Garbyang
Garbyang
गरबियांग | |
|---|---|
Village | |
  Garbyang Location in Uttarakhand | |
| Coordinates: 30°07′33″N 80°51′35″E / 30.1259°N 80.8596°E | |
| Country |  India |
| State | Uttarakhand |
| District | Pithoragarh |
| Tehsil | Dharchula |
| Area | |
• Total | 5.81 km2 (2.24 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 3,146 m (10,322 ft) |
| Population (2011) | |
• Total | 426 |
| • Density | 73.3/km2 (190/sq mi) |
| Languages | |
| • Official | Hindi |
| • Regional | Byansi |
| Time zone | UTC+5:30 (IST) |
| Vehicle registration | UK |
Garbyang (also spelled Garbiyang or Garbia) is a village in Dharchula tehsil, Pithoragarh district, in the Kumaon division of Uttarakhand, India. It is situated in the Byans region at an elevation of 10,320 feet (3,150 m) on a plateau beside the Kali River, near the borders with Nepal and Tibet (China).[1] It is the largest and most important village in Byans Region.[1]
History
[edit]Garbyang is part of the Byans region, historically a patti (sub-division) of parganah Darma in Kumaon.[2] The entire Byans region, including Garbyang, was part of the Kumaon Kingdom before its conquest by the Gorkhas in 1791. After the Anglo-Nepalese War and the Treaty of Sugauli (1816), Kumaon was annexed by the East India Company.[3]
The surveyor Captain W. S. Webb, who surveyed Kumaon in 1815–16, recorded the elevation of Garbyang at 10,272 feet (3,131 m).[4] Lieutenant Henry Strachey, who visited in 1846, described Garbyang as the first village of Upper Byans, with mostly two-storied, flat-roofed houses, and crops of barley, wheat, turnips and two varieties of buckwheat.[4]
At the entrance to the village stood a stone formerly used as a whipping-post by the Tibetan Jongpen of Pruang, whose jurisdiction once extended over the Bhotiya region.[1] During British rule, Garbyang served as the summer headquarters of the Political Peshkar and the Political Deputy Collector, whose duties included facilitating trade and watching the interests of Bhotia merchants, from whom they collected dues traditionally paid to the Tibetans. These officers were later transferred to Pithoragarh.[1]
The village was a depot for Tibetan goods used by the Dokpas, a Tibetan pastoral tribe who possessed only yaks and large Tibetan sheep and did not descend below 10,000 feet (3,000 m) for fear of endangering the health of their animals, which were accustomed to rarefied air. Grain was wrapped in birch bark and buried in holes in the ground for storage.[1]
Cross-border connections
[edit]The Byansi people of Garbyang traditionally maintained strong connections across the India–Nepal border. Hamlets of Jakti and Siti near Garbyang were cultivated by Garbyang residents, and the villages of Tallo Kangwa and Mallo Kangwa above Chhangru in Nepal contained the goths (pastoral shelters) of people from Garbyang and Gunji, who lived in India but owned land in Nepal.[5]
The most prominent early example of cross-border activity was Gobaria Pandit (also Gobriya Pandit), a wealthy trader from Garbyang in the early twentieth century, who maintained connections to both the Nepalese and Indian governments.[6]
According to land records cited by the Dharchula sub-divisional magistrate in 2020, over 190 acres of land in Kalapani and Nabhidhang were registered in the names of villagers of Garbyang, while the land at Lipulekh Pass was recorded as common land of Gunji villagers. Garbyang villagers stated that their ancestors had cultivated land at Kalapani before the Indo-China War of 1962, growing local cereals such as palthi and phaphar.[7]
Geography
[edit]Garbyang stands on a plateau formed by old alluvium and debris, with the river having cut its channel 300–400 feet (91–122 m) below the village sites.[4] The village is located on the right bank of the Kali River, close to the confluence of the Kali with the Tinkar River (Tinkar Khola) from Nepal.[8] It is the first village encountered upon entering Upper Byans from the south, after crossing the Cheto-Binaik ridge.[4][8]
