in the suburbs. Riding back from Shimla one night, the Commander-in-Chief’s horse shied, locking the rider’s leg against a timber beam supporting the roof of the tunnel. The pressure broke his leg and Kitchener was left to his own devices for several hours before being rescued. After this accident, extensive repairs on the tunnel were undertaken.

While Dalhousie’s road brought the route into focus, the area had long been on one of the peripheral trade circuits of the legendary Silk Route. The paths that passed the tract, carried goods like musk, borax, wool, livestock, dry fruit, precious and semi-precious stones to and from Tibet, Kashmir, Ladakh and Yarkand. And apart from the goods that plied on the path, it was the myriad cultural and historical influences that established the true worth of the Road.

After Shimla, where once the road took the spurs, it now follows the valley floors. During the Indo-China war of 1962, the importance of the road was re-established and major construction followed. Almost needless to add, it took its toll in terms of both life and money and at Jeori - where a fork leads to Sarahan - is a memorial to the hundred and twenty-two men who died during its construction. And all of a hundred and fifty years after work began, and a full century after these words were written one can still draw on what Kipling wrote in ‘Kim’, “We came and came by such and such a way! … These are the true Hills! … Never were such hills!”

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