The tourism industry accounts for nearly 60% of Ladakh’s total revenue. More than half the population of Ladakh, particularly the Leh district, is dependent on the industry as a source of income, particularly in the short window from May to September end.

This year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the region’s tourism industry has come to a complete standstill. Everything, including hotels, guest houses, shops, cafes, taxi services, restaurants and other ancillary businesses, are shut, and the people associated with them have not had any work or income for close to 9 months at this point.

Just take the example of taxi services in the region. In Leh district itself, there are about 4,000 taxis which are entirely dependent on tourism. Reports indicate that because of the pandemic, taxi drivers have cumulatively incurred losses around Rs 25 crore.

According to a survey conducted by BOTT Travel Sentiment Tracker in partnership with seven national associations, as many as 40 percent of companies face the risk of complete shutdown in the next three to six months, while another 35.7 percent may go for a temporary shutdown.

The report goes onto state that “81 percent of travel and tourism companies have lost their revenue up to 100 percent while 15 percent of the companies have witnessed it slide up to 75 percent.”

Making matters worse, quite a few of these business establishments are over-leveraged. With no income coming in, but compelled to pay instalments with interest, the losses these businesses are incurring are possibly far worse than initial estimates. However, there is one possible silver lining, provided we see it.

Maybe this is just the opportunity to slowly wean many off their dependence on tourism and possibly diversify into other sectors. Yes, the Coronavirus epidemic is a once in a lifetime episode, but with the current border standoff against China heating up, there are more obstacles in the way.

We can’t have vast segments of the populace dependent on a sector heavily affected by the vagaries of geopolitics, national politics, nature, etc. Tourism has brought in a lot of wealth and prosperity, but it has also come at a significant cost, particularly for our fragile environment.

In fact, last week, my cousin mentioned that the main Leh area today feels like the 90s before the onset of mass tourism. There is less pollution, the weather is pleasant and it is less congested than he can ever remember.

Maybe this is a sign to explore real alternatives beyond tourism.

So, what are the solutions? How do we get out of this mess? Besides short term government support, in terms of financial assistance for struggling tourism businesses and deferment of loan payments, we need to think long term, so what are the alternative avenues for income generation?

A return to agriculture, particularly of the organic variety, and animal husbandry could be one possible alternative, but with greater scope for income generation than traditional systems. Instead of building more hotels or guest houses, why not grow a variety of crops throughout the year?

There is a possible agriculture renaissance on the horizon for Ladakhi farmers. Under the guidance of award-winning agriculture scientist Dr Tsering Stobdan, a research team from the Defence Institute of High Altitude Research (DIHAR) have found unique ways of helping small and marginal farmers in Ladakh double their crop productivity.

These methods are helping them save water, without the use of chemical fertilisers or pesticides, to grow even crops like watermelons and tomatoes. Using techniques like black polythene mulching and building their own brand of passive solar greenhouses that can allow crops to grow even through the winter, farmers have a real shot here.

Ladakh has some of the best varieties of apricot and sea buckthorn in the world, and offers fertile ground for non-native crops like quinoa that are potential money makers. There is also the option of desert agriculture already practiced by the likes of Israel where we can grow a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. This can help turn large tracts of desert land in Ladakh into cultivable fields given the appropriate technology and the necessary environmental checks.

Before Ladakh became a Union Territory in August last year, there were major restrictions on exporting fresh fruits and vegetables outside the region. Assuming that these restrictions have been lifted, it’s imperative that local authorities and farmers, who can coalesce into Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs), can find ways of selling their produce to a larger market. With all weather road connectivity a distinct possibility in the near future, why not?

Additional Alternatives to Tourism

The government has even turned its focus on building a major high-elevation all-weather, snow-free rail axis for connecting Ladakh with the rest of the country. These infrastructure projects will take a few years for completion, but why not prepare to reap the benefits?

Just think about the possibilities if these farmers can create market linkages with food processing and other agri-enterprises in the mainland. What are the other potential sources of employment generation? From building infrastructure for solar energy and telecommunications in remote corners to making Pashmina apparel, engaging in sustainable architecture, besides a variety of other business opportunities I haven’t even considered.

Another possibility posited by P Stobdan, a former diplomat, is to “optimise Ladakh’s strategic advantage as a pivot to accessing Central Asia, China, Russia and Mongolia for political, trade and commercial ties.” Yes, this suggestion may seem ill-timed given the current border standoff, but just think about the possibilities.

For centuries Ladakh, particularly Leh, was an important stopover along international trade routes—from Mongolia, China and Tibet in the east to Kashmir, Central Asia, and Europe in the West. Why not make this a reality once again?

As Stobdan says, “it is for the prime minister to set the stage for exploring Ladakh’s strategic value as a gateway for gaining direct access to Tarim Basin and the Tibetan plateau. By doing this both, Kashmir and Ladakh can once again be brought at the centre-stage to become the economic and cultural hubs of India’s connectivity to the north.”

Mohan Guruswamy, former advisor to the Vajpayee government once noted, “There is much that Ladakh and the country can gain from the opening up of trade routes with Tibet. Opening of the border from Demchok will make it possible for Indian pilgrims to motor down 600 km to Kailash/Mansarovar in little over a day, as opposed to the arduous and dangerous two-week trek required now…Thus another market is being created which can be accessed from Ladakh. The road from Demchok joins the Tibet-Sinkiang highway. If you turn right you go deep into Tibet. If you turn left you go to Sinkiang over the Aksai Chin.”

In other words, there is immense commercial and STRATEGIC potential here. Having said that, this option is strictly subject to national security concerns.

However, if none of these measures work out, setting up quality universities, vocational training institutes and upgrading educational and technological infrastructure in Ladakh will have a multiplier effect. Not only will it help the local populace achieve better life outcomes it can also attract massive investment in the area without upsetting the ecological balance.

Also, as one friend told me during a discussion on social media, “Any sort of economic intervention ultimately has to take into account the fragile ecology of Ladakh. In this regard investments in education and technological infrastructure are the one investment that makes solid sense. If nothing else will improve HDI indices massively.”

But to ensure these changes remain positive, it will require strong political leadership that does not simply pay obeisance to New Delhi. It is time for our local leadership (Hill Councils) to ask serious questions about the administrative powers it does or doesn’t have in running local affairs. COVID-19 exposed how powerless our Hill Councils are in running local affairs. Without strong local representation, the future I envision will fall apart.

Also, only strong and common sense regulation can ensure that this vision for economic freedom comes true. Yes, this transition away from tourism will not happen overnight, but the least leaders and common citizens back home can do is start preparing now so that one day if tourism suffers for whatever reason, our people have alternative means of income.

(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)

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One evening in June 1999, during the ongoing Kargil War, the engineers at All India Radio (AIR) Kargil ran away due to the excessive shelling in and around the station, even though their broadcast was scheduled for 5 p.m.

Amidst all the chaos, Tsering Angmo Shunu, Station Director, AIR, Leh and Kargil calmly called up the Brigade Commander at Kargil to help her with the broadcast. He directed a few soldiers her way, who helped AIR Kargil start their generator, which eventually allowed their broadcast to commence at 5 p.m.

The role of AIR during the war was critical in preventing the spread of any enemy propaganda or baseless rumours floated by Radio Pakistan ranging from the number of Indian soldiers killed to false claims of Indian army choppers being shot down.

However, stationed there, Angmo was having none of it.

She not only continued broadcasting to counter the propaganda but also raised the morale of the soldiers by sending messages of encouragement to them. And when the Indian army needed people to assist their soldiers, she consistently shared the message and sent her 18-year-old son to help the army.

Broadcasting the News of the Kargil War

On 6 June 1999, Ladakhis tuned into news about the ongoing Kargil War on All India Radio (AIR). During the broadcast, however, there was a special announcement in Hindi.

(Translated from Hindi) “The Indian Army needs porters to carry loads to the front. Please come forward to help; the country needs you,” said Angmo.

In the following week, similar announcements were made on the radio requesting families to send their able-bodied sons to the Leh Polo Ground, where selections were being held. The announcement was made on the behest of Colonel Vinay Dutta, who had met Angmo the day before the first announcement was made.

He had explained to her that young men were being recruited to raise a ‘Pioneer’ company for meeting the labour needs of assaulting battalions during the war.

“Colonel Dutta told me that there were no roads in the mountains and that the Indian army did not have enough porters or mules to carry food, ammunition and other necessities to the battlefront. He asked me if I could help by asking Ladakhi boys to volunteer for the task. I assured him I would do everything I could,” she told the author Rachna Bisht Rawat for her book ‘Kargil: Untold Stories from The War’, which was published last year.

Every morning, she would tell her listeners, “The Indian Army is fighting for us; it is our turn to help them” in the middle of her scheduled broadcasts.

Sending Her Own Son to Volunteer

Born into a large family engaged in farming in Leh district, Angmo’s father was a Naib Tehsildar. After studying upto middle school in Leh, she moved to Kashmir. “After completing my MA first year, I got married and, therefore, had to discontinue my studies. I joined AIR Leh in 1975 as a program officer,” says Angmo, speaking to The Better India (TBI).

She fulfilled her mantra by not only running regular broadcasts at AIR Kargil even though it was coming under heavy shelling but also by asking her youngest son Stanzin Jaydun (Ricky), who was 18 at the time, to volunteer as a porter. Although Ricky was naturally apprehensive about volunteering, she convinced him to go.

Within just four days, 200 Ladakhi men like Ricky between the ages of 18 and 35 went to volunteer. What they brought to the table was not only their burning desire to protect the motherland but bodies that were accustomed to the weather, altitude and terrain.

Dividing them into two platoons of 100 porters each, they were ferried to Biama, a small village between Dah and Hanu which is about eight hours away from Leh on Army trucks.

At Biama, the boys lived in camps on the land of farmers growing tomatoes. By the end of the week, the number of volunteers had increased to 800.

For the next two months, they helped any infantry battalion that needed their assistance. They assisted units fighting in the most critical and challenging sectors like Batalik-Yaldor-Chorbat La sector. While average porters carry as much as 10 kgs on their back, these Ladakhi men carried 30 kgs, according to the book.

Yes, they were paid a daily wage for it, but for them, the entire endeavour was about serving the nation and helping the army in any capacity.

“Some of the boys also helped in evacuating the dead and injured soldiers; we all knew what a high price our soldiers were paying in the war. We wanted to do our bit,” says Ricky, speaking to Rachna.

Biama was bang in the middle of the enemy army’s shelling zone. Whenever heavy shelling would commence, they would hide behind a water tank nearby.

Battling Enemy Propaganda

In any war, the most vulnerable installations are the ones dedicated to communication, particularly mass communication. AIR Kargil, for example, came under regular shelling and some had contemplated closure of the station to protect the local staff.

“The moment shelling started, we would jump in and speed away to a small village called Mingi 15 km away towards Zanskar, which was out of the enemy’s shelling range. We had rented a room there and often all of us (Staff at AIR Kargil) would sleep on the floor and then go back after the shelling stopped to continue with our radio transmission,” she remembers.

Moreover, the local radio station even asked civilians to spare mules to help carry the army’s loads to the heights where the fighting was ongoing. There were days when nearly 300 Pakistani shells would land in Kargil, but work never stopped for a single day. The army would warn them to switch off all their lights at night time to ensure the building didn’t get bombed. Before switching on any light, they would draw the curtains and close the windows.

“There was daily shelling from the Pakistani side. A lot of the shells fell into the compound of the radio station. The hostel was destroyed. Some of my colleagues barely escaped with their lives. The town was deserted. The military told us to keep the lights off, but the shells kept falling anyway. I improvised to keep the station running. Sometimes, the technicians refused to cooperate, and I had to ask the military technicians to start the transmission. Rules and regulations never work during times of war. People from Delhi even told us to flee to save ourselves, but I remained stuck to my decision to keep the station running,” she tells TBI while recalling those days.

