For the majority of the Buddhist population of Ladakh, the coming year will be a crucial one. Talks are entering a critical phase on the granting of Hill Council Status to Ladakh, along the lines of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council and Ladakh would remain a part of Jammu & Kashmir State, but have its own General and Executive Council. These would Control district planning and development budgets, with state government approval, but would have no say over law and order or the judiciary. The Ladakhi side perceives the Council as a 'state within a state,' whereas the state continues to regard it as a 'planning and development board.'
Ladakh's bargaining position at these talks has been considerably strengthened by the settling of differences between the Ladakhi Muslim and Buddhist populations. Relations between the Buddhists and the indigenous Ladakhi Muslims, who used to run much of the trade between Leh, Kashmir and Central Asia, had historically been a model of inter-communal tolerance. But when serious street disturbances erupted in Leh in the late 1980s, Buddhist resentment against the Muslim-controlled government in Srinagar spilled over into anger at their fellow Ladakhi Muslims. The Buddhists also feared that their political majority within the district would be eroded because of a higher population growth rate among Muslims. The Ladakh Buddhist Association instituted a ban on all inter-communal associations, a decision which was much resented by both moderates on both sides. The ban was only lifted when the talks concerning Hill Council status began to bear fruit.
Although the recent political developments were not on its agenda, they provided a positive backdrop to the recently concluded Sixth Colloquium of the International Association for Ladakh Studies (IALS), held in Leh in late August. The possibility of Ladakhis gaining more say on their own affairs lent an immediacy which might not otherwise have been present in the discussion of a diverse range of social, cultural and development-related subjects.
Arun Kumar, the Srinagar-based Secretary to the Ladakh Affairs Department, set the tone to the Colloquium when he announced at the outset that major new areas were to be opened up for tourism, specifically the Nubra Valley, Pangong Lake and Dahanu. He further predicted that following the Indian Prime Minister's visit to China in early September, the border crossing to Tibet at Demchok would be opened for trade, and to Indian nationals on pilgrimage to Mt Kailash, Kumar faced a barrage of criticism concerning the J&K fiscal policy towards Ladakh from P. Namgyal, former Minister of Transport at the Centre and Tsering Samphel, former Ladakh member in the J&K Legislative Assembly. Both were waved off by Kumar as "out of work politicians."