Ladakh

• 1. Introduction

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  Ladakh is a high Himalayan region of India, and its very name reads like an altitude report. In Tibetan, La dwags means the land of high passes. Its own people have called it Kanchapa, the land of snow, and Ripul, the country of mountains. Medieval Islamic scholars went bigger. They called it the Great Tibet and labelled the neighbouring valleys Little Tibets. Few places have collected so many names. Why did kings, missionaries and armies all want a land so hard to reach? How did Buddhists and Muslims come to share it? What happens to a crossroads when the roads are shut? And what lives, grows and gets eaten at heights where most places give up? The chapters ahead follow the land, its animals, its rulers, its borders and the people who still farm there.

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• 2. Roof Above the Rain

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  Nearly all of Ladakh lies above 3000 metres, which makes it the highest plateau in India. The Indus River is its backbone. Shey, Leh, Basgo and Tingmosgang all stand close to the water. After the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947, this stretch became the only part of the Indus still flowing through India, a river deeply venerated in Hindu culture.

  The mountains around it are young and still moving. Over roughly 45 million years, the Indian Plate has folded into the more stationary Eurasian Plate. That drift has not stopped, and it explains the frequent earthquakes across the Himalayan region. Between Leh and eastern Central Asia, three ranges form a triple barrier: the Ladakh Range, the Karakoram and the Kunlun. The Ladakh Range has no major peaks. It averages a little under 6000 metres, and few of its passes drop below 5000.

  The Himalayas also block the sky. They create a rain shadow that turns away monsoon clouds and makes Ladakh a high-altitude desert. Winter snow on the mountains is the main source of water. Summer temperatures peak between 3 and 35 degrees Celsius, while winter lows fall to between minus 20 and minus 35. Summers are short but long enough to grow crops.

  In 2010, floods struck the region. They have been attributed to abnormal rain patterns and retreating glaciers, both linked to global climate change. One local answer comes from Chewang Norphel, nicknamed the Glacier Man. The Leh Nutrition Project, which he headed, builds artificial glaciers.

  Far to the north, the Siachen Glacier stretches 76 kilometres through the eastern Karakoram. That makes it the longest glacier in the Karakoram and the second-longest in the world's non-polar areas. It drops from 5753 metres at Indira Col, on the China border, to 3620 metres at its snout. The Karakoram splits China from the Indian subcontinent and is sometimes called the Third Pole.

  On the northern flank of the Himalayas, Dras, the Suru valley and Zangskar get heavy snow and stay cut off for months. Pensi-la, the 4400-metre gateway to Zanskar, is open only from June to mid-October. In winter the Zanskar River freezes solid, and the famous Chadar trek follows the ice itself.

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• 3. Hunters and Hunted

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  About 200 snow leopards live in Ladakh, out of an estimated 7,000 worldwide. The Hemis High Altitude National Park in central Ladakh suits them well because prey is plentiful there. Their preferred meal is the bharal, or blue sheep, the most abundant mountain ungulate in the region. The Asiatic ibex ranks second, with about 6,000 animals in the west of Ladakh, and it escapes danger by climbing near-vertical rock.

  The Ladakhi urial has far fewer friends. This mountain sheep is endemic to Ladakh, found only along the Indus and Shyok valleys, and no more than 3,000 remain. Farmers persecute it over crop damage. Its numbers fell sharply in the late twentieth century because of indiscriminate shooting by hunters along the Leh-Srinagar Highway.

  The Tibetan argali is the largest wild sheep in the world, standing 3.5 to 4 feet at the shoulder with curled horns measuring 900-1000 millimetres. Only about 400 live in Ladakh. Unlike other mountain sheep, it prefers open grassland and rolling hills and flees by running, not by climbing.

  The endangered Tibetan antelope, or chiru, has a darker story. Its wool, called shahtoosh, is among the finest natural fibres and a status symbol. The wool must be pulled out by hand after the animal has been killed. It is smuggled into Kashmir and woven into shawls there.

  In the grasslands of Changthang, about 2,500 kiang, or Tibetan wild asses, roam. Nomadic herders blame them for damaging pasture. The Tibetan wolf, which sometimes takes livestock, is the most persecuted predator. The Eurasian lynx lives mostly in Nubra, Changthang and Zangskar, while a few brown bears live in the Suru Valley and around Dras. The Pallas's cat is so rare in Ladakh that little is known about it.