On 26 July, the fighting had ceased with victory for the Indian armed forces. Many soldiers had gallantly fought and served during the war, and their contributions were officially recognised. While their contributions were critical, it’s imperative not to forget the hundreds of Ladakhi civilians who massively contributed to the war effort like Angmo.

(With inputs from ‘Kargil: Untold Stories from the War’ by Rachna Bisht Rawat and Dawa Tundup. Feature Photo credit: Rachna Bisht Rawat and Penguin eBury Press)

(Edited by Saiqua Sultan)

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Gauri Kapoor, who finished her board exams earlier this year, was looking forward to experiencing her college life. Instead, the 18-year-old from Delhi is now a volunteer—an environmental studies teacher to 10-year-old Nazmeen Anuri, in Turtuk.
“Even though I was reluctant and overwhelmed to teach a student over a voice call, I gave it a try. I wanted to give my best to allow the child to grow,” says Gauri.

Turtuk in Shyok valley, Ladakh, is the northernmost village of India. For a village that doesn’t have a stable mobile and internet connection, and still experiences power cuts daily, having uninterrupted access to search engines is a luxury. While platforms such as Zoom or Google Classrooms have made online education possible for students in most parts of India, students in Turtuk live in a world without fancy gadgets.

Students here aren’t watching videos to make learning fun in this pandemic. They spend their time climbing trees and rolling stones in streams. But they also continue their education — on phone calls, supported by volunteers, sitting thousands of kilometres away in a different part of India—Delhi, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Mumbai.

Challenges during COVID times

Sarah Shah, principal of Turtuk Preparatory School, spoke to me from Turtuk. Before the pandemic, the school depended on volunteers to teach its 70 students from pre-nursery to class 4. But in COVID times, students have been learning differently.
“Before the pandemic hit, we had volunteers who came for short terms, to teach our students. Volunteers helped and trained our teachers with lesson planning, delivering classroom lessons and basic child psychology.”

When the pandemic-led lockdown shut classroom doors, the school tried teaching children in open grounds, maintaining social distancing and ensuring their safety. This didn’t work for too long.

“People from Turtuk often travel to Leh. With increasing COVID cases in Leh, and many people returning to Turtuk from Leh, it wasn’t safe because kids wouldn’t have really maintained social distancing after the classes,” observed Sarah.

Overcoming hurdles

Thinking of other ways to keep students academically engaged, the school decided to teach students one-on-one over phone calls. The school tied up with social platforms— teachforladakh and projectparwaaz.in, calling for volunteers who could commit to teaching students.

For the past three months, the school is relying on its team of 85 volunteers to teach students every single day. Volunteers, many of whom are students themselves, are briefed on the learning levels of each student and given book PDFs to facilitate lesson planning and teach students.

“Each student of classes 3 and 4 has two volunteers teaching them English, environmental studies and general knowledge. While mathematics cannot be taught over phone calls, students depend on videos made by volunteers, sometimes taking help from the local school teachers,” says Sarah, elaborating on the process.

For lower grades and toddlers, teachers and volunteers are making videos and sending it across on Whatsapp class groups since it’s not possible to teach them over phone calls.

Volunteers show students the ropes

The initial few days of volunteering in June didn’t come easy to Gauri. Despite repeated attempts to call her student in Turtuk, her calls wouldn’t connect. “I had lost all hopes of teaching,” says Gauri.

“When we finally did connect, we couldn’t easily understand each other because of a language barrier. She didn’t understand much English and her Hindi differed from mine. But over the weeks, we overcame this hurdle.”

Gauri stresses how Anuri is a bright student. Her inquisitive mind, curiosity and eagerness towards the subject fuels Gauri to continue teaching.

Volunteers don’t have any specific hours to teach but are encouraged to cover two to three topics a day, as per the students grasping abilities. Volunteers like Gauri use role-play and examples from their daily lives to make learning interactive and fun.

Anuri partially likes learning through phone calls. “I miss having my teachers around me while learning,” says the 10-year-old. What Anuri enjoys most is assuming the role of a teacher to explain to Gauri what she has learnt, testing her understanding of the discussed topics.

“Anuri wasn’t fluent in expressing herself in English. After teaching her for two months, she’s able to clarify her doubts. These discussions help us with her communication skills and strengthen our bond. I feel content to see the progress in her learning abilities as she’s become outgoing and articulate,” adds Gauri.

“As I look back, the last few months of my volunteering journey has been a learning process. I learnt to be calm, patient and responsible.”

Another volunteer, Purva Niranjan Kinii, a digital marketer from Mumbai, volunteered at Turtuk Preparatory School in October 2019. Having interacted with the children personally, she observes, “The children are shy as their interactions are limited to the villagers. They are enthralled to see new faces in their village, and love hearing stories about city life. I have never seen such enthusiasm to learn in city children, especially when assigned some new school work to do.”

Even though she volunteered at the school for just a month, now she is volunteering over call teaching literature. Having already interacted with her student during her time in Turtuk, Purva knows the face behind her calls, Madeena Noor.

“Madeena was a mischievous child. But there has been a change in her.” On days when the connectivity is poor, Purva’s phone is flooded with so many messages from Madeena. “This definitely shows Madeena is eager to learn and continue her classes. She can read well and we are working on her pronunciation of basic words. I am grateful to have got this opportunity to teach at least one child.”

Since Madeena is skilful at drawing, after each English lesson, Madeena draws her illustrations, depicting intricate details from her lessons, and sends it across to Purva to show what she has understood!

Students make videos to inspire volunteers

Nazima Parveen, an 11-year-old student, is being taught by a volunteer in Hyderabad. When Nazima learnt her volunteer Vaishnavi Tadikonda had never seen a farm, Nazima made a video of the fields in Turtuk; talking about the veggies they grew, the challenges they faced, and how she feels about not going to school. She enjoyed this new skill— vlogging, so much that Nazima wants to make more videos for everyone to know and learn about Turtuk.

Anuri and Nazima are few of the fortunate students to have stepped out of Turtuk, to as far as Mumbai. But for the others in the village who’ve never seen city lights (the closest city being Leh, almost 10 hours away from Turtuk), volunteers are sharing their experiences to teach children. In turn, volunteers end up learning about Turtuk.

While students here still struggle to overcome network disturbances, unstable internet connections and the digital divide, the learning doesn’t stop. With the right support from educators and the network of volunteers, these children are learning to chase their dreams. In the words of Malala Yosafzai, let’s hope ‘One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.’

To find out more or to volunteer, one can reach the school at turtukprepatoryschool@gmail.com

(Edited by Sandhya Menon)

Parents in Leh, Ladakh, would probably not put their children through expensive private schools if there were more government school headmasters like 40-year-old Sonam Gyaltsan.

This national award-winning teacher’s dedication, resourcefulness and diligence have helped transform a once dilapidated government middle school with just 4 students in his native Sakti village, to a model centre for learning with 104 students (ranging from Nursery to Class 8) in the span of just three years.

A government school teacher since 2003, Gyaltsan became the headmaster of the Government Middle School, Taknak, in Sakti village (approximately 50 km from Leh), back in March 2016.

Watch Mr. Sonam Gyaltsan, Head Teacher – Middle School Taknak Sakti in Leh-Ladakh, talking about his initiative to increase school enrollments. He has been confered with National Teachers Award 2020. #OurTeachersOurHeroes #TeachersFromIndiahttps://t.co/lUonoExmlk @EduMinOfIndia pic.twitter.com/hv6XUc3WqU

— MyGovIndia (@mygovindia) September 6, 2020

It’s the quintessential public education success story. Driven by Gyaltsan’s passion, sacrifice and drive, an entire village has come together to participate in this school’s success.

So, how did all this happen?

The Success Story

Located a little below Wari La, the mountain pass above Sakti village that facilitates the movement of people into the picturesque Nubra Valley, the government middle school had only four students when Gyaltsan took over as headmaster. Of the four students, three were children of seasonal Nepali labourers and only one was from Sakti. Unfortunately, such dismal enrollment numbers are common among government schools in Leh district.

In my recent interactions with various government school teachers, the common consensus is that state-run schools in Leh district are not in good shape.

“There are a few children who study there and they are primarily the children of Nepali and Bihari labourers who come to Ladakh for seasonal work. Very few Ladakhi children actually study in these schools. Instead, parents tend to send their wards to more expensive private schools in Leh. Many teachers are more concerned about the side businesses they run — like hotels or guest houses, instead of their jobs. For them, teaching offers an ‘easy’ paycheck,” says Rinchen Dolkar (name changed), a government school teacher.

To address poor enrollment numbers, the first thing Gyaltsan did was conduct a household survey. He had a fair idea of how many children each household had and the family’s income, but he went to individual homes and verified this information.

“Among my own close circle of 8-10 friends, I would ask them to send one of their two or three children to my school, with the assurance that I would revamp it completely,” he says.

In the meantime, Gyaltsan decided to set an example by taking his own daughter Thinles out of a private school and admitting her into his school in 2016. Upon seeing Thinles taking admission there, her friends asked their parents if they could join her as well.

“After seeing my daughter take admission, the Sarpanach, a member of the school managing committee, and some more friends of mine admitted their children into my school. By the end of 2016, the number of students enrolled increased to 32. When the first eight students enrolled, I assured their parents if the school shut down or anything wrong happened, I would personally get them admission into a good private school and pay their fees as well,” says Gyaltsan.

The next step was to take a look at the textbooks being used at the school. Instead of strictly going by the content prescribed by the local education department, he adopted textbooks being used in Lamdon Model Senior Secondary School (CBSE-affiliated), which ranks among the best private schools in Leh, for students from Class 1 to 6.

This created quite an impression on the parents, who could now see that whatever textbooks were being used at private schools were also being used in this up and coming government school.

But the school was also in desperate need of better infrastructure and sought support from the government. Gyaltsan reached out to the Leh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC), a body of elected representatives for the district, and facilitated the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with village representatives.

As per the MoU, the village would guarantee greater enrollment, while the authorities would support the school’s infrastructural needs. On 26th September 2016, the village re-inaugurated the school with 32 students enrolled.

“We changed the name of the school to Government Council Model School, letting people know that the LAHDC was overseeing its progress,” recalls Gyaltsan.

However, there was one more lacuna. The school was a little far from the main village and it was a challenge for students and teachers to walk there every day.

“In March 2017, we relocated the school to the middle of the village and housed the students in the old higher secondary government school building. Besides teaching these children, in the months of April and May, the parents of the 32 children and I helped rebuild the school. One of my friends contributed Rs 1 lakh towards the rebuilding effort. Others donated money to whitewash the school, repair the windows, doors, etc,” he says.

A few months later, contributions even came in from public officials, including the then Member of Parliament Thupstan Chhewang, who gave the school Rs 5 lakh out of his MPLAD fund. This money was used to construct the entire compound wall, an ice-skating rink, a gate, and for some repairs.

All these developments raised enrolment numbers to 62 by the end of 2017. After these numbers began to rise, Gyaltsan started getting calls from neighbouring villages like Chemday, asking whether they could enrol their children into his school. They also asked whether something could be done about transportation so that they could study there.

After running a makeshift bus service for a year, which further increased the enrollment number to 91 by the end of 2018, Gyaltsan needed to invest in a proper bus. With the Rs 3 lakh he had in savings, Gyaltsan took out a Rs 12 lakh loan from the bank. In total, he spent Rs 15 lakh on buying the new bus and is currently paying off the equated monthly instalment (EMI) out of his own salary. Today, the school has students coming in from nearby villages like Chemday, Kharu, Changa and Matselang, among others, thanks to the bus service. As a result, many parents have taken their children out of private schools and admitted them there.

But this isn’t where all the good work ends. As Headmaster, Gyaltsan set up specific classrooms for English, Maths, Science, Hindi and Bothi languages, called ‘laboratories’.

For children studying in nursery, UKG and LKG, he convinced the local Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) centre to associate themselves with the school. They were given a classroom and kitchen at the premises to assist with their work and also oversee these children.

More impressively, he helped six students obtain admission into Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas, a system of central schools for talented students, predominantly from rural areas, operated by the Ministry of Education. Helping them fill forms, taking extra classes after school hours and tuition over the weekend, Gyaltsan made this happen.

