Havildar Kabir Pun, IOM, was a Nepalese soldier in the British Indian Army who received the Indian Order of Merit (1st class) for his gallantry at Gyantse, during the Younghusband Expedition to Tibet (1903-4). [1] Until 1911, the 1st class of the Indian Order of Merit (IOM), which had three classes, was the highest award available to native members of the British Indian Army. Pun was thus awarded the IOM (1st class) since he could not be awarded the Victoria Cross (VC), being a native personnel. [2]
Pun served in the 8th Gurkha Rifles, in a company commanded by Lieutenant John Duncan Grant during the Younghusband Expedition. [1] [3] On July 5, 1904, Grant and Pun led a company of 8th Gurkhas in an attack on the Gyantse fort, and were backed by a company of the Royal Fusiliers. [4] Despite being wounded from attacks by the Tibetans, Pun succeeded in opening an entrance into the Gyantse fortress alongside Lieutenant Grant, who was also wounded and received a VC for his actions in the same event. [5]
Pun and Grant's actions are described in Grant's VC citation. [6] [7] [8] [9] Their action features in a painting published in the book Fortress Monasteries of the Himalayas: Tibet, Ladakh, Nepal and Bhutan. [10]
Lieutenant Colonel Sir Francis Edward Younghusband, was a British Army officer, explorer and spiritual writer. He is remembered for his travels in the Far East and Central Asia; especially the 1904 British expedition to Tibet, led by himself, and for his writings on Asia and foreign policy. Younghusband held positions including British commissioner to Tibet and president of the Royal Geographical Society.
Colonel John Duncan Grant was a British Indian Army officer who was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
Gyantse, officially Gyangzê Town, is a town located in Gyantse County, Shigatse Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region, China. It was historically considered the third largest and most prominent town in the Tibet region, but there are now at least ten larger Tibetan cities.
Yadong County, also known by its Tibetan name Dromo/TromoCounty is a frontier county and trade-market of the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, part of its Shigatse Prefecture.
Gartok is made of twin encampment settlements of Gar Günsa and Gar Yarsa in the Gar County in the Ngari Prefecture of Tibet. Gar Gunsa served as the winter encampment and Gar Yarsa as the summer encampment. But in British nomenclature, the name Gartok was applied only to Gar Yarsa and the practice continues to date.
The Chumbi Valley, called Dromo or Tromo in Tibetan, is a valley in the Himalayas that projects southwards from the Tibetan plateau, intervening between Sikkim and Bhutan. It is coextensive with the administrative unit Yadong County in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. The Chumbi Valley is connected to Sikkim to the southwest via the mountain passes of Nathu La and Jelep La.
The Palcho Monastery or Pelkor Chode Monastery or Shekar Gyantse is the main monastery in the Nyangchu river valley in Gyantse, Gyantse County, Shigatse Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region. The monastery precinct is a complex of structures which, apart from the Tsuklakhang Monastery, also includes its Kumbum, believed to be the largest such structure in Tibet, that is most notable for its 108 chapels in its several floors and the old Dzong or fort.
The Indian Order of Merit (IOM) was a military and civilian decoration of British India. It was established in 1837, although following the Partition of India in 1947 it was decided to discontinue the award and in 1954 a separate Indian honours system was developed, to act retrospectively to 1947. For a long period of time the IOM was the highest decoration that a native member of the British Indian Army could receive and initially it had three divisions. This was changed in 1911 when Indian servicemen became eligible for the Victoria Cross. A civilian division of the IOM also existed between 1902 and 1939, however, it was only conferred very rarely.
The British expedition to Tibet, also known as the Younghusband expedition, began in December 1903 and lasted until September 1904. The expedition was effectively a temporary invasion by British Indian Armed Forces under the auspices of the Tibet Frontier Commission, whose purported mission was to establish diplomatic relations and resolve the dispute over the border between Tibet and Sikkim. In the nineteenth century, the British had conquered Burma and Sikkim, with the whole southern flank of Tibet coming under the control of the British Indian Empire. Tibet ruled by the Dalai Lama under the Ganden Phodrang government was a Himalayan state under the protectorate of the Chinese Qing dynasty until the 1911 Revolution, after which a period of de facto Tibetan independence (1912–1951) followed.
The 8th Gorkha Rifles is a Gorkha regiment of the Indian Army. It was raised in 1824 as part of the British East India Company and later transferred to the British Indian Army after the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The regiment served in World War I and World War II, before being one of the six Gurkha regiments transferred to the Indian Army after independence in 1947. Since then it has served in a number of conflicts including the Sino-Indian War of 1962 and the Indo-Pakistan wars of 1965 and 1971. Today the 8th Gorkha Rifles is one of the most celebrated regiments of the Indian Army, having received numerous citations for bravery in the field of battle, and even producing one of the two field marshals of India, Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, of the Indian Army.
Yatung or Yadong, also known as Shasima , is the principal town in the Chumbi Valley or Yadong County in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It is also its administrative headquarters.
This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Tibet.
Gyantse Dzong or Gyantse Fortress is one of the best preserved dzongs in Tibet, perched high above the town of Gyantse on a huge spur of grey brown rock.
Tsechen Monastery was a Tibetan monastery located approximately 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) northwest of Gyantse. It was one of the largest of the fortified monasteries constructed in Tibet, and was located above a village also known as Tsechen. Constructed "on another precipitous hill about 600 feet high, about one mile long, and rising abruptly out of the plain", the monastery was similar to the Gyantse Dzong in terms of the strength of its fortifications. During the 1904 British expedition to Tibet by Colonel Francis Younghusband, the monastery was occupied by Tibetan troops, which used it to resist the expedition's advance. Younghusband's forces captured the monastery and sacked and burnt it; some of the hilltop walls are all that remain of the structure.
Major General Sir James Ronald Leslie Macdonald was a British engineer, explorer, military officer and cartographer. Born in the Madras Presidency, he was a balloon observer as a young man, surveyed for railways in British India and East Africa, explored the upper Nile region, commanded balloon sections during the Second Boer War and Boxer Rebellion and led the British expedition to Tibet in 1903–1904.
The community of Nepalis in China consists of Nepalese immigrants and expatriates to China as well as Chinese citizens of Nepalese descent.
The Tibet–Ladakh–Mughal war of 1679–1684 was fought between the Central Tibetan Ganden Phodrang government, with the assistance of Mongol khanates, and the Namgyal dynasty of Ladakh with assistance from the Mughal Empire in Kashmir.
The Convention of Lhasa, officially the Convention Between Great Britain and Thibet, was a treaty signed in 1904 between Tibet and Great Britain, in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, then a protectorate of the Qing dynasty. It was signed following the British expedition to Tibet of 1903–1904, a military expedition led by Colonel Francis Younghusband, and was followed by the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1906.
John Claude White was an engineer, photographer, author and civil servant in British India. From 1889 to 1908, White was the political officer in Sikkim, then a British protectorate. As part of his remit, he also managed British India's relations with Tibet and Bhutan.
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir William Frederick Travers O'Connor was an Irish diplomat and officer in the British and British Indian armies. He is remembered for his travels in Asia, cartography, study and publication of local cultures and language, his actions on the Younghusband expedition to Tibet, Royal Geographic Society council member, member of the Royal Automobile Club and for his work negotiating and signing the Nepal–Britain Treaty of 1923.