Somewhere in P.V. Narasirnha Rao's office, under a pile of papers, is a bill, approved by the Governor of J&K, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, and the Kashmir Affairs Desk in the PM's Office. The bill, declaring Leh District's Autonomous Hill Council, has—one imagines—a dotted line at the bottom. That dotted line awaits the signature of the Prime Minister. It has been lying on his desk for months, much to the disillusionment of the leadership in Leh.
Somewhere in P.V. Narasirnha Rao's office, under a pile of papers, is a bill, approved by the Governor of J&K, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, and the Kashmir Affairs Desk in the PM's Office. The bill, declaring Leh District's Autonomous Hill Council, has—one imagines—a dotted line at the bottom. That dotted line awaits the signature of the Prime Minister. It has been lying on his desk for months, much to the disillusionment of the leadership in Leh.
In sharp contrast to the mood today, there was great optimism last October among Leh leaders that the Hill Council was at hand. Within a matter days, the bill would go from the Prime Minister to the President for final approval. The change in mood by January was dramatic among the key players, including the former MP and Union Minister P. Namgyal, Mohd. Akbar Ladakhi, and Rigzin Jora, General Secretary of the LBA. Below, are excerpts from a conversation with Rigzin Jora.
"We have been quite unfortunate. Every time we feel things are picking up, something happens that derails the process. The whole affair seems jinxed. Last September/ October we were quite optimistic. P. Namgyal told us that it was going to the Cabinet, so we were all excited. Then we realized that the entire department dealing with Kashmir was taken from Home Affairs to the PM's office, so it had to go through the whole process again.