Will career politician Kavinder Gupta be a better LG? Ladakh uneasy but hopeful

In the throes of recurring citizens’ protests ever since it was carved out of Jammu and Kashmir as a separate Union Territory in October 2019, Ladakh will soon have a new Lieutenant Governor. On Monday (July 14), President Droupadi Murmu accepted the resignation of Ladakh’s incumbent LG, Brig. (retd) BD Mishra, and appointed Kavinder Gupta as his successor.

Will a career politician be better?

While it is not yet known when Gupta, a former deputy chief minister of J&K and among the BJP’s seniormost leaders in the erstwhile state, will officially take charge of his new role, there is cautious optimism and unease in equally measure in Ladakh over his appointment. What is abundantly clear, though, is that in Gupta’s appointment, Ladakhis see a significant shift in how the Centre hopes to govern the Union Territory hereon, the only mystery being whether this shift is intended to bring better tidings for them or further unsettle the ecologically fragile and geopolitically critical region.

Gupta will be the first career politician to assume charge as Ladakh’s LG. Since its formation as a separate Union Territory in October 2019 following the passage of the J&K Reorganisation Act in August the same year, the Centre had opted for “apolitical” administrators for Ladakh. Mishra, who had assumed charge as LG in February 2023, is an Indian Army veteran while his predecessor and the first LG of Ladakh, RK Mathur, is a former IAS officer who had also served as the Chief Information Commissioner of India.

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No understanding of Ladakh and Ladakhis

A recurring complaint of ordinary Ladakhis and the region’s political representatives alike had been that neither Mathur nor Mishra understood the sociopolitical and economic ground realities of Ladakh and, as such, were often seen as individuals who had a purely bureaucratic perspective of administration. With Gupta, who served three terms as Mayor of Jammu, Speaker of the J&K Assembly, and then briefly as deputy CM of the erstwhile state, Ladakh is poised to get its first dyed-in-wool “political” administrator.

“For both of them (Mishra and Mathur), people didn’t matter. They performed their role as LG like a bureaucratic chore; just executing the Centre’s directives without any dialogue with the Ladakhis. Neither could people approach them with their problems nor did they show any interest in understanding our issues. Both of them are as responsible as the Centre for forcing Ladakhis to launch our protest on the still unresolved demand of giving Ladakh constitutional guarantees and protections enshrined in the Sixth Schedule. Gupta will be Ladakh’s third LG in less than six years; we can only hope that the administration will be more sensitive to the problems and demands of the people,” Chering Dorjay, co-chairman of the Leh Apex Body tells The Federal.

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Tensions within Leh Apex Body

Mohammed Haneefa Jan, the independent Lok Sabha MP from Ladakh, believes a “traditional politician” as the new LG can be both a boon and a bane. “As someone who has been in the political field for many years, I hope he (Gupta) will appreciate the need to listen to the people of Ladakh instead of taking a purely bureaucratic view of things. He was Assembly Speaker and then briefly Deputy CM when Ladakh was part of J&K, so he knows all the important political people from Ladakh and also the bureaucrats. We hope he will use those connections to deliver an administration that listens to the voices from the ground. But then, if he decides to blindly implement Delhi’s orders or allows his political association with the RSS and the BJP to dictate his decisions, I have to admit there will be problems,” says Haneefa.

Gupta’s appointment, says a former member of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC), comes at a crucial juncture. “For the last few years, the people of Ladakh, whether they were from Muslim-dominated areas of Kargil or from the Buddhist-majority Leh, had buried their political and ideological differences and come together to unitedly demand Ladakh’s rights from Delhi, but for some months now, things have begun to fall apart. What happened in the Leh Apex Body last week was a sign of simmering disquiet. I fear that with a political appointee like Gupta, who is essentially an RSS pick for the LG’s job, the Centre may be up to some tricks; there may be attempts to exploit tensions within the Leh Apex Body to re-establish the BJP in Leh in time for the LAHDC elections that are due in four months,” the member tells The Federal on condition of anonymity.

