SONAM WANGCHUK’S HIMALAYAN WARNINGS

Reprinted with permission from the November 2024 issue of the New Delhi magazine, Civil Society.  www.civilsocietyonline.com

 When you live up there in the Himalayas, how do you make yourself heard in Delhi? In an era of instant communications, the possibilities are many. But chances also are that you might end up walking the entire distance to the capital in the hope that someone notices.

Ask Sonam Wangchuk and 152 others who trudged all the way from Ladakh to Delhi with their demand for greater freedom to govern themselves in their villages and protect the fragile ecology of the mountains among which they live.

Sonam Wangchuk | Picture Civil Society/Lakshman Anand

Walking 1,000 km is no small feat. But it didn’t get Wangchuk and his fellow campaigners, mostly village folk, the hearing they were hoping for from the government. Instead, entry to Delhi itself became an ordeal.

At first, they were detained at the border of the capital. Later they were allowed in but denied permission to take their peaceful protest to Jantar Mantar, where people with causes are permitted to gather. Finally, they were corralled into Ladakh Bhavan, a government facility for Ladakhis in transit.

At Ladakh Bhavan, out in the open in the driveway, the campaigners, led by Wangchuk, went on a fast asking that the government at least agree to discuss implementation of the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution in Ladakh.

After 16 days, the fast was finally called off when the government agreed to talks on the Sixth Schedule. A joint secretary in the home ministry met Wangchuk with a letter stating the government’s commitment.

The Sixth Schedule would provide protection to tribal culture and traditions and give Ladakhis the right to manage their affairs through different tiers of local governance such as village councils.

Under the Sixth Schedule they would have a say in development decisions instead of impositions from Delhi. Most important, alienation of their land in the name of development would stop.

For Ladakhis, the environment is high on the list of their worries. These are people who live in the midst of uniquely stark and severe natural conditions. They depend on a symbiotic relationship with their mountains, glaciers and grazing lands. With global warming, glaciers in the Himalayas are melting. Temperatures are rising. Ladakhis worry about what might be coming up. They feel they are best equipped to deal with their situation themselves.

Wangchuk says Ladakh’s concerns are also relevant to the rest of the Himalayan states which are facing a serious environmental crisis.

ROCK-STAR STATUS

Wangchuk is no everyday activist. He has global rock-star status as an environmentalist whose work with glaciers has been acknowledged. He is an engineer and inventor. The blockbuster Hindi film, Three Idiots, told his story and made him a household name. He leads a movement to reform education in Ladakh.

But the Union government thought little of ignoring him and his views. Running a fever and worn down physically by being on fast, Wangchuk met the media, small groups of admirers and other campaigners like the leaders of the farmers’ agitation. But the government tried to force him into anonymity by not meeting him, treating him as though he didn’t exist. It is what Ladakhis resent most under Central rule, particularly by a majoritarian BJP government.

In the 2019 elections to the Lok Sabha (Ladakh has one MP), the BJP promised in its manifesto to implement the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. In 2020, during the Leh Hill Council polls, the promise was reiterated.

It has twice reneged on its promise, leading to the current protests. Large crowds have come out on the streets in Leh, seeking the Sixth Schedule’s implementation.

Till 2019, Ladakh was part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Then, overnight, Article 370 of the Constitution was abrogated and simultaneously Jammu and Kashmir lost statehood. It was turned into a Union Territory, bringing it under the direct control of the Union government.

At the same time, Ladakh was sliced off and turned into a separate Union Territory. When it was part of Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh had better access to development schemes and funds, and it had popular representation. Once it became a Union Territory, it fell directly into the grasp of a distant Central government.

The situation is complicated by Ladakh being on the border with China and particularly so in a theatre where China has nibbled away territory. But the Ladakhis feel their nationalism is beyond question. So many of them serve in the armed forces.  One of the protesters we speak to, Tearing Stanba, has pictures in his phone of his years in the Army when he was posted all over the country. On the border, the best bulwark against an aggrandizing neighbour is to have rooted communities and functioning democratic institutions. Ladakhis have traditionally been such a bulwark.

WHAT KEPT THE HIMALAYAS ALIVE?

In an interview Wangchuk gives us under a tree outside Ladakh Bhavan, he says: “For the Himalayas as a whole I think there should be special provisions that give local elected bodies powers to take stewardship of their areas, mostly environmentally and culturally, because these cultures have kept the Himalayas alive and safeguarded for millennia.”

