GULAB SINGH
The treaty was actually written in Persian—a “neutral language.” However, what it illustrates is that very complex treaties could be very short. This is half the treaty. The first sentence introduces the representatives of the parties. The last sentence agrees to keep the roads and trade open. That was it. It ended many years of fighting for control of Laddakh. The Tibetans wrote a report describing the negotiations and have always maintained that these verbal side agreements were also binding. Even today diplomats make side agreements that are too hot to be put in the main treaty, albeit no treaty in modern times has been as short.
Maharaja Gulab Singh Jamwal (1792–1857) was the founder of Dogra dynasty and the first Maharaja of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, which was a part of Panjab and Sikh Empire became the largest princely state under the British Raj, which was created after the defeat of the Sikh Empire in the First Anglo-Sikh War. During the war, Gulab Singh would later side with the British and end up becoming the Prime Minister of Sikh Empire. The Treaty of Amritsar (1846) formalised the transfer of all the lands in Kashmir that were ceded to them by the Sikhs by the Treaty of Lahore.
