Draft:Byans

Byans
Cultural Region
Byans Location in Uttarakhand
Coordinates: 30.20°N 80.85°E / 30.20; 80.85
Country	India / Nepal
State (India)	Uttarakhand
District (India)	Pithoragarh
Province (Nepal)	Sudurpashchim Province
Languages
• Local	Byansi

Byans (also Byas, Beeans; from Sanskrit Vyāsa, after the sage Vyasa) is a historical and ethnographic region in the Western Himalayas, situated in the extreme north-eastern corner of Kumaon in the Pithoragarh district of Uttarakhand, India, with two villages (Chhangru and Tinkar) located across the border in Darchula District, Nepal. The region occupies the valley of the Kuthi Yankti river and the upper portion of the Kali River valley in its vicinity.

The inhabitants of Byans are the Byansi people, who call themselves Rang (or Rung) in their own language. The Rang identity is shared with the inhabitants of the adjacent valleys of Chaudans and Darma. They speak Byansi, a West Himalayish language related to the old Zhang-Zhung language.

Etymology

Lieutenant Henry Strachey, who visited Byans in 1846, recorded that the mountain on the right side of the Kali valley between Chhangru and Kunti was known on maps as Byans Rikhi. He clarified that this was properly not the name of the mountain itself but of the personage believed to dwell on its summit — the great Rishi Vyasa (Vyas-deva), the reputed author of the Mahabharata and sundry Puranas. Strachey concluded that "Byans seems to be nothing else than the modern form of the old Sanskrit name Vyasa," and that the entire district derived its name from the sage.

Geography

Boundaries

On the Indian side, Byans is bounded to the north by the Great Himalayan range, which forms the international border with Tibet (China). The high passes of Mangsha Dhura (5,490 metres (18,010 ft)) and Limpiya Dhura (5,530 metres (18,140 ft)) are situated along this northern boundary. To the south, the ridge of Nirpaniya Dhura (at approximately 10,500 feet (3,200 m)) marks the boundary with the old Chaudans patti. To the west, the Kali River separates Indian Byans from Nepali territory.

On the Nepali side, the two Byans villages of Chhangru and Tinkar lie in the Tinkar Valley, east of the Kali River in Darchula District. They are bounded to the east and south-east by the snowy range of Tinkar, Nampa and Api, beyond which lies the district of Marma, the northernmost division of Doti, whose inhabitants were known to be Khasia and not Bhotia. To the north, the Tinkar Pass connects with Jidikhar in the Pruang (Purang) valley of Tibet. The 1961 Nepal-China Boundary Treaty defines the starting point of the Sino-Nepalese boundary as "the point where the watershed between the Kali River and the Tinkar River meets the watershed between the tributaries of the Mapchu (Karnali) River on the one hand and the Tinkar River on the other hand."

Sub-Alpine and Upper Byans

The region is divided into two distinct zones. The sole sub-alpine village is Budhi, situated at an elevation of 9,070 feet (2,760 m) on the right bank of the Palangar stream above its confluence with the Kali. Above Budhi, a steep ridge called Cheto-Binaik advances from the mountainside on the north-west and extends across the valley, leaving only a narrow passage for the river. After an ascent of approximately 1,750 feet (530 m) to its summit, the traveller enters Upper Byans, which Strachey described as a dramatic transformation from a narrow dark ravine to an open, sunny Alpine valley.

The first village in Upper Byans is Garbyang (10,320 feet (3,150 m)), close to the Kali River. The Kali then turns abruptly to the north-west through a steep rocky mountain defile, while the path follows the left bank to Gunji (10,310 feet (3,140 m)) at the entrance of the Kuthi Valley.

Passes

Two main passes connect Byans with Tibet. The Lipu Lekh (16,780 feet (5,110 m)) at the north-eastern end of the region was the principal route for trade with the Tibetan town of Taklakot (Burang) and for the Kailash-Mansarovar pilgrimage.

