Are autonomous hill councils the answer to highlanders' woes? Not necessarily, if the Ladakh Hill Council is taken as an example.
"Sher-e-Kashmir Sheikh Abdullah will, I have no doubt, do whatever lies in his power to improve your lot… In Ladakh you are backward and unless you learn and train yourselves you cannot run the affairs of your country."
Thus spoke Jawaharlal Nehru on 8 July 1949, addressing a crowd in Leh during his first visit to the Ladakh region of India´s and Kashmir state.
Ladakh´s political leaders spent much of the next 40 years trying to convince the Centre that self-rule was not only possible, but necessary for the proper development of the region and the protection of its ´unique identity´. The arguments they used to support Ladakh´s case included national security, patriotism, economic progress, and cultural preservation.