‘We have no future in our land’: Ladakh’s youth rise in anger against Centre

The silence of Ladakh’s remote cold desert was shattered on September 24, when simmering discontent erupted into violent protests in Leh. Demonstrators torched the BJP office and a police vehicle, bringing a six-year agitation for statehood and Sixth Schedule safeguards to a boiling point. At least four people were killed and over 70 injured as clashes with security forces turned deadly, prompting curfew across the region.

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The unrest followed years of peaceful mobilisation since Ladakh’s designation as a Union Territory in 2019. Climate activist Sonam Wangchuk, who had led hunger strikes for the cause, called the violence a breaking point – a spontaneous outburst of frustration at the government’s failure to deliver on promises, with desperation giving way to rage.

Grief sparks collective anger

Speaking through the haze of exhaustion and adrenaline, 22-year-old protester Gyatso Bhutia told The Federal how the mood shifted that morning. “This wasn’t a day of premeditated violence; it was grief spilling over, raw and uncontainable frustration,” he said. The gathering at the NDS Memorial Ground, he explained, had been intended as a solemn expression of solidarity with elders like Tsering Angchuk and Tashi Dolma, both hospitalised after weeks of fasting. “When they were finally forced to end their 35-day fast because their bodies were collapsing, something broke inside us,” Bhutia said.

He recalled how quickly the crowd’s emotions changed. “What began as a quiet protest turned into the realisation that Delhi was simply watching people die and still dragging its feet on the talks. It felt as though they were testing our limits, counting on us to surrender.” The call to march, he added, was not pre-planned but a surge of collective anger. “What happened wasn’t an attack on a building. It was an attack on what that building symbolised – the deaf, unsympathetic power we’ve been confronting. To us, the BJP office stood for broken promises and the betrayal of the very mandate they had once been given here.”

A homeland without dignity

For Ladakh’s younger generation of protesters, the struggle is not a binary between political autonomy and economic survival. “The anger is not just about constitutional rights or jobs, but about a vicious cycle where one constantly feeds the other,” said 24-year-old graduate Lobsang Tshering.

“We demand Sixth Schedule protection because it is the only constitutional safeguard that can secure our land and resources, and with them our tribal identity and fragile ecosystem,” he explained. “Without that control, every tender, every land lease, every industrial project becomes a potential environmental catastrophe.”

According to Tshering, the lack of jobs and soaring unemployment are the clearest, most punishing outcomes of being denied local decision-making. “We are a generation of educated youth – doctors, engineers, graduates – yet we have no future in our own homeland because the Union Territory administration has failed to establish a proper Ladakh Public Service Commission and strong local reservation,” he said. This, he argued, is not mere neglect but a deliberate strategy. “Delhi views Ladakh as a strategic asset to be run by bureaucracy and opened up for corporations, not as a homeland to be protected for its people. Our protest is against a system that reduced us to a Union Territory while denying us the dignity of a self-determined future.”

Technology fuels youth revolt

Tshering said this wave of agitation marked a break from the past. “Gen-Z stands on the shoulders of decades of struggle. The difference is our coordination and our impatience,” he said. He explained that past movements had been led by traditional bodies, but today’s generation functions as “the amplifier.”

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He said, “We use WhatsApp for real-time mobilisation, a single broadcast message of the elders’ hospitalisation brought the whole town to a standstill. Instagram and Twitter (X) are our news channels; we are using high-quality videos and concise, viral messaging to show the world the truth.” He added, “We don’t wait for a press conference; we go live from the street. We are digital natives fighting for an ancient identity. Technology is our weapon to defend tradition.”

For Tenzin Dorjay, a 25-year-old civil engineering graduate who returned to Leh in 2021, the uprising stems from years of broken promises. He said he had come home hoping to contribute to infrastructure development but found only persistent unemployment. “The BJP government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, assured us constitutional safeguards and special status for Ladakh. But nothing has come true. For us, this is not politics, it is betrayal,” he told The Federal.

His disillusionment deepened with the cancellation of the Himalayan Institute of Alternative Learning (HIAL) lease. “Delhi treats us like a checklist, not as citizens,” he said. “Sonam Wangchuk’s HIAL project was our hope, designed to equip Ladakh’s youth to protect our ecology and heritage. When the government revoked its lease, it was a blow to all of us. It showed that the administration will crush anything that challenges its centralised grip on Ladakh.”

Broken promises, burning anger

For Sonam Chodon, a 22-year-old environmental science graduate from Ladakh, the uprising was about nothing less than survival. She told The Federal that she had returned to Leh hoping to build a career in sustainable tourism, only to find her aspirations blocked. “The Modi government promised local governance, statehood, and Sixth Schedule protection. They promised a roadmap for jobs. Four years later, all we have is silence and broken assurances,” she said. “Delhi thinks of us only when it wants to showcase Ladakh as a tourist destination, not as a living homeland.”

She added that the hospitalisation of elderly fasting protestors marked her personal breaking point. “When I saw Tsering Angchuk, a 72-year-old man, lying in hospital after weeks of fasting for our cause, I knew silence was no longer an option,” she said.

Another protester, Stobdan Wangdus, described the attacks on the BJP office and police vehicles as a raw, spontaneous eruption of rage against the institutions seen as the source of betrayal. “The party office symbolised the broken promise, especially the 2020 manifesto pledge to grant Sixth Schedule protection, which was never fulfilled,” he said.

Wangdus underlined why Sixth Schedule status remains the core demand. “It is the only constitutional safeguard that grants local Autonomous District Councils control over land use, forests, and water resources. Without that, Delhi treats Ladakh merely as a strategic asset to be opened up. That path leads to environmental catastrophe, erasing both our tribal identity and the sustainable way of life we are fighting to protect.”

From uprising to repression

Within hours of the violence, the Union Home Ministry (MHA) issued a sharp statement blaming activist Sonam Wangchuk, accusing him of provoking unrest with references to “Arab Spring-style protests” and youth uprisings in Nepal. It said police had fired in “self-defence” after protestors injured over 30 personnel and set vehicles ablaze.

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Lieutenant Governor Kavinder Gupta went further, calling the agitation a “conspiracy” and suggesting the hand of “foreign powers.” A police crackdown followed, with at least 50 arrests and Wangchuk himself detained under the National Security Act (NSA), effectively crippling the statehood movement. A day later, in what many saw as a political move, the MHA cancelled the FCRA license of Wangchuk’s organisation, SECMOL (Students Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh).