The Transformation of the Indo-Tibetan Trade in Wool, 1904–1962

During the first half of the twentieth century, the wool trade articulated new political and economic relationships between Tibet and the British Raj in India and the world beyond. Kalimpong, the Eastern Himalayan town in North Bengal, flourished on the basis of India’s frontier trade with Tibet for about five decades. By placing the trans-frontier wool trade of colonial India at the centre of analysis, this article seeks to highlight the material history that existed on its landed periphery. An attempt will be made to understand the emergence, pattern and significance of India’s trans-frontier trade with Tibet in the light of major geopolitical changes in this region and the world in the twentieth century. The article will argue that the channelling of trade through the Kalimpong–Lhasa route was driven by multiple colonial interests, as well as commercial considerations. In particular, safeguarding the empire and producing a unified sovereign space in the newly established Himalayan frontier constituted a major concern of the British Raj.