Nine false claims about Sonam Wangchuk – and why they fall flat

A “Chinese agent”. A Bangladesh supporter. A foreign-funded agent. An instigator of violence and a threat to Indian sovereignty. These are among the falsehoods being circulated about Ladakh climate activist Sonam Wangchuk who was arrested and jailed on September 26.

The Indian government has blamed Wangchuk after violence broke out on September 24 in Leh during protests to press for Ladakh’s long-standing demand for statehood and autonomy.

Wangchuk was detained under the stringent National Security Act and imprisoned in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. Since then, cropped videos of Wangchuk’s speeches, old photographs and distorted translations of his remarks are being circulated as part of a vilification campaign to manufacture consent for his incarceration.

But this brushes aside inconvenient facts: for one, Wangchuk was a key government point-person on Ladakh and environmental issues. Second, and more importantly, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has, in its manifestos for the 2019 general elections and the 2020 hill council elections, promised Sixth Schedule Status and greater autonomy to Ladakh, but never followed through.

In 2019, three ministries of the Narendra Modi government greenlit the recommendation of the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes to include Ladakh as a tribal area under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. But the Centre has been dragging its feet since then: the...

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