Dr. Etee Bahadur
The French historian, Pierre Vilar (1985) wrote that the ‘The history of the world can be best observed from the frontier’, yet we see that anthropological researches on border studies are not many.
Travellers continue playing an important role in the development of geographical literature providing descriptions of culture, history legends and anecdotes of regions.
It was in February 1891 February that E. F. Knight left the dense fogs of London to travel to the Himalayas. Where three empires meet,is a travelogue which takes the reader not only through the beauty of the countryside but is also a tale of geo-political significance of the areas of undivided Kashmir, Western Tibet and Gilgit.
Ladakh was connected with various trade routes and missionaries and traders from various regions reached Ladakh for pilgrimage and trade as it lay at the heartland of Central Asia and India. By the sixteenth and the seventeenth century it was well established that trade took place in the Western Himalayas through Ladakh which connected it to Buddhist Tibet, although the trade between Ladakh and Tibet seems to have started much earlier. Fotu La, being nearly 2,000 feet higher than Zoji la and the highest point of the Leh road was reached sometime, in May that year, this Western road connects Ladakh with the valley of Kashmir. Knight describes the scene as being ‘very wild’, as there was, ‘nor a blade of glass, nor any sign of life’, but what made the view, ‘striking’ he writes is the ‘thousands of Chortens, standing in rows and in groups’, in this, ‘silent city of tombs and altars.’ Travelling through the ravines, Knight writes he would often meet the, caravans of Tibetans on way to Kashmir from Lhassa, as ‘natives of holy and free Tibet’, who would be carrying, brick tea or wool for trade.Brick tea (cha-pak) was drunk by almost all at Ladakh and I would not be surprised if one would still find old shops in the Leh Bazaar selling it another variant of it being the salted tea, which used a salt of a soda, salt being another important item of trade, besides apricots, Namdas, silk, spices and precious stones. Knight writes that, Leh was a very cosmopolitan city and he spent most of his yimr in Leh clicking pictures, playing polo the indigenous game of the highlanders at the Leh bazaar. He writes of ‘Accheentang’ as being, ‘the last Buddhist village’, as it borders Purig.
Today the Leh district of is predominantly Buddhist and the Kargil district has a majority of Shia Muslim population.
The Kingdom of Ladakh was a part of the Tibetan empire till it broke up in 742 AD and an independent Himalayan state till 1834, though its borders fluctuated at different periods in history, even to include what is now Western Tibet. Border studies, have a broad significance not only for the Tibetans but also the people of Kalmykia, Buryatia, Tuva Republic, Ladakh, Spiti, Lahual, Arunachal Pradesh in India, Myanmar, Bhutan and the Pakistan (North-east).
Two Nations, One Story, is one among the many stories narrated by the author Abdul Ghani Sheikh in his book Forsaking Paradise. Reconstructing history, the author narrates Pre-Partition memories, of the Ladakh Wazarat which was established in 1901, and included Skardu (Baltistan) Kargil and Leh. Conflicts between India and Pakistan separated the Baltis into two groups one living in Baltistan and Ghanche and the other living in Kargil in India. Soon thereafter, the fate of the people of Ladakh (Leh and Kargil) became entwined with that the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. It was in 1974 that the Northern Areas was created to detach Baltistan and Gilgit from the rest of Jammu and Kashmir.
Historically Ladakh shares a common heritage with Tibet, the spoken language being close to Tibetan. The dominant language of Baltistan, Kargil and Ladakh is a Western Tibetan Dialect as the regions of Ladakh and Baltistan that have participated in the culture of Tibet. Ladakhi language can be understood in terms of spoken and written or classical Tibetan. Classical Tibetan is known as Bhoti in Ladakh and the terms Bhoti and Ladakhi are used interchangeably in Ladakh. There are a number of loan words in the vocabulary of the Ladakhi language which have blended in spoken Ladakhi as Ladakh had shared its border with Central Asian countries, Tibet, Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. Ladakhi and Balti are closest to the Tibetan language infact the strong political and cultural links with Ladakh and Tibet gave Baltistan the name of ‘Little Tibet.’
The Baltis and Ladakhis people take pride in the fact that their dialects represent the original language as their pronunciation of the written Tibetan is still intact, however there has been a downfall trend in the reading and writing of Classical Tibetan. Efforts have been made to promote Ladakh’s literary heritage with the Tibetan Buddhist culture as both the administrative document and Buddhist religious texts were written in the Tibetan script earlier. The Baltistan movement and the vision of Greater Ladakh have emerged due to the conditions in the region post-partition and aim at stressing on a common Western Himalayan history of the region.A conflict-ridden borderland is thus, not the only dimension of Ladakh, and there is a need to study the region in a wider Himalayan context from a transnational perspective.
(The author teaches at the Centre for Jawaharlal Nehru Studies Jamia Millia Islamia New Delhi)
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