The historic Leh to Delhi padyatra led by Sonam Wangchuk must serve as a reminder that India needs what Rammanohar Lohia had called a “Himalayan policy”. When a group of citizens from the Sino-Indian border walked about 1,000 km for one month to their national capital, the least they deserved was a hearing. Instead, they were greeted with a sudden imposition of Section 144 (now BNSS 163), detention without any reason, informal internment at Ladakh Bhavan and denial of a place to carry out a fast. On the 8th day of his fast, when he had invited others to join him, Delhi Police struck again and detained many supporters. The protest of the people of Ladakh, led by the Leh Apex Body and Kargil Democratic Alliance, has been going on for months now, without drawing much national attention.

Protest in Ladakh is just one of the many seemingly isolated recent occurrences in our Himalayan region that invite a coherent understanding: Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370, massive landslides in Uttarakhand, regime change in Nepal, flash floods in Sikkim, Bhutan’s proximity to China, NPR trouble in Assam and civil war in Manipur. We place these incidents under different heads — geo-politics, terrorism, internal security, natural disaster, ethnic violence and so on. Seventy years ago, Rammanohar Lohia had asked us to take an integral view, by recognising the interconnections among these Himalayan states and their issues. He wanted India to evolve a coherent and democratic perspective on the places and people that comprise the entire Himalayan region from Pakhtoonistan in the west to Burma in the east.

In those early post-Independence years, with the threat of Chinese aggression looming large, Lohia’s principal concern was with the political dimensions of the Himalayan policy, on how the external and internal challenges were intertwined. Lohia stood for the democratic rights of the Himalayan people within and outside India, advocated India’s support to peoples’ struggle against their rulers in Tibet and Nepal, argued for democratic dialogues with the “rebels” in Kashmir and Nagaland and vehemently opposed Verrier Elwin’s tribal policy of social and physical segregation of Adivasis from non-Adivasis in the North-east.

His sharpest difference, as in everything else, was with Nehru — on his foreign policy that closed its eyes to Chinese expansionism and its aggressive designs on India. Lohia’s reflections on a Himalayan policy (collected in a volume “India China and Northern Frontiers”) envisioned multiple unities: Of the people living in different states of the Himalayan region, of the citizens of neighbouring countries with Indian citizens across the border, of the culture and society of the Himalayan region with the rest of India. Very few public figures from non-Himalayan India, with the possible exception of the revolutionary wanderer-writer Rahul Sankrityayan before him and philosopher-traveller Krishna Nath after him, matched Lohia’s attention and empathy for the Himalayan region.

Wangchuk and his colleagues do not just remind us of the need to pay attention to the Himalayan region, they also deepen our understanding of what a Himalayan policy might mean in our times. They demand democratic governance for Ladakh either as a full state or as a Union Territory with an elected legislature, as in Delhi or Puducherry. After decades of remaining the invisible and neglected “L” in “J&K”, the people of Ladakh wish to be ruled by a government elected by and accountable to them. This is an eminently reasonable demand.

The population of Ladakh is just around 3 lakh, no more than a small town like Ayodhya or Hisar. But its area is above 59,000 square km, much bigger than J&K or the combined area of Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland. There is no reason why this large and distinct area should not have two MPs, just like Arunachal Pradesh, and a representative in the Rajya Sabha.

They want their democracy to be decentralised. The immediate and principal demand of this march is for Sixth Schedule status for Ladakh that would allow each of the eight districts — not just Leh and Kargil — inhabited by different tribal communities to have their own Autonomous District Councils and be responsible for their internal governance. This would empower each of the smaller communities to preserve their culture and identity. This, incidentally, was promised by the BJP in its manifesto.

But this movement is not limited to political demands. They want to ensure land, jobs and cultural rights for the local population in a frame that may be described as ecological democracy. While they oppose indiscriminate hydel projects, they are not opposed to “development”. Wangchuk is an engineer and an inventor. He is also the founder of a new education movement for pedagogy rooted in the local context, the initiative that won him the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2018. He and his colleagues do not just demand their share in development; they ask for a new model of development.

This is what differentiates Wangchuk’s fast from other protests and movements, valuable as all of these are in a democracy. He sets up a moral equation with the Indian state that reminds you of how Gandhiji related to the British empire. Wangchuk makes legitimate political demands on behalf of his people, but he refuses to be a supplicant. He is persistent and firm, without being aggressive or combative. That is why Delhi Police doesn’t know how to handle him. He is not charmed by the “civilisation” that he sees in Delhi; he seeks to question its claims of superiority. He questions its monopoly of knowledge and brings the gift of the “traditional” wisdom of tribal people, their ways of living with scarcity and of dealing with adversities. He stands tall and offers something to the centres of power, an alternative vision of development, a new approach to education, a new perspective on energy. He seeks liberation not just for the people of Ladakh, but for the people of India.

The idea of a Himalayan policy was a novelty in Lohia’s days. This is now an established wisdom in the academic and activist world. We have journals devoted to it, besides activist magazines like Pahad (Hindi journal published from Uttarakhand) and Himal (English magazine published from Nepal). The lazy poetic image of the Himalayas as our sentry has given way to an understanding of it as a young and vulnerable mountain range that cannot support unlimited roads, bridges and buildings. The national security perspective centred on armies and geo-politics has given way to a focus on human security, on the needs and aspirations of the people and communities that live in the Himalayas. The tourist-eye-view of the Himalayas as a source of natural beauty has shifted in favour of the Himalayas as a source of water, medicinal plants, bio-diversity, sustainable livelihood practices and knowledges. The Indian state is yet to come to terms with the idea that Himalaya is not just places, it’s also people.

October 15 is the 10th day of Sonam Wangchuk’s indefinite fast in Tibet Bhavan in New Delhi. His simple ask is a dialogue, a meeting with the prime minister or the home minister or the president to present to them the charter of the people of Ladakh. He brings the Himalayas — with its sagely wisdom — to Delhi. Should we expect our political leadership to listen to the Himalayas? Or, are we waiting for Himalayan fury to visit Delhi?