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A key exit

The development at the Leh Apex Body that the LAHDC member spoke of was a reference to the political turbulence that hit the politically influential conglomerate of Ladakh Buddhist Association (LBA) and other Ladakhi political and social outfits on July 7.

In a move that shocked many Ladakhis, particularly from the Buddhist majority Leh district, Thupstan Chhewang, the influential chief of the LBA and a former two-term Lok Sabha MP from Ladakh, stepped down as chairman of the Leh Apex Body. Chhewang’s decision came at a time when representatives of the Leh Apex Body and its Kargil counterpart, the Kargil Democratic Alliance, on the high-powered committee (HPC) negotiating Ladakh’s demands with the Centre, were busy preparing for a long-anticipated meeting with representatives of the Union home ministry, now scheduled for July 20.

Wangchuk’s growing influence

In an evidently brisk damage-control move, the Leh Apex Body roped in renowned innovator and activist Sonam Wangchuk, who has led two hunger strikes to press for Ladakh’s demand of protection under the Sixth Schedule, as a representative on the HPC. Some believe Chhewang’s exit was also triggered by the growing influence of Wangchuk in affairs of the Leh Apex Body as he saw the activist-innovator as a pliable and moderate face of an agitation that now demanded unyielding political stance against Delhi.

Chhewang’s statement, in which he practically conceded that “competing interests... partisan and individual agendas” had triggered his resignation has sown further confusion on the political integrity of the Leh Apex Body and the direction that the HPC’s talks with the Centre are likely to take.

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That Wangchuk stood true to his reputation as a “pliable moderate” open to dialogue instead of confrontation with the Centre also became clear on July 12. After warning the Centre last week that Wangchuk, along with some representatives from the Leh Apex Body, the Kargil Democratic Alliance and ordinary Ladakhis, would proceed on a 35-day hunger strike to press for Ladakh’s demands if the Centre did not meet the HPC by July 15, Chering Dorjay announced on July 12 that the strike was indeed being deferred.

“The Centre has proposed to hold talks on July 20 and since there is no big gap between July 15 and 20, Sonam Wangchuk has decided to defer his hunger strike... We will see if they include statehood and Sixth Schedule in the agenda because we don’t want to remain entangled on the issue of unemployment. A lot of talks followed by action for jobs has already taken place,” Dorjay told reporters on Sunday (July 13), striking a somewhat conciliatory stance towards Delhi.

Ladakhis’ demand

Besides the protection of Sixth Schedule, Ladakhis have also been demanding from the Centre statehood for Ladakh, increasing the Lok Sabha seats from the UT from one to two, and the setting up of a Ladakh Public Service Commission. Some believe that Mishra’s replacement with Gupta as the new Lt Governor could also be the first move by the Centre to meet the agitating Ladakhis half-way and, in so doing, elevate Wangchuk’s stature further to undermine the sociopolitical clout of the more hardline Ladakhi leadership represented by individuals like Chhewang and former diplomat Phunchok Stobdan.

“We are hopeful of some forward movement in negotiations on July 20. Since Parliament’s monsoon session will start the following day, we are hoping that the Centre will not lose time and announce some concessions to Ladakh during the session itself while on any outstanding issues the dialogue can continue,” says a Leh Apex Body official.

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Demand for Sixth Schedule

Sources said if the Centre extends some “cosmetic concessions” to Ladakh, the BJP could hope for a revival in the LAHDC polls due in October-November and that the new Ladakh LG could provide the “necessary political and administrative follow up” to the government’s actions in the UT. There is, however, also an apprehension among many in Ladakh that “half measures” by the Centre, even with the expected backing of individuals like Wangchuk and predictable political machinations of the Raj Niwas (LG residence), could prove counter-productive and agitate the region further as the demand for Sixth Schedule guarantees had already taken deep roots across Ladakhi society.

Kavinder Gupta’s appointment as the new Lt Governor of Ladakh may not have been a national headline on Monday but in light of the UT’s volatile political scenario, his innings in office may well turn into one very soon.