India: Thousands people are protesting in sub-zero temperatures in Ladakh

• Ladakh, India’s northernmost region, hosts a desert landscape and is home to 300,000.
• The Buddhist community advocates for a separate region.
• No Indian company or outsider has invested in Ladakh in the past three years.

Srinagar-based freelance journalist Auqib Javeed reports on the changing dynamics as thousands in India’s high-altitude Ladakh region protest in sub-zero temperatures. Despite the government fulfilling their longstanding demand for a separate region from Indian-administered Kashmir in 2019, protestors have frequently taken to the streets since 2020, accusing the government of “betrayal” and unkept promises.

The northernmost region of India, Ladakh, hosts a desert landscape and is home to 300,000 people from Muslim and Buddhist communities. Buddhists dominate the Leh region, while Shia Muslims inhabit the Kargil region.

For decades, the Buddhist community has been advocating for a separate region for its people, while those in Kargil have desired integration with the Muslim-majority region of India-administered Kashmir.

In 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government revoked Article 370 of the constitution, which granted special status to the former state of Jammu and Kashmir, providing it with significant autonomy. The government then divided the state into two parts – Ladakh, and Jammu and Kashmir – and designated both as federally administered territories.

A year later, Kargil and Leh districts united to establish the Leh Apex Body (LAB) and Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA) with the aim of addressing people’s concerns. Massive rallies against the federal government have been organized by civil society groups.

Earlier this week, thousands took to the streets in Kargil, causing shops to close, demanding statehood. In Leh, protesters have planned a border march for next week.

“We were demanding a separate territory with a legislature,” says Chhering Dorjey Lakrook, a veteran Buddhist leader from Leh. “But we were granted only a federally governed territory.”

The move also sparked fears among people in Ladakh, who primarily depend on agriculture, that it would affect the region’s culture and identity by making it easier for those from outside the region to buy land in the area.

According to India’s home ministry, as of 5 April 2023, no Indian company had invested in Ladakh in the past three years, and no outsider had purchased any land in the region.

However, residents continue to harbor apprehensions about a potential influx similar to that in Jammu and Kashmir, where data indicates that 185 outsiders bought land between 2020 and 2022.

Their demands encompass statehood for Ladakh, employment opportunities, safeguarding of their land and resources, and allocation of a parliamentary seat for each district of Leh and Kargil.

Dorjey Lakrook, who served as president of the regional unit of India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) until 2020, asserts that the Sixth Schedule, a constitutional provision aimed at safeguarding the rights of indigenous and tribal groups, must be implemented. He highlights that this measure will protect Ladakh’s nearly 97% tribal population from exploitation by industrialists.

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