ladakh-handle-with-care

The Buddhists of Ladakh have always been great patriots and nationalists. They still are and will always be. They have a glorious record of defending the country against all odds.

 

In 2019, they celebrated the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution more than anyone else. They celebrated the granting of the union territory status, which was their long-pending demand.

 

But, within a span of six years, things in Ladakh seem to have taken a U-turn. The Ladakhi Buddhists now seem to rue the abrogation of the Article 370, claiming that in hindsight they think it protected their religious, linguistic, cultural and geographical identity, which are threatened now after its abrogation.

 

They have long forgotten the UT status and have raised the demand for a separate state now. The entire region’s population is about just three lakh, although it is a huge area spread across from the Chinese border on one side, and the Pakistan Occupied areas on the other. A separate state will not be feasible.

 

The Ladakh region consists of two sub-regions/ districts—Leh and Kargil. The two regions are religiously, culturally, linguistically and geographically distinct and different from each other.

 

While being part of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, the people of Kargil area always identified with the Kashmir region, primarily for religious affinity, while Leh region identified with the national mainstream. Leh and Kargil would also mostly vote differently in both the parliamentary as well as the assembly elections.

 

The fault for the current crisis lies partly with the Central government and partly with the leadership of the Leh region. The local leadership celebrated the grant of UT status assuming that they had got everything. But practically nothing changed. The UT was without an assembly, which the local people had expected to be on the lines of Delhi or Puducherry.

 

The region had to be content with the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council, which is nothing more than a municipal body may be even less given the scope of power and authority it commands. The council is subordinate to the Deputy Commissioner, Leh.

 

Only thing that changed for Ladakh after getting the UT status was that one more official from outside, the Lieutenant Governor, was added and appointed, who is supposed to be the head of the administration. Again, the people of Ladakh did not get any power or authority.

 

Also read: Will Ladakh’s demands finally be met?

 

In 2019, the Bharatiya Janata Party won the Ladakh parliamentary constituency for the first time. This was only because the entire Buddhist population voted for the party in anticipation of getting the UT status. After becoming the UT, the BJP also won the LAHDC elections.

 

As the practical realities started to dawn, people in the Leh region started feeling disillusioned. The disillusionment is now gradually giving way to alienation. The euphoria about the Union Territory status has already fizzled out, as practically it does not mean anything, except the “change of masters”.

 

Earlier, Ladakh was ruled from Srinagar and now the Ladakhi people have started feeling that they are being ruled from Delhi. As the Ladakh Buddhist Association (LBA) president Chering Dorjey remarked, “while Srinagar was far, Delhi is farther”. That such feeling should come in the minds of the people representing LBA and that too when it is the BJP in power at the Centre, there is something seriously wrong with the handling of the region.

 

The LBA is a strong and powerful organisation with grassroots support. It had supported the BJP wholeheartedly in 2019. But now there appears to be a feeling of “betrayal” or at least, a feeling of having been ignored and left out.

 

This led to vertical division within the Buddhist community in the Leh region. Normally the entire population would vote unanimously. In the last General Elections, the Buddhist votes got divided between the Congress and the BJP, while the Muslim votes went en bloc to the National Conference leader-turned-independent candidate who won. This way the Ladakhi Buddhists lost the only political voice they would get through the member of the parliament.

 

As the sentiment against the Central government was simmering, the people of Kargil extended their support to the Leh Apex Body, which is spearheading the agitation for statehood. It was not for any sympathy for the cause of Ladakhi Buddhists, but just because the LAB was now agitating against the Central government that the Kargil Development Council joined ranks with it.

 

When the violence broke out on September 24, everyone appeared to have been taken unawares, particularly the local administration headed by the Lieutenant Governor. That ideally should not have been the case. Ladakh being a strategically sensitive region, there must be a deep and widespread intelligence network. It is shocking that the “UT” administration did not have any advance inputs about the rising tempers due to the long-pending grievances, perceived or real.  The entire UT administration is gravely guilty of omission, as it took no preventive and precautionary measures, which ended in violence.

 

Apparently to cover up its own failures, the UT administration, if there really exists any, shifted the blame on Sonam Wangchuk, an “environmental activist” who could not have wished for more. Wangchuk, till his arrest under the Public Safety Act (PSA) was known less in Ladakh and more outside, thanks to the media attention he got with his hunger strike, and foot-march to Delhi in support of his demand for statehood. The arrest has catapulted him to international fame, as it was widely reported in the international media.

 

Wangchuk’s case needs a thorough review, particularly whether the serious allegations levelled against him are really true. And if these are found to be true, why was he let off all this time that he succeeded in bringing the situation to such a boil leading to arson and violence that cost four precious lives. Responsibility must be fixed.

 

There is still time for both, the Government of India as well as the BJP, to make amends and corrections. Nobody knows the people of Ladakh more closely than the BJP ‘pracharaks’ who toiled and worked so hard in the region to build up a nationalistic opinion and narrative that led to its victory from here in 2019. All that hard work of decades has been squandered away and consigned to ashes, literally, with the burning down of the BJP office in Leh on September 24.

 

Ladakh needs to be handled with care. It certainly needs much more than slapping of PSA charges on an environmental activist though that has turned him into a mass leader, which he really was not till the time he was jailed.

 

It demands proactive action and not late overreaction.