He also conducted teacher training sessions at the school and sought to change the pedagogical approach with significantly less emphasis on rote learning.

“Also, during the winters, all government schools are shut for two months. I keep the school open, although students don’t come with their bags. During these months, students from Class 4 to 8 learn Ladakhi folk songs, traditional instruments, ice-skating, roller-skating, essay writing, and even host cultural programmes,” he says.

“During the two-month winter break last year, Sonam Sir did not go home. He stayed back, taught our children and looked after them. It’s hard to describe his dedication and the wonderful work he is doing in our village. On behalf of all the villagers and parents, I once again congratulate Sonam Sir for the incredible work he has done for us,” says Tashi Namgyal, a parent and resident of Sakti whose three children study at the Model School.

Not Letting Go and The Future

It’s no surprise that earlier this year, the school had to stop new admissions. There was just not enough space for more students. Gyaltsan’s yeoman service to the village has made him so popular in Sakti that when the time came for his transfer in 2019, village representatives and the local councillor went to the education department and had it blocked.

Next on his agenda is setting up a residential hostel for students from Classes 3 to 8. The idea is to keep them engaged with schoolwork after classes end for the day.

This is the sort of difference one headmaster made in a village. If even a third of government school teachers in Leh district took the kind of initiative that Gyaltsan did, Ladakhis would never have to send their children to expensive private schools at home or outside the region.

Watch what the Sarpanch of Sakti village, Sonam Stobdan, has to say about Gyaltsan’s work:

(Edited by Nishi Malhotra)

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Growing up in Chilling, a small village approximately 60 km from Leh, 42-year-old Khenrab Phuntsog would regularly spot snow leopards at a distance while taking out the household goats and sheep for grazing up on mountain pastures nearby. With Chilling situated inside the famous Hemis National Park, it wasn’t hard to spot snow leopards if one climbed up to the higher ground.

However, it was during preparations for his grandmother’s cremation, when he was aged 12, that he actually came within 100 metres of a snow leopard. It was a sight he would never forget.

“I had gone with two local painters for the finishing touches on the structure where my grandmother was to be cremated. While they were at work, one of the painters pointed towards the opposite mountain slope at the snow leopard quietly waiting just above a herd of blue sheep. Initially, the rest of us didn’t see it. But when it took a couple of long leaps down, we saw it. It had caught one of the sheep and went for the kill,” recalled Khenrab in a conversation with The Better India.

It was that magnificent sighting that inspired Khenrab to first volunteer with the Wildlife Protection Department, and eventually, join it as a wildlife guard at the age of 22 in the year 2000. Since then, he has rescued 47 snow leopards.

Tracking Snow Leopards

As per the last scientific survey conducted through camera traps in 2012, the number of snow leopards in the 3,350 sq km-large Hemis National Park stood at 11, compared to 7 in 2006. However, for those surveys, camera traps were only installed across 300 sq km.

“We are now in the process of completing another census for snow leopards using extensive camera trapping methods in different parts of Ladakh, including in Changthang, Hemis National Park, Kargil and Nubra Valley. In Hemis National Park, we have about 60 snow leopards today. For this census camera traps were installed in half the total area unlike in 2006 and 2012. If you take all of Ladakh, however, my guess is that the figure would be above 250. This census is being carried out under the guidance of the Wildlife Institute of India. The results of this census may come by the end of this year or early next year,” he said.

Wildlife guards like Khenrab identify areas like ridgelines, broken cliffs, deep valleys and hanging rocks where snow leopards usually traverse, to install camera traps. Rolling and flat land isn’t really conducive terrain for the snow leopard, although for this census camera traps have been installed in not so conducive terrain as well, to ensure that none are missed.

Knowing where to install camera traps is a result of Khenrab’s 20 years of experience in tracking the elusive snow leopard. As a tracker, the first things he looks out for are indirect signs like pugmarks, scrapes, faeces, scent-sprays, claw-rakes and the remains from kills.

“The best times to spot them are early morning and late evening. When looking for scrapes or faeces, you can find them in the bottom of the valley or along the ridgeline. They make a pile of sand with their hind legs sitting on the ground and then urinate atop it. This is how they mark territory. They also rub their necks or cheeks on hanging rocks, leaving behind fur. One doesn’t look for high hanging rocks but suitably sized ones, where they can stand up and rub their necks. Here they also urinate and spray a pungent liquid from scent glands located under the base of the tail. Each one has its own unique scent,” says Khenrab.

In February-March, which is the mating season for the snow leopards, these hanging rocks are used frequently to scan and smell for potential mates. If these signs don’t work, they start calling each other on top of these ridgelines since this is the quickest way to communicate. Once you know where to look, the likelihood of spotting a snow leopard directly through your binoculars increases.

Rescuing Snow Leopards

During the late 1970s and 80s, some snow leopards were killed by the local populace in retaliation for their attacks on livestock. These predators would enter various corral pens in villages and kill livestock, a major source of income for many families. When snow leopards get sick, old or can’t hunt in the wild, they target livestock in corral pens

These kills have significantly reduced since then because of awareness raised by the Wildlife Protection Department and other government agencies about the legal penalties involved for killing snow leopards, including jail time. Today, whenever a snow leopard enters a human habitation, the people immediately call the rescue team of the Wildlife Protection Department. After it’s in the safe hands of the rescue team, a vet assesses its medical condition. Once the snow leopard is deemed medically fit, it is let back into the wild.

“From 2000 onwards, the introduction of ecotourism, particularly in villages in the vicinity of areas like the Hemis National Park, played a big part in furthering the change in mindset against killing these predators. When tourists began visiting villages like Chilling to spot snow leopards and live in local homestays, the villagers began to earn enough to offset any livestock loss to the predator. Along with my colleagues Smanla Tsering and Tsering Tashi, I was involved in training local eco-guides, who ensured tourists kept the premises clean, facilitated their interaction with homestay owners, and knew where to take them to spot these creatures,” says Khenrab.

But the process of rescuing snow leopards is a hard job with lots of risks.

“When I began my work rescuing these predators in 1995, we had no equipment. We would merely carry empty gunny sacks, ropes and sticks for these rescue missions in different villages where snow leopards were stuck inside corral pens. It was extremely risky work. One of my senior colleagues nearly had his entire hand bitten off during one such rescue,” says Tsering Tashi, a range officer posted in Changthang.

During his two-decade tenure as a wildlife guard, Khenrab has been involved in rescuing 47 snow leopards. And in the early days, these rescues were conducted without tranquilisers.

“My first rescue mission with Khenrab was in Ney village sometime in the early 2000s. The snow leopard was caught inside a corral pen with multiple rooms, while villagers outside were standing around terrified. We noticed that the snow leopard was sitting near one of the windows. I explained to Khenrab that we must first close the window from outside. Once we closed the window, we drove the snow leopard into the last room of the corral pen. There was just one door. We had carried a blanket with us inside the corral pen, while an elaborate net trap set up at the door. Two others were standing guard outside,” recalls Tashi.

As they entered the room with a blanket, Tashi warned Khenrab not to run away if the snow leopard jumped on them because the animal was also scared for its life.

“So, when we closed in on the snow leopard, it jumped towards us. We wrapped the snow leopard in our blanket first before driving it inside our net. Post-2000s, however, we started getting some equipment like camouflage nets, blowpipes and tranquillizer guns. Most of my rescues were without tranquillizers since possible overdoses can harm them,” explains Tashi.

“With modern techniques, it’s critical to understand how much of a drug needs to be used in a dart before tranquillizing the snow leopard. You have to assess the size of the animal before loading the darts with drugs. Also, you still have to be careful because it’s an aggressive animal. It’s very important not to get too close and also to prevent sudden movements and carefully calculate how to trap it. If you rush the process, the animal gets very aggressive,” says Khenrab.

Tashi goes on to add, “Khenrab has a genuine love for snow leopards. Even if called upon for a rescue past midnight, he never shies away from taking up the assignment.”

Threats Remain

Every year, about 21 to 45 snow leopards are killed in India for poaching or as retaliation for livestock loss, according to a 2016 report by Traffic, a wildlife trade monitoring network.

“In Ladakh, the biggest threat to their survival is habitat destruction due to rising urbanisation and development activities that are happening around villages and in areas where their prey feast. When massive areas are cordoned off for developmental activities, losing all the alpine plants and other scarce vegetation is detrimental to herbivorous animals like blue sheep, goats, marmots, etc. These, in turn, are food for snow leopards. Another threat is a scarcity of water as a result of fast-shrinking glaciers, thanks to climate change,” says Khenrab.

Despite these threats and 20 years on the job, his passion for snow leopards hasn’t waned. “My objective is to create a safe habitat for them. There is no one to represent the snow leopards. I like to believe I represent them. They are critical for the maintenance of the ecological balance. We must do everything to protect them,” he concludes.

(Edited by Nishi Malhotra)

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(This is the first of a two-part series chronicling the remarkable life of Mistry Hassan, a mason, whose contributions to India and Nubra shouldn’t ever be forgotten.

Without the ingenuity of Ghulam Hassan, a mason and casual labourer from Bogdang village in Nubra Valley, Ladakh, and the industry of more than 500 Ladakhi workers in 1961, there would be no THOISE (Transit Halt Of Indian Soldiers Enroute-to Siachen) airbase.

(Photo above: Left – Mistry Hassan, Right – THOISE airfield.)

It’s the airbase from where the Indian armed forces send soldiers and critical supplies to those posted in Siachen and other important border outposts in the region.

So, how did it all happen?

Towards the end of 1960, KD Menon, the Assistant Commissioner overseeing the administration of Nubra Valley, Ladakh, called a meeting of the local administration and members of civil society. Officers like Menon were from the Indian Frontier Administrative Service (IFAS), a separate cadre of civil servants created in 1954 to administer the erstwhile North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) and other frontier regions.

One of the issues discussed during the meeting was the lack of an airfield which could help supply material and goods to soldiers posted at the border – much indeed needed since the Nubra Valley shares a border with Pakistan and China.

It was decided that one resident from each of the approximately 500 families in the region would volunteer their labour to help construct it.

Before construction commenced in April 1961, three locations were shortlisted at first–a flat land called Chilling near Digger village, a plot of land near Disket village and another piece of flat land between Skampuk and Terchay village called Mala-ling.

In stepped Ghulam Hassan (aka Mistry Hassan), who led his fellow workers in suggesting to the Indian armed forces that it would be best if the airfield was not built in the proximity of villages. Taking their concerns on board, the airfield was built on the flat land called Mala-ling because it wasn’t close to any village, and today that’s where THOISE stands.

Born sometime in the 1920s in Udmaru village, Nubra, Hassan grew up in an agrarian household living with five sisters and two brothers. A member of the Balti ethnic community, his ancestors were from Thagas village, which is today located in Gilgit-Baltistan province of Pakistan. When he was a young boy, his family had to move from Udmaru to Bogdang village because of tensions with the Buddhist residents.

When the family made their way to Bogdang, Hassan first found work as a servant of a wealthy family. However, over time, he developed skills in masonry work, carpentry and established a reputation for high intelligence despite his lack of formal education. According to his son Ghulam, even the local Tehsildar and Indian Army officers would consult him on certain projects. Despite his humble beginnings as a servant in a wealthy household. He soon made enough to acquire land for himself in Bogdang village.

Before construction commenced, the local administration air-dropped hundreds of pickaxes and shovels to a village from where they were loaded onto mules, horses and yaks. But when construction began, there was another problem.

The soil on the site chosen for the airfield was tough and slippery because of the high clay content in the soil which had solidified and held rocks below the surface tightly. Workers found it nearly impossible to dig through. Hassan Mistry found another innovative solution.

According to ‘A Guide to Nubra Valley’ written by a former government school teacher and author Haaji Abdul Razzaq Jamshed, who witnessed these events, Hassan Mistry had “suggested the digging of a canal to connect the Beyaklong stream [a few miles away from the proposed airfield] to the ground.” In the book, Jamshed goes on to add “The melting snow brought water to the stream in April and May, and the canal will bring it to the ground; the wet soil then makes the work of digging and levelling that much easier.”