  Plants are scarce over most of this desert, and natural vegetation clings to watercourses and high ground. Seabuckthorn, wild roses and tamarisk grow along the streams. Around 1250 plant species, crops included, have been reported. One of them, Ladakiella klimesii, grows up to 6150 metres above sea level and carries the region's name.

  The first European to study Ladakh's wildlife was William Moorcroft in 1820. In the 1870s the Austrian-Czech palaeontologist Ferdinand Stoliczka followed with a massive expedition.

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• 4. Kings and Missionaries

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  Rock carvings across Ladakh show that people lived there as far back as Neolithic times. The earliest inhabitants were nomads called the Kampa. Mons from Kullu and Brokpas from Gilgit settled later. Around the 1st century, the region belonged to the Kushan Empire, and in the 2nd century Buddhism arrived in western Ladakh from Kashmir. The 7th-century Buddhist traveller Xuanzang described the land under the name Mo-lo-so.

  For much of the first millennium, western Tibet was home to the Zhangzhung kingdoms, which followed the Bon religion. Ladakh sat between them and Kashmir and probably passed back and forth between the two. Scholars see strong Zhangzhung influence in upper Ladakh. Zhangzhung itself vanished around 634, absorbed by Tibet. Ladakhi chronicles suggest the region then owed its main allegiance to Tibet, but only in political terms. It stayed Buddhist, and its culture was not yet Tibetan.

  In the 9th century, the Tibetan ruler Langdarma was assassinated and his realm fragmented. His great-grandson Kyide Nyimagon fled to West Tibet around 900 CE and founded a kingdom at the heart of old Zhangzhung. When he died, it was split among his three sons. The eldest, Lhachen Palgyigon, received Ladakh along with Rutog, Thok Jalung and Demchok Karpo, a holy mountain near present-day Demchok village. Chronicles in all three regions remembered the split as a founding story. Palgyigon's dynasty lasted five centuries. Its realm was called Maryul, which Tibetan speakers took to mean lowland, and it stayed staunchly Buddhist.

  Between the 1380s and the early 1510s, Sufi missionaries carried Islam into Ladakh. Sayyid Ali Hamadani made the first converts and is often called the founder of Islam there. His disciple Sayyid Muhammad Nur Baksh gave his name to Noorbakshia Islam, found only in Baltistan and Ladakh. Mosques rose at Mulbhe, Padum and Shey, then the capital. In 1505 the Shia scholar Shamsuddin Iraqi visited Kashmir and Baltistan and brought most of Baltistan's Muslims to his school of thought. Yet when Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat invaded Ladakh in 1532-1545 and 1548, he recorded no Islam in Leh.

  King Bhagan reunited the country and founded the Namgyal dynasty, a name meaning victorious in several Tibetan languages. The Namgyals repelled most Central Asian raiders and for a time stretched the kingdom as far as Nepal. Then came a Balti invasion led by Ali Sher Khan Anchan, the Raja of Skardu, which damaged many Buddhist temples and artefacts. Anchan carried off King Jamyang Namgyal, then restored him and gave him a Balti princess named Gyal Khatun as his bride. Accounts disagree on her father. Some name Yabgo Shey Gilazi, the Raja of Khaplu, while others name Anchan himself. In return, Jamyang's daughter Mandoq Gyalmo married Anchan.

  Gyal arrived with a large party of Muslim servants and musicians, and private mosques were built for them. The musicians later settled in Leh, and several hundred Baltis migrated to the kingdom. In the early 17th century, Gyal's son Sengge Namgyal set about restoring the wrecked temples and artefacts. He also pushed the kingdom into Zangskar and Spiti. The Mughals, who had already annexed Kashmir and Baltistan, defeated Ladakh, yet it kept its independence.

  The Tibet-Ladakh-Mughal war of 1679-1684 began after Ladakh sided with Bhutan in a dispute with Tibet, and Tibet's central government invaded. Kashmiri historians claim the king converted to Islam in return for Mughal help. Ladakhi chronicles mention nothing of the kind. The king agreed to pay the Mughals tribute for protection, but they withdrew after the 5th Dalai Lama paid them off. Today Muslims make up 46% of Ladakh, mostly Shia, Buddhists 40% and Hindus 12%.