“Now these policies need to be framed, but in the case of Ladakh there is already one (a policy) and that’s the Sixth Schedule of Article 244 of the Indian Constitution, which gives indigenous tribal communities more control of how the region is managed through the public representatives who have law-making powers as regards to their areas, environment, land, forests, customs and so on,” he says.

He continues: “And this is what was promised to Ladakh repeatedly in 2019 and 2020 and it is there in the election manifestoes. It is there in the minutes of the tribal ministry. So, to take a U-turn when it comes to actually doing it, doesn’t show the government in good light.” 

Wangchuk is concerned that decisions regarding the creation of infrastructure and setting up of industries don’t take local interests into account and have disastrous effects which are difficult to reverse. 

“We should not see these mountains just as a resource to be exploited in a few decades by a few millionaires and billionaires. And then you are left with the devastation that you see in Sikkim, in Himachal, in Uttarakhand,” he says.

“It is very sad that governments give a free hand to corporations. Corporations squeeze and extract their profits in a decade or two and then leave the place. It is a use-and-throw style. And then when disaster strikes, like floods in Sikkim, or, you know, roads and entire mountains collapsing, that is dealt with through taxpayers’ money. And then, finally, the local people have to bear the consequences for generations,” he says.

For Wangchuk, the solution is local empowerment and proper popular representation so that the decisions taken have the involvement of people and keep their interests in mind.

“We have a situation where a place like Ladakh is so different from any part of the country, in fact any part of the planet. It looks and feels more like Mars or the Moon than Earth. Only local people will understand what it takes to keep it healthy,” he explains.

Sonam Wangchuk with fellow campaigners in the driveway of Ladakh Bhavan in Delhi  | Civil Society picture/Umesh Anand

LADAKH’S LAND IS NOT BARREN

How much do consultation and local knowledge matter? Solar power is a good example. It is a green industry, but when solar power producers turn up in Ladakh and take over large tracts of land, they upend life in local communities without realizing what they are doing. What may appear to be barren land is actually productive and essential for local people grazing their animals. In another geography, a meadow may be lush and green. But in Ladakh’s extreme conditions it comes with sparse vegetation and that is what animals graze on.

Says Wangchuk, “I am a fan of solar power. But the way it’s being done is what I have problems with. No local people are consulted. Land is just getting earmarked because it looks like flat wasteland. But what meets the eye is not the reality. These seeming wastelands are the source of food for tens of thousands of groups. Sheep. Yaks. They don’t know that this is how life survives in Ladakh. It’s not like lush green pastures. The pastures in Ladakh are very different.”

He says: “They think these are all easily available for solar power plants. If the locals had been asked, they would have shown other places where animals don’t graze. If I had been asked, I would have shown them how to take solar power from the top of mountains and leave the pastures to the goats and sheep below. It would have been a win-win situation where the local herders would get twice their fodder and the nation solar power.”

People in thousands gather in Ladakh over their Sixth Schedule demand

Wangchuk believes that there is reason to feel concerned about the future of Ladakh because of growing frustrations brought on by environmental imbalances, lack of opportunities and a sense of disenfranchisement. The government needs to be more sensitive in its handling of Ladakh and invest in institutional mechanisms that people can happily own.

How difficult is it to raise an environmental issue as he has done? “If your cause is big, nothing is difficult. If it is a non-issue, then anything is difficult. So, in absolute terms this may not be easy, but when compared to the scenario which will take shape in the coming decades, this is nothing,” he says.

“You know, in a place like Ladakh, which is on the ultimate border, flanked by hostile countries like China and Pakistan, when people, especially the youth, are unhappy, frustrated, it can lead to a big upheaval in the future. Maybe liberation movements. I am not saying it should. But it can.

And if my little effort today helps in preventing that, even if it takes my life, it’s just one life, not 5,000. So, it (the challenge and sacrifice) is very small when compared to what we are seeing.”

SIKKIM’S “GLOF” CRISIS

Wangchuk’s views resonate in other Himalayan states in India like Sikkim and Uttarakhand. P.D. Rai, a former MP, says there should be a “special-purpose vehicle” that can hear out the mountain states and help them cope with their challenges.

Rai is a founder-member of the Integrated Mountain Initiative which serves as a platform for sharing concerns and solutions and shaping the case for treating the mountain states differently.

Rai recalls a time when they went to the Planning Commission and Montek Singh Ahluwalia agreed to the creation of a special group for the mountain states. But then the government changed and the Planning Commission itself was dissolved.  

