Wangchuk plans a border march to draw attention to the actual situation in Ladakh

Climate activist Sonam Wangchuk said on Tuesday that they are organizing a border march soon to draw attention to the “ground reality” that the outside world needs to know about. Sonam Wangchuk has been on a hunger strike for the last two weeks in favor of statehood and constitutional provisions under the sixth schedule for the Union Territory of Ladakh.

Renowned education reformer Wangchuk has been on a “climate fast” since March 6, the day after negotiations between the central government and joint representatives of the Apex body, located in Leh, and the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA), which is leading an agitation in favor of four-point demands, broke down.

Wangchuk said that the goal of the march is to determine the degree of grazing land invasion, claiming that large areas of grazing land had been acquired by huge Indian enterprises on one side and annexed by the Chinese along the Ladakh border on the other.

We are losing land left, right, and center as we demand that “this fragile land and its culture and people” be protected. You can observe how much land has been lost by the nomadic Changpas tribe, who are well-known for making pashmina fiber, if we go to the Changthang plains on the border between China and Tibet, Wangchuk said in his daily broadcast.

On the one hand, Indian corporations are taking over their property in the South, establishing factories and facilities, and maybe even beginning mining operations in the future. They are already losing about 1.5 lakh square kilometers of the best grazing area due to a massive 13 gigawatt solar installation,” he said. However, he said, “China, which is encroaching from the North, is taking over their pasture lands.”

Wangchuk said, “so they have to now sell their goats and become jobless laborers in the cities.”

A border march will be used to perform an on-the-ground inspection on March 27, the day after my fast comes to an end. We’ll go to the border and show you live video if I’m in form. About ten thousand Ladakhi people will march to the borders with their nomadic leaders, demonstrating to you how much of their grazing land these corporations have taken over for solar installations. The Indo-Tibetan or Chinese borders are not distant from these solar plant locations; these nomadic leaders can accompany us there and demonstrate to us how far they used to graze and where they must now stop. We’ll get a clear image from this,” he said.

The likelihood is that security personnel would catch up to him tens of kilometers behind, he added. “Well, this will demonstrate without a doubt that there are several things that need to be hidden. They will let us to go to the areas where our ancestors were nomads in the past if there is nothing to conceal and no land has been stolen.

“If they have anything to hide, they may stop us at Leh itself or 100 kilometers away. That in and of itself will be evidence. So, assuming I’m well, I’m excited to either organize or participate in a protest march on March 27. If not, on April 7, ten days later,” he said.