Gorkha Rule

For a quarter century the expanding Gorkha empire of Nepal ruled the Uttarakhand hills. The period is remembered as the Gorkhyani, a byword for heavy taxation and forced labour, and it ended with the Anglo-Nepalese War and the Treaty of Sugauli.

Kumaon fell first: the Gorkha army defeated the Chands near Hawalbag in 1790 and took Almora. Garhwal held out longer behind the Alaknanda, but in 1803-04 the kingdom was overrun and King Pradyumna Shah was killed in battle at Khurbura. From Almora and Srinagar, Gorkha governors ruled the hills for Kathmandu.

Hill memory of the period is bitter. Taxation was severe, defaulters could be enslaved, and the trade of the hills was squeezed, though the Gorkha administration also left its own imprint on the region's forts and roads. When war came, many hill notables sided against Kathmandu.

Border friction with the East India Company turned to open war in 1814. The decisive Kumaon campaign ended at Almora in April 1815, and by the Treaty of Sugauli (signed 1815, ratified 1816) Nepal ceded the entire region: Kumaon and eastern Garhwal became British, and the Garhwal raja was restored at Tehri in the west.