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• 5. Borders and Battles

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  In 1834, the Sikh general Zorawar Singh, serving Raja Gulab Singh of Jammu, invaded and annexed Ladakh. It passed to Jammu under the suzerainty of the Sikh Empire. After the Sikhs lost the First Anglo-Sikh War, Jammu and Kashmir became a separate princely state under British suzerainty. The Namgyal family received the jagir of Stok, which it nominally holds to this day. Under Dogra rule, Ladakh was a wazarat run by a governor, with its headquarters at Leh for six months a year and at Skardu for the other six. When the Praja Sabha was created in 1934, Ladakh received two nominated seats.

  In October 1947, as India was partitioned, Pakistani soldiers from Gilgit invaded and reached Ladakh. The Dogra ruler, Maharaja Hari Singh, had chosen to stay independent of both countries. Nehru told him to sign the Instrument of Accession to get military help. Army engineers converted the pony trail from Sonamarg to Zoji La into a road, which let tanks climb up and capture the pass. The advance went on through Dras, Kargil and Leh, clearing Ladakh of Pakistani forces.

  China closed the border between Nubra and Xinjiang in 1949, blocking old trade routes. From 1955 it built roads linking Xinjiang and Tibet through Aksai Chin, the uninhabited plains at Ladakh's eastern end. India's effort to gain control there led to the Sino-Indian War of 1962, which India lost. India claims Aksai Chin as part of Ladakh, but China has held it ever since. China also built the Karakoram highway jointly with Pakistan. India's answer was the Srinagar-Leh Highway, which cut the journey from 16 days to two. Heavy snow still closes it in winter, and a 6.5 km tunnel across Zoji La is under consideration.

  In 1999, Pakistani troops infiltrated Kargil, Dras, Mushkoh, Batalik and Chorbatla, positions overlooking the Srinagar-Leh highway. The Indian Army codenamed its response Operation Vijay, with high-altitude operations backed by considerable artillery and air support. Pakistani troops were evicted from the Indian side of the Line of Control. The Indian government ordered that line respected, and its troops did not cross it. The Indian public criticised that restraint, arguing that India respected geographical coordinates more than Pakistan or China did.

  Of the 857 km border in Ladakh, only 368 km is the International Border. The other 489 km is the Line of Actual Control, and Indian and Chinese forces have faced frequent stand-offs along it since 1962. The largest involved the most troops in September 2014 in the disputed Chumar region, when 800-1,000 Indian troops and 1,500 Chinese troops came into close proximity.

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• 6. The Long Demand

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  Kushok Bakula Rinpoche, a parliamentarian, first raised the demand for a separate territory around 1955. Another parliamentarian, Thupstan Chhewang, carried it forward. People had wanted separation since the 1930s, citing unfair treatment by Kashmir and Ladakh's cultural differences with the predominantly Muslim Kashmir valley. The first organised agitation, in 1964, targeted Kashmir's dominance. A much larger mass agitation followed in the late 1980s. Some people in Kargil opposed union territory status.

  Numbers fed the grievance. Ladakh makes up 65% of the area of the former state, which was a basis for large annual funds from the union government. Yet by population, Ladakh was allocated only 2% of the state budget. Within the first year as a union territory, its annual budget rose fourfold, from ₹57 crore to ₹232 crore.

  In 1979 the region was split into the Kargil and Leh districts. In 1989, violent riots broke out between Buddhists and Muslims. After demands for autonomy from the Kashmir-dominated state government, the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council was created in the 1990s. Leh and Kargil now each have a locally elected hill council with some control over local policy and development funds. The 2011 census counted 140,802 people in Kargil, 76.87% of them Muslim and mostly Shia. It counted 133,487 in Leh, 66.40% of them Buddhist.

  On the 8th of February 2019, Ladakh became its own division within Jammu and Kashmir, with its own Divisional Commissioner and Inspector General of Police. Leh was first named headquarters, but protests led to a joint arrangement. Leh and Kargil each host an Additional Divisional Commissioner, and the senior officials spend half their time in each town. In August 2019, Parliament passed the reorganisation act, and on the 31st of October 2019 Ladakh became a union territory. A Lieutenant Governor acts on behalf of the union government, and there is no elected legislative assembly or chief minister. Ladakh sends one member to the Lok Sabha, currently Mohmad Haneefa, an independent.

  In August 2024, the Government of India announced five new districts: Zanskar, Drass, Sham, Nubra and Changthang. They were officially notified in April 2026, raising the total from two to seven. Five of the seven are Buddhist-majority and two are Muslim-majority. On the 24th of September 2025, a protest march led by Sonam Wangchuk demanded full statehood for Ladakh.

