Kargil and Leh raise questions before key LAHDC Leh polls in October.
Kargil leaders demand rotational headquarters and inclusion in Sixth Schedule.
Leh leaders say new districts will improve governance, allocation of districts is fair.
Old tensions between the Muslims and Buddhists in Ladakh risk resurfacing in new form ahead of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC) polls, amid disputes over new district allocations and administrative control. Political leaders in Kargil are saying that the Muslim-majority area got a raw deal in the recent announcement of five new districts in Ladakh, as three of them will be in Buddhist-dominated Leh.
Tensions are also rising over the unfulfilled demand from Kargil that the Union Territory’s headquarters should function there for six months on a rotational basis, and that the Lieutenant-Governor (L-G) and senior bureaucrats shouldn’t remain permanently stationed in Leh.
The LAHDC elections are scheduled for October. For the BJP, the creation of new districts is a key political plank, which it has been projecting as a major development. Meanwhile, the opposition parties say that it is only sowing divisions. They argue that the Centre failed to hold talks with local leaders on their demand to include Ladakh in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution and grant it statehood.
The latest controversy only feeds into past doubts and rivalries, some preceding the abrogation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special constitutional status in 2019.
Last month, Ladakhi leaders and activists from across party lines sat on a hunger strike demanding statehood and inclusion in the Sixth Schedule, largely to protect employment opportunities and land rights. At the same time, protesting leaders from Kargil highlighted the neglect of Muslim-majority areas while carving out the new districts.
Ladakh, a part of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, became a Union Territory on August 5, 2019, after the Centre abrogated Article 370 of the Constitution. Five years later, five new districts were announced in Ladakh, apart from Leh and Kargil—Zanskar, Dras, Sham, Nubra and Changthang.
The logic behind expanding the districts to seven from two was to address the inaccessibility and remoteness of the Ladakh region. Smaller districts would make public welfare schemes more accessible and, it was argued, spur development.
With elections around the corner—a notification is expected any time—Buddhist-dominated Leh has been pitted against Muslim-majority Kargil. The reason is Kargil’s belief that it has been neglected in the administrative restructuring. Kargil has over 1.6 lakh residents and has gained two of the five new districts. Activist Sajad Kargili told Outlook, “Kargil has been neglected in the creation of new districts despite higher population than Leh.”
But Tashi Gyalson, Chief Executive Councillor of the LAHDC, says population is no yardstick to create new districts. Leh needed three districts—one more than Kargil—because it has a larger area than Kargil. “No politics should be read into the creation of new districts,” he said.
The Kargil district has an area of 14,036 square kilometers, while Leh spans 45,110 square kilometers—over three times bigger. According to the 2011 Census, Kargil has a population of over 1.4 lakh and Leh 1.3 lakh. This narrows the difference in terms of absolute population figures, but also means that population density is much higher in Kargil.
At the same time, the new district of Changthang has a population of 18,000, while Sankoo in Kargil, with a population of roughly 45,000, has not been made a district, making Kargil residents feel left out. “Having a Deputy Commissioner in an area where a Sub Divisional Magistrate is sufficient only aims to extend bureaucratic control, when we have been seeking statehood to end the bureaucratic control over Ladakh! We also want to ensure that the people elect those who pursue their demands,” said Kargili.
Haji Haneefa, Member of Parliament representing Ladakh and National Conference leader, said that Sankoo’s exclusion from district status feels like deliberate neglect. “Kargil has not been treated fairly in the creation of districts. The Muslims of Kargil have been neglected,” he said.
Haneefa said that the abrogation of Article 370 drew strong opposition from Kargil, and when Ladakh was created as a separate Union Territory, authorities had promised that the its headquarter would be “rotated and stationed for six months in Kargil”. “However, this didn't happen, Kargil has been completely neglected,” he said.
The differences over the districts have come as a setback for the region's united front, which had been pursuing talks on the statehood issue with the Central government. The divergence has openly come to the fore over which area should be the capital of a (possible) future Ladakh state.
The leadership of the KDA has been putting up a united front with the Leh Apex Body (LAB) during meetings of the high-powered committee of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) over statehood and the Sixth Schedule. Last month, a hunger strike was organised in Kargil was to protest the Centre's delay in holding talks over these issues.
After a meeting held by the MHA on June 4, in which it reportedly agreed to the demand of reserving jobs for local people of Ladakh, no fresh round of talks has been held. The past meetings were chaired by both Home Minister Amit Shah and Minister of State for Home, Nityanand Rai.
Chering Dorjay, the LAB Deputy Chairman, differed with the National Conference over Kargil being made a rotational capital of a future Ladakh state. “The issue of the capital for the Union Territory and statehood has been settled now, as the Leh remains the permanent capital. We were hoping that there would be talks on statehood and the Sixth Schedule issues, including a fresh meeting of the high-powered committee, but those didn’t happen. The districts should be made functional, but it has also been delayed,” he said.
Gyalson said that the boundaries of the districts are being figured out and that the MHA has constituted a committee to assess aspects related to their headquarters, structure and the creation of new posts before making them functional.
He said that after such issues were sorted out, it would be followed by the deployment of staff at these administrative units. “Creation of the districts and the overall development that the Leh area witnessed during the BJP rule would form a key highlight of our campaign in LAHDC Leh polls…as our main poll planks,” said Gyalson, adding, “We expect notification for the elections this month.” According to him, the new districts would decentralise power, dismissing the opposition accusation of more bureaucratic control.
To be sure, in Ladakh, in the past, a rift has existed between the Muslims of Kargil and the Buddhists, including over incidents of alleged conversion of Buddhist women to Islam. In October 2012, in Zanskar, Buddhists resorted to social boycott of Muslims which continued for several years after 22 members belonging to four families converted to Islam. In 2017, a Buddhist association wrote to then Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, seeking to annul the marriage of a Buddhist woman and a Muslim man alleging it was part of a plot to “lure” them into changing their religion.
In 2021, in Zanskar, a Buddhist woman converted to Islam to marry a Muslim man, even as her family alleged that she was a minor forced into marriage. In 2022, the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA) described a march from Leh, taken out to lay the foundation stone for a Gompa in Kargil, as politically motivated. The yatra led by a Buddhist monk was put off midway after Muslims objected to it. Will political tensions and development demands stoke old injuries remains an open question.
