New Delhi: India has no dearth of mesmerising places and many of them are still unknown to the common public. One of them is Harsil, quaint tourist hill station, a village and army area located on the Bhagirathi River’s bank on the way to Gangotri, a pilgrimage site in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi district. Harsil is located at 9,005 ft above sea level. It is 78 km from Uttarkashi, and 30 km from the Gangotri National Park. The hill station is popular for its apple production and natural environment.
Harsil and a young Englishman named Frederick Wilson
Harsil was ruled by the Garhwal Kingdom. Curiously, the history of Harsil changed when in 1842, a 25-year-old Englishman named Frederick Wilson arrived at the place after deserting the army of the British East India Company. He went to the remote Harsil and introduced apples and rajma cultivation which became the main cash crops of the place.
Wilson became rich by logging deodar trees and he sold them to British for railways construction. To the local, Wilson was the “Raja of Harsil” and he even issued his own coins. He was friends with A.O. Hume and Rudyard Kipling whose novel ‘The Man Who Would Be King’ was inspired by him. He was cursed by a local priest for ravaging the ecology of the place. Sunderlal Bahuguna, Chipko Movement’s founder, blamed Wilson for the ecological destruction of Garhwal.
Military presence in Harsil
Harsil is a base camp of Indo-Tibetan Border Police and Garhwal Scouts. Its close proximity to the India-China Border makes the place extremely significant. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on November 6, 2018, visited Harsil and celebrated Diwali with ITBP soldiers.
A part of Gangotri pilgrimage
Harsil is part of the Gangotri yatra route of the Chota Char Dham. The idol of Ma Ganga is brought down from the Gangotri shrine after Diwali and kept near Harsil at ‘Mukhba’ village. It remains during the winter when Gangotri is covered in snow and cannot be accessed.
The government has and is developing tourist facilities in Harsil including India’s first snow leopard conservation. Natives of the border villages are trained as adventure guides for bird-watching and eco-tourism trekking. Harsil is developing with tourist lights and telescopes for star gazing.
Nestled in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi district, Harsil is a captivating hill station on the Gangotri pilgrimage route. Its history intertwines with that of Frederick Wilson, a British deserter who introduced apple cultivation. knowledge Knowledge News, Photos and Videos on General Knowledge
