History Of Ladakh – Burning Issues

Table of Contents

Ladakh – The Land of High passes

cold, dry, high altitude territory
Ladakh was part of the Tibetan empire which broke up after the assassination of King Langdarma in 742 CE,
Thereafter it became an independent kingdom, though its borders fluctuated at different periods of its history and, at times included much of what is now western Tibet
Up until the Dogra invasion of 1834, Ladakh was an independent Himalayan state, much the same way as Bhutan and Sikkim. Historically and culturally, however, the state was intrinsically linked to neighbouring Tibet. Language and religion linked Ladakh and Tibet; politically too, they shared a common history.

The Gateway to Central Asia

Silk road
Economically, the importance of the region stemmed from the fact that it was an entrepôt between central Asia and Kashmir. “Tibetan pashm shawl wool was carried through Ladakh to Kashmir. At the same time, there was a flourishing trade route across the Karakorum pass to Yarkand and Kashgar to Chinese Turkestan,” Bray wrote.

The Sikh empire

Sikhs acquired Kashmir in 1819, Emperor Ranjit Singh turned his ambition towards Ladakh.
In 1834, Gulab Singh sent his ablest general, Zarowar Singh Kahluria, with 4,000 infantrymen to conquer the territory.
August 16, 1834, the Dogras defeated an army of some 5,000 men under the Bhotia leader, Mangal, at Sanku

Sino –Sikh war

In May 1841, Tibet under the Qing dynasty of China invaded Ladakh with the hope of adding it to the imperial Chinese dominions, leading to the Sino-Sikh war. However, the Sino-Tibetan army was defeated, and the Treaty of Chushul was signed that agreed on no further transgressions or interference in the other country’s frontiers.

Dogra Rule

But it was Gulab Singh, the Dogra feudatory of the Sikhs in Jammu, who went ahead with the task of integrating Ladakh into Jammu and Kashmir
After the first Anglo-Sikh war of 1845-46, the state of Jammu and Kashmir, including Ladakh, was taken out of the Sikh empire and brought under British suzerainty.
Why are the borders of Ladakh not clearly marked?
Jammu and Kashmir was essentially a British creation, formed as a buffer zone where they could meet the Russians. Consequently, there was an attempt to delimiting what exactly was Ladakh and the extent of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, but it became convoluted since that area came under Tibetan and Central Asian influence,
Indians insisted that the border was, for most part, recognised and assured by treaty and tradition; the Chinese argued it had never really been delimited. The claims of both governments rested in part on the legacy of imperialism; British imperialism (for India), and Chinese imperialism (over Tibet) for China.”
The People’s Republic of China and Ladakh
The annexation of Tibet by the People’s Republic of China in 1950 sparked newfound interest in Ladakh, and particularly so after the 1959 Tibetan uprising that erupted in Lhasa when the Dalai Lama fled into exile and was granted political asylum in India.
Chinese building a road linking parts of Ladakh with Xinjiang, an autonomous region in China, and Tibet, which was by then under Chinese control.
the road that the Chinese built across Ladakh in 1956-57 was important for the maintenance of their control over Tibet
In his statement in the Lok Sabha in August 1959, Nehru had said: “There is a large area in eastern and north-eastern Ladakh which is practically uninhabited.” “Where not even a blade of grass grows,” he had said famously.
extremely scarce vegetation – grass statement
In July 1958, an official monthly magazine in China named China pictorial published a map of the country that would in the next few months become a bone of contention between India and its East Asian neighbour. The map in question showed large parts of the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA) and the Himalayan territory of Ladakh as part of China.
The exchange of letters between Jawaharlal Nehru and his Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai was followed by the Sino-Indian war of 1962
The war also led to the formation of the loosely demarcated Line of Actual Control (LAC) running through Ladakh.
August 5, 2019 decision (to remove the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and downgrade the state into two Union Territories). From the Chinese point of view, they would have assumed that if India makes Ladakh a Union Territory, they would be reasserting its control over the entire state. Moreover, it is also important to note that over time, Xinjiang which is part of Aksai Chin, has become very important to China for their internal reasons