Heed Wangchuck’s warning

The renowned education reformist and climate activist Sonam Wangchuk has emerged as the voice of the nation. For the millions of Indians who have been helplessly watching the savage mutation of our cities into concrete jungles, Wangchuk is highlighting issues they feel strongly about but have not been able to express.

Wangchuk’s 21-day fast is akin to what had been undertaken by Mahatma Gandhi during the British Raj, except that Wangchuk is undertaking the fast in freezing cold temperatures which plunge to minus-12 degrees at night. But such is his resolve that hundreds of Ladakhis have followed his example and are willing to put their lives on the line and are fasting alongside him in order to draw attention to the destruction of one of the most fragile ecosystems in the world.

Young people across Indian cities are also observing day-long fasts and posting that on social media since the mainstream media is largely ignoring these developments. But such is the chord Wangchuk has struck across the nation that the public at large believes he is speaking ‘the voice of truth’.

The reasons for this are not far to seek. The majority of Indians find themselves living in urban nightmares where bureaucracies are hand-in-glove with realtors and politicians who seem hell-bent on destroying their living environment. Instead of providing the large number of common citizens with basic amenities, including clean drinking water, clean air and well-designed housing, they are snatching these resources from right under their noses.

Wangchuk, who has been consuming only water and salt since he began his fast on March 6, broadcasts a fresh video message every day, which is posted on different social media platforms. These messages repeatedly focus on how the government has opened up the ‘sacred Himalayas’ for plunder and exploitation by corporates and mining companies. The people must stand up as ‘an ant army’ to defend these precious resources as otherwise it is they who will ultimately pay the price for the destruction of their resources and ecology.

Wangchuk’s demands are simple. He wants statehood for Ladakh and Kargil and inclusion of Ladakh in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution as this alone will help safeguard its fragile ecology, unique culture, and traditional governance systems.

The ruling BJP has not fulfilled its 2019 poll promise to implement the Sixth Schedule, which would have helped ensure that land belongs to the locals and to safeguard their distinct culture against the growing influence of powerful corporates who are determined to start large mining ventures and set-up mega energy projects there.

Already, the proposed Ladakh Industrial Land Allotment Policy 2023 allows for a single-window clearance committee which comprises only of government officials and industry representatives with no member of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council present in it. The central government has given the green signal to construct a new airport in Leh with a capacity for two million tourists, which is three times the population of this region. There is also the issue of rapid construction of new highways, which will mean an exponential increase in road traffic. Worse, the Modi government is pushing for the setting up a mega-solar project spread over 20,000 acres in the ecologically fragile area of Changthang which is home to several nomadic pastoralists.

The Ladakhis had welcomed the revocation of Article 370 and the bifurcation of the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir, separating Ladakh as a Union Territory, following the assurance that the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council would be empowered to take decisions. But they soon realised that power rested entirely with the Lieutenant-Governor and his hand-picked team of bureaucrats. They are unhappy that power presently rests in the hands of ‘one person’, whereas earlier, they had their MLAs in the erstwhile J&K Assembly. 

The result is that even the budgetary allocation for Ladakh of Rs 6,000 crore remains largely unused, with half the money being returned to the exchequer because of the failure of the administrative machinery to utilise it.

The BJP had promised implementation of the Sixth Schedule in their 2019 electoral manifesto but have since backtracked on this promise. Ladakhis now wonder whether they were given UT status without an Assembly as a deliberate ploy to sell off their mountains to industrial lobbies and mining companies.

The apprehension of the average Ladakhi that their region may be opened up to large populations or increasing industrial activity is justified. Being a cold desert, they are already facing acute water shortage, which would become worse if the landscape was opened up to more people.

The central government also needs to consider the fact that the glaciers of Ladakh and the rest of the Himalayas feed two billion people, half on the Indian subcontinent and half on the Chinese side. This area is called the Third Pole, as the Himalayas are the largest freshwater reserves in frozen form. By opening up this region to corporates, the nation’s water resources will get further jeopardised.

Wangchuk plans, after completing his fast, to undertake a Border March accompanied by 10,000 Ladakhi shepherds and farmers right across the Changthang plains that are located on the border with China. Villagers have lost huge tracts of this pasture land to the Chinese presence, with traditional grazing areas having been turned into ‘buffer zones’ as the Chinese demanded during the several rounds of talks to resolve the nearly four-year-long border standoff.

The key issues Wangchuk is posing to the government and to all of us should make us realise that it is imperative to review the present model of development, especially given the Modi government’s desire to accelerate it. The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has been reduced to being little more than a rubberstamp and cornered into opening up our forests, our coastal zones, our deserts and, of course, our mountains to an unsustainable and unwanted development paradigm. 

We have to be grateful to Sonam Wangchuk for speaking out against this development paradigm and can only hope for a more enlightened response from the government.

(The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist)