Sonam Chosjor
Union Territory (UT) is more or less synonymous with the modern political discourse in Ladakh. The demand for separate administration for Ladakh, however, is not new at all. Ever since the visit of the first Prime Minister of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru, to Ladakh in 1949, Ladakh Buddhist Association (LBA) has been articulating this demand. It became popular only after the 1989-Buddhist agitation in Ladakh. These days, for outside observers and the media, UT has become a very convenient catchphrase to carry political narratives of Ladakh. For the common masses of Ladakh (especially Buddhists of Leh), it has become a ray of hope for a better future. For the political parties propagating UT for Ladakh, it is just a trump card of vote bank politics. But there are more shades of “UT-Ladakh” to be explored than just confining Ladakhi politics to its narrow frame.
There are two sets of arguments/justification put forth for the UT demand. One, that the Kashmiri dominated Government in the state has never been sensitive to the needs, aspirations and peculiar problems of Ladakh. Hence, Ladakh has lagged behind the other two regions of the state in every sphere of life. This line of argument could be justified if one tries to look at some aspects of developments (or lack of it) in Ladakh after the independence. One such glaring example is that Ladakh is yet to have an all-weather road to stay connected with the rest of the world.
The second set of arguments (though related to the first one) is that Ladakh has got a distinctive identity and different sets of problems peculiar to the region and its geo-climate. Therefore, the mainstream policies and programmes of the government, Centre and State, do not hold good for its betterment. Hence, it needs to have a separate administration to frame and prioritise its own developmental agendas. This too could be justified given its peculiar regional-specific developmental problems, its geo-strategic importance and its unique socio-cultural heritage.
These justifications are fine. But, making a more subterranean analysis, one gets the impression that the UT movement/struggle has always been on the wrong foot from its inception to the present date. The fundamental flaw with UT struggle lies in its Leh-centric approach and the fanatic political tinge fixated to it. One can observe this tendency right from 1949, when LBA submitted its first memorandum to the Government of India (GoI), and the subsequent memoranda of parties and organisations propagating it. The Leh-based parties and religious organisations have repeatedly constructed a very exclusivist notion of Ladakhi identity around UT-restricting it exclusively to the religious domain. The 1989 Buddhist agitation firmly reinforced this tendency- ‘Ladakhiness’ and ‘Buddhistness’ were made one and the same thing. Those who opposed the movement (especially Muslims of Kargil) were branded traitors.
Such a nature of the political discourse in the trans-Himalayan region has played an important role, among other things, in alienating the Ladakhi Muslims. Hence, they were kept further away from the UT movement. That is why whenever the Leh-based leaders raised the UT demand, the Muslim leaders of Kargil lost no opportunity in rejecting and criticising the same.
This is, however, not to say that all is well in Kargil. Even in Kargil, the social and political discourses have been overtly controlled by the religious organisations and some fanatic Aghas and Sheikhs. Apart from the antipathy towards the Leh-centric leadership, their opposition to the UT movement lacked any political acumen. They opposed it, and still do so, for the sake of opposing the Buddhist leaders. The political short-sightedness of the Kargili leaders was explicitly exposed when they rejected the local Hill Council Govt. in 1995- only because it was materialised at the efforts of the Buddhist leaders of Leh as an alternative to the UT. When they realised that the Hill Council machinery was working well for Leh district, they went all-out to have the same for Kargil.
Therefore, unfortunately, the leaders of the two districts remain confined in their respective shells and do not endeavour to forge a common platform to articulate the regional specific demands and grievances in one voice. It is here UT struggle becomes completely hollow. The precondition for the Leh-based leadership to take UT struggle forward is this: take the Muslim Leadership of Kargil on board. Without their support, the UT demand would be no less than a futile exercise as the GoI will never heed attention to a demand raised by one section of Ladakhi population and opposed by the other half.
Therefore, for leaders sincerely serious about UT, the immediate necessity is to take the local Muslims into confidence and make the demand more representative. There have not been such efforts till date from any of them. This could mean two things: (1) either they are not serious about the UT (because they are not going to get it)- meaning that they only use it as a trump card for vote bank politics; or (2) they do not have the capacity to spearhead the struggle. Regrettably, the leaders of Kargil, on the other hand, remain happy to be in their own cocoon- wasting no time to indulge in anti-Buddhist flag-waving- rather than trying to redefine the Ladakhi political discourse.
Practically, then, the “UT-Ladakh” remains only a vote bank plank. Leh-based parties garner votes by prefixing UT to Ladakh while their counterparts in Kargil do the same by opposing it. Common people voting for it have been doing so with the hope that with homecoming of UT, all kinds of problems Ladakh face today will be completely withered away in one stroke.
Nonetheless, apart from the rhetoric during or around elections, every political party only provides lip service to UT. Once the elections are over, UT is hurriedly pushed back to the backburner. After all, it helps them shirk and wriggle out of the real problems faced by the common masses- education, employment, electricity, road so on and so forth. As the UT-mongering looms too large in the collective conscience of the people of Leh, they tend to forget (or are led to forget) the basic issues that effect their daily life directly and immediately.
There is also a section of civil society in Ladakh that questions if UT is the only means to redress the grievances of the region, and/or should not Ladakhis move beyond the UT rhetoric? Thus, it would also be interesting to contemplate here whether the ‘UT-Ladakh’ is a realisable goal or a wishful thinking. Emotions apart, given the present state of J&K, it would be very difficult for the GoI to consider the UT option for Ladakh. Given the ultra-sensitive nature of J&K politics, no Government at the centre would like to be dragged into it. Firstly, UT falls in the trifurcation arrangement, and any Government at the centre will conceive the division/trifurcation of J&K as a potentially dangerous ploy. Secondly, UT for Ladakh, even without trifurcating the state, will sharpen the demand for Jammu state, again leading to trifurcation. Even if the trifurcation is done with good intentions, it may still be conceived as a weak strategy-a division, more or less, on religious lines, thereby upholding that different communities can’t coexist in secular India. Thirdly, and most importantly, India needs Jammu and Ladakh to sustain the intonation of “unity in diversity” so as to convince the international community and the United Nations that J&K is not only about the Kashmiris, but also about the Jammuites and Ladakhis- who are loyal to India and do not sympathise the separatist movement in the Valley.
Rational thinking Ladakhis would then argue that our leaders, probably, would be conscious of such gripping constrains on the part of the GoI. They can, of course, still afford to overlook such realities and keep the UT struggle alive as a long term measure, or even as a bargaining tool to make the GoI take Ladakh more seriously. But even then, they are going to be in no man’s land with the present off-the-cuff approach. They will have to redefine the political discourse and make it more inclusive, rational and secular as they cannot afford to escape the fundamental necessity of making both Buddhists and Muslims equal stakeholders in any kind of future political machinery for Ladakh-that could also be a UT! The moderate and secular leaders of Kargil will also have to break Kargil free from the stranglehold of the Aghas, Mullahs and Sheikhs sooner than later. In other words, only when the leaders of both the districts come out of their respective narrow socio-political confines can they take the struggle forward. For this, they will have to make a conscious choice.
(The author is former Research Scholar in the Department of Political Science, University of Jammu)
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