Mainstream WeeklyDr. Dewendra Pratap Tiwari
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science
Ram Dayalu Singh College, Muzaffarpur, Bihar
Email: devendra.political@gmail.com
Ladakh’s current movements cannot be interpreted as a sudden change; they are the gradual, accumulating trends of a region that has undergone reorganisation, reimagination, and repeated promises of representation and protections that many residents now believe have not been fully realised. When New Delhi divided the former State of Jammu & Kashmir into two Union Territories on October 31, 2019, Ladakh became a Union Territory without its own legislature, a structure established by the Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019. It was executed through successive directives from the central government. This legal alteration removed Ladakh from the former state framework and placed its governance more directly under the central administration, a decision that initially garnered some local approval but also left unanswered questions regarding local political agency and safeguards for land, employment, and identity.
These unresolved issues have solidified into a specific set of demands that consistently emerge in public gatherings, hunger strikes, and