In 1846, Joseph Dalton Hooker a botanist, biogeographer and traveler obtained a government grant for the trip to India. And as fate would have it, he was granted free passage on the ships taking Lord Dalhousie, the newly-appointed Governor General, to India.
After visiting Calcutta, Hooker came to Darjeeling where he met Brian Houghton Hodgson, an expert on Nepąlese culture, Buddhism and collector of Sam.skr.ta manuscripts who was also a passionate naturalist. The two became close friends and Hodgson helped Hooker prepare for his trip into the Himalaya. However, by the time Hooker was ready to set off for Sikkim in 1848, Hodgson was taken ill and hence could not accompany him. Dr. Archibald Campbell, a British government agent, went instead.
Sikkim, a small and impoverished state, was then bordered by Tibet, Nepal and Bhutan, as well as British India. Its King was understandably anxious not to annoy any of his powerful neighbours so he and his chief minister, the Dewan, were particularly suspicious of travelers like Hooker who surveyed and made maps during their travels . When Hooker first sought permission to enter Sikkim, the Dewan made considerable efforts to prevent him, and even after pressure from the British administration forced the Dewan to submit, he obstructed their progress in various ways.
He particularly urged them not to cross the northern border with Tibet during their explorations, but Hooker and Campbell knowingly ignored his order and the border violation was used by the Dewan as a pretext to arrest and imprison them in November 1849. The British government secured their release within weeks by threatening to invade Sikkim. The elderly King was punished with the annexation of some of his land and the withdrawal of his British pension; a response that even some of the British thought excessive.
Following his release, Hooker spent 1850 traveling with Thomas Thomson in Eastern Bengal and the two returned to England in 1851.
sOURCE: bARUN rOY
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