The Town Under the Lake: The Story of Old Tehri

Stand on the road above Tehri Lake on a calm morning and it looks like a postcard: blue-green water winding between steep hills, boats leaving white trails, the wall of a giant dam far downstream. It's hard to imagine that under that water there was once a busy royal town, with a bazaar, a palace, temples, schools and a clock tower.

That town was Old Tehri. For almost two hundred years it was the heart of Garhwal. Then, in a few years at the start of this century, it disappeared.

How did Tehri become a capital?

Tehri became a capital in 1815, when King Sudarshan Shah set up his court there after the Gurkha war. The Gurkhas had invaded Garhwal in 1803 and killed his father, King Pradyumna Shah, in battle. When the British defeated the Gurkhas, they kept the eastern part of Garhwal for themselves and returned the western part to Sudarshan Shah.

He needed a new capital, and he chose a flat spot where the Bhagirathi and Bhilangana rivers meet. The place was known as Ganeshprayag. The town that grew there became Tehri, and the kingdom became the princely state of Tehri Garhwal.

What was Old Tehri like?

A lively river town of markets, temples and old stone houses, and the trading centre for villages all around. Later kings moved their own capital to cooler places such as Narendra Nagar, but Tehri stayed the busiest town in the region.

People who grew up there talk about the main bazaar, the royal buildings, the ghats on the two rivers and the clock tower that everyone used as a meeting point. Families from across the valley came to Tehri for fairs, weddings and shopping. When the princely state joined India in 1949, Tehri became the headquarters of the new Tehri Garhwal district.

Why was Old Tehri drowned?

Because the Tehri Dam was built just downstream on the Bhagirathi, and its reservoir needed the whole valley. Work on the dam began in 1978. At about 260.5 m, it is the tallest dam in India, built to produce electricity and store water for the plains.

The project was fought for decades. The environmentalist Sunderlal Bahuguna, known from the Chipko movement, led long protests and fasts against it, warning about earthquakes, the loss of the town and the fate of thousands of families. The dam went ahead. The reservoir began to fill from 2005, and by the time the project was completed in 2006, Old Tehri was under water.

More than a lakh people were displaced by the dam and its lake. Many from Old Tehri were moved to New Tehri, a planned hill town built higher up, which is now the district headquarters. Others were resettled in Dehradun, Haridwar and other places.

What can you see today?

Tehri Lake itself, which has become one of Uttarakhand's newest tourist spots. The town lies under the water. In summer, when the water level drops, people sometimes say they can see the tops of old structures, but there is no safe way to visit them.

• Boating and water sports: boat rides, jet skis and kayaking are run on the lake near Koti Colony, mostly from autumn to early summer.
• Viewpoints: the road between New Tehri and Chamba gives wide views over the lake and the dam.
• New Tehri: the planned town on the hillside above, with markets and stays.
• Nearby: Chamba, Kanatal and the forests of Dhanaulti are within an hour or two.

Why the story matters

Because the lake is beautiful, and it is also a memory. For many families in Garhwal, Tehri Lake is where their grandparents' houses, temples and shops still stand, under the water.

If you go boating on the lake, it's worth knowing what's below you. Ask an older local about Old Tehri, and you'll often get a long, warm story about a town that no map shows any more.