People from India’s remote Ladakh stage a rally in New Delhi on March 24 demanding statehood for their mountainous region. © AP
SRINIGAR, India — Thousands braved sub-zero temperatures across India’s remote Ladakh in recent weeks as they march for statehood and safeguards to protect a Himalayan region they say is increasingly squeezed by China and their own government.
Residents say Ladakh’s glaciers and sensitive ecology are at risk due to Chinese encroachment and India’s industrial and military buildup in the aftermath of a deadly 2020 border standoff.
The latest demonstrations stem from a 2019 decision to strip neighboring Jammu and Kashmir — claimed by both India and Pakistan — of its autonomy, resulting in Ladakh being separated from Indian-controlled Kashmir.
Delhi pledged to give Ladakh’s mostly indigenous population safeguards for tribal people, but the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party hasn’t followed through, critics said.
Among them is climate activist Sonam Wangchuk, who recently staged a three-week hunger strike, living on just water and salt.
“We are losing land, left, right and center,” Wangchuk said in a video message to supporters. “The shepherds are losing their pasture land to China, which is encroaching from the north. The Chinese have captured huge chunks of Indian land in the last few years.”
China has taken up more than 4,000 square kilometers of land, according to some critics. Wangchuk is planning another demonstration this weekend.
“To show the ground reality we’re planning a border march of 10,000 Ladakhi shepherds to show live footage of how much of the pasture land has been taken over,” he said.
Climate activist Sonam Wangchuk staged a three-week hunger strike seeking protections for India’s remote ladakh region. © APChina has repeatedly renamed places in another Indian border region, Arunachal Pradesh, which Beijing claims as its own. This month, China criticized Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trip to the northeastern state
Earlier this year, a video surfaced on social media purportedly showing Chinese soldiers intercepting Indian shepherds in Ladakh and claiming the area belongs to Beijing.
In 2020, deadly clashes between Indian and Chinese soldiers erupted in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley, leaving two dozen Indian and four Chinese soldiers dead after close-quarter fighting with clubs and rocks.
Since that clash, thousands of soldiers have been deployed on both sides of the de facto border, the Line of Actual Control (LAC). India and China have been building infrastructure at breakneck speed near the LAC as several rounds of talks between their militaries failed to ease tensions.
Delhi, meanwhile, has built a massive military infrastructure across the region, while signing at least 10 agreements with outside companies to develop Ladakh’s natural resources.
These developments are stirring fears about outside influence and the impact on a fragile environment.
“They [the government] are planning to set up big industries in this fragile area, and if that happens it will be a disaster for this region,” said Padma Stanzin, head of the Ladakh Students’ Environmental Action Forum (LEAF).
With no significant progress on reducing border tensions, the region is at risk of stepped-up conflict, warns Praveen Donthi, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group.
“There are around 50 to 60,000 troops on both sides of the border, which means that the border is live, unlike the pre-2020 phase,” Donthi added. “There is a possibility of accidental escalation with far-reaching consequences.”
India’s Ministry of External Affairs said the countries are negotiating to reestablish calm in Ladakh.
“The discussions we had there [in Beijing] built on the previous rounds seeking complete disengagement in the remaining areas along the LAC in eastern Ladakh as an essential basis for the restoration of peace and tranquility in the India-China border areas,” ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said.
Wang Wenbin, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, said China viewed the border squabbles as something that can be resolved.
“China has stressed multiple times that the boundary question does not represent the entirety of China-India relations, and it should be placed appropriately in the bilateral relations and managed properly,” Wenbin told a press conference last month.
Donthi, the ICG analyst, said a political solution was crucial to ease tensions.
“It is an intractable problem and one of the longest-running border crises in the world,” Donthi said. “There is a need for political leadership to take the initiative to resolve the crisis.”
source : asia.nikkei