Questioning Ladakh: Towards Understanding a Region and Its People

Ladakh is an unfinished story of a region and a people. Its beginnings are a mosaic of histories, the growing up a geopolitical narrative, and its present an inchoate reality.

The political, military, and geostrategic positioning notwithstanding, Ladakh is a magnificence that beckons simple understanding. It is interesting to see how as an erstwhile feeder route on the trade between the lands of Punjab, Himachal, Kashmir, and Central Asian market hubs of Khotan and Kashgar, this little wedge of a land between two critical borders continues to be a shadow exchange route. As the southwestern edge of a Tibetan empire that converted to Buddhism to define its statehood, it is fascinating to trace processes that made the people of La-dwags sovereign, protectorate, independent, and dependent in aspects of their religion, language, and traditions at different times after that empire disintegrated, and the Now of all this.

Questioning Ladakh is more than just an academic exercise. It is an intriguing narrative of the making of a land and its people on the high crossroads of nationalism, religiosity, and economy.