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The paucity of available instrumental climate records in cold and arid regions of the western Himalaya, India, hampers our understanding of the long-term variability of regional droughts, which seriously affect the agrarian economy of the region. Using ring width chronologies of Cedrus deodara and Pinus gerardiana together from a network of moisture-stressed sites, Palmer Drought Severity Index values for October-May back to 1310 A.D. were developed. The twentieth century features dominant decadal-scale pluvial phases (1981-1995, 1952-1968, and 1918-1934) as compared to the severe droughts in the early seventeenth century (1617-1640) as well as late fifteenth to early sixteenth (1491-1526) centuries. The drought anomalies are positively (negatively) associated with central Pacific (Indo-Pacific Warm Pool) sea surface temperature anomalies. However, non-stationarity in such relationships appears to be the major riddle in the predictability of long-term droughts much needed for the sustainable development of the ecologically sensitive region of the Himalayas.