Despite the enforced calm under severe restrictions, tensions remain high in Ladakh following the deaths of four people during violent protests demanding statehood and constitutional protections. The BJP government has a one-size-fits-all response for every situation. As is its wont, it is responding to the Ladakh crisis with its usual formula of excessive force, internet shutdowns, brutality and the arrest of activist Sonam Wangchuk.
This has only made things worse.
Wangchuk, a respected Magsaysay Award winner, climate activist and innovator, had been peacefully protesting for five years while the government held fruitless talks with Ladakhi leaders. Ironically, he was among those who initially celebrated when Article 370 was scrapped and Ladakh became a Union Territory in August 2019. He was, in fact, articulating a long felt sentiment in Leh.
The demand for Union Territory status has been central to Ladakhi politics since the 1950s. It gained momentum in 1989-90 when the Ladakh Buddhist Association led major protests. This created divisions as Buddhist-majority Leh supported the demand while Muslim-majority Kargil opposed it, leading to clashes with communal overtones.
These tensions stemmed partly from deep mistrust of the Kashmir-dominated leadership and sense of discrimination. Additionally, after 1947, Ladakh went from being an important crossroads region to a remote area cut off by the Line of Control, and caught between hostile borders with Pakistan to the West and China to the northeast.
The creation of Hill Development Councils in Leh and later Kargil helped calm these demands for years, though they were never completely discarded and buried. A major reason was the RSS and Hindu rightwing factor.
The BJP-RSS gradually built influence in Ladakh after 1990, exploiting regional divisions. Events like the Sindhu Darshan festival were designed to bring Hindu nationalist ideology to the Buddhist-majority region.
Like in Jammu, the RSS filled political vacuums created by instability and regional divisions. New Delhi encouraged these divisions as a counterweight to Kashmir's narrative, while shortsighted Kashmir leadership treated other regions as separate silos rather than understanding their complexities.
By August 2019, RSS-BJP influence was fully entrenched in Leh, which explains why Ladakhis initially celebrated the Article 370 abrogation.
The Great Disillusionment
What changed everything was the gradual realization that BJP's promises were empty. A year after celebrating the end of Article 370, Ladakhis understood they had actually lost politically, economically, and environmentally. Ladakh's unique challenges made BJP's development model particularly threatening. With less than 3 lakh population sprinkled across the vast cold desert spanning 60,000 square kilometres, which remains cut off from rest of the world for most of the year and every one village or town is separated from the other by scores of miles, life in Ladakh is difficult. Added to its tough terrain and fragile ecosystem is its strategic location, that makes Ladakhis exceptionally vulnerable.
The government's push for mass tourism, jobs for outsiders, and large development projects, that suit the interests of crony capitalists, with environmental consequences, which jeopardise the interests of all regions in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, pose an even bigger existential threat to local communities in Ladakh.
But the Ladakhis learnt the hard way.
Within a year, Ladakhis realized that Article 370, which they believed to be their enemy, had actually provided crucial protections. They mobilized against the changes. Wangchuk was not the creator of the movement, but he joined it enthusiastically alongside other disillusioned locals, and became its visible face.
Unlike the divisive 1990s protests, the post-2020 movement achieved remarkable unity. For the first time, Muslims and Buddhists from both Leh and Kargil districts came together under the Ladakh Apex Body and Kargil Coordination Committee.
The Ladakhi crisis offers important lessons. Their disillusionment mirrors feelings across the former state of Jammu and Kashmir. Similar to Ladakhis, all regions have lost the special protections that safeguarded local jobs, land, and resources.
Rather than blaming Ladakhis or digging up old grievances, this is a moment to recognise common ground. Each region's complaints, real and imagined, have never been properly addressed and were often manufactured for political purposes by different interests, creating vacuums that were seized by the Hindu Rightwing.
Ladakhi grievances about losing political control and facing environmental damage from BJP policies also resonate across the entire Himalayan region. From Himachal to Sikkim and the north-eastern states, the Himalayan belt is under severe threat of aggressive development models pursued by successive governments and further out into full acceleration by the BJP.
While the Ladakh crisis creates opportunities for building alliances and strengthening networks within the Himalayan region and Jammu and Kashmir region, they warn the Indian state of dangerous consequences.
By provoking peaceful Ladakhis, the government has created new fault lines that could inspire democratic and environmental movements that will be hard to control.
Killing four protesters instead of using proper crowd control, then arresting Wangchuk and spreading bizarre and ridiculous conspiracy theories about "foreign hands," shows the government's ignorance about the region and public mood.
Will the BJP learn lessons? Or will it refuse to shed its blinkers and continue using its patent toolkit of suppressing, arresting and then vilifying communities and their leaders?
Suppressing Ladakh is a major mistake that could lead to internal uprising and provide opportunities for China and Pakistan to exploit. The government's heavy-handed response is making a bad situation much worse. It is jeopardizing ecological and national interests for the sake of petty self-serving gains.
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