“There is nobody in Delhi who is thinking differently. We had gone to the extent of building that knowledge base or building that sensitivity in the Planning Commission. But unfortunately, immediately after we had done it, the new government came and dismantled the old Planning Commission. The Planning Commission was such an important institution from that point of view,” says Rai.

“Building a road in the mountains is not the same as building a road anywhere. Everyone here would want infrastructure. You want your internet, power supply, water and so on. But each of these things will require to be done in a way which is in harmony with nature or the way we are structured geologically,” explains Rai.

Just how fragile the mountain states are can be seen from the impact that just one GLOF -- a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood -- has had on Sikkim’s economy. It hit on October 3, 2023.

“One GLOF has crippled our hydel power generation. It has destroyed our road infrastructure. Hotels are empty because the tourists have stopped coming. As a result, livelihoods are on the line. With power generation affected, the government is not earning anything and can’t pay salaries,” says Rai.

Sikkim was doing well, having built good roads. It was able to give cheap hydel power to industry together with subsidies and could attract pharmaceutical companies. Tourism was flourishing.

But it has all been reversed by a single natural event. With infrastructure gone and the state’s economy in decline, the companies which made investments there want to relocate.

“I’ve not in my lifetime seen such a bizarre and seriously problematic situation which will require many, many years for us to climb or crawl back from,” says Rai.  

UTTARAKHAND UPENDED 

Dr Ravi Chopra in Dehradun is similarly perturbed by the imposition of decisions taken in Delhi and the lack of consultation. Chopra, with an IIT degree, is the founder of the People’s Science Institute. He is a respected and reasonable voice on the mountains. He was appointed by the Supreme Court to lead an “empowered committee” to review development decisions such as road-building in Uttarakhand after major disasters there.

Like Wangchuk, he is concerned about imbalanced development, water shortages, melting glaciers, disappearing forests, heat islands. He too sees the answer in local empowerment and community initiatives. But governments are not sensitive and will not listen. When the people of Joshimath, a town experiencing the long-term effects of reckless road building, wanted to meet the chief minister of Uttarakhand, he kept them waiting till late at night and then gave them a few minutes.

Chopra says: “My primary concern is that we are standing at the very edge of a tipping point because of the catastrophic impacts of climate change. I don’t think the government is prepared for them. It is not displaying a good understanding of what’s in store for us.”

“The Himalayan environment is fragile to begin with. The whole region is geologically fragile. Extreme impacts on it are going to be devastating. I mean, we know that there are certain kinds of disasters that are sitting over there. I can see them. And I need to be prepared today if there is a disaster tomorrow. I need to have disaster mitigation built into development programmes,” he says.

Asked what he fears happening in Uttarakhand and the rest of the Himalayas in the next few years, Chopra says the two major manifestations of climate change are in temperature and rainfall patterns.

In the foothills, temperatures are reaching 40°C in summer. They could reach 50°C by the end of the decade.

He asks: “Are we thinking in terms of heat shelters? I haven’t heard the word. Are we thinking in terms of decongesting our concrete jungles? Relocating economic activity, dispersing it? Dispersing tourism?”

Changes in rainfall patterns mean less precipitation in winter and shorter, more intense, spells of rain in summer. Western disturbances are no longer restricted to winter. When western disturbances collide with the monsoon clouds, they produce disasters.

“Are we redesigning our roads? No. Are we redesigning our dams? No. Are we trying to reforest and green our cities? No. I don’t see mitigation measures being taken and that is my primary concern,” says Chopra. 

“Let’s begin with what’s happening at the top. Glaciers, we are told, are melting. But, you know, many of the glaciers are small. The ice pack is not uniformly thick. So, some parts where the ice pack or ice mass is less are melting and forming lakes. There’s fragmentation of glaciers. Lakes are being formed, the number of lakes is increasing and therefore the probability of GLOFs is increasing. What do you need to do? You need to prepare disaster prevention plans now in anticipation of what is going to happen in the river valleys when that flood comes down,” says Chopra.

Across the Himalayas there are many takers for the issues that Sonam Wangchuk is raising. In the mountains, there are multiple local manifestations of the concerns he is trying to take to policymakers and the government.

But this is not just about the mountains. All of India and the planet itself depends on sustainably governing the Himalayas. Preserving them and preparing for what might be going wrong with their ecology should be a national priority. Wangchuk is also raising concerns of air and water without which life itself is impossible. From Ladakh comes a wake-up call for everyone.