Demchok (historical village)

Demchok (Tibetan: ཌེམ་ཆོག, Wylie: Demchog, ZYPY: Dêmqog , historical: bDe-mChog)[lower-alpha 1] was described by a British boundary commission in 1847 as a village lying on the border between the Kingdom of Ladakh and the Tibet. It was a "hamlet of half a dozen huts and tents", divided into two parts by a rivulet which formed the boundary between two states.[4][5] The rivulet, a tributary of the Indus River variously called the Demchok River, Charding Nullah or the Lhari stream, was set as the boundary between Ladakh and Tibet in the 1684 Treaty of Tingmosgang. By 1904–05, the Tibetan side of the hamlet was said to have had 8 to 9 huts of zamindars (landholders), while the Ladakhi side had two.[6] The area of the former Demchok now straddles the Line of Actual Control, the effective border of the People's Republic of China's Tibet Autonomous Region and the Republic of India's Ladakh Union Territory.

For the modern Indian-administered village, see Demchok, Ladakh. For the modern Chinese-administered village, see Dêmqog, Ngari Prefecture. For the disputed area, see Demchok sector.

Demchok depicted in a Survey of India map of 1874

Toponymy

The Tibetan name of "Demchok" (Tibetan: ཌེམ་ཆོག, Wylie: Demchog, ZYPY: Dêmqog ) literally translates to "seize resilience" (Tibetan: ཌེམ་, Wylie: dem, ZYPY: dêm , "resilience"; Tibetan: ཆོག, Wylie: chog, ZYPY: qog ; "seize").[7]

Description
Modern-day Demchok, Ladakh and Dêmqog, Ngari Prefecture

The village lay 36.5 km east of Ukdungle (32.6015°N 78.9651°E / 32.6015; 78.9651). Demchok was on an old route linking Ladakh and Tibet along the bank of the Indus River,[8] which ran mostly through plains to Lake Manasarovar approximately 300 km away.[9]

17th century
Further information: Chronicles of Ladakh § Treaty of Tingmosgang (1684)

The Chronicles of Ladakh mention that, at the conclusion of the Tibet–Ladakh–Mughal War in 1684, the Prime Minister Desi Sangye Gyatso of Ganden Phodrang Tibet[10] and the King of Ladakh Delek Namgyal[11][12] agreed on the Treaty of Tingmosgang. The chronicles describe the treaty as fixing the boundary at "the Lhari stream at Demchok".[5][13][14]

According to Alexander Cunningham, "A large stone was then set up as a permanent boundary between the two countries, the line of demarcation drawn from the village of Dechhog [Demchok] to the hill of Karbonas."[15][16]

British colonial era
Further information: Demchok sector § History

British boundary commissioner Henry Strachey visited Demchok in 1847 on the borders of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. He described the village as:

[Demchok] is a hamlet of half a dozen huts and tents, not permanently inhabited, divided by a rivulet (entering the left bank of the Indus) which constitutes the boundary of this quarter between Gnari ... [in Tibet] ... and Ladakh.[17]

The boundary commission determined that the border between the Kashmir and Tibet was at Demchok.[18]

The Survey of Kashmir, Ladak, and Baltistan or Little Tibet of 1847 to 1868 under the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India then made several adjustments to the boundary, described by Alastair Lamb as moving "sixteen miles downstream on the Indus from Demchok".[19] However, Indian commentators state that the revenue records from the period of the survey show that the Demchok area was administered by Ladakh.[20][21]

In 1904–05, a tour report by the Wazir Wazarat (Governor) of Ladakh described the Tibetan side of the hamlet to have 8 to 9 huts of zamindars (landholders) and described the Ladakhi side as having two.[6] When Sven Hedin visited the area in the November 1907, he described Demchok as four or five huts lying on the southeastern bank of the Lhari stream in Tibet, with the Ladakhi side of the Lhari stream only containing the pyramidal Lhari peak and the ruins of two or three houses.[22][23]

Modern era

Chinese-administered village
Main article: Dêmqog, Ngari Prefecture

The Chinese-administered village of Dêmqog lies on the southeast bank of the Charding Nullah and LAC. Before 1984, only 3 households were living in Dêmqog.[7] Since 1984, the local governments have encouraged people to move to Dêmqog from surrounding areas.[7] Dêmqog was officially established as an administrative village in 1990 and had a population of 171 people from 51 households in 2019.[7]

Indian-administered village
Main article: Demchok, Ladakh

The Indian-administered village of Demchok lies on the northwest bank of the Charding Nullah and LAC. According to the 2011 Census of India, the village had a population of 78 people from 31 households.[24] In 2019, the village had a population of 69 people.[25]

See also

Notes
  1. For the traditional spelling see Francke, Antiquities of Indian Tibet, Part 2 (1926), pp. 115-116. Variant spellings include Demchog,[1] Demjok,[2] and Dechhog.[3]

