The Night of the Long Knives Hits India via Ladakh

On September 24, 2025, Ladakh exploded into unrest: a shutdown demanding statehood and Sixth Schedule protections escalated into violence in Leh, leaving four protesters dead and dozens more gravely injured as police opened fire. Curfew was declared, mobile internet snapped, public gatherings banned and activist Sonam Wangchuk – who had been on hunger strike – was arrested under the draconian National Security Act (NSA) and hauled away to a distant jail in Jodhpur. Minions of the regime rushed to frame this as a mere “law and order problem” and began to fabricate alibis to justify it. But this is not a local flare-up. It is the latest in a mounting series of revelations: Ladakh is now a stark laboratory, exposing India’s accelerating descent toward authoritarian rule, where constitutional dissent is met with suppression, state power is unchallenged and democracy itself is under siege.

What Ladakhis demand

When Article 370 was abrogated in August 2019 and Ladakh was carved out as a separate Union Territory, the move was initially greeted with jubilation in Leh. For years, Ladakhis had lamented their marginalisation in the politics of Jammu and Kashmir, where power was concentrated in Srinagar. The promise of a Union Territory seemed to signal liberation from “Kashmiri dominance,” a direct line to Delhi and a new era of development.

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.

But what was hailed as emancipation soon revealed itself as deception. Unlike Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh was denied an elected legislature. The entire administration was placed under the absolute authority of a centrally appointed Lieutenant Governor. The two Hill Development Councils of Leh and Kargil – once symbols of local self-governance – were systematically hollowed out. Decisions central to Ladakh’s existence – its land, its jobs, its ecology – were taken out of local hands and dictated from Delhi.

This dispossession unfolded in plain sight. In 2021, the Ministry of Home Affairs extended central property laws, including the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, to Ladakh, paving the way for outsiders to buy land – something Ladakhis had long resisted to protect their fragile demographic balance. Mining leases were handed to corporations without local consultation; a 2022 plan for extensive gypsum extraction sparked outrage among Changpa nomads whose pastures were now threatened. Massive infrastructure projects like the 14.2-kilometre Zojila tunnel were bulldozed through without meaningful environmental assessment, endangering glaciers and water sources. Even the recruitment for public jobs – once reserved for locals – was subsumed under all-India competitions, deepening the sense of alienation.

The Union Territory that was supposed to empower Ladakhis has instead reduced them to subjects under bureaucratic rule. The promise of autonomy has been replaced by authoritarian governance. Delhi’s hand now reaches into every sphere – land, labour, livelihood – with no democratic accountability. What the Ladakhis are demanding today is not privilege, but the restoration of their constitutional right to self-governance and protection under the Sixth Schedule. Their movement stands as a warning: in the name of “integration” and “development,” the Indian state is perfecting the art of centralised control – turning its peripheries into laboratories of obedience.

Centre’s fascist response

The Centre’s response to Ladakh’s democratic mobilisation has followed a familiar script – the reflex of a regime that increasingly sees citizens as subjects to be disciplined rather than as participants to be heard. Since 2014, the regime has cynically progressed from “Congress-mukt Bharat” (India sans Congress) to “Opposition-mukt Bharat” to “Protest-mukt Bharat” to, now, “Citizen-mukt Bharat”. People asserting their constitutional rights anywhere are ruthlessly repressed. The state has answered legitimate demands for autonomy with repression: curfews, internet shutdowns, arbitrary detentions and the invocation of national security laws meant for terrorists. Whatever has happened in Leh marks a chilling escalation – a message to the entire country that dissent, even when peaceful and constitutional, will be met with the full coercive weight of the state.

This is not an isolated episode. It is a continuation of a pattern perfected over the past decade – the transformation of dissent into sedition; of civil society into an internal enemy. What began in Kashmir with the abrogation of Article 370 and the detention of its elected leaders has since spread across the map: Manipur, where the state collapsed into ethnic warfare while Delhi looked away; Chhattisgarh, where Adivasi movements are crushed under the guise of counter-insurgency; and Delhi, where students and activists face UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act) charges for protesting the Citizenship Amendment Act. The same authoritarian impulse now grips Ladakh – a region that once trusted Delhi to deliver justice but has instead discovered the fangs of the fascist state.

Also read: Fascism or Neo-Fascism: Whatever You Call it, Fight It!

The fascist proclivities of the Indian state are visible not only in its methods but in its mindset. The Centre’s bureaucratic logic no longer recognises the idea of local sovereignty or federal balance; it tolerates no intermediate authority between itself and the governed. Institutions of representation – legislatures, councils, even courts – are either bypassed or reduced to rubber stamps. What remains is the naked authority of the executive, buttressed by the police, the army and an ecosystem of propaganda that brands all dissent as anti-national.

In Ladakh, this authoritarianism acquires a particularly sinister form because it wears the mask of patriotism. Any demand for autonomy is cast as secessionist, any call for environmental protection as obstructionist and any insistence on constitutional safeguards as a threat to national unity. Thus, the state converts citizens into suspects – a defining feature of fascism. The borderland, once a space of shared vulnerability and collective guardianship, becomes a stage for the spectacle of power: flags, convoys and curfews replacing dialogue and trust.

Ladakh today is not an aberration but a warning. It demonstrates how a government that equates dissent with disloyalty corrodes the very foundations of democracy. When the might of the state is turned inward – against its own citizens – sovereignty itself loses meaning. The tragedy is not only that India’s remotest region is being silenced, but that the methods perfected there will soon be replicated elsewhere. The border is becoming the blueprint for the nation.