Initially, the other workers weren’t happy with Hassan’s suggestions since it meant more work, but once the 2 km-long canal was constructed, digging through the wet soil with pickaxes and shovels became much easier. The work of digging the soil was done under moonlight since the mid-day sun in July and August is harsh.

“Ditches were dug, and rocks that could not be moved were then manhandled into these ditches and the surface levelled. Huge rocks were blasted by the young men of the village who would cut holes through the rock, fill them with explosives and shatter them,” notes Jamshed. Nearly 500 workers showed up for work every day. In appreciation for their contribution, the armed forces began to airdrop wheat grain (15 kg per head) and unrefined sugar (1 kg per head), which was then distributed as a ration for the workers.

“The next obstacle was how to flatten the surface as there were no roller machines. My father went to nearby villages in search of the two biggest apricot trees and found them. He chopped these trees and converted them into rollers by inserting iron rods in the holes my father and Chemet Namgyal, a carpenter, had drilled through the length of these tree trunks,” says Hassan’s son Ghulam Haider, who is popularly known in the region as Nathroo, in an exclusive conversation with The Better India (TBI).

These rollers were pulled by nearly 20 men each through ropes tied to the end of the rods. On 1 October 1961, the first plane landed on the ready-to-use airfield handed over to the Indian armed forces by residents of Nubra. This airfield has since been used as a facility which enables a quick inflow of men and material from the Indian mainland to Siachen.

“Moreover, my father made an interesting suggestion to senior political leaders of Nubra, which entailed signing an agreement with the Indian government. The agreement would state that since the people of Nubra provided the land for the airfield, it should be registered under the local civilian administration there. I believe an agreement was signed, but it was later objected to by the Indian Air Force and modified by local authorities without consulting community leaders. Instead, the people of Nubra have been given the privilege to travel in army aircraft from THOISE to Chandigarh for meagre airfare (INR 1,150) as a mark of gratitude by the Government of India,” says Ghulam.

“Without THOISE, India may have lost Nubra Valley to China in 1962. Chinese troops had advanced over Indian forces in the DBO sector and Chushul region, capturing Rezang La with thousands of casualties on either side. Many brave young civilians from Nubra valley were taken in an aircraft from THOISE and airdropped in DBO to defend Ladakh.” notes Tsewang Dorjey Dongbos, who served as Nubra’s Assistant Commissioner (civil administration) for many years, speaking to TBI.

“While the war was going on, the civil administration under the supervision of officers such as KD Menon was engaged in building roads for the Indian Army. Mistry Hassan was given the responsibility of supervising the construction of these roads on the ground. His contributions to protecting Nubra from the Chinese invasion was enormous. We should remember him as among the saviours of Nubra Valley and deserves a lot more recognition than he is getting today,” Tsewang adds.

The airfield would go on to play a significant role in assisting the Indian armed forces during the 1965, 1971 and 1999 wars against Pakistan.

“He was gifted with remarkable intelligence. I remember on one occasion when a Dakota military transport aircraft had a technical problem and couldn’t take off for days from THOISE. Many qualified engineers attempted to fix it but in vain. Finally, Hassan obtained permission from the concerned authorities if he could try his hand. It was unbelievable that he managed to fix it. The Dakota soon flew back to Pathankot,” says Tsewang.

Two citations: On the left, it’s a letter from Thupstan Chhewang, former Chief Executive Councilor of Leh Autonomous Hill Development Council and Member of Parliament. On the right, we have a letter from former SDM of Nubra PK Sharma.

Having said all this, there was a lot more to Hassan’s world, which we will explore along with how his son Ghulam carried his legacy further in the next part of this two-part series.

(With valuable inputs and photos courtesy Dr Nordan Otzer.)

(Edited by Vinayak Hegde)

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(This is the second of a two-part series chronicling the remarkable life of Mistry Hassan, a mason, whose contributions to India and Nubra shouldn’t ever be forgotten. You can read the first part here.)

In the previous segment of this story, The Better India highlighted the critical role Ghulam Hassan (aka Mistry Hassan) played in the construction of the THOISE airfield in Nubra in October 1961, helping India better secure its borders with both China and Pakistan.

(Photo above: Ghulam Haider, the son of Mistry Hassan and the man responsible for preserving his father’s legacy.)

However, his first tryst with national service came in May 1948, when tribal raiders backed by the Pakistani army wreaked havoc in Ladakh.

“By then Pakistani tribal raiders had captured half of Nubra upto Skampuk village. Bogdang was under their control, and we realized that they had no respect for the Balti people. They committed rape, assaulted the elderly and subjugated the people who came under their control. Fearing what they would do next, my father escaped to Skampuk, where Indian soldiers under Subedar Bhim Chand were stationed. Initially, my father was misidentified as a Pakistani spy, but upon the urging of his acquaintances there, Chand changed his mind. My father would share strategically critical information with the Subedar,” recalls his son Ghulam Haider, in an exclusive conversation with The Better India.

Hassan would sneak back home, but unfortunately, as the Indian Army advanced towards Bogdang, the tribal raiders found out that he had helped the enemy. Their commander ordered the arrest of Hassan and his family. Still, before they could do arrest and torture them, they escaped to Fastan village where they stayed many weeks till the Indian Army recaptured Bogdang. Hassan’s family came back home with an army escort.

But this isn’t where his assistance for the Indian armed forces stopped. As a chief mason, under the supervision of British-trained engineer Sonam Norbu, Hassan helped construct the strategically vital Koyak bridge over the Shyok River in the mid-1950s without any cement.

They had to source locally available limestones from the nearby Khalsar village to construct the bridge. Until the 1980s, this was the only bridge which gave armed forces access to Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) border outpost via the Sasser La mountain pass. Today, only a part of the Koyak bridge remains intact, and a bailey suspension bridge has replaced it.

However, not all his work was in service of the armed forces. Hassan was a man of the people. One of his biggest contributions to his fellow residents in Nubra was the construction of the Bogdang canal (the early 1940s) and Tablay canal (1958-1959) without a qualified engineer supervising them.

The 20 km-long Tablay canal is still a major source of irrigation (after multiple renovations) for two villages–Lakjung and Sumur. Taking no wages, he constructed this irrigation canal with assistance from residents. In return for their work on the canal, he asked the wealthy families from surrounding villages to donate food for the workers.

“Hassan was a great man. His contribution to both public works and defence in the region is immeasurable. I remember working along with him building the THOISE airfield. I was a Patwari at the time. Although we had engineers on-site, we had to rely on Hassan Mistry for the final approval of all kinds of civil work. He had a naturally gifted scientific mind despite a lack of formal education,” notes Tsewang Dorjey Dongbos, who served as Nubra’s Assistant Commissioner (civil administration) for many years, speaking to TBI.

His yeoman service to the people of Nubra also made life easy for the family.

“We never ran out of food because of my father’s service. In return for his innumerable contributions to vital developmental projects, particularly bridges and irrigation canals, our family often received free rations from the army, police and residents of nearby villages. In fact, one day, when I went to Hundiri village to buy flour, a lady asked about me. I told her my father was Mistry Hassan. Upon hearing this news, she started to cry and spoke of how my father saved her family’s life by constructing a canal,” recalls Ghulam.

Tragically, Hassan passed away when he was barely in his 50s due to blood cancer.

However, his son would carry on that fine legacy in helping construct nearly 30 bridges that linked different parts of Nubra Valley with one another, including the Nathru Bridge (after his nickname ‘Nathroo’) over the Shyok river, which remains a lifeline to DBO border outpost to this very day.

In some quarters, he is even considered the ‘Bridge Man of Ladakh’. Ghulam played more than a significant role assisting organisations like the Border Roads Organisation engaged in constructing strategically important pieces of infrastructure like bridges, roads or even clearing debris off them following landslides.

For example, sometime around 2008-09, he was called by engineers of the General Reserve Engineer Force (GREF) to inspect a bailey suspended bridge they were constructing across the Shyok river on the way to DBO. When Ghulam got there, he was surprised to see so many major faults in it. He warned the engineers that the bridge will collapse unless they introduced some changes to the layout and the foundation.

“In a bailey suspension bridge, the weight is carried by fixed suspenders that run between the main cable and the panel. There are many fixed suspenders running through the bridge. What I observed was that there were no fixed suspenders and the entire bridge was resting on a cable in the middle. Unable to carry all that weight, it would collapse under any significant load. I ensured that fixed suspenders were used. It’s still working and being used. Although the government has recently sanctioned funds for a new bridge there, work is yet to begin,” notes Ghulam, while describing his work.

Today, that bridge is named after him. It’s called Nathru Bridge, which still functions as a lifeline to DBO to this very day since it was inaugurated in 2009. Earlier there was no road connection. Instead, rations for soldiers stationed in DBO were either air-dropped or supplied on horseback via Saser La pass.

Speaking to The Better India, Colonel (Retd) AK Tiwari, who served in Nubra for two and a half years between 1988 and 1990, is all praises for ‘Nathroo’.

“At the time, I was a Major serving as an officer commanding (OC) the 54 Road Construction Company (RCC) in Hundar, Nubra. My responsibilities included the road from Khalsar to the Gorkha Ridge situated along the Line of Control (LoC). Nathroo was a very important part of our set up. He was responsible for finding labour and supervising their work on the ground. Working closely with him, I realized how much he cared about his workers. He pushed me to ensure injured workers were given monetary compensation on their doorstep instead of spending days obtaining it from the Deputy Commissioner’s office in Leh. Also, during one of our road construction operations, he pushed me into requesting the Indian Air Force to airlift one of our injured boys to the civil hospital in Leh,” recalls Colonel Tiwari.

Besides caring about his workers, Colonel Tiwari remembers Nathroo (Ghulam) as an extremely positive person who was also as effective in his work.

“Any work given to him was better than done whether it was clearing debris after a landslide or the completion of road construction targets. In a place like Nubra, where breathing is difficult, he never said ‘no’ for any work. He would only tell you the time and labour required for the task. That work would be done before time and with quality. With due respect to the thumb rules imposed by the Border Roads Organisation in terms of working hours and other conditions, he would always generate more than a 100% output from his boys,” he adds.

Despite his own immense contributions, Ghulam is more concerned about preserving his father’s legacy.

Speaking to The Better India with tears in his eyes, he says, “I expected the people of Ladakh to remember my father’s contribution for at least four-five generations. But it’s disheartening to see that people have already forgotten my father’s work. Not even two generations have passed since his demise. I pray and sincerely wish to resurrect my father’s contribution, dedication and love for this beautiful land. His life should serve as an inspiration to the younger generation, and he deserves greater recognition.”

(With vital inputs and photos courtesy Dr Nordan Otzer)

(Edited by Vinayak Hegde)

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In recent years, there have been local efforts underway in Ladakh to reclaim ownership of the pashmina trade following centuries of outside dominance, particularly from Kashmir. Multiple ventures in the region are moving into the production of finished products since most of the value is locked higher up in the supply chain.

One such venture is the all-women Leh-based startup called Lena Ladakh Pashmina, which calls itself a “slow-textile label that crafts pashmina products in small batches, where each stage of textile production is carried by hand from spinning to dyeing to weaving.”

Established in 2016 by Sonam Angmo and Stanzin Minglak, the startup has two key objectives:

1) Making apparel in a distinctly Ladakhi manner from spinning with a willow spindle instead of a Charkha, plying with the same spindle, and hand-weaving to dyeing the yarns with locally-found herbs, while ensuring that revenue from the pashmina trade stays local.

2) A commitment towards putting into practice the dying traditional skill of making textiles by hand, while also providing a sustainable and dignified source of livelihood for women from these communities, who for generations have quietly kept these skills alive.

Early Days

A little less than two years before they incorporated Lena, both Sonam and Minglak were on the cusp of making decisions that would determine their future. While Sonam had just completed her M.Tech in Biotechnology, Minglak was finishing her Master’s thesis on the migration patterns of the Changpas.

