麻豆约拍

India is going to polls next week, and apart from the many nation-wide issues hotly debated there will be many local issues which will come under the spotlight.

One of these is the call for constitutional change in a region of the Himalayas called Ladakh.

When the central government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi revoked the Special Status of Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019 it split off the territory of Ladakh and gave it a Union territory status.

Pro-democracy activists in Ladakh want that status replaced by full statehood rather than direct rule by the federal government in Delhi.

High up in the Himalayas, Sonam Wangchuck is a well know innovator and scientist across India who has been on hunger strike for nearly three weeks to demand independent statehood and greater rights for the tribal people of the mountainous Ladakh region.

Mr Wangchuck has been joined by hundreds of others in the region's capital, Leh, who are supporting the key causes of his hunger strike.

Newsday's Devina Gupta asked Sonam Wangchuk how he was holding up 17 days into his hunger strike.

"We're fasting outdoors in the open... it will continue until 21 days and may be extended, if necessary. The problem was the [lack of] safeguards to the unique indigenous tribal cultures here and the fragile eco-systems of these mountains which host some of the biggest glaciers that feed Ladakh, entire northern Indian and beyond."

"Once Ladakh was separated we thought we would get safeguards... specially reserved for tribal cultures. But slowly the government backtracked. Like other Indian states we should have a legislative assembly in the Union territory where elected representatives make decisions about Ladakh and its future."

"Unless people who live here - and will live for generations - have the right to decide how this place is managed
we cannot believe that people from outside will do a good job. At best they'll make mistakes, at worse they'll sell off the valleys and mountains to mining and industrial lobbies which is already starting to happen."

(Pic: FILE Reformist Sonam Wangchuk talks to activists from Ladakh demanding statehood at Jantar Mantar, on February 15, 2023 in New Delhi, India ; Credit: Getty Images)

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