No substitute to dialogue in Ladakh

So we have achieved what I, having served a lifetime in Jammu and Kashmir, including Ladakh, would have until only recently considered impossible. Ironically, dominated by a Shanti Stupa in the Union Territory of Ladakh, violence erupted in Leh city on September 24 during an ongoing protest seeking statehood and what Ladakhis consider the constitutional status of a Scheduled Area for its tribal population.

Within days, the scrupulously non-violent leader of the agitation — held by the Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL) — climate activist Sonam Wangchuk was arrested under the National Security Act.

In its official statement, the Union Home Ministry said an unruly mob destroyed public property and attacked the police, injuring around 30 security personnel. The police, in this case the paramilitary CRPF, had to resort to firing, announced the MHA, in which “unfortunately some casualties are reported.”

Ladakh Lieutenant Governor Kavinder Gupta, himself a BJP leader from Jammu, in a TV appearance confirmed the deaths without specifying the number of lives lost or that the dead were mostly young men, but mentioning that curfew had been imposed in Leh city, which is home to a population of about 27,500 souls. This curfew persists with temporary periodic relaxation, he had said.

The fact is that this agitation has persisted for months but has been totally peaceful and, therefore, not even worth the ministry talking to the agitators. The Ladakhis foresaw their home become a rising tourist destination with their own opportunities both for enterprise and employment vanishing. They also feared the influx of ‘outsiders’ into the staff of government offices, that had earlier provided employment to state subjects of J&K, of which Ladakh was then a part.

With the establishment of the Hill Development Councils introduced by the state government in the 1990s, new opportunities had opened, although inevitably not up to the level of people’s expectations, but certainly giving them a platform to campaign, agitate or simply work towards creating opportunities.

Elections to the Hill Development Councils are now due. Is the current handling of the crisis a political move towards seeking control of the local government? This is the suspicion of many Ladakhis. The leader of the agitation, Sonam Wangchuk, is a consummate politician, son and heir to Sonam Wangyal, a major political activist at the close of the last century who had opposed the then Chief Minister Sheikh Abdullah’s National Conference government. The climate activist enjoys the support of a large section of the UT’s current political leadership, including activists from the relatively more volatile Kargil district, and indeed the majority of Leh residents, who had, unlike the Kargil public, welcomed the abrogation of Article 370.

The people in Leh had expected that opportunities would expand under the administration of the Union Government. But they found that the existing opportunities, often hard won, that the Ladakhis had considered inadequate, had altogether diminished.

Lamenting the loss of life of youths in Leh’s disturbances, Dr Karan Singh, the last of the former rulers of the erstwhile kingdom of J&K, stated: “Inclusion in something like the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution seems to be an eminently reasonable solution.”

He appealed to the authorities to carefully consider the demands of the youth and see what concrete measures could be taken to meet their aspirations, including constitutional safeguards.

“This is very important to prevent the agitation from growing , which, in the long run, will have negative security implications. I also appeal to the people to remain calm and peacefully articulate their demands,” he had said. Sadly for Dr Karan Singh and for all the rest of us Indians, we know that the current situation would not have come to such a pass had a sincere effort been made to address the aspirations and misgivings of Ladakh’s youth on the cusp of the dramatic transformation of the UT by the abrogation of Article 370.

Having lost that opportunity, plaintive pleas for consideration of their standing demands are unlikely to prove productive. Only a direct and full-fledged participation in governance will help ameliorate the grievances of these residents of a vital area of confluence of cultures and also military vulnerability, where public support for government is critical.

We already know from the activities of the government in Assam, home to several Sixth Schedule areas in the Northeast, which inspired the inclusion of that Schedule in the Constitution, that the government cares little for tribal rights in the lands falling under that Schedule.

On a recent visit to that state, I was confronted by tribal representatives complaining that the Government of India, exercising its privilege under the Schedule, was considering handing over prime agricultural land and even forests to Indian MNCs.

There can indeed be no substitute to dialogue based on mutual respect. Fractious youth must be handled with a rap on the knuckles or even a slap on the cheek, if necessary. I speak from my experience in a much more contumacious Kashmir of the 1990s, where I can boast of never having ordered firing against fellow citizens.

The answer in Ladakh certainly will not lie in shooting at young people. The government must act immediately to make amends by reconciliation, not by confrontation.

Wajahat Habibullah is a former bureaucrat, J&K cadre.