How Sonam Wangchuk’s father broke his 1984 fast after PM Indira Gandhi met him

The 1984 hunger strike of Wangyal ended when then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi flew to Leh to meet him. She persuaded him to end his fast, offering him a glass of soft drink. Gandhi also expressed her intent to accept his demand, but was assassinated later that year.

Subsequently, it was Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who in 1989 ensured the ST status to a number of Ladakh communities.

Recounting the episode in his memoir titled “Political Evolution in Post-Independence Ladakh”, published by the International Association for Ladakh Studies, Wangyal wrote, “Ladakh had also long deserved tribal status. People living in the North-East states and along the Himalayas had been declared Scheduled Tribes, but Ladakh had been ignored.”

Wangyal stated that in 1982, “a campaign was launched in this regard, and I took an active part in the movement”. Both the Muslim and Buddhist communities of Ladakh were involved in this campaign, he maintained. “To help express the frustrations of the people against the indifference of the government towards this long-standing demand, I went on hunger strike for 16 days from the 15th to the 30th of January. In 1984, I again went on hunger strike for five days,” Wangyal recalled. “Mrs Indira Gandhi, then the Prime Minister of India, visited Leh and assured us that Ladakh would be granted Scheduled Tribe status. She asked me to withdraw my hunger strike, and offered me a glass of soft drink.”

On Indira’s return to Delhi, Wangyal stated, “She announced the intention of the Government to grant ST status to the people of Ladakh, however, this decision wasn’t implemented until 1989.”

Wangyal, who belonged to an underprivileged family in Ladakh, met Shridhar Koul Dulu – who was raising a volunteer force to ward off the Pakistani invasion in October 1947 – and volunteered to join him. Dulu advised him to go to Delhi to raise resources for his schooling, and also wrote a letter to then PM Jawaharlal Nehru recommending it.

Wangyal wrote in his memoir that he proceeded to Manali on foot to go to Delhi, walking over snow for seven days. It took him 45 days to reach Delhi, where he sought an appointment with the PM. Nehru met him and offered him a scholarship to study. Wangyal was then admitted to SP High School in Srinagar. He finished his matriculation and became a private assistant to Kushok Bakula, the head Lama of Spituk Monastery in Leh.

Soon afterwards, Wangyal launched a campaign against corruption in the administration, and was arrested and jailed multiple times. He was said to be often beaten up by the police. He was later named the Leh district president of the National Conference (NC) and then, after the dissolution of the NC, became the Leh unit chief of the Congress.

In 1957, Wangyal was elected to the Legislative Council of Jammu and Kashmir, and remained an MLC for a decade. In 1967, he was elected as an MLA from Leh on the Congress ticket. He later also served as a minister in the J&K Cabinet.