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The violence that brought turbulence on the streets of Ladakh was not spontaneous. The political simmering that has gripped Ladakh after the neutralization of Article 370 and 35A must be carefully analyzed to internalize the destabilization that has brought the life to standstill in India’s Northern Frontiers. The fundamental question that comes to mind while witnessing this political violence is that the aspirations of the Ladakhi people were defined from the very inception after the India’s independence by the demand for the Union Territory (UT) Status and for achieving this socio-political objective the people of this region suffered immensely and offered numerous sacrifices. Generations of activists and students from various segments of the society participated in this movement to uphold the national interest by asking New Delhi to mainstream Ladakh and free it from the forces of subversion and fissiparous tendencies so that political alienation of its people is stopped and they are treated at par with their counterparts in the rest of India. It is an open secret that the people of Ladakh were feeling discriminated against and exploited by the political narrative of the Kashmir valley. As they felt their voices were being lost in the din. The main reason being that there was a total difference in their aspirations both politically and socially with respect to Kashmir. Especially the archives of the last 35-40 years reveal that the political activists of Ladakh sought alliances with the nationalist forces in Jammu and Kashmir and worked for the political reorganization of the erstwhile princely state. A socio-political initiative that grabbed the attention of the people in Jammu and Kashmir in late 1990’s was known as People’s Initiative for Peace and Unity (PIPU). This consisted of their main socio-political voices demanding the quadripartition of the state. The constituents of the PIPU were Ladakh Buddhist Association (LBA), Jammu Joint Students Federation (JJSF) and Panun Kashmir (PK). LBA demanded UT status for Ladakh, JJSF stood for the statehood to Jammu region and PK has been voicing the demand for the carving out Homeland for religiously cleansed Kashmiri Pandits in Kashmir respectively. What brought these forces together was the centuries of alienation and discrimination guided by genocidal attrition. If the aspirations were addressed in August 2019, then what has led to the destabilization that has rocked Ladakh? The answer is simple but can be internalized by the people who have an ear to the ground and are well aware about the pincer movements that are being carried out in the Himalayas to weaken the Indian defence. That is why the readers are being reminded about the PIPU that was initiated in the 1990’s to sensitize the nation and mobilize the national opinion that what is happening in Jammu and Kashmir in terms of political subversion is not an isolated incident. International forces are making pincer movements to dismantle the Northern Frontiers of India. And in this direction these forces working for the balkanization of India started the De-Sanskritization movements to uproot the aboriginal inhabitants in all the three regions of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. At this moment we are concerned about the De-Sanskritization in Ladakh. Though it has a cumulative effect in all the three regions. It cannot be ruled out that a Great Game has been going on in Ladakh from pre-independence days when the British imperialists were busy in playing the geo-strategic games in the frontier. It invited other players to this frontier and made the Indian defence vulnerable. Forces of expansionism increased their games in this region and the outcome is that both China and America are playing on the turf of Ladakh to unhinge the Northern Frontiers of India extending their tentacles down to Arunachal Pradesh. What we are witnessing today is the unfolding of the Great Game 2.0 being played in the Himalayas. There is definite effort to De-Sanskritise the Buddhist Himalayas and this can have close correlation with the instability in Nepal. What adds to the challenge is that the thrust is to strangulate and shrink the Indian influence across the trans-Himalayan regions. Don’t forget the One Belt One Road (OBOR) that has already penetrated the Himalayas. Chinese influence in Tibet and its expansion there needs to be carefully studied and decoded. Presence of the Dalai Lama in India and the Indian stand on Tibetan human rights has always shaped the frontier policy. Now when the political approach and the narrative of Tibet is witnessing dilution due to Chinese pressure India needs to revisit its Tibet policy so that the Northern Frontier is safeguarded. Role of the United States cannot be ruled out. India cannot afford to keep its policy to uphold the Northern Frontiers hostage to the American and Chinese designs as doing that will have direct bearing on the Sanskrit Himalayas.