The village has faced serious land degradation and ground subsidence. The sedimentary sequence forming the flat surface of the Garbyang valley is a varve deposit — annually laminated layers deposited in a lake formed in the geological past by the damming of the Kali River around Chia-lekh by debris from the glaciers of Mount Api (7,132 metres (23,399 ft)).[9]
Demographics
[edit]As per the 2011 Census of India, Garbyang has a population of 426, comprising 277 males and 149 females, living in 192 households. The village has a total geographical area of 580.99 hectares (5.8099 km2). The literacy rate is 87.3%.[10]
At the time of the British settlement of 1872, the entire Byans patti had a population of 1,722 across seven villages.[2] The 1911 gazetteer recorded Byansi as being spoken by 1,585 people across the patti.[11]
The village is populated seasonally. The residents are Byansi people, who practise transhumance, residing in Garbyang during summer and migrating to lower elevations, primarily Dharchula, in winter.[1]. The clan name associated with this village is 'Garbiyal'.[12]
The Bhotiya communities of Kumaon, including the Byansi, were granted Scheduled Tribe status in 1967. The villages of the Byans region, including Garbyang, have produced a number of officers of the Indian Administrative Service and Indian Police Service, including retired IAS officer D. S. Ghabriyal from Garbyang.[3]
Transport
[edit]Garbyang is located approximately 65 kilometres (40 mi) from the sub-district headquarters at Dharchula. It is on the route of the Pithoragarh–Lipulekh Pass Highway, part of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra route.[8]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Walton, H. G., ed. (1911). Almora: A Gazetteer. District Gazetteers of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. Vol. 35. Government Press, United Provinces. p. 244.
- 1 2 Atkinson, Edwin Thomas (1882). The Himalayan Gazetteer, Volume III, Part I. Cosmo Publications. p. 158.
- 1 2 Cowan, Sam (14 November 2020). "The Gorkha War and its aftermath". The Record. Retrieved 21 July 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 Strachey, H. (1848). "Narrative of a Journey to Cho Lagan (Rakas Tal), Cho Mapan (Manasarowar), and the valley of Pruang in Gnari, Hundes". Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 17: 98–120, 127–182, 327–351.
- ↑ Manzardo, Andrew E.; Dahal, Dilli Ram; Rai, Navin Kumar (1976). "The Byanshis: An Ethnographic Note on a Trading Group in Far Western Nepal" (PDF). Contributions to Nepalese Studies. 3 (2). Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies (CNAS), Tribhuvan University: 83–118.
- ↑ Nawa, Katsuo (1998). "Ethnic Categories and International Border: The case of Byans, Far Western Nepal". Journal of the Indian Anthropological Society. 33: 65–75.
- ↑ "Land in Kalapani, Lipulekh belongs to India's border villages: Official". The Tribune. 14 June 2020. Retrieved 21 July 2026.
- 1 2 3 Walton, H. G., ed. (1911). Almora: A Gazetteer. District Gazetteers of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. Vol. 35. Government Press, United Provinces. pp. 228–229.
- ↑ "Garbyang: Sinking village of Higher Himalaya". Risk Prevention Mitigation and Management Forum. 5 October 2021. Retrieved 21 July 2026.
- ↑ "Garbyang Village in Dharchula Block, Pithoragarh". eUttaranchal. Retrieved 21 July 2026.
- ↑ Walton, H. G., ed. (1911). Almora: A Gazetteer. District Gazetteers of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. Vol. 35. Government Press, United Provinces. p. 98.
- ↑ Pangtey, Dr. S. S. (May 2020). "Uttarakhand-Nepal Trade through Pithoragarh District of Kumaon". Research Review International Journal of Multidisciplinary. 5 (5): 98. Retrieved 24 July 2026.