Climate activist and educationist Sonam Wangchuk has called for Ladakh’s residents to have a greater say in decisions affecting their land, livelihoods and environment. Speaking at IFP(India Film Project) event in Mumbai, he compared its governance since the 2019 reorganisation to that of a colony run by a “viceroy” from New Delhi.
“People who live should have a right to decide how the place should be taken care of,” Wangchuk said during a conversation with Shoma Chaudhary.
Ladakh became a separate Union Territory after the 2019 bifurcation of the former state of Jammu and Kashmir.
“And currently Ladakh, most unfortunately, after the 2019 bifurcation has become like a former colony with a viceroy, not from London, from New Delhi, who makes decisions about how people live and manage Ladakh and Ladakh’s nature,” he said.
Wangchuk questioned the environmental costs of large development projects, including a proposed solar project in Ladakh. While supporting solar energy, he expressed concern about losing land used to graze pashmina goats and the impact on local livelihoods.
“They’ll destroy one thing to create another thing,” he said.
Recalling his padayatra, he added: “Then I went into Himachal Pradesh, where entire valleys were to be evacuated to make dams, to produce power thousand times more than what the people there needed or what the people in Ladakh needed.”
‘The end is not wealth’
Wangchuk argued that development should be judged by whether it improves people’s lives, rather than by material wealth alone.
“This is what needs to be reminded to all these so-called development gurus, that your very Bible says that more and more of something doesn’t give you more and more of satisfaction,” he said.
“Finally, I think wealth and progress are tools to achieve an end. The end is not wealth. The end is contentment, happiness, satisfaction. So if it doesn’t take you there, then you better reconsider,” he added.
Asked about political labels and affiliations, Wangchuk said his support depended on principles rather than party loyalty.
“I am with no one. I am with goodness and truth and justice, yeah. If a certain party is with truth and justice, fairness, I’m in support. If they falter, I am not,” he said.
Peaceful protest as a ‘pressure valve’
Wangchuk defended peaceful protest as “a great mechanism, a feedback, a pressure valve for governments to perform better if they see that”.
He also revisited his participation in the Cockroach Janta Party-led agitation in July, saying fears of violence and legal harassment of young protesters had influenced his decision to end his 26-day fast.
“So I was more moved by the violence prospects and the harassment. Therefore, I gave the condition when the ministers came and said, ‘You have to break the fast’; I said, ‘I’ll have conditions’,” he said.
Recalling his hospitalisation during the protest, Wangchuk alleged that his phones had been taken away to prevent communication.
“All my phones and everything was taken away. In fact, that was the design. It was a hospital, not a jail, but a hospital turned into a jail so that there is no communication,” he said.
Delhi Police forcibly removed Wangchuk from the Jantar Mantar protest site on July 18 and admitted him to Safdarjung Hospital. The agitation demanded the resignation of then Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan over alleged examination irregularities.
Wangchuk continued his fast in the hospital and, following a Delhi High Court order, was transferred to Medanta Hospital in Gurugram on July 21. He ended his hunger strike around midnight on July 23–24.