Why Do Sonam Wangchuk’s Worries for Ladakh Irk the Indian State?

New Delhi: “Here is my Padmashri and Bharat Ratna” says Sonam Wangchuk, in a recent video where he points to notices pasted on the wall of his Himalayan Institute of Alternatives, Ladakh (HIAL).

The notices are not congratulatory, celebratory or commemorative in any manner.

Rather, the orders claim that the land where HIAL is built on is – “on a 40-year lease “had not been used for its intended purpose”. “No university (as recognised by law) has been set up to date. The land stands escheated to the Leh Autonomous Hill Development Council and the Leh Tehsildar shall remove all the encumbrances from the site as per provisions of the law and effect entries in the revenue record accordingly”

Wangchuk believes that ever since he has raised his voice against the Government’s sanctions of giving away lands that rightfully belong to the herders of Ladakh’s Changthang area, the authorities have been sour towards him and this action of calling his institute as ‘illegal’ proves his allegations.

Along with the claims Wangchuk has made, HIAL chief executive officer Gitanjali Angmo has said that the order was a “deliberate attempt to harass them”, and that they would approach the court. Angmo has also claimed that in 2023, when she and Wangchuk met with Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of Education, Pradhan welcomed them proudly.

But, she adds, a year later when she met with Pradhan, he very brazenly told her that HIAL’s file has been deliberately kept on hold with the UGC and will remain on hold till Wangchuk keeps pushing for Sixth Schedule.

Angmo said the pressure on the institute began the moment Wangchuk raised his voice for Ladakh’s rights.

“It’s not the first attempt; they’ve retreated before when we provided them legal documents,” she said, alleging that authorities are now leaning on PSUs to choke HIAL of funds as part of a larger campaign to silence dissent.

Wangchuk's demand for Sixth Schedule

On August 5, 2019 – when the Modi government unilaterally zeroed the constitutional guarantees of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh and bifurcated them into two union territories; there was a reaction of jubilation within Leh. Back then, while Wangchuk appreciated Centre’s move to separate Ladakh, he made sure to remind Ladakhis that this, was not their final goal.

Since the bifurcation, Wangchuk has maintained that Ladakh needs constitutional safeguards such as the Sixth Schedule. Despite being a majority tribal region, Ladakh has not been included under the Sixth Schedule, which grants special protections for land, culture, and resources. Post the reading down of Article 370, Ladakh lost its legislative autonomy and remains centrally administered – a situation Wangchuk and civil society view as deeply undemocratic.

Before August 2019, Ladakh was part of the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir and had elected representatives in the J&K Legislative Assembly. When Article 370 was read down and the state was split, Ladakh was carved out as a Union Territory without a legislature. This means unlike Delhi or Puducherry (which have UT assemblies), Ladakh has no elected local government with legislative powers – only bureaucrats appointed by New Delhi run the territory.

In addition to this, currently Ladakh is witnessing a clear dilution of local bodies’ powers. Ladakh has two Autonomous Hill Development Councils (in Leh and Kargil). With Article 370, these councils were rather influential, but after Ladakh being relegated to the UT status, the councils have been stripped of meaningful powers, with most authority resting in the Lieutenant Governor – an appointee of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Union government. Locals believe that these Councils, which were previously elected by them, have been reduced to advisory bodies, severely undermining grassroots democracy.

Further, since the six years that Ladakh has been a UT, it is facing a Parliamentary underrepresentation. As opposed to times before bifurcation, now Ladakh has only one Lok Sabha seat for its vast and diverse territory – covering both Leh (with high Buddhist population) and Kargil (with high Muslim population).

Previously, in the J&K Assembly, Ladakh had four MLAs, 2 from Kargil and 2 from Leh. Today, Ladakh has entirely lost its Assembly representation. It now has no legislators, only a single Lok Sabha MP who is the only elected voice for the entire Union Territory in the Parliament. There is also no Rajya Sabha representation. As a result, Ladakh, an area of strategic importance and cultural diversity, is receiving minimal representation in India’s highest decision-making forums.

String of hunger strikes and protest marches

Since 2019, Wangchuk has led a string of hunger strikes and protest marches that became a rallying cry against New Delhi’s denial of democracy in Ladakh.

To challenge this disenfranchisement, Wangchuk staged a five-day fast in Leh in January 2023, followed by a 21-day “climate fast” in March 2024 that mobilised thousands. He called for a symbolic border march to highlight both ecological threats and land loss to outsiders, and later that year led a “Delhi Chalo” padayatra with the Leh Apex Body and Kargil Democratic Alliance, launching an indefinite fast after police blocked them at the capital’s gates.

In August 2025, he joined a hunger strike in Kargil alongside Ladakh’s lone MP, again demanding statehood and Sixth Schedule protections. Through these movements, Wangchuk has kept alive Ladakh’s central grievance: that while the region is strategically vital, its people are denied voice, safeguards, and genuine self-rule.

In his exclusive interview with The Wire right before the Kargil hunger strike, Wangchuk shared important details about the issues in Ladakh, saying that it was the broken and ignored promises by the BJP that made Ladakhi’s vote out the BJP in the elections last year.

Ladakh voted out BJP leader Jamyang Tsering Namgyal and instead elected Mohammed Haneefa, an independent candidate as its MP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Apart from the above mentioned issues, another cause that Wangchuk has rallied for is how Ladakh’s youth face a deepening crisis of unemployment because the region lacks its own Public Service Commission or state-level recruitment boards.

This ends up forcing aspirants to compete in all-India examinations where they are at a significant structural disadvantage. The absence of constitutional safeguards; such as those provided under the Sixth Schedule in many tribal areas of the Northeast – further fuels anxiety that people from outside the region will monopolise the limited government jobs that do exist.

As a result, development projects touted as progress in Ladakh often fail to generate meaningful opportunities for locals, breeding resentment and a growing sense that Delhi’s promises of empowerment have translated into exclusion on the ground.

Stalemate with MHA

Since 2019, a discernible trend has developed in Ladakh: Whenever Sonam Wangchuk has organised significant protest marches or hunger strikes, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has been forced to summon the Leh Apex Body and Kargil Democratic Alliance for talks.

Going by the chronology of his fasts in January 2023, March 2024, and the Delhi march in late 2024, every fast has paved way for the future of a dialogue with Delhi, leading to five formal rounds of talks between June 2023 and May 2025.

Yet, through all of this, Delhi has sidestepped Ladakh’s central demands for statehood and Sixth Schedule protections, falling back instead on vague assurances or minor administrative fixes. That cycle of protest followed by inconclusive talks has only deepened the feeling that the Union government engages reluctantly, under pressure, and without real intent to close Ladakh’s democratic vacuum – its loss of an Assembly and meaningful safeguards.

Through it all, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah have largely chosen silence. Neither has offered direct engagement, let alone concrete commitments.

For many Ladakhis, that silence has become its own message: while Delhi prizes the region’s strategic position and its vast resources, it refuses to extend the same political rights and constitutional guarantees that would give Ladakhis a genuine voice in their own future.

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