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• 7. Caravans and Tourists

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  Kargil lies about 230 kilometres from each of Srinagar, Leh, Skardu and Padum, which made it an important staging post for trade caravans before 1947. A minority of Ladakhis worked as merchants and caravan traders, moving textiles, carpets, dyestuffs and narcotics between Punjab and Xinjiang. A major route also joined Leh to Yarkand, crossing the triple barrier of mountains. In the 1960s, Chinese authorities closed the borders between Tibet and Ladakh, and that international trade dwindled away completely.

  European geologists, sportsmen and tourists began exploring Ladakh in the 1850s. Arthur Neve's guide, first published in 1911 as The Tourist's Guide to Kashmir, Ladakh, and Skardo, shows that visitors were arriving long before the modern boom. The modern push began in 1974, when the Indian Government encouraged trekking and tourism to shift from troubled Kashmir to Ladakh. By 2000, tourism employed only 4% of Ladakh's working population, yet it produced 50% of the region's GNP.

  The numbers have since grown far larger. Visitors exceeded 500,000 in both 2022 and 2023, in a region where the town of Leh has 31,000 people. The sharpest growth began after 2010, when the Bollywood film 3 Idiots became a hit in India. It was filmed partly at Pangong Lake. The surge adds to the economy, but it brings more waste and growing water scarcity.

  Getting there remains a challenge. Ladakh has about 1800 km of roads, of which 800 km are surfaced, mostly looked after by the Border Roads Organisation. NH1 links Srinagar to Kargil and Leh, and NH3 links Manali to Leh. Kushok Bakula Rimpochee Airport in Leh has daily flights to Delhi. Kargil Airport was intended for civilian flights but is used by the Indian Army, which locals treat as a political issue. The Indus, meanwhile, offers vast hydropower potential, and solar and wind potential is also substantial.

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• 8. Barley, Tea and Healers

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  At Korzok, on the Tso-moriri lake at 4600 metres, lie fields widely considered the highest in the world. Naked barley, called nas in Ladakhi and grim in Urdu, was the traditional staple across Ladakh, and growing times vary with altitude. Channels carry meltwater from the mountains to the fields, where barley and wheat are the principal crops. Rice was once a luxury. Government subsidy has made it a cheap staple.

  Gurgur cha is the traditional tea, made from strong green tea churned with butter and salt, and named for the sound it makes. Sweet tea with milk and sugar has become common. Tsampa, called ngampe in Ladakhi, is roasted barley flour that needs no cooking, which makes it useful trekking food. Thukpa is a noodle soup. Skyu is a rich soup pasta with root vegetables and meat, and chutagi is its cousin with leafy greens. Surplus barley is fermented into chang, drunk especially at festivals.

  Hemis monastery, a leading centre of the Drukpa tradition, holds an annual masked dance festival, as do all major Ladakhi monasteries. The dances typically tell of a fight between good and evil, with good winning in the end. The most popular sport is ice hockey, played only on natural ice from mid-December through mid-February. Archery festivals are as much about dancing, drinking and gambling as the sport. Polo probably arrived in the mid-17th century with King Singge Namgyal, whose mother was a Balti princess. The Ladakh Marathon, held in Leh every year since 2012, runs at heights between 11500 and 17,618 feet.

  Khang-bu, meaning little house, is a custom in which elders hand headship of the family to the eldest son once he matures, keeping only enough property to live on. Women in Ladakh enjoy a notably high status compared with other rural parts of India. Fraternal polyandry and inheritance by primogeniture were common until the early 1940s, when the Jammu and Kashmir government made them illegal. The practice lasted into the 1990s among elderly and isolated rural people.

  Tibetan medicine has been the traditional health system of Ladakh for over a thousand years. For centuries the amchi, traditional doctors following that tradition, were the only medical option for many people. They remain part of public health in remote areas. The National Research Institute for Sowa-Rigpa in Leh researches traditional medicine and treats patients. The government has also promoted sea buckthorn as juice and jam, since some claim it has medicinal properties.

  Formal schooling was once found mostly in monasteries, where one son from each family was obliged to master the Tibetan script. In October 1889, the Moravian Mission opened a school in Leh. An official ordered that every family with more than one child send one to it, and local people resisted, fearing conversion to Christianity. The school still exists. The first local school offering western education, now Lamdon Model Senior Secondary School, opened in 1973 and has grown to roughly two thousand pupils. In 1994, SECMOL launched Operation New Hope to make government schools work better. Far from the classrooms, the Indian Astronomical Observatory at Hanle is operated by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics.

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