The Limpiya Dhura at the north-western end of the Kuthi valley leads into Tibet but was historically open only in the height of summer for traders, and is much more difficult to traverse than Lipu Lekh. The Tinkar Pass from the Nepali side of Byans connects with Jidikhar in the Pruang valley of Tibet.

Following the Indo-China War of 1962, the passes between India and Tibet were closed, ending centuries of trans-Himalayan trade. Much of the Byansi trade subsequently passed through the Tinkar Pass in Nepal, though at higher cost and with an increasingly restricted list of goods. The strong social links between the Indian and Nepali Byansi communities enabled this shift. The Lipulekh Pass was partially reopened in 1992 when India and China signed a protocol for limited border trade, but China did not consult Nepal on any of the trade agreements, despite Lipu Lekh featuring in all of them.

Agriculture and forests

In Byans, one crop of napal (Himalayan wheat) or buckwheat used to be sown in May or June, as soon as the snow had sufficiently melted, and reaped in November. There historically used to be a dearth of good timber; the only tree that generally grows in Byans is birch, in small quantities. Strachey noted that cut pine timber was transported from Byans to the treeless Pruang valley in Tibet as regular trade.

Administrative history

Byans was historically a patti (sub-division) of parganah Darma in Kumaon. Before the Gorkha conquest of Kumaon in 1791, the Byans area, including the tract around Changru and Tinkar, was considered an integral part of Kumaon, distinct from the kingdoms of Doti and Jumla.

After the Anglo-Nepalese War (1814–16) and the Treaty of Sugauli, Kumaon was annexed by the East India Company. The Kali River was established as the boundary between British territory and Nepal. In 1817, the Nepali governor Bam Shah claimed the villages of Changru and Tinkar on the eastern side of the Kali, and the British Governor-General acquiesced on the grounds that the treaty entitled Nepal to territory east of the river. However, when Bam Shah further claimed the villages of Kunti and Nabhi — arguing that the western branch of the headwaters (Kuthi Yankti) should be considered the main stream of the Kali as it carried the larger volume of water — the claim was rejected. The surveyor Captain Webb and Commissioner G. W. Traill reported that the lesser stream flowing from the Kalapani springs had always been recognised as the main branch of the Kali, and that ceding the villages would create a constant source of conflict over transit duties on the trade to Tibet through Lipu Lekh.

When the zamindars of Byans were informed of the separation of Changru and Tinkar, they petitioned Traill in March 1817, stating that the remaining six villages — Budhi, Garbyang, Nabi, Rongkong, Gunji and Kuti — were entirely dependent on the agricultural production of Changru and Tinkar, and that they would be forced to desert their villages if the two were transferred.

At the time of the 1872 British settlement, Byans had a total assessable area of 393 bitta, of which 353 were cultivated, paying a revenue of Rs. 517 per annum. The population numbered 1,722.

Under British administration, Kumaon had the status of a Non-Regulation Province, in which the commissioners exercised broader discretionary powers than in the regulated areas. These arrangements were suited to the conditions of life and trade in the high Himalayan valleys, where trans-Himalayan traders traditionally paid taxes on land to Tibetan authorities in addition to their trading dues.

Villages

At the time of the 1911 gazetteer, the Byans patti contained seven villages on the Indian side:

Village	Approximate elevation	Notes
Budhi	9,070 feet (2,760 m)	Sub-Alpine Byans; only village below Cheto-Binaik
Garbyang	10,320 feet (3,150 m)	Largest village; first village of Upper Byans
Gunji	10,310 feet (3,140 m)	At entrance to Kuthi Valley; on Kailash-Mansarovar route
Nabi (Nabhi)		In upper Kuthi valley
Napalchu		Opposite Gunji, on the Per-Yankti stream
Rongkong		On the Dangnung-Yankti
Kuti (Kunti)	12,330 feet (3,760 m)	Highest village in the valley

Two further villages, Chhangru (9,900 feet (3,000 m)) and Tinkar, are located across the Kali River in Nepal's Darchula District. In later times, two additional villages were established in the Nepali portion: Rapla and Sitaula.