References
  1. Bray, John (Winter 1990), "The Lapchak Mission From Ladakh to Lhasa in British Indian Foreign Policy", The Tibet Journal, 15 (4): 77, JSTOR 43300375
  2. Henry Osmaston; Nawang Tsering, eds. (1997), Recent Research on Ladakh 6: Proceedings of the Sixth International Colloquium on Ladakh, Leh 1993, International Association for Ladakh Studies / Motilal Banarsidass Publ., p. 299, ISBN 978-81-208-1432-5
  3. Cunningham, Alexander (1854), Ladak: Physical, Statistical, Historical, London: Wm. H. Allen and Co, p. 328 – via archive.org
  4. Lamb, The China-India border (1964), pp. 64–66.
  5. Lamb, Treaties, Maps and the Western Sector (1965), p. 38.
  6. Report of the Officials, Indian Report, Part 3 (1962), pp. 3–4, 41.
  7. "典角村"五代房":见证阿里"边境第一村"变迁" ["Five-generation house" in Dianjiao Village: Witness the changes of Ngari's "No. 1 Border Village"] (in Chinese). China Tibet Network. 11 July 2019. Retrieved 19 July 2020.
  8. Puri, Luv (2 August 2005). "Ladakhis await re-opening of historic Tibet route". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 24 December 2013. Retrieved 19 July 2020. Administrative record books show that it has a population of 150 people living in 24 houses, all having solar-powered lights. The village itself was divided into two parts one held by India and the other by China after the 1962 Sino-Indian war, though there is not a single divided family. On the Chinese side one can spot two houses and the road seems to be in a poor condition.
  9. "expressindia.com - 'Issue of opening Demchok road with China taken up'". 2 April 2005. Archived from the original on 19 September 2012. Retrieved 27 July 2015.
  10. Ahmad, New Light on the Tibet-Ladakh-Mughal War of 1679—1684 (1968), p. 342: "Sans-rGyas rGya-mTsho (1653-1705), sDe-pa or Prime Minister of Tibet 1679-1705"
  11. Ahmad, New Light on the Tibet-Ladakh-Mughal War of 1679—1684 (1968), pp. 351–352: "bDe-legs rNam-rGyal, came to the kingship [of Ladakh] [...] Thereupon, the Government of Tibet, being afraid that the King of Ladakh and his troops might, once again, make war (on Tibet), ordered the 'Brug-pa Mi-'pham dBaii-po that he ought to go (to Ladakh) in order to establish peace."
  12. Petech, The Kingdom of Ladakh (1977), pp. 171–172: "bDe-legs-n.g. co-regent (1680-1691)"
  13. Ahmad, New Light on the Tibet-Ladakh-Mughal War of 1679—1684 (1968):
    • p. 351: "Now, in 1684, the government of Tibet, headed by the sDe-pa Sans-rGyas rGya-mTsho, annexed Gu-ge to Tibet, and fixed the frontier between Ladakh and Tibet at the lHa-ri stream at bDe-mChog."
    • p. 351–353: "We produce now a new translation of the Ladakh Chronicles [...] With this exception, the frontier (of Ladakh) was fixed as from the IHa-ri stream at bDe-mChog."
    • p. 356: "The fourth clause fixes the frontier between Ladakh and Tibet at the IHa-ri stream of bDe-mChog, but leaves the King of Ladakh an enclave at Men-ser"
  14. Francke, Antiguities of Indian Tibet, Part II (1926), pp. 115-118.
  15. Woodman, Himalayan Frontiers (1969), pp. 42–43.
  16. Cunningham, Ladak (1854), p. 328.
  17. Lamb, The China-India border (1964), p. 68.
  18. Maxwell, India's China War 970, map opposite p. 40.
  19. Lamb, The China-India border (1964), pp. 72–73.
  20. Rao, The India-China Border (1968):
    • p.24: "But such an evaluation was seldom done and although most officials traced the boundary correctly along the watershed range running parallel to the river Indus, gross blunders were committed regarding the alignment in the Pangong and Demchok areas. This was apparently due to the unfamiliarity of some of the British officials with the traditional and treaty basis of the boundary and to their mistaking local disputes such as pasture disputes with boundary disputes."
    • p.29: "The Kashmir Atlas boundary conflicts also with the first-hand evidence provided by the 1847 Commission. In regard to Demchok, it conflicts with well-established facts of history and with revenue records for the very period that the survey was conducted."
  21. Bray, The Lapchak Mission (1990), p. 75: "Many of these relationships had their origin in the distant past, and the British at first understood their full significance imperfectly, or not at all."
  22. Lange, Decoding Mid-19th Century Maps (2017), pp. 353–354, 357 'Hedin described the place as follows: "Rolled stones play an important part in the country which we have now reached. The whole of Demchok, the last village on the Tibetan side, is built of them. It consists, however, of only four or five huts with brushwood roofs."'
  23. Hedin, Southern Tibet (1922), p. 194: "A short distance N. W. of Demchok, the road passes a partly frozen brook [Lhari stream] coming from Demchok-pu, a tributary valley from the left. ... At the left side [Ladakhi side] of the mouth of this little valley, are the ruins of two or three houses, which were said to have belonged to Hemi-gompa. A pyramidal peak at the same.. side of the valley is called La-ri and said to be sacred. The valley, Demchok-pu, itself is regarded as the boundary between Tibet and Ladak."
  24. "Leh district census". 2011 Census of India. Directorate of Census Operations. Archived from the original on 24 July 2015. Retrieved 23 July 2015.
  25. Sharma, Arteev (17 July 2019). "Lack of infra forcing people to migrate from frontier". Retrieved 29 May 2020.

Bibliography

Petech, Luciano (1977), The Kingdom of Ladakh, c. 950–1842 A.D. (PDF), Instituto Italiano Per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente – via academia.edu

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