Misuse of security stereotype

The Centre continues to justify its suffocating control over Ladakh by invoking the spectre of national security. The argument is familiar: Ladakh borders both Pakistan and China and so is considered sensitive from a security standpoint – as though that were reason enough for denuding Ladakhis of their citizenship. Since the Galwan clash of June 2020 – in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed – the Line of Actual Control (LAC) has become one of the most militarised frontiers in Asia. Behind this rhetoric of security lies a strategy of subjugation. The state treats the region less as a home to citizens than as a fortress to be occupied – a strategic asset to be exploited rather than a political community.

The numbers reveal the absurdity. Ladakh’s total population, about 3,02,000 in 2024, is dwarfed by the scale of the region’s militarisation. In the aftermath of Galwan, more than 68,000 Indian soldiers, along with tanks, armoured vehicles, artillery and vast logistical convoys, were airlifted into eastern Ladakh. In March 2025, the government went further by permanently stationing the 72 Infantry Division in addition to the already deployed 3rd Division. The ratio of soldiers to civilians is among the highest anywhere in the world – a chilling reminder that Ladakh is being governed at gunpoint.

But genuine national security cannot be built on permanent deployment or bureaucratic fiat. It requires the consent of the governed – the faith and participation of the very people who inhabit the border. The Ladakhis are not outsiders to the nation’s security; they are its first sentinels, who have historically lived, farmed and guarded this high-altitude frontier. To alienate them through exclusionary governance, denial of democratic rights and reckless environmental destruction is to hollow out the moral core of security itself.

The consequences of such alienation are visible across the Himalayas. In Tibet, China’s strategy of militarised assimilation – denial of religious freedom, demographic engineering, suppression of local leadership – has only produced cycles of resentment and unrest. In Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan’s refusal to grant full constitutional representation has bred similar discontent, with protests over land dispossession and extractive resource policies. Both cases demonstrate the same principle: rule without representation invites resistance, not loyalty.

India risks replicating these authoritarian patterns in its own borderland. By reducing Ladakh to a garrisoned territory, Delhi imperils precisely what it claims to defend – national integrity. A border is secure not when it is bristling with guns, but when the people who inhabit it believe they belong. For Ladakh, that sense of belonging will come not from tanks or tunnels, but from constitutional safeguards, democratic voice and respect for its environment — from being treated as citizens, not as subjects of a security state.

“National security” has become the most convenient fiction of the Indian state – a ready-made justification for enacting draconian laws and curbing dissent. Over the past decade, statutes like the UAPA and NSA have been weaponised not against terrorists, but against citizens – writers, students, journalists, lawyers and activists whose only crime is questioning government policy. In the mainland, this charade is played with impunity to instil fear and suppress accountability. But when the same playbook is applied to the borderlands, it becomes perilous. Regions like Ladakh, Kashmir or Manipur are not merely territories but living frontiers sustained by the trust and participation of their people. Treating democratic aspirations there as security threats erodes that trust, turning loyal citizens into alienated subjects. True national security cannot rest on coercion; it rests on legitimacy – on a state that inspires confidence, not dread.

Is anyone safe in India?

No figure better embodies the contradictions of Ladakh – and of India today – than Sonam Wangchuk. An engineer, innovator and educator celebrated globally for his “ice stupas” and alternative models of schooling, Wangchuk has long symbolised the best of constructive patriotism. Time listed him among the world’s 100 most influential figures in climate action; the Ramon Magsaysay Award jury commended his “grassroots innovation”. He has received national honours, inspired students across the Himalayas and even voiced admiration for Prime Minister Narendra Modi on several occasions. His arrest, therefore, is not merely the silencing of a dissenter – it is the persecution of a believer.

Wangchuk’s demands were constitutional to the core: statehood for Ladakh, or at least a legislature with real powers; Sixth Schedule safeguards for land, employment and cultural identity, and ecologically responsible development in a region most vulnerable to climate collapse. Is any of this unconstitutional or unlawful? He articulated these through resolutely nonviolent means – hunger strikes in sub-zero cold, marches grounded in Gandhian ethics and public appeals couched in the vocabulary of the constitution and ecology. There was no sedition, no separatism, no breach of law. Yet, the Centre responded with the full machinery of repression: his NGO’s FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) license was revoked, its funds were frozen and an orchestrated campaign of vilification branded him “anti-development,” “provocative,” even “linked to Pakistan.” The final act came with his detention under the NSA – a law intended for terrorists, now wielded against a teacher and environmentalist.

Also read: Why Sonam Wangchuk Matters

The deeper significance of Wangchuk’s persecution lies in what it reveals about the Modi regime’s psyche. Fascist systems are not threatened by violence – they thrive on it. What they fear are figures of moral clarity who expose their hollowness. Mussolini feared Gramsci for his intellect; Hitler feared Bonhoeffer for his conscience. Authoritarian power, unable to produce moral legitimacy, survives by annihilating it.

Wangchuk stands in that lineage of inconvenient patriots – men and women whose loyalty to the nation transcends loyalty to the regime. In silencing him, the state has declared war not on separatism, but on conscience itself. His ordeal joins a growing list: the Bhima-Koregaon scholars branded “urban Naxals,” the anti-CAA students called “anti-nationals,” journalists charged with sedition, and now an environmentalist detained as a “security threat.”

The message is unmistakable: in Modi’s India, citizenship no longer guarantees safety. The regime no longer distinguishes critic from enemy, or the idealist who builds from the activist who resists. When even a peaceful innovator who once praised the Prime Minister can be branded a traitor, it signals the total collapse of the moral contract between state and citizen.

Wangchuk’s saga, therefore, is not just about Ladakh – it is about India itself. It tells us that the project of a “New India” has reached its logical destination: a nation where loyalty is measured not by love of country, but by obedience to power.

Anand Teltumbde is former CEO of PIL, professor of IIT Kharagpur, and GIM, Goa. He is also a writer and civil rights activist. 

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