“My father worked in the government handloom department. He would always encourage me to come back home after my studies and start something here. At the same time, I found out that my co-founder Minglak was also going through a similar period of uncertainty. Her father too worked in the handloom department. While discussing our potential futures with each other one fine day, Minglak and I decided to venture into Pashmina,” says Sonam.

“Working on my Master’s thesis allowed me to live in Changthang during field visits. Backed with some knowledge of how the Pashmina economy works, I got together with Sonam. However, before we ventured into establishing this startup, we first spent more than a year seeking to obtain a deeper understanding of the fabric, the local pashmina economy and its potential for income and livelihood generation,” notes Minglak.

With assistance from their fathers, who knew local artisans working with a pashmina and understood the subtle nuances of the fabric, both women visited Changthang often. There they would meet artisans, learn about their skill sets and formulate ideas about how they would run a startup centred on this precious fabric.

Thanks to the network they built over the years, today Lena employs more than 58 women, of which only 22 work throughout the year including 6 weavers at their weaving studio on the outskirts of Leh. Most of them work on a seasonal basis, particularly during the winters.

The Process

“We collect the raw pashmina fibre from cooperative societies and begin with hand spinning. In Ladakh, the pashmina is handspun via our traditional technique of using a wooden willow spindle. Since the length of the pashmina fibre is short, hand-spinning, it is difficult. But in the past few decades, Ladakhi women have mastered the hard-earned skill of spinning pashmina with their spindles, which was formerly used only to spin sheep wool. At Lena, we have 27 women who spin our pashmina mostly in the winter months when they don’t have to tend to their farms. They make groups of 5 to 10 and spin these raw fibres at their homes where they also get to take care of their household as well,” says Sonam.

Suffice it to say, this skill of hand-spinning the raw fibre is rare and passed on from one generation to another. The same women hand-spinning the fibre are involved in the plying process as well, following which they engage in weaving.

“All of our pashmina fabrics are woven on the fly-shuttle loom at our studio situated in the outskirts of Leh. Currently, we have a team of 6 weavers who have received training from the handloom department. We also weave our local sheep wool rugs on the traditional back-strap loom, which is an indigenous technique unique to only a few parts of Ladakh. Before the establishment of startups like Lena, hundreds of women had received training in elementary weaving and spinning from the handloom department. Sadly, this did not translate into significant employment generation since there were no private enterprises and very few cooperative/self-help groups to absorb them,” notes Minglak.

At Lena, they have six basic weaving patterns that are woven with different colour combinations on their products (pashmina shawls, stoles and knitted pashmina hats to mufflers and beanies). These colour combinations come from natural dyes extracted from local herbs like walnut hull, marigold, Himalayan rhubarb and Arnebia, etc. For red, burgundy and blue, the startup sources the natural dyes from Central and South India.

“At Lena, we control the entire production cycle from spinning, plying, dyeing, weaving and finishing. We are ensuring that all of the pashmina’s innate properties are kept intact throughout the production chain. We don’t expose this rich fibre to any kind of chemical treatment. Some of our natural dyes like marigold and indigo are known to have skin-healing properties as well. Out of all our colours, indigo never ceases to amaze us, which demands a unique technique as compared to the others,” says Sonam.

Inspiration for all these colour combinations on their products come from vibrantly coloured murals, frescoes, thangkas and mandalas in monasteries all over Ladakh. If you visit these monasteries, you can see that those natural colours have remained intact for hundreds of years.

“We are not into mass production. To spin about 30 to 40 gm of Pashmina, it would take about one day, following which there is plying, dyeing, weaving and finishing. To make one piece of Pashmina shawl, it would take about 15 to 25 days from spinning to finishing. However, this time frame depends on the size of the shawl, the type of weave and patterns used. We spin most of the yarn in the winter and keep it ready for orders seeking customised products so that within a week we can weave and apply finishing touches to it. In a year, we only make about 500-600 pieces. Aside from Pashmina, we also make products based on sheep wool-like rugs and fleece-like fabric native to Tibet and Ladakh. We make about 200 pieces of sheep wool products throughout the year,” she informs.

Business aspect

Their products are priced anywhere between Rs 11000 to Rs 30,000 since pashmina is a luxury item. There are a variety of ways in which Lena sells its products.

They have partners in Switzerland and the United States who retail their products. Some of them are retailing the yarn, while others are doing the same with finished products. Orders from them are taken six to seven months in advance.

“We got in touch with these retailers through Instagram. Offers to collaborate came thick and fast since naturally-dyed pashmina yarns are so rare. These retailers visit India once every year, come over to our studio in Leh, check out the products and carry it with them back to places like San Francisco, Switzerland and Boston,” says Sonam.

Last year, Lena opened their own shop in Leh, before which they sold locally through their weaving studio. The customers who came to their shop were predominantly tourists, although it was very well received locally too. Lena tied up with hotels and travel agencies that took their clients to the shop for an authentic souvenir buying experience.

“In winters, we take our products with us and participate in various trade fairs across different cities. This year, we had plans of organising pop-ups in cities like Delhi, although COVID-19 brought that to a halt.

What are the costs?

When it comes to spinning, the standard rate ranges from Rs 2,000 to 3,000 per kg for a pashmina. Weaving, meanwhile, is done at the studio and weavers get paid based on the number pieces weaved in a month. On average, Lena’s weavers get paid anywhere between Rs 12,000 to Rs 15,000 per month.

“Lena has provided me with a dignified source of livelihood. We are weaving even through the winters, which is a huge plus point. Otherwise, many organisations close down in the winters and weavers are left with no source of income. Even during this pandemic, we can earn. We are weaving from the safety of our homes back in the villages. Weaving is my passion, but it’s also a massive responsibility to work with a precious fibre like a pashmina. You make one mistake, and the result shows on the whole shawl,” says Deachen Zangmo, a 27-year-old weaver who has been with Lena since 2016.

The pandemic has taken a toll on the business. However, it’s still up and running. Although little weaving happened this year, they have kept large amounts of yarn ready to be woven into shawls or other apparel next year. Meanwhile, customised orders continue to arrive.

Challenges

Despite their recent success, Lena has faced some serious challenges to the business.

“Raw material isn’t available throughout the year. They are largely available between July to September and buying them requires significant investment. For 100 kg of raw pashmina fibre, you’ll need about Rs 10.5 Lakh (1 kg for Rs 10,500) in hand. Once the raw fibre is purchased, we have to give it for spinning, which takes another month or so. The production cycle is really long, but more importantly, the government needs to intervene to ensure raw material is available throughout the year. This will help us balance out our costs,” says Minglak

Another major challenge is the urban migration of the nomadic community. Take the example of a nomadic Changpa community in Kharnak, which is a four-hour drive from Leh to its east. Their lifestyle is completely based on livestock, migrating about 5-6 times a year. “The younger generation is no longer interested in living that hard life. They want their own dose of modernity since they have little access to basic education and healthcare,” says Sonam.

Future inspiration

Starting out, Sonam’s impression was that Ladakh didn’t have a rich textile heritage. That was until she came across the textile culture of nomads residing in Changthang.

“We are currently working on our new collection inspired by the Changthang nomads. Changthang is truly the textile haven of Ladakh. These communities are often referred to as nomadic shepherds, but I don’t see why they can’t be called indigenous weavers. They have a deep-rooted weaving tradition from making their own Rebo (cloth that is made of yak’s wool) tents to different varieties of saddlebags, ropes, fabric coverings and carpets that are created from the wool of their own livestock (yak, sheep, goats). Each family, for example, weaves saddlebags with their own trademark design patterns citing that this is their property,” she says.

“More than preserving the pashmina identity of Ladakh, our work is more about creating a new one, and that’s what our new collection will be about,” says Minglak.

(Edited by Vinayak Hegde)

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Since 1984, when the Indian Army took control of the Siachen Glacier, residents of the surrounding villages in the picturesque Nubra Valley have been employed as porters. Their work involves carrying loads upto 20 kg to army posts on the glacier, stocking the posts with provisions, maintaining kerosene reserves, fixing ropes and ladders to assist soldiers in climbing the glacier and digging out the ice that soldiers melt into water.

(Image above: Stanzin Padma, the porter who saved many lives in Siachen)

At altitudes ranging as high as 22,000 feet above sea level and temperatures dropping to -40 degrees Celsius, where basic tasks like breathing, walking, eating and drinking are arduous, these porters have become the lifeline of soldiers serving there. Their keen understanding of the terrain has made them indispensable for the armed forces during search and rescue operations after commonplace incidents like avalanches.

“These porters double up as guides and scouts on various locations. They take care of logistics on the ground. For example, there are locations where you can only traverse by rope, and this requires real knowledge of mountaineering. They go to places where our boys cannot. Also, if there is a medical emergency, they are the first people to help and evacuate soldiers. Their role is critical by virtue of their experience and the fact that they are well acclimated to the conditions there. What they are doing there is selfless service,” says a senior officer of the Indian Army, who didn’t wish to be named, in a conversation with The Better India.

One such individual was Stanzin Padma, a 31-year-old former porter, who was not only involved in the rescue of two Indian Army jawans but also retrieved the bodies of deceased soldiers and fellow porters during his decade-long stint.

A recipient of the Jeevan Raksha Padak, an award given by the Union Home Minister “for courage and promptitude in saving life under circumstances of grave bodily injury to the rescuer” in 2014, Stanzin speaks to The Better India about his life serving in Siachen.

Hard-Knock Life

Born in Phukpochey village near the hot water springs of Panamik in Nubra Valley, Ladakh, Stanzin grew up in a modest farming household. Completing his high school from the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya in Leh 14 years ago, he first worked as a part-time porter for the Indian Army in Siachen in 2006, while also doubling up as a tourist guide for trekkers to Markha Valley and Zanskar.

Although both his parents were farmers, his father occasionally took up work as a porter in Siachen as well. “The reason I took up work as a porter was because our family was undergoing some financial troubles, and instead of adding to their burden, I felt it was best that I contribute. From 2008 onwards, however, I began regularly working with the Indian Army until 2016,” says Stanzin, in an exclusive conversation with The Better India.

“Most youths in this region find work as porters on the Siachen glacier, but unfortunately, many have lost their lives. During rescue missions, we (experienced porters) are given the opportunity when others have failed, or it’s deemed ‘too late’,” he notes.

Deemed as casual paid labourers (CPL), these porters are paid a daily wage according to the grade of the post. There are approximately about 100 posts on the glacier that are classified into five grades based on their altitude and the risks involved in serving there. They are paid a maximum of Rs 857 per day at higher posts, while those serving at the base camp are paid Rs 694 per day. These figures haven’t changed since 2017, notes Padma.

These porters can only serve three months a stretch owing to brutal weather conditions, avalanches, crevasse and the threat of shifting ice. Since CPLs are eligible to make claims for permanent positions and pay after working for 90 consecutive days, the Army sends these porters in cycles of 89 days.

There have been times when after working 89 days, Stanzin comes down for a couple of days, gets a thorough medical check-up at the local government hospital and then climbs back up as soon as possible.

“Every year, I was up in Siachen at least three-four times a year,” notes Stanzin.

“Initially, the army would assign me to any camp they wanted. In 2012, however, I was taken to Kumar Post (16,000 ft above sea level), where I was also given the task of supervising other porters, create a muster roll for their payment, take note of how long a certain porter stayed at a given camp and send all that paperwork to concerned officers. Before me, another senior porter was supervising their work,” says Stanzin.

Challenges and rescue/retrieval work

With little to no training from the army for the high-risk environment in which they work, these porters function under extremely challenging conditions sometimes at the cost of their lives.

“Temperatures can drop to -40 degrees Celsius, while we also have to navigate avalanches, deep crevasses and shifting ice. Before the ceasefire in 2003, porters like us would even have to navigate enemy firing. Porters climb up to the post just below the highest one manned by the Indian Army. We often work during the day, but on days, when the weather is bad and snowing heavily, we sit inside our tents,” says Stanzin.

