Signing you in

While activist Sonam Wangchuk has been on an indefinite hunger strike at Jantar Mantar in Delhi since June 28 as part of a protest organised by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) to demand the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the NEET paper leak, he seems to be carrying forward his father Sonam Wangyal’s legacy.

Recounting the episode in his memoir titled “Political Evolution in Post-Independence Ladakh”, published by the International Association for Ladakh Studies, Wangyal wrote, “Ladakh had also long deserved tribal status. People living in the North-East states and along the Himalayas had been declared Scheduled Tribes, but Ladakh had been ignored.”

Wangyal, who belonged to an underprivileged family in Ladakh, met Shridhar Koul Dulu – who was raising a volunteer force to ward off the Pakistani invasion in October 1947 – and volunteered to join him. Dulu advised him to go to Delhi to raise resources for his schooling, and also wrote a letter to then PM Jawaharlal Nehru recommending it.

Wangyal wrote in his memoir that he proceeded to Manali on foot to go to Delhi, walking over snow for seven days. It took him 45 days to reach Delhi, where he sought an appointment with the PM. Nehru met him and offered him a scholarship to study. Wangyal was then admitted to SP High School in Srinagar. He finished his matriculation and became a private assistant to Kushok Bakula, the head Lama of Spituk Monastery in Leh.

Soon afterwards, Wangyal launched a campaign against corruption in the administration, and was arrested and jailed multiple times. He was said to be often beaten up by the police. He was later named the Leh district president of the National Conference (NC) and then, after the dissolution of the NC, became the Leh unit chief of the Congress.

In 1957, Wangyal was elected to the Legislative Council of Jammu and Kashmir, and remained an MLC for a decade. In 1967, he was elected as an MLA from Leh on the Congress ticket. He later also served as a minister in the J&K Cabinet.