People

The people of Byans are the Byansi people, one of the four Bhotiya communities of Kumaon, the others being those of Johar, Darma and Chaudans. The 1911 gazetteer recorded 1,585 speakers of Byansi in the patti.

The villages of Indian Byans, despite their small and seasonal populations, have produced a notable number of senior civil servants, including officers of the Indian Administrative Service, Indian Police Service, and Provincial Civil Service. These include IPS officer Sanjay Gunjyal (1997 batch), IAS officer Vinod Gunjyal, and IPS officer Hemant Kutiyal (2011 batch), all from the Gunji–Kuti–Nabi belt. Retired IAS officer D. S. Gharbiyal from nearby Garbyang has described the region as "known for high educational standards."

Cross-border connections

The Byansi traditionally operated under a system of five mukhiyas (headmen), one from each of five Byansi villages in both Nepal and India. All Byansi land, whether in Nepal's Byans panchayat, in Darchula-Khalanga, or in India, was registered in the names of these five mukhiyas. Land revenue was paid by the mukhiyas to the government in Tibet until approximately 1955.

Ethnographic field work conducted in the 1990s illustrated the complexity of cross-border identity in Byans. Whether an individual's citizenship was Nepalese or Indian, whether their natal village was in Nepal or India, and whether their house was in Nepal or India did not necessarily coincide. Some Rang individuals held Indian civil service positions while being born in Nepali villages, maintaining houses and ritual roles on both sides of the border, and having different family members serving in the Indian civil service and the Nepalese army simultaneously.

Geopolitical significance

Nepal's administrative claims

Nepal has claimed that prior to 1962, the Nepali government conducted census operations, collected land revenue, and issued land-registration certificates in the villages of Gunji, Nabi and Kuti, and that it possesses records to support this. Bhairab Risal, a Nepali census official who participated in the 1961 census, stated in 2021 that his team had reached Gunji, Nabi and Kuti during that census, and that this was cited as proof that the territory east of the main channel of the Kali River had always been part of Nepal.

However, the historian Sam Cowan has expressed scepticism about this claim, noting that India had maintained a large detachment of State Police at Gunji since 1954, controlling access to the other villages, and that given the high degree of security sensitivity in the border area at the time, it was difficult to see how any Nepali official would have been permitted access, especially to carry out the business of the government of Nepal. Cowan suggested that people from Indian villages may have been recorded in the Nepali census while they were working or living on the Nepali side of the border, given that Indian Byansis owned land and buildings in Nepal and paid tax on them, but that this would not itself establish Gunji, Kuti and Nabi as parts of Nepal. Cowan further noted that the census was conducted in July, when most people from the Byansi villages would either have been residing in their summer homes supervising yaks in the high pastures, or on long trading trips to Tibet using the Tinkar Pass in Nepal, since Lipu Lekh had been closed from 1960.

India has maintained that administrative and revenue records dating back to the 1830s, held by the Uttar Pradesh state government, show that the area has been continuously administered as part of Pithoragarh district. A State Police post was established at Kalapani in 1956, and since 1979 the Indo-Tibetan Border Police have maintained a post there.

2020 Nepal map

In May 2020, Nepal published a new political and administrative map that included the northeastern half of the Kuthi Valley, along with Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura, as part of Nepali territory. The Nepalese parliament endorsed a constitutional amendment to incorporate the map into Nepal's national emblem. India rejected the claim as an "artificial enlargement of territorial claims" not based on historical facts or evidence.

See also

• Kuthi Valley
• Byansi people
• Kalapani territory
• Bhotiyas of Uttarakhand
• Chaudans
• Darma Valley
• Tinkar Valley

References

Category:Regions of Uttarakhand Category:Pithoragarh district Category:Byansi people Category:Geography of Kumaon division