It has been extensively reported how some of the more dreaded medical conditions in these conditions are dehydration, high altitude cerebral oedema and high altitude pulmonary oedema, amongst others.

Like soldiers, Ladakhi porters too face the same risks.

Stanzin recalls the time he fell into a deep crevasse and miraculously survived in 2012.

“I was posted in the Sia-la area (above 18,000 feet Above Sea Level) when I got the call to transport some rations immediately to a higher post. Facing food shortages there, we had to transport rations. Unfortunately, we were also suffering from inclement weather. While I did manage to reach the designated post and transport the ration, on my way back, I got lost because of low visibility. After a few hours, my snow scooter got stuck in the snow,” he recalls.

With his scooter stuck, he began to walk. However, as he began walking down, he fell into a deep crevasse. This happened on 12 January 2012.

“When I regained consciousness hours later, I realized that I was deep down inside the crevasse. It was completely dark. I was lying flat but fortunately had no major injuries. Also, I had a wireless set with me, and so I tried contacting my fellow workers. It wasn’t until the following morning when the rescue party found the abandoned snow scooter that I had left behind. Throughout the night, I kept calling them to inform them that I am still alive, besides trying to keep myself awake. I couldn’t sleep the whole night,” he recalls.

When the rescue team pulled Stanzin out of the crevasse with a rope, he had frostbites on four of his fingers. Fortunately, he didn’t have to amputate them.

In the following December, however, it was his turn to save a fellow porter, Nima Norboo, who had fallen into a 200 feet deep crevasse. Stanzin’s job at the time was to coordinate the work of porters posted at the glacier, and he had received news one afternoon of how one of his colleagues had fallen into a crevasse.

Despite their efforts, the first set of the army and civilian rescue teams had given up on the search. But Stanzin was determined to find his colleague and spoke to the commanding officer, who arranged a helicopter the following morning.

Rescue teams were aware of the exact location from where the person fell-down but the crevasse was very complex and narrow. Beyond a certain point, rescue teams couldn’t lower themselves down any further.

“When a person falls, it is easy to slip-down through narrow gaps. Secondly, crevasses may have multiple branches within. So, it becomes difficult for the rescue team with full gear to pass through these narrow gaps. But I took advantage of my lean body and climbed down alone with the necessary rescue gear. Initially, I was under the impression that Nima must have died, but as I climbed down, I could hear him calling for me. He had an injury on his head. When asked why he couldn’t call the rescuers the previous day, Nima told me that he regained consciousness in the middle of the night. Anyway, I rescued him out of the crevasse, although he lost one arm and both legs below the knees. The rescue operation (on 6 December, 2012) took hours to complete, requiring real patience and perseverance,” says Stanzin.

However, his shining moment came a couple of months later, when as a part of a five-person team, he saved the lives of two jawans stuck under an avalanche at a forward post called Tiger LP (21,500 ft above sea level).

In late May 2013, five soldiers on duty were buried under an avalanche one night. “There were five of us, including an officer of the Indian Army, as part of the rescue crew. Initially, we took out snow scooters, but since the weather was bad, we couldn’t drive them properly. So, we abandoned the scooters halfway and went up walking. However, while climbing up, we got hit by an avalanche, and all of us got buried inside. When the avalanche subsided, I realized that my whole body was buried inside and I couldn’t move an inch. Luckily, one of our teammates was only buried below the waist. He managed to free himself and rescued all of us. We decided to return to our post and to resume the rescue mission next morning as the weather was bad. Moreover, we were tired and scared too,” recalls Stanzin.

The next morning, they went to rescue them. Upon reaching the site, they realized that all five were buried inside the tent. They uncovered the snow and found that only two of them were alive.

The survivors were immediately flown down to the army hospital for resuscitation. A year later, all of them were bestowed with commendation certificates on army day in Akhnoor.

Stanzin does admit to the pain of seeing soldiers and colleagues losing their lives as he went up to retrieve their bodies. In February 2016, when the 40-year-old porter Thukjey Gyasket fell into a crevasse, Padma was immediately flown in to be a part of the team that recovered his body since the army rescue team couldn’t find him.

“The crevasse was so narrow that I could barely fit through it. I think the other rescue team couldn’t pass through it and hardly imagined that the Gyasket must have passed through it. I saw his body lying deep down the crevasse. The injuries were severe, and seeing his body did pain me. However, there have been occasions as well when I was involved in saving the lives of soldiers who had fallen critically ill in the nick of time,” he says.

“Stanzin is a multi-faceted chap. Despite his position as the head porter there, he handled a whole host of other things as well like repairing small generators stationed in each post and snow scooters, which are the lifeline for our soldiers serving there. Besides having technical knowledge of such equipment, it’s tough to work on them in those inhospitable conditions. But whenever a generator went bad, he would come with me and repair them all through the day. He also held a good command over all the porters working there. At those heights, people are in danger all the time. The other person has to really trust you with his life to listen to you. He earned the trust of the people there. He was definitely among the most important assets we had there,” says the senior army officer.

After working as a porter in Siachen for nearly a decade, Stanzin took up work with a trekking agency and even served as a manager of a Nubra-based hotel. He continues to work in the tourism sector, while also starting as a contractor.

“Despite the pride, I found working as a porter with the Indian Army; the fact is our job is not well recognized, and civilians don’t care about us. I feel that if we get the facility to cast our vote through postal ballot while we are working as porters at the glacier, I think our politicians will take care of us. Well, I am hopeful at least,” says Stanzin.

(With valuable inputs from Dr. Nordan Otzer)

(Edited by Vinayak Hegde)

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Gurmet Angmo was 11 years old when she first saw a light bulb on a trip to Leh. Living in the Ladakhi countryside, she recalls how their entire day centred around sunlight, which grew shorter during the winter months. After coming back from school, she would run back to help her parents on the farm. Once work on the farm was done, she rushed back home to finish her homework and help with cooking dinner before sunset.

Once it got dark, parents wouldn’t allow any of their children to step out because that’s when wild animals like snow leopards, Ibex, bharals and the Tibetan wolves would move around.

She remembers seeing that light bulb and thinking about the endless possibilities it presented for her remote village of Sumda Chenmo in the picturesque yet remote Markha Valley. Could fellow villagers now overcome the darkness that draws down on the village once the sun sets?

Thanks to that memory, 36-year-old Gurmet Angmo is today a solar engineer working with the Global Himalayan Expedition (GHE), “a for-profit enterprise dedicated to the development of remote Himalayan communities through sustainable tourism and technology.” Despite not finishing high school, she has been involved in electrifying over 50 villages in Ladakh and Meghalaya with solar power.

GHE is among the first organisations in the world to use tourism and technology to bring solar energy to remote communities. Founded by electrical engineer Paras Loomba in 2013, the for-profit entity conducts what they call ‘Impact Expeditions’ to remote Himalayan villages, for which they charge a ‘per-head’ fee.

They use “a portion of the expedition fee to fund the capital cost of the hardware, transportation, installation and training of village-scale solar micro-grids. The micro-grid infrastructure set up by GHE is owned and operated by the community,” according to United Nations Climate Change. It won the 2020 UN Global Climate Change Action Award.

Early Days, Marriage, Finding Herself

Despite her intense love for science, accessing quality school education was difficult. Besides the poor state of school infrastructure, it was a struggle even getting a teacher who would teach there permanently. Once she finished primary school, Gurmet left her family behind and went to Leh in search for better education.

Unable to study past matriculation, her desire for an independent life saw her searching for a government job, a primary source of employment in Ladakh alongside tourism. However, there weren’t any jobs forthcoming.

“After a couple of years without work, I got married to Rinchen Namgyal, a carpenter. Soon after our marriage, we had our first child, and my focus soon shifted to taking care of my daughter. We had another daughter a couple of years later. However, things began to really change when my brother, Tsering Dorjay, who was working with GHE at the time, told me about the organisation in 2015. Understanding my desire for financial independence and love for science, he asked me whether I would be interested in attending a six-month solar engineering training course in Rajasthan. After speaking to my family, who encouraged me, I decided to take it up,” says Gurmet, speaking to The Better India.
In the following year, leaving behind both her daughters (3 and 10 years old at the time) with the family, she took off for a six-month training course at the Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan, which works in partnership with GHE.

“The initial three months were quite tough for me. It was difficult adjusting to spicy food and living with people from different parts of the world. There were doubts about whether I could even complete the course. However, my focus on work helped me overcome those concerns. It was easy when we worked on batteries and solar panels compared to assembling a circuit which requires close attention to detail. However, with the right concentration and effort, I learnt pretty quickly that as well,” says Gurmet.

She was trained to build, install, maintain, and repair solar electrification systems in off-grid villages, besides learning how to set up a ‘Rural Electronic Workshop’ (REW) to store components and equipment needed for the repair and maintenance of the solar units.

Upon her return to Ladakh after completing the six-month course, her first assignment was electrifying the Sumda Chun monastery. This was followed by electrifying the Lingshed village in October 2017.

Getting there involves a six-hour trek.

Their task was to electrify 97 households of the village in 10 days. Working with another colleague, however, Gurmet completed the task in nine days. Equipment for the same came from the Barefoot College, which she made during her training course there.

“Initially, I was worried and anxious about whether these solar sets were functioning properly. After two months, the feedback I received from people who had passed by the village was good. They said the solar sets were functioning quite well. After their feedback, I heaved a sigh of relief and felt encouraged to do more,” she says.

Moving forward

“Before installing a solar set, we consult the household asking them about their energy requirements, the number of bulbs in their homes, etc. Once those elements are discussed, we begin work on the battery. We fix the charge controller and then connect the battery. We then connect them with the panel on the roof, following which we fix the wiring. Meanwhile, the panel gets charged. Then we install the wiring in whatever rooms that need to be electrified. When the panel gets charged, we test the functionality of the newly installed system,” says Gurmet, briefly describing the process of installing a solar set.

Besides electrifying villages working in partnership with GHE, she has also been hired by the government as part of schemes like Saubhagya launched in 2017. As part of this Central government scheme to provide electricity to all households, the local power development department (PDD) were looking for solar electricians like Gurmet who could install solar systems in remote villages. “Her experience and training not only helped her earn money through GHE but also through government-sanctioned projects,” says Paras.

Last year, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma of Meghalaya, asked GHE to electrify a few villages in the state after reading up on their work in Ladakh.

“We went to villages in the South Garo Hills, and that was a game-changer. Initially, Gurmet was hesitant about travelling so far away from home. So, we got our head engineer from Chuchot, Shakir Hussain, along with a few of our colleagues, to travel with her. We electrified about four villages there, and Gurmet even trained a few women there,” recalls Paras.

“The trip was quite an adventure for me. Everything — from the landscape and the climate to the language and food — was completely unfamiliar. But I realised soon enough that all villages in India have at least one thing in common: People are full of gratitude and warmth for visitors. So I felt right at home in a place I had never visited before. Here too, the women were surprised and happy to see another woman install solar microgrids to light up the lives of entire communities,” writes Gurmet for the Voices of Rural India publication.

Meanwhile, she tells The Better India about how she inspired women there to take up similar initiatives. “There was a girl who could speak broken Hindi, who wanted to know how I did my work. I guided young girls like here through the process. In fact, another girl who accompanied me during the trip later went for training to Rajasthan,” she recalls.

In total, they electrified about 80 households over the course of 10-15 days. There were plans of going to Nepal this year, but the pandemic halted their plans.

When asked about how solar engineers working with GHE are remunerated, Paras is at pains to emphasise that they don’t share an employer-employee relationship.

“The idea is to empower locals to become entrepreneurs. Whenever there is an expedition, we pay her daily. Depending on whether it’s 14 or 20 days, we pay solar engineers like Gurmet above Rs 2,000 per day. In one tourist season, she earns anywhere between Rs 30,000-Rs 40,000 per month. Each season lasts about five to six months. During the offseason, we ask Gurmet to help us maintain solar units in these villages. For maintenance work, we pay her anywhere between Rs 1500 to Rs 2000 per day,” he says.

