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efore addressing the developments in Ladakh over the past few weeks, let me begin with news from another part of India—Bihar. After months of public protests, opposition campaigns in the streets and debates in parliament; even Supreme Court intervention, the Election Commission of India has declared more than five million people (some reports put the number as high as 6.8 million) ineligible to vote. The ruling comes through its ongoing Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.
According to one report, in one constituency nearly 45 percent of the votes struck off the rolls are Muslims and about 20 percent Other Backward Castes. This has not only confirmed the worst fears of the opposition, which has traditionally depended on these communities for electoral support, but critically, deepened the anxieties of the communities, who see it as a step toward stripping them of their citizenship rights. There is now growing talk that the intervention may be replicated in other states, especially those governed by parties opposed to the BJP.
Developments in Ladakh over the past few weeks are the proverbial other side of the coin. The region has been a critical buffer zone between China and India. It is known not just for its scenic beauty but also for deadly skirmishes between Chinese and Indian armies. Most people in the region wish to remain within India; many have welcomed even the abrogation of Article 370 that had kept them tied to the state of Jammu and Kashmir. However, the region is now being turned into another war zone. Like Muslims in Kashmir, the Buddhists in Ladakh are now being labelled as anti-national, simply because they demand autonomy and representation in local affairs. The demand is backed by both the Buddhists of Leh and the Muslims of Kargil, largely tribal communities. Their call was for inclusion under the Sixth Schedule of the Indian constitution, which provides for Autonomous District Councils—a safeguard already extended to other vulnerable communities in India, such as those in Karbi Anglong, Assam. The key concern, of course, was to ensure local participation in decision-making about land, resources and development. The ongoing agitation is not only about demands for statehood and constitutional safeguards (like Sixth Schedule protection) but also tied to environmental anxieties. Ladakh’s fragile ecosystem is highly vulnerable to the pressures of large-scale industrialisation, infrastructure expansion and resource extraction, which have accelerated since the region became a Union Territory in 2019. Recent proposals for mineral extraction (including rare earths) raise fears of ecological damage, land degradation and displacement of pastoral communities. There are plans afoot for hydropower projects that threaten river systems like the Indus and its tributaries, with potential impacts on agriculture, biodiversityand water security. Local pastoralist and agro-based communities fear losing control over grazing lands, forests and water resources to outside corporate and government interests.
Ladakh is now turning into another war zone. Like Muslims in Kashmir, the Buddhists in Ladakh are being labelled as anti-national.
Ironically, their Gandhian scientist-innovator leader Sonam Wangchuk, who once hailed Modi for his decision to make Ladakh a Union Territory (without a legislature) in the hope that locals will finally have their say, was made an example for expressing this desire very soon. His long march to Delhi last year (only to be turned back from the boundary of Delhi), his repeated peaceful long hunger strikes, encouraged a government already hell bent on changing the federal character of the country. To achieve this objetive, it has gone on a rampage, from sponsoring films like Kashmir Files and Kerala Story; from labelling opposition-ruled states as enemy territories; and taking direct action against the political leaders; even imprisoning them.
What Wangchuk did not realise was that, when it dismantled Jammu and Kashmir, the government did not simply want a strong unitary state like Indira Gandhi. The unitary state vision of Modi-led BJP comes from the ideological position of a strong Hindu state. This Hindu state counts even the Hindus who don’t align with its vision of a unified Hindu Rashtra among its enemies. In their scheme of things, Buddhists belong to a minority religion. While conspiracy theories are being bandied about the ‘foreign hand’ in the recent violent turn to the long standing peaceful agitation leading to four deaths, a repeat of the perfected practice to crush a peaceful mass movement is discernible.
In 2019-20 with the enactment of the discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act, a large mass of people led by Muslim women and young students had taken to the streets across India to protest against the Act. Despite its attempts to sideline the issue, the government was unable to suppress the protest. Then came the engineered riots leading to killings in parts of Delhi and a swift move by the government to crush the protests, also leading to arrest of youth and student leaders. Many of them are still behind bars under the draconian anti-terror laws.
Let’s now focus on Ladakh. Ladakhis have been agitating peacefully for longer than two years. The government created a body to engage them in talks, but nothing came of it. As the movement continued to grow stronger even after two years of contemptuous indifference shown by the Union government, it was merely a matter of time before an appeal to the tested formula. As the movement turned violent ‘inexplicably’ (some call it ‘engineered’ by the Gen Z), police moved in and called out Sonam Wangchuk as the conspirator behind it. The state did not stop there. It deployed its next weapon – accusing the Wangchuk-led non-governmental organisation SECMOL, of threatening India’s ‘sovereignty.’ The next day, Wangchuk was arrested under National Security Act and packed off to Jodhpur.
It was clear that when the Hindutva-driven state defines India as a nation, it does not see its living, breathing people as part of it. All it sees apparently is barren stretches of land sketched on maps hanging in countless classrooms across the country.
The writer is an independent researcher and activist based in Delhi and works closely with various civil society groups. He may be reached at: avinashcoldgmail.com