Sonam Wangchuk's latest fast and claims of a CBI probe in Ladakh

On 10 September, climate activist and education reformer Sonam Wangchuk began a declared 35-day fast in Leh, renewing demands for constitutional safeguards — chiefly Sixth Schedule protections — and pressing for statehood for Ladakh. He and the Leh Apex Body (LAB) say the fast is a last-resort measure after months of stalled talks with New Delhi and, they allege, a pattern of administrative reprisals that have targeted Wangchuk’s institutions and supporters.

On Sunday, an X post by Wangchuk claimed that the CBI had begun a probe into alleged administrative corruption in Ladakh, headed by a lieutenant-governor ever since the Union Territory was separated from Jammu & Kashmir following the abrogation of Article 370.

The fast is, in Wangchuk’s hands, both a moral protest and a political instrument. But it also lays bare a deeper arithmetic of coercion by procedure: lease cancellations, preventive detentions of supporters, restrictions on protest, and the spectre of investigations have combined, he and local bodies say, to make civic activism costly and precarious.

Those claims have hardened local anger and made the forthcoming talks with the Union government — scheduled, according to government notices, for 6 October — a live test of whether protest will prompt negotiation or further squeeze.

Most visible among the alleged reprisals is the Ladakh administration’s recent cancellation of the land lease for the Himalayan Institute of Alternatives Ladakh (HIAL), the institute Wangchuk founded. The administration described its move as an administrative step; Wangchuk and his supporters describe it as a politically motivated attack on a high-profile local educator and on institutions that promote local knowledge and environmental stewardship. The HIAL decision has been publicly denounced by regional bodies including the LAB and the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA).

That administrative posture sits alongside repeated reports of preventive detentions and restrictions during earlier rounds of agitation.

In 2024 and into 2025, marches and hunger strikes organised to highlight environmental damage, alleged land loss and demands for autonomy were met with heavy policing in Delhi and in Ladakh, including arrests of supporters and limits on movement that activists say amount to a chilling effect.

Reuters and other international outlets documented the size and persistence of these protests — and the determination of local communities to keep pressing their claims despite police action.

For Wangchuk and many Ladakhis, the policy pattern is clear: dissent that presses on land, environmental or governance questions is being met less with dialogue than with administrative pressure. The effect is to turn activism into a risky enterprise rather than a normal element of democratic life.

Like Wangshuk, recent social media posts and some regional coverage have also said the CBI has begun inquiries into alleged corruption in Ladakh’s administration — a charge which Wangchuk and his supporters have amplified.

If true, such a probe would be significant. But careful checks of public records and the CBI’s own archives show no formal public press release from the CBI confirming a named, general probe into Ladakh’s administration as of this writing.

That discrepancy matters politically: claims of a CBI probe lend weight to protesters’ charges of maladministration, but they also inflame officials and can be used by opponents to question the movement’s veracity. For now, the most accurate description is a contested one: activists assert that the CBI is involved; official confirmation remains absent or not yet public.

A persistent theme of Wangchuk’s agitation has been territorial anxiety. He has repeatedly warned that Ladakhi shepherds and pastoral communities have reported being prevented from accessing traditional pastures and that China’s activities on the other side of the Line of Actual Control have led to de-facto local changes on the ground.

In 2024-25, he escalated the message with planned 'border marches' (later called off under administrative pressure) and public statements that China had, over years, pushed patrol lines and constrained traditional grazing routes — claims widely reported in Indian media and cited by international outlets covering the wider India–China border standoff. The combination of environmental grievance and border anxiety makes the Ladakh question unusually combustible.

Wangchuk’s present fast is part of a repertoire of hunger strikes and symbolic actions he has used over several years. Notable precedents include a 21-day climate fast in March 2024, which drew thousands of local supporters and national attention; and a fast and protest presence in Delhi (including a fast at Ladakh Bhawan) in October 2024, which ended only after assurances that talks with the Centre would be resumed.

Those earlier fasts both amplified the movement’s visibility and showed its limits: talks were convened, some concessions (on domiciles or reservations) were discussed, but substantive constitutional guarantees — Sixth Schedule status or statehood — remained unresolved.

Each fast has been tactically useful: it forced the government to engage, it rallied local and diasporic support, and it framed the debate morally. But it also exposed activists — including Wangchuk himself — to health risks and to the very administrative pressures (detentions, lease challenges) they seek to contest.

The Ministry of Home Affairs has formally invited Ladakhi representatives back to the negotiating table on 6 October under the High-Powered Committee set up to consider Ladakh’s demands. The meeting is expected to see LAB and KDA representatives press for two central outcomes: Sixth Schedule safeguards and statehood — demands that would, if accepted, reshape land control, local governance and political representation in Ladakh.

How the Centre approaches the meeting will be telling. A substantive, time-bound offer could defuse the fast and set a road map for Constitutional or legislative steps. A bland reaffirmation of study-groups and timelines could instead harden protests and entrench the perception that administrative steps — like the HIAL lease cancellation — are punitive rather than corrective.

For activists in Ladakh, the sequence is familiar — raise demands, be met with administrative counter-measures, wait for talks that are intermittently scheduled, then face renewed curbs. The repeated use of technical administrative powers (leases, permits, policing) toggles the cost of dissent; it also makes winning concessions from New Delhi more difficult because movement energy is diverted into survival rather than sustained policy advocacy.