The beautiful, scenic Ladakh is burning. Ladakhis have witnessed violence that killed 4 people and injured 70 others. Ladakh is now slowly returning to normalcy, with authorities saying there have been no violent incidents since 4 pm on Wednesday (September 24).
After the clashes, the Union government blamed activist Sonam Wangchuk for instigating the protesters and for inciting them to turn violent.
In March 2024, he undertook a 21-day hunger fast in the freezing cold of Ladakh “to remind the government of its promises to safeguard Ladakh’s environment and tribal indigenous culture”. He was joined by thousands who fasted with him and held demonstrations.
The Government blamed activist Sonam Wangchuck for yesterday's clashes in Ladakh, which resulted in 70 injuries and four fatalities.. The Ministry of Home Affairs said in a statement, “Despite many leaders urging him to end the hunger strike, he continued and misled the people with mentions of Arab Spring-style protests and references to Gen Z protests in Nepal.”
Who is Sonam Wangchuk?
Sonam Wangchuk was born in 1966. He gained national recognition for his role as Aamir Khan in the 2009 Bollywood film ‘3 Idiots’. However, he has many other accomplishments to his name, including founding the Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh, or SECMOL, to change the educational system and make it more environmentally and culturally relevant in Ladakh.
Ladags Melong, Ladakh's sole print magazine, was founded and edited by Wangchuk between June 1993 and 2005. Some of the most creative solutions he has developed include an inexpensive mud house that maintains a temperature of 15°C even in -15°C temperatures and an artificial spring that takes the shape of an ice stupa and stores water downstream for use by farmers later in the spring. To address this, he used science and technology in 2020 to build an artificial spring in the shape of an ice stupa that would store water downstream for farmers' use in the late spring.
