Kalsi

Kalsi stands near the meeting of the Tons and Yamuna, at a gateway between the Himalayan hills and the plains. Its surviving Ashokan rock edicts recall a much older political landscape. In medieval and early modern accounts, however, the locality is particularly associated with Sirmur: its rulers used Kalsi as a capital at different times before Nahan was founded in 1621. The fort and its approaches also figured in struggles involving Sirmur and neighbouring Garhwal.

The Gorkha wars brought another political settlement in 1815. Britain annexed Jaunsar and Bawar, formerly attached to Sirmur, while restoring a ruler at Nahan under supervision. Captain Birch was authorised to use the customs duties of Kalsi and the Kiarda valley for improvements in those tracts. The town therefore mattered as a revenue point as well as a former royal seat. Changes in sovereignty affected the collection of duties and the administration of the hill country reached through this river junction.