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On 11 November 1865, the Treaty of Sinchula was signed at Sinchula on the Indo-Bhutan frontier, ending the Duar War between Bhutan and British India. Bhutan ceded the Bengal Duars (eleven Duars) to British India — confirming the earlier 1841 cession of the eighteen Assam Duars — and in exchange received an annual British subsidy of fifty thousand rupees, the principal external revenue stream of the early Bhutanese state. The treaty held for forty-five years until the 1910 Treaty of Punakha replaced it, and the broader settlement framework lasted until Indian independence in 1947.
historical · 1865 · Sinchula, on the Indo-Bhutan frontier
On 11 November 1865 at Sinchula on the Bhutan-British India frontier, the Treaty of Sinchula was signed between the Royal Government of Bhutan and British India. The Bhutanese side was led by Trongsa Poenlop Jigme Namgyel, the paramount political figure of the country at the time; the British side was represented by the political agents who had concluded the Duar War campaign earlier the same year. The treaty followed nearly a year of conflict (November 1864 - October 1865) that had included the failed Ashley Eden mission, the Bhutanese rout of a British column at Deothang on 27 January 1865, and the broader campaign across the Bhutan-British frontier. The signing at Sinchula formalised the settlement and ended the war.
The treaty established several core provisions. **Territorial cession** — Bhutan ceded all the Bengal Duars (eleven Duars) to British India, confirming the earlier 1841 cession of the eighteen Assam Duars; the combined Duars territory became part of British India and would in turn become part of independent India in 1947. **Annual British subsidy** — Bhutan received fifty thousand rupees per year from British India, the principal external revenue stream of the early Bhutanese state across the subsequent four decades (raised to one hundred thousand rupees under the 1910 Treaty of Punakha). **Free trade** — the treaty established free trade between Bhutan and British India, the foundation of the later bilateral commercial relationship. **Mutual recognition** — both parties recognised the sovereignty of the other within the new frontier; the treaty made no provision for British interference in Bhutanese internal affairs. See [[duar-war-1864-1865|the Duar War]] for the antecedent conflict.
The Treaty of Sinchula was replaced on 8 January 1910 by the Treaty of Punakha, signed at Punakha Dzong between His Majesty the First Druk Gyalpo Ugyen Wangchuck and Sir Charles Bell, the British Political Officer in Sikkim. The 1910 Treaty doubled the annual subsidy from fifty thousand to one hundred thousand rupees, added a provision that Bhutan would be guided by British advice in external affairs (with the explicit understanding that British India would not interfere in Bhutanese internal affairs), and updated the framework for the post-1907 Bhutan that had a hereditary monarch. The 1910 Treaty in turn was replaced by the 1949 Bhutan-India Treaty of Friendship after Indian independence. See [[treaty-of-punakha-1910|the 1910 Treaty of Punakha]] and [[bhutan-india-treaty-1949|the 1949 Bhutan-India Treaty]] for the broader treaty arc.
The Treaty of Sinchula is the foundational document of the contemporary Bhutan-southern-neighbour relationship. The Bhutanese southern frontier — running along the foothills above the Duars from Phuentsholing in the west to Samdrup Jongkhar in the east — is the direct descendant of the 1865 settlement. The financial framework (the annual subsidy) was the principal way the early Bhutanese state funded itself across the second half of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th, supporting Trongsa Poenlop Jigme Namgyel's reign as the 51st Druk Desi and the educational and infrastructural initiatives that His Majesty the First Druk Gyalpo Ugyen Wangchuck would later undertake. The 1949 Bhutan-India Treaty returned thirty-two square kilometres of Deothang territory to Bhutanese sovereignty — a small but symbolically substantial partial-restitution of the 1865 cession.
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