That money for maintenance comes from GHE and the villages they have electrified.

“Every village we electrify holds a joint account, where residents pool in their money to maintain their solar units. Eight months back, Gurmet went to a remote village near Pangong lake, where she electrified 35 households. She was also able to sell 10 LED light bulbs there as well. In places outside Ladakh, like Meghalaya, where we are planning to retake her this coming January, she is paid Rs 3,000 per day,” Paras goes on to add.

Thanks to the income Gurmet has earned over the years; she has been able to open a stationery shop-cum service centre for solar lights in Saboo village.

“GHE has paid me well. We had to construct a house and build this shop, and the money I earned from these projects helped me pay for them. This has also left me feeling self-sufficient. They pay me based on the number of the days I work,” she says.

Throughout this entire journey, she credits her husband Rinchen Namgyal, for his unflinching support. “When I work, he sends the children to school, cooks and takes care of the shop. I am grateful to him for his relentless support. He says ‘my priority is your happiness and I am here to support and take care of you. So, do what you like doing the best. If it’s hard, then don’t do it.’ He is a simple yet very thoughtful man,” she says.

Inspiration for others

Gurmet’s message to other women struggling with the formal education system and unable to find work, but willing to make something of their lives, is simple. “Don’t just rely on education. Government jobs are limited, and you must do something on your own. And if you have a burning desire to do something, you can do it. There’s nothing impossible if we just dare to do it. We just need to take that first step,” she says.

Meanwhile, she also has plans of converting her home into one run entirely by solar power.

“Despite her lack of formal education, her intellect and aptitude are incredible. Given the opportunity and the right ecosystem, small entrepreneurs like her can really thrive. She has incredible self-belief and a sincere sense of how to conduct business. For Ladakh, she can be a real asset training other women who don’t have access to quality formal education, but want to make something of themselves,” says Paras.

(With valuable inputs from Namgail Angmo)

(Edited by Vinayak Hegde)

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How does a man from Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh find a home in Ladakh? Meet 36-year-old architect Sandeep Bogadhi, the founder of ‘Earthling Ladakh’, who is on a mission to promote buildings made entirely of natural and locally-sourced materials.

It has been more than seven years since he first came to Ladakh. Shuttling between Leh and Nubra, Earthling Ladakh has constructed eight natural buildings that include hotels, boutiques, restaurants and homes as well, while five are still under construction. He is also constructing his own home, studio and workshop space in Disket village, Nubra. He is also training and employing local Ladakhi masons and other artisans for a myriad of different projects in the region.

From Visakhapatnam to Ladakh, Via Assam

Born and raised in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, Bogadhi studied at the prestigious School of Planning and Architecture (SPA) in New Delhi before entering the workforce. Despite regular stints with different architectural firms in Delhi and Bengaluru, he was tired of working out of studios, sitting in front of a computer and working with a fixed material palette highlighted by concrete. He was desperate for a change.

“While designing in a studio, there is a disconnect with the material that is eventually used to build a structure. It’s more like a modelling exercise we do on software. Once you move away from the city, the material palette suddenly changes, and that affects your design. This is why I wanted to move away from cities and work in more rural settings where the material and design you employ addresses the local context,” says Bogadhi, in an exclusive conversation with The Better India.

So, he quit city life in 2012. After a brief, yet unsuccessful stint in rural Assam, he received a call from one of his professors from SPA in 2013 to work on a project in Ladakh.

Located in Nimoo village, which lies about 30 km from Leh, Bogadhi and his professor were tasked with restoring a 100-year-old building and converting it into a boutique hotel. Called the Nimoo House project, they used locally available material like mud, stone and wood. Most of the material was sourced near the site.

Why The Past?

In Ladakh’s past, homes were predominantly made of materials like mud, stone and wood. But that past has largely been taken over by concrete jungles, particularly in Leh.

“Traditional Ladakhi houses won’t make sense if those traditions don’t really exist anymore. If people don’t live that pastoral lifestyle, I don’t understand why they would need a traditional Ladakhi home. Although I do refer to traditional practices, designs and source material locally, my architecture is more about adaptability to the requirements of today’s generation and the local ecology,” says Bogadhi.

“When it comes to Ladakh, there are a lot of houses which are dilapidated or unused. In response, people build new concrete houses. It’s important to understand that the old vernacular architecture of Ladakh was not flexible enough to change with the aspirations of people today. Their lifestyles have changed. It’s not like that the new generation doesn’t like the old buildings their grandparents lived in. They just don’t prefer living in them because their lifestyles have changed,” argues Bogadhi.

The ground floor design of traditional Ladakhi homes, where cattle and livestock were once stored, didn’t make sense nowadays. Going further, the pattern of having a winter kitchen on the first floor and summer kitchen on the second didn’t make sense because many residents don’t spend the winters there.

In Nimoo House, they added new components like a library instead. Architecture, he argues, is not just about being sustainable or organic, but also adaptable. In different homes, a particular space that families built 50 years ago may not be useful today. Still, an architect must be flexible enough to repurpose it instead of breaking the whole structure down.

Finding a Home in Ladakh

Once the project was over, his thoughts shifted to finding new work. Unfortunately, during his stint in Nimoo, he did not establish a social network that would have helped him line up a couple of more projects. But he couldn’t withstand the allure of staying back. In the following year, while looking for projects, he worked in a rafting company, doing rescue work.

After the summer of 2015, a few residents of Nubra who had heard about his work in Nimoo House approached him, and the rest, as they say, is history.

“The material palette in Ladakh is not very elaborate. Essentially, you have earth, wood (predominantly poplar and willow) and stone to work with that are available in different parts of Ladakh, but in different colours and forms. With a keen understanding of the principles of load-bearing, I found it very easy to rearrange these materials. More importantly, what really kept me in Ladakh was its stunning landscape. For an architect, when we construct a building in a city, it usually gets lost among other concrete structures. When I see the beautiful landscape in Ladakh, my challenge is to make a structure that complements it visually and ecologically,” notes Bogadhi.

Looking at his structures, one does notice that the colours and material fit the landscape well. That’s also the reason why he doesn’t take up projects in Leh town because that context of a beautiful landscape doesn’t quite exist and it has turned into a concrete jungle.

Natural Materials

In the Journal of Landscape Architecture, Bogadhi describes the materials he employs.

Earth is the base material across all the projects, since earth is the single, logical and obvious material available at every site, in fact everywhere on the planet. Often dug out from the site, and other soils are added from the proximity to get the desired mix. Stone is used as a complimenting material to earth, which brings contrast, and identity to the volume. Most of the stone is redundant from the road-building department who build extensively in Ladakh, being a border area. Flat stones are extensively used as hard, dry surfaces, pitched without any mortar. Wood is primarily used in roofs, just like in the traditional buildings in Ladakh. For every tree cut in the roof construction, we plant ten new trees of the same species in the site.

Why the emphasis on natural materials?

“My building should outlive me and future generations. That’s why I choose natural materials on the outside and inside. Although many traditional homes in Old Leh lie in ruins, you can see they’ve aged gracefully. These buildings have been truthfully made in terms of material and purpose. I don’t use concrete because it’s not durable. Buildings made of natural materials last longer, but only if they’re done with integrity and abide by the principles of construction. It’s not just about the material, but craftsmanship as well,” he says.

Most homes that Bogadhi works on take cognisance of the fact that Ladakh lies on the ‘High Damage Risk Zone’ of seismic zone IV. In other words, a region susceptible to earthquakes. In September, the region was struck by a series of low-intensity earthquakes.

This was something the older generations understood. In the old natural buildings, we observe wooden seismic bands along the outside walls.

“A ring beam, or seismic band, helps tie the walls [often made of mud or stone]. It is one of the essential components of earthquake resistance for load-bearing construction. It prevents the distortion or displacement of walls in the event of an earthquake. Timber lacing provides added tensile strength to the walls to prevent the development of vertical cracks,” notes researcher Bhawana Dandona in this 2006 paper for the University of Pennsylvania.

“I use the same technique in a modern way where the stone is much more handcrafted as compared to older times. We are looking back at tradition but also modifying it for the modern context. A lot of stress is given on refined craftsmanship. Once there is a certain edge in craft, an architect’s design can really appeal to a consumer’s aspirations,” argues Bogadhi.

Finding The Materials

Meanwhile, the material is sourced from the vicinity of the site only upto 1.5 km. By sourcing material from the immediate vicinity, a client’s home becomes unique in its own right. If someone wants to replicate this design elsewhere, it won’t make sense because that particular type of mud or stone isn’t available there.

Bogadhi also believes this means people don’t have to stress about making elaborate designs or buying expensive materials. This approach is beneficial for the architect and client as well.

“Today, a good quality earth building is 25% more expensive than a cement structure. This is due to the limited workforce acquainted with earth construction techniques. However, once earth construction becomes mainstream and scales up, the cost should be the same. Natural materials are reusable. In a way, an earth structure will always be cheaper in the long run, whereas once a concrete structure falls apart, you end up dumping the leftover material elsewhere. This adds to the garbage problem. With natural buildings, you can bring down the whole structure and rebuild it with the same material. These structures also have great insular properties, which is particularly important for Ladakhis, who experience extreme temperatures. Mud buildings, for example, heat up very slowly during the day and release heat into the room slowly at night,” observes Bogadhi.

Techniques and Tradition

Earthling Ladakh primarily employs rammed earth technique in their structures with a greater emphasis on craftsmanship. Bogadhi has three local Ladakhi masons who work with him, and all of them work hands-on. On occasions, they construct some walls mixing rammed earth with some wood or stone.

It’s not merely about the technique, but also the aesthetic quality. They also adopt random stone masonry or random rubble, which works well in high seismic zones. It has the flexibility to rearrange the parts within a structure during an earthquake.

What can young architects from Ladakh learn from tradition?

“There are some great things about tradition, like how they adapted to the local geography and climate. These buildings really adapted to the seasons, lifestyle and maintained a real balance with the immediate ecology. Settlements, for example, in this cold desert, grew around water sources. Today, there is very little concern about how your homes must adapt to the natural surroundings. People are building homes on flatlands far away from a water source. This is something young architects in Ladakh really need to understand and change. The region survived on the principle of adaptation. People mustn’t forget,” says Bogadhi.

(Edited by Vinayak Hegde)

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Chushul is a very remote village which lies barely 4 km from the Line of Actual Control (LAC) south of the famous Pangong lake in the Changthang region of eastern Ladakh.

At the centre of the recent flare-up along the LAC, the people of Chushul are often the first to suffer the consequences with key modes of communication with the outside world cut off and grazing land lost to the westward spread of Chinese forces.

It’s not like the situation is any better when tensions don’t flare up with shoddy 2G connectivity and only a few hours of electricity supply at this village. Despite their troubles, the people of Chushul are, in the words of their Councillor, Konchok Stanzin, “the government’s eyes and ears there”. They notice everything that goes on along the LAC.

So, when 42-year-old Dr Jigmet Wangchuk, a medical officer with more than a decade of government service, received his transfer order on 27 July 2020 to the PHC (primary health centre)  Chushul, some of his friends and family members saw it as a ‘punishment posting’. Before his transfer there, he had been serving at the COVID-19 designated Mahabodhi Karuna Charitable Hospital near Leh.

“I was astonished to witness the attitude of these people. Contrary to their perception, I was not depressed. In fact, I was really motivated to do some good work and pledged to inspire younger doctors to work in these peripheral regions. There are many doctors and specialists available in Leh city, but people of peripheral regions don’t have access to their services,” says Dr Jigmet, speaking to The Better India.

Within months of his posting there, Medical Officer Dr Jigmet has transformed a once dilapidated PHC into a model health centre while simultaneously treating COVID-19 patients and volunteering to assist our armed forces along the LAC. Here is how this native of Skurbuchan village, which lies 125 km from Leh, made all this happen.

