How many climbers reached Everest's summit under M.S. Kohli's leadership in 1965?

9. Nine climbers reached the summit, across four separate teams, between 20 and 29 May 1965. Read more: GK0100 — M.S. Kohli: The Naval Officer Who Led India to Everest.

M.S. Kohli: The Naval Officer Who Led India to Everest

In 1965, M.S. Kohli led India to its first Everest summit. That same year, he also led a secret mission to plant a nuclear-powered spy device on a different Himalayan peak, a device that is still lost today.

📑 Contents

1The 1965 Everest Expedition, and the Secret Nanda Devi Mission
2The Lost Device, and His Later Honours
3Test Yourself
4One Year, Two Very Different Outcomes

✊ Must Know

1. The 1965 Everest Expedition, and the Secret Nanda Devi Mission

Fact Manmohan Singh Kohli was born on 11 December 1931, in Haripur, on the Indus, in the North West Frontier region. He died on 23 June 2025, at the age of 93.
Link He was an Indian Navy officer. Between 1961 and 1964, he led three successful expeditions, including the first ascent of Annapurna III.
Link In 1965, he led the Indian Everest Expedition. Nine climbers reached the summit, across four separate teams, between 20 and 29 May 1965. The first team included Nawang Gombu, who summited Everest a second time in 1965 after his 1963 climb, making him the first person in history to do so twice.
Data That set a world record for the most summiters on a single expedition. The record stood for 13 years, until a German-French expedition in 1978. With this expedition, India became the fourth nation to successfully summit Everest.
Fact Also in 1965, Kohli led the mountaineering side of a covert joint India-US intelligence mission. Its goal was to place a nuclear-powered surveillance device on Nanda Devi, to monitor Chinese nuclear and missile activity.

📘 Good to Know

2. The Lost Device, and His Later Honours

Fact The device was powered by plutonium-238. A storm forced the team to abandon it before installation was complete, and it was lost on the mountain.
Fact It has never been recovered. Kohli was also involved in follow-up search expeditions to Nanda Devi and nearby Nanda Kot, in 1966 and 1967, which also failed to find it.
Why The lost device remains a real, unresolved environmental concern today. If the plutonium ever leaks, it could contaminate the Ganges river system at its source.
Instead No confirmed link exists between the device and any specific disaster, including a deadly 2021 landslide near Nanda Devi, despite some public speculation connecting the two.
Link For his Everest leadership, Kohli received the Padma Bhushan and the Arjuna Award. In 1989, he co-founded the Himalayan Environment Trust with Sir Edmund Hillary, and later served as President of the Indian Mountaineering Foundation.

Test Yourself

💎 Great to Know

3. One Year, Two Very Different Outcomes

Fact Kohli wrote several books about his climbs and the Nanda Devi mission, including “Spies in the Himalayas.”
Instead His two most consequential achievements, both from 1965, sit in real tension with each other. One was celebrated as a national triumph. The other was a secret failure whose consequences are still unresolved, six decades later.
Takeaway That contrast is worth remembering whenever a single year gets summarised as simply “successful” or “unsuccessful” for a public figure. Kohli’s 1965 was both.