Ladakhis hold joint protest, demand statehood and safeguards under the Sixth Schedule

Their other demands included formation of a Public Service Commission and reservation of jobs for the youth of Ladakh, and the creation of two separate parliamentary constituencies for Leh and Kargil districts.

Significantly, this has been the first time that all political, social and religious organisations of Leh and Kargil districts have joined hands to put up a front against the Centre to press their demands under the banners of the Leh Apex Body (LAB) and the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA). The former is headed by former MP Thupstan Chewang and the latter by Asghar Karbalai and Ali Akhoon as co-chairpersons.

With Leh being predominantly Buddhist and Kargil having Shia Muslims as the majority, people of both districts once used to look at each other with suspicion. Alleging successive J&K governments of being soft on Muslim-dominated Kargil and of discrimination against Leh, the Buddhists had launched an agitation, seeking UT status for the Leh after 1947. However, the demand began to be taken seriously in 1989 when Ladakh Buddhist Association, then headed by Thupstan Chewang, launched an agitation for it.

In 1993, a tripartite agreement between the then central government, along with the J&K government and the agitating Ladakh Buddhist Association, agreed to give Leh an Autonomous Hill Development Council with 26 elected members, and four nominated by the administration. The hill council in Kargil came into existence in 2003.

The sitting BJP MP from Ladakh, Jamyang Tsering Namgyal, too had, in December 2021, demanded constitutional safeguards for the people of Ladakh under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, which allows greater political autonomy, apart from safeguards of local populations over right to land and employment in tribal areas of the Northeast.

In November 2022, the BJP dominated Leh Hill Development Council passed a resolution, seeking constitutional safeguards under the Sixth Schedule. “We in Ladakh have 97 per cent tribal population. The Sixth Schedule provides safeguards for tribal populations,” said Asghar Karbalai.

The BJP, which earlier was part of the LAB, later distanced itself from it, following pressure from the party high command, who took the demand for statehood and protection under the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution as against the central government’s August 5, 2019 decision, whereby the then Jammu and Kashmir state was bifurcated into two UTs of J&K and Ladakh. The J&K UT was, however, given a 90- member Legislative Assembly.

After two years of sustained protests in Ladakh, the Union Home Ministry had announced the formation of a high-powered committee on January 2. However, both the LAB and KDA refused to accept the high powered committee, saying that it has no mandate to discuss issues raised by them.

Both the LBA and KDA leaders have announced they will take their agitation to Delhi, saying they will demonstrate at Jantar Mantar in the third week of February.

Talking to media persons here in the evening, Thupstan Chewang, who is at present chairperson of the Leh Apex Body, said that they had always demanded UT with a legislature for Ladakh. “When UT without legislature was announced, we had registered our protest with the government,’’ he said.
The central government’s move to make Ladakh a UT was their “strategic decision’’, but as “it was going to fulfill our aspirations, we accepted it, though under protest’’, he said, expressing the hope that the central government will soon provide them a UT with legislature. “Our ultimate aim is to get full statehood for Ladakh, but we know that it will take time,’’ he added.