Ladakh's winter of discontent

From cheering its UT status, the region is now mired in protest

Ladakh’s descent from a prominent cheerleader of the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution in 2019 to a vocal dissenter of the Centre’s policies highlights the political risks of neglecting local aspirations for long. In August 2019, Ladakhis had celebrated on the streets of capital Leh the region’s carve-out from Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) and its creation as a Union Territory. The expectation was that the fulfilment of this long-standing demand would lead to greater self-determination and prosperity for Ladakh. In the three and a half years since, simmering unrest at what locals see as the weakening of their rights under central rule has bubbled up into outright protest in the national capital, where Ladakhi leaders and students have congregated to air their grievances. Last month, the Union home ministry had set up a committee to examine these grievances. But reports suggest that little progress has been made.

At the heart of complaints from Ladakhi civil society is the weakening of local protections for land and jobs. As part of the state of J&K, the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council, an elected body, had directed the affairs of a region that occupies a sensitive geography, bordering the hostile powers of Pakistan to its north and China to its east. Now under direct central rule, the Council has become little more than a cipher. Locals also fear that the region’s ethnic tribal demography would be overwhelmed by people from the plains settling in Ladakh in larger numbers, with jobs increasingly being cornered by people outside the state. Although the Ladakh administration has increased the direct recruitment for scheduled tribes from 10 per cent to 45 per cent in government jobs, the mistrust of expanding private investment from outside the region remains. The change in domicile policies in J&K has amplified these fears. Industrial projects are apparently being approved without local consent and industry groups have explored the possibility of developing manufacturing around minerals such as gold, sulphur, borax, granite, limestone, and marble that can be found in the region.
 

Much of the popular discontent has coalesced around demands that Ladakh be granted statehood, just as has been promised to J&K at some later date, and brought under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution as a safeguard of local rights. The Sixth Schedule, which comes under Article 244, provides for the formation of Autonomous District Councils in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, and Mizoram, which enjoy specific legislative powers and are allotted certain sources of taxation. In 2019, the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes had recommended that with tribes accounting for 97 per cent of Ladakh’s population, its distinct cultural heritage needed protection under the Sixth Schedule. The Centre’s response has been to say that the Sixth Schedule is only for the North-east; for tribal areas in the rest of the country there is the Fifth Schedule, which applies to states with more than 50 per cent tribal population but where the local autonomous councils’ powers are less capacious. To be sure, the Centre could introduce a Bill to amend the Constitution to bring Ladakh under the Sixth Schedule. Doing so would be one way of assuaging the fears of Ladakhis.