Mohan Lal Kashmiri
Indian diplomat (1812-1877)
Mohan Lal Zutshi KLS (popularly known as Mohan Lal Kashmiri; 1812 – 1877) was an Indian traveler, diplomat, and author. He is credited as being an important player in the so-called Great Game—possibly the first notable Indian one. He also played a central role in the First Anglo-Afghan War of 1838–1842. His biography of Dost Mohammad Khan, the Emir of Afghanistan in Kabul, is a primary source on the war.
Mohan Lal's wife, Hyderi Begum, was a Muslim scholar. During the Indian Rebellion of 1857, she was said to have maintained a diary of events in Delhi.
Early life and family
Mohan Lal (also called Ram Nath) was from a Zutshi family of Kashmiri Pandits. His great grandfather, Pandit Mani Ram, had a high rank at the Mughal Court in the reign of Shah Alam II. His father, Rai Brahm Nath, also known as Rae Budh Singh, worked for a time for Mountstuart Elphinstone on a diplomatic mission to Peshawar (1808–1809). Mohan Lal studied at the Delhi College, one of the first Indian students to be educated in the English curriculum there.
His only brother, Kedar Nath Zutshi, was a Deputy Collector in Ambala, Panjab Province, and died in 1855.
The public source identifies “Mohan Lal Kashmiri” as indian diplomat (1812-1877). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Mohan, Kashmiri and Indian.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3918566. VIAF identifies the subject as 50340727. The Library of Congress control number is n79105724. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1812, 1877, 1838 and 1842.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mohan Lal Kashmiri” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.