4 days ago
‘Issue of Statehood and Sixth Schedule Unresolved': Ladakh Leaders as Union Govt Notifies New Rules
Srinagar: The new reservation and domicile policies brought out by the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP)-led Union government for Ladakh have fallen short of addressing widespread concerns over the constitutional disempowerment and suspension of democracy in the border region following its separation from Jammu and Kashmir in 2019.
'For us, the main issue of statehood and the inclusion of Ladakh in Sixth Schedule remains unresolved,' Leh Apex Body (LAB) leader Chering Dorjay, who has been leading talks with the Union government over the last more than two years along with members of Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA), told The Wire .
He added, 'While we welcome the new measures, we want the government to talk about restoration of statehood now and granting of constitutional safeguards for Ladakh in some form. The job reservation was a small problem which should have been solved much earlier but the government sat on the matter unnecessarily for a long time.'
Environmentalist and innovator Sonam Wangchuk, who has been protesting against the alleged disempowerment of Ladakh in the aftermath of its separation from J&K in 2019 and demotion into a Union territory (UT) without a legislature, said that the reservation policy was the least important demand of the LAB-KDA combine.
'In urgency, it (reservation policy) was the highest, but in importance it was the lowest. They (LAB-KDA combine) seem to have mutually decided (with the Union government) on picking the low hanging fruit first,' Wangchuk said, adding that the government didn't concede the demand of the LAB-KDA combine to set the condition of 30 years continuous residency for a non-local in Ladakh to obtain domicile certificate.
The Ladakh Civil Services Decentralization and Recruitment (Amendment) Regulation, 2025, which was notified by President Droupadi Murmu along with a set of new regulations on Monday (June 2) and Tuesday (June 3), sets 15-year continuous residency from October 31, 2019 for a non-local to obtain domicile certificate among other rules.
The rules for obtaining domicile certificate have been laid out in the Ladakh Civil Services Domicile Certificate Rules, 2025.
Ladakhi leader Mohammad Haneefa Jan, who won the region's only Lok Sabha seat in 2024 general election as an independent candidate, said that the new domicile policy was 'meaningless' in the absence of restoration of Ladakh's statehood.
'The government had agreed on a new domicile policy earlier also, so there is nothing new in it, especially because the LAB and KDA leaderships' demand of 30 years continuous residence has not been conceded by the Union government,' he said.
While the rules governing the new regulations are yet to be specified, LAB chief Dorjay said that 95% jobs (including 10% for 'Economically Weaker Section' category) were now reserved for local domiciles under the Ladakh Reservation (Amendment) Regulation, 2025, which was also notified on Tuesday.
The new regulation increases the cap on reservation in government jobs in Ladakh from 50% to 85% for Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Other Backward Classes (OBC), and other educationally and socially backward groups.
'Even if outsiders become domiciles of Ladakh after 2034, they can only compete for five percent of jobs while 95 percent jobs are reserved for original residents which is the highest in the country,' Dorjay said.
He said that unlike in Jammu and Kashmir which got a domicile policy with retrospective effect after 2019, the policy in Ladakh has a prospective effect, 'The policy has been extended to admissions to medical, engineering and other professional institutions in Ladakh,' Dorjay said.
According to the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, Ladakh has more than 83% tribal population and the new rules are seen as an attempt by the BJP to quell widespread public anger over the erosion of Ladakh's unique identity and appropriation of work opportunities in the government by outsiders post 2019.
However, Ladakhi leader Jan, who is also a member of a high-powered committee set up by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in 2023 to examine the four-point demands of LAB-KDA combine, said that the main issue of negotiations was the 'restoration of democracy' in Ladakh.
'The country came out of the British colonial rule in 1947 but Ladakh has been pushed into slavery since 2019. We have no role in policymaking and the imported bureaucratic regime has turned Ladakh into an arena of slavery. The government should now focus on resolving the main issues,' he said.
Wangchuk, who went on hunger strikes twice last year to demand constitutional safeguards under Sixth Schedule, also cautioned that the 15-years clause in the new domicile policy has not gone down well among the people of Ladakh.
'They were hoping for at least 30 years of continuous residence and the new regulation has not made them too happy. It was, however, important to address this issue because all the vacancies in the government are blocked which is not good for the administration to run the system and it is not good for the youth of Ladakh to remain unemployed,' he said.
Wangchuk said that the next two meetings between the Ladakh civil society and the MHA were going to be crucial to determine the future course of the agitation. He said that many people are projecting the regulations on reservation and domicile as 'some kind of resolution' for the problems in Ladakh 'which is far from truth'.
'If the central government sincerely discusses safeguards under Sixth Schedule and restoration of democracy and statehood, then people would be very happy. But if they don't and hold the hill council elections, then it will impact the credibility of any democratic process,' he said.
In the 2020 Hill Council election, the promise to include Ladakh in Sixth Schedule figured among the top three agendas of the BJP's election manifesto for the border region.
According to the manifesto, the party promised to protect 'land, job and environment' by bringing 'constitutional safeguards under Sixth Schedule' with the agenda of 'political empowerment' of Ladakh following its separation from Jammu and Kashmir.
'It completes a full circle,' Wangchuk said of the BJP's reference to the Sixth Schedule in its election manifesto, 'If that promise is not fulfilled again, then consequences will be seen in the election as was seen in the 2024 parliamentary election when the BJP lost in Ladakh because in 2019 parliamentary election, they had promised to include Ladakh in Sixth Schedule and failed to fulfil it.'
He added, 'In a democracy, people send a message through the electoral process which is what might happen again after the parliamentary election in the hill council election towards the end of September this year.'
Among a series of notifications issued by President Murmu also includes the Ladakh Official Languages Regulation, 2025 which recognises English, Hindi, Urdu, Bhoti and Purgi as official languages of the Union Territory with making recommendations about their use, and The Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Councils (Amendment) Regulation, 2025 under which one-third of seats in Hill Councils in Kargil and Leh would be reserved for women.
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