After two years of disagreement, Ladakh’s Kargil and Leh regions now united in demand for statehood

August 5, 2019, was a day of contrasts in Jammu and Kashmir’s Ladakh region.

That was the day on which New Delhi stripped the state of the special status it had been guaranteed under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution and downgraded it into two Union territories.

Leh, one of the two districts of the new Union territory of Ladakh, erupted in jubilation. But its Muslim-majority district Kargil had sulked and protested the move.

Now, just over two years later, both the regions are on the same page: the events of August 5, 2019, have now been deemed unacceptable by the people of both parts of the Ladakh Union territory.

At a meeting in Leh on August 1, senior political and religious leaders from both districts, Leh and Kargil, reached a consensus on several demands they intend to put forward to the Centre – and firmly rejected Union territory status for the region.

Their first demand is statehood. Though Ladakh’s Union territory status has never been accepted by Kargil, the Buddhist-majority Leh district had demanded a Union territory with a legislature. Now, both districts of the cold desert region are rooting for statehood.

The second demand pertains to safeguards in land rights and jobs. “No outsider should be able to buy land…

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