Give the people of the Union Territory a representative government while carving out areas germane to national security for direct central control
Is the Union government bent on pushing Ladakh into the company of the disturbed parts of India’s extensive frontier territories, as yet another place where large sections of the local population see the Indian state as oppressor, rather than as protector and enabler?
If it is not, it should abandon its high-handed treatment of Sonam Wangchuk and other agitators for the region’s autonomy.
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Wangchuk is a popular hero, with extensive support on the ground for the work he has done in education and harnessing water supply, to set up energy projects and protect the region’s environmental and cultural integrity.
Power to crush
The Indian state has the power to crush an individual and his small non-government organisation and the civil society movement it leads. But should it?
Wangchuk has been leading an agitation demanding statehood for Ladakh. Other frontier areas have statehood with elected legislatures, without that coming in the way of national defence. Such places need not necessarily be under direct central rule to protect India’s sovereignty.
The demand for an accountable government in Ladakh should serve as an occasion for rethinking how to incorporate the principle of subsidiarity into the governance of a region with national security sensitivity, in a way that allows the local people to have accountable government.
There are ways to carve out areas of administrative and political authority sensitive to national security, and keep them with the Centre, while delegating other powers directly impinging on the daily lives of the people to local governments.
Ladakh welcomed 2019 decision
In 2019, when the Union government split Ladakh off from Jammu and Kashmir, and made Ladakh a Union Territory (UT), the people of Ladakh actually welcomed the move, hoping that their lot would improve, released from the relative neglect of Srinagar and receive the direct supervision of New Delhi. Their hopes have been frustrated, which is why they demand statehood and protection of their rights under Schedule 6 of the Constitution.
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Schedule 6 provides for autonomous district councils to govern tribal areas, so that the tribal peoples have a say in how their lives are governed. Schedule 6 specifically relates to the Northeast, but there is no reason why the same principle cannot be extended to the tribal people of Ladakh, Leh and Kargil.
In the hierarchical structuring of political and administrative authority, the principle of subsidiarity should operate for governance to be effective and accountable to the people. The principle of subsidiarity is simple in principle, but a little more complex to articulate as functional rules.
What subsidiarity offers
Subsidiarity holds that each level of government should be entrusted with those activities that it is best suited to carry out, by devolving decisions and functions as close to the people as possible. The European Union relies on subsidiarity to ensure that national and regional governments are not overwhelmed by the Union.
National defence and monetary policy, for example, can be done, quite clearly, only under the direct charge of the central authorities, with other levels of government playing a supporting role. Maintaining streams and village roads has to be the responsibility of the local government, not of New Delhi.
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Many activities are best done at the level of the government closest to the people but need support and coordination from higher levels of government. Education falls in this category.
The Constitution’s division of responsibilities between the Centre and the states implicitly articulates the principle of subsidiarity. But the principle must be operationalised further down the chain of decentralisation, to district governments, municipalities and village panchayats.
Devolution of resources
This task has been attempted in some states in earnest, as in Kerala, complete with devolution of the fiscal resources needed to execute those functions. But that is not the case with the majority of states.
Why blame the people of Ladakh for taking to the path of agitation, when the political rhetoric at the highest level has been embracing conflict and division, rejecting fair, institutional governance, as the way to accomplish things?
The national public digital infrastructure is widely hailed for its efficiency in delivering governance. Yet, it has one downside that is not sufficiently recognised. Technology can be used to collect and collate disparate pieces of information from across the land. This is a function that can be done at different levels of aggregation, at the district, state and central levels.
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The ability to digitally monitor discrete, distributed activities in far-flung regions from New Delhi raises the temptation to regulate them from the Centre as well. The fact that the nodal officers of district-level administration, the collector/district magistrate, is a member of an All-India civil service recruited by the central government, gives the temptation a vehicle for actualisation. This tendency must be resisted.
Technology must not become an instrument for subverting subsidiarity. Instead, it must be used to support decentralised governance, to make it more efficient.
Culture of political centralisation
The current political practice and culture make for centralisation, and work against subsidiarity. The entire political slogan of 'double engine' governance in states that elect the ruling party at the Centre to run the state government as well, thumbs its nose at subsidiarity and equitable treatment of states by the Centre.
The slogan degrades institutional integrity and openly flaunts patronage and privilege in relations between senior and junior levels of government.
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This erodes popular trust in the constitutional scheme of governance and paves the way for politics as a constant battle for attention and resources, in which victory goes to those who apply the most pressure. Why blame the people of Ladakh for taking to the path of agitation, when the political rhetoric at the highest level has been embracing conflict and division, rejecting fair, institutional governance, as the way to accomplish things?
Rethinking subsidiarity
The demand for an accountable government in the nation’s youngest UT should serve as an occasion for rethinking how to incorporate the principle of subsidiarity into the governance of a region with national security sensitivity, in a way that allows the local people to have accountable government even as the Centre retains its autonomy of action to advance national security.
This should go beyond the division of subjects of governance as central, state and concurrent, and figure out constructive roles for the local government.
Also read: ‘We have no future in our land’: Ladakh’s youth rise in anger against Centre
A legislative apparatus with elected people’s representatives can coexist with demarcation of the central government's authority in areas germane to national security. It is to such constructive thought and action that the government should turn, instead of stamping out dissent and throwing the most popular man in Ladakh behind bars under draconian laws of preventive detention.
One path leads to more robust democracy and a stronger nation, the other, to dissent and disenchantment in border areas, with greater resort to the use of force to maintain normalcy, normalising state violence and repression.
(The Federal seeks to present views and opinions from all sides of the spectrum. The information, ideas or opinions in the articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Federal.)