Getting to zero COVID-19 patients

Constructed in the early 1990s, the PHC in Chushul has long served the people inhabiting these remote corners of Eastern Ladakh. However, upon joining there, Dr Jigmet found a centre in an utterly dilapidated situation. Forget the fact that the X-Ray machine had been out of order for the past two years, besides the lack of other basic medical equipment, the centre was in serious need of plastering, whitewashing and painting as well.

Meanwhile, he had also recently come to know that the National Health Mission (NHM) under the Central government’s health ministry, had earmarked PHC Chushul among many PHCs of UT (Union Territory) Ladakh for an upgrade to a Health & Wellness Centre as per their Ayushman Bharat programme. Before his arrival, the NHM had sanctioned the first instalment of funds for said purpose but due to COVID-19 and distance from Leh, it became very difficult to obtain logistics and manpower to renovate the hospital.

“With real difficulty, we managed to find a mason and three labourers and started work. Motivated by the efforts of these labourers, the entire PHC staff also offered their assistance. We had to complete our renovation work by the end of October. With the onset of a biting winter season ahead, we had a short window to complete our work. However, a few days after this renovation work had commenced, I suspected one of the patients who had come to our PHC of having COVID-19. I immediately conducted a Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) and he came back positive. We had to screen the entire staff since most of them had come into contact with him. Three staff members tested positive,” recalls Dr Jigmet.

After rigorous contact tracing, they discovered more cases. They were shifted to dedicated COVID-19 care centres at a government school and a few rooms belong to the local wildlife department. Today, however, the PHC has a proper eight-bed COVID care centre containing two beds in their ICU with ventilators, cardiac monitors and oxygen concentrators. Since the onset of the pandemic, the PHC has reported 66 cases of COVID-19 (57 locals and nine non-locals).

While most cases were asymptomatic, there was an old lady who came in with respiratory distress. She was cared for at the PHC and discharged just a couple of days back. All the other cases were isolated and managed as per the government’s COVID-19 guidelines.

“While we were struggling with the pandemic, we never let our renovation work suffer and continued slowly and steadily. We hired a painter for re-painting and distempering work on the walls was done by the staff. Meanwhile, none of the staff here were trained to conduct RAT test and sampling for RT-PCR Test. I trained them in batches and today most of our staff are experts in these procedures. We have been able to control the COVID-19 situation here thanks to the dedication and utmost enthusiasm of the staff working here. Whenever we needed it, equipment and other logistics were provided by the Health Department, for which we are deeply thankful to the UT Administration,” says Dr Jigmet.

There are no active COVID-19 cases at present in Chushul.

“From his previous experience at the Mahabodhi Hospital, he understood what was needed to contain COVID-19. He went door-to-door raising awareness, conducted thorough contact tracing exercises, tested all possible contacts extensively, supervised those who tested positive, gained the trust of the people and did a great job managing the cases in his own jurisdiction. Having said that, our PHC still needs some oxygen concentrators and there are some heating issues as well,” Councillor Konchik Stanzin.

Arming the staff with the right tools

In transforming the PHC, he especially credits the assistance offered by the chief medical officer (CMO) of Leh district, Dr. Motup Dorje. According to Dr Jigmet, he played a pivotal role in providing the PHC with the required funds and logistics to purchase and obtain medical equipment like ventilators, cardiac monitors, oxygen concentrators, ICU beds, electronic ECG machines and extra oxygen cylinders for the PHC. In addition, Dr Dorjay also ensured that the PHC got sufficient quantities of PPE kits, RAT kits and VTM tubes.

The renovation work, which began in mid-August, was completed by the end of October.

Meanwhile, Dr Jigmet got the X-Ray machine, which was almost defunct for almost two years, repaired recently, besides upgrading the laboratory in which most of their basic blood and urine tests are conducted. Under his stewardship, the PHC has also procured a refrigerator where they store various medicines and reagents at optimum temperatures.

“Today, we also have an electric operated labour/delivery table with LED OT lights in the labour room where normal deliveries are being conducted. Recently, we conducted a delivery of a pregnant mother who was COVID-19 positive under all the safety guidelines. Both the mother and child are safe. We have a fully functional dental OPD as well, which is managed by our dental assistant,” says Dr Jigmet.

Dr Jigmet is adamant that none of his work at the PHC would have been possible without his 18-member strong staff, which includes three doctors (one allopathic, two Tibetan medicine), three nurses, two ANMs (Auxiliary Nurse Midwives), technicians, orderlies, among others.

Spirit of public service

Meanwhile, Dr Jigmet also had to perform three postmortems, including that of the Late Nyima Tenzin, a soldier of the seven Vikas battalion of the Special Frontier Force, who was recently killed in the line of duty during the recent border stand-off with China.

“Before COVID-19, we would get 20-25 patients on a daily basis but since the first cases were detected here, this number has decreased. I utilised that time to visit our soldiers along the LAC on three occasions delivering medicines, water and kerosene. Having said that, we generally get patients of osteoarthritis, respiratory problems, hypertension, antenatal cases and people with a variety of dental problems. We provide free ambulance services for senior citizens for consultations, while pregnant ladies also receive the same for deliveries as well. We got the first instalment of Rs 2,50,000 fund for the renovation work while awaiting the second instalment of the same amount,” he says.

Konchok Stanzin, Councillor of Chushul, is all praise for Dr Jigmet’s work.

“Dr Jigment Wangchuk and his entire team have completely changed the entire scenario of Chushul Primary Health Centre within a short span of time. They have completely transformed it. I have never seen such a dedicated officer and team. In fact, both the doctor and his team were involved in labour work. I am glad that I could help deliver an ambulance and some construction-related material to this hospital. However, more needs to be done in the coming year for Chushul, which lies nearly 15,000 ft above sea level. I recommend greater official recognition for Dr Jigmet,” he says.

Dr Jigmet shares that he has only one objective.

“I want to provide the possible healthcare facilities to the poor living in this remote place. I have seen that healthcare infrastructure in remote areas needs total revamping to make them functional. Patients from these parts shouldn’t find the need to visit Leh for even minor ailments. This will be the main objective of my professional career wherever I am posted in the future. I am proud to be a healthcare worker,” he says.

(Edited by Yoshita Rao)

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Years from now, when the history of snow leopard conservation in Ladakh is written, two names will shine brighter than the rest—Rinchen Wangchuk, the late co-founder of Snow Leopard Conservancy India Trust (SLC-IT) and Dr Tsewang Namgail (46), the current director of SLC-IT and, arguably, Ladakh’s most accomplished wildlife scientist.

Image above of Rinchen Wangchuk (Left) and Dr. Tsewang Namgail (Right)

It’s impossible to overstate their incredible contributions towards protecting the snow leopard, an apex predator that plays a critical role in maintaining Ladakh’s ecological integrity. From starting India’s first successful community-based snow leopard conservation effort through the promotion of homestays to educating Ladakh’s masses about this
elusive cat, they have rendered yeoman service to the cause.

In the arms of Mother Nature

Rinchen Wangchuk, the son of Colonel Chewang Rinchen, a decorated Indian Army soldier honoured with two Maha Vir Chakras, grew up in the serene village of Sumur in Nubra.

“As a young boy, I grew up chasing Lynxes and going out with herders. I was always drawn to outdoor life and mountaineering. In high school, I started taking Western groups climbing some of the 6,000-metre peaks we have here. As a mountaineer, I got drawn more to the beautiful wonders of Ladakh’s rich biodiversity and tracking snow leopards and wolves. This led to me becoming a nature guide. I began leading some wildlife documentary film groups that came here to film snow leopards. From there, I got more involved with the scientific community,” says Rinchen in this short documentary.

Meanwhile, Dr Tsewang Namgail grew up in the remote yet picturesque village of Skubuchan, which lies about 125 km from Leh. Until he was nine, he studied with fellow village children out in the open amidst nature without a classroom.

“That really exposed me to wildlife and my natural surroundings. On weekdays, I would go to school, while the weekends were spent herding sheep and goats on higher pastures. These experiences exposed me to wildlife, including the snow leopard. As a child herder, I had lost a few sheep and goats to snow leopards. Until I left my village, I never really experienced a formal upbringing, particularly when it came to education since our teachers wouldn’t attend regularly,” recalls Dr Namgail, speaking to The Better India.

Despite Rinchen’s quaint early upbringing in Sumur, his father’s vocation meant travelling to different parts of India and changing schools regularly. After completing his graduation from Delhi, he returned to Ladakh in the late 1990s to work with the International Snow Leopard Trust as a field associate, conducting various surveys.

“Alongside colleagues like Jigmet Dadul (one of India’s leading Snow Leopard naturalists and trackers), we would spend entire winters living in tents and monitoring snow leopards. This was when we realised the plight of rural communities that had to co-exist with this beautiful animal. As beautiful and enigmatic as this animal was to us, it caused a lot of nuisance to farm communities. While earning an income working as a naturalist, I wanted to do something for these communities. It began with volunteering to survey the proposed high-altitude Hemis National Park. I realised that we needed a long term local solution to the problem. It became imperative that we find incentive-based conservation initiatives to help farmers and get them involved in conservation efforts,” says Rinchen in the short documentary.

Dr Namgail took a different route. After completing his MSc in Zoology from Panjab University, he obtained an MSc in Wildlife Biology from the University of Tromso, Norway, and PhD in Wildlife Ecology from the Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Following his stint in Europe, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) for three years before returning to Ladakh in 2013.

Protecting the Community

As a field associate, Rinchen Wangchuk framed a question that would address the fundamental challenge of snow leopard conservation. How do you reconcile the notion of snow leopard conservation with the needs of local communities who lose their livestock, particularly sheep and goats, to these elusive creatures? Snow leopards were predominantly suffering retaliatory killings at the hands of these communities. Today, there are a little over 250 snow leopards left in Ladakh.

“On one hand, we have an obligation to conserve these animals, while on the other, they pose a genuine threat to livelihoods. In the early days, there were times when I would visit some of these remote villages in the Hemis National Park with Rinchen Wangchuk as an independent wildlife researcher and speak to them about the conservation of these animals. They would stand surprised at our desire to protect an animal they despised, and even name our organisation after it,” recalls Dr Namgail.

To address these concerns, Rinchen established the SLC-IT in 2000 (registered in 2003) alongside Dr Rodney Jackson of the US-based Snow Leopard Conservancy (SLC), to promote local efforts towards community-based conservation efforts. Until 2010-11, the SLC-IT worked as an affiliate of the SLC, before turning independent.

“One step the SLC-IT took is to secure corrals that housed the livestock. Rinchen understood that retributive killings of snow leopards often took place due to multiple livestock killings when the predators managed to enter poorly constructed corrals. We would supply wire mesh to cover the roof of their livestock pens, wooden beams to hold the wire mesh, and material to strengthen their door and door frames to secure the livestock. Sometimes, we encourage them to build entire corrals made of stone from scratch because their livestock pens are attached to their homes, and they are difficult to repair,” says Dr Namgail.

Since its start in 2000, the SLC-IT has helped build more than 200 livestock corrals across Ladakh. However, this initiative’s biggest success story to develop predator-proof livestock enclosures is in Zanskar, where the programme began in 2011. Some of these villages are really remote, and transporting this material is very difficult. These corrals serve entire villages and not just individual households.

“Around 5,000 people have directly benefited from these corrals overall. We estimated that for every 1 corral we build, which can last for 60-70 years, we could save at least 2 snow leopards. This is a very rough estimate based on the frequency with which people kill snow leopards inside their corrals. We always build these corrals in partnership with these communities. Local villagers provide on-site materials like stone and brick. Villages that have trees provide the wooden beams that support the steel mesh on the top. In villages with no trees, we provide them with wooden beams and material for door frames. They build these corrals, while we supply off-site materials and facilitate the process,” he says.

Most of these corral projects are located in the Sham Valley, Rong Valley in Changthang, Zanskar, and some in Nubra like in the very remote Digar-Tangyar rural areas. The SLC-IT also runs a voluntary programme for school and college students from around the world called VolunTourism.

Students spend a week to 10 days in remote villages across Ladakh and help build individual corrals while living with local families and learning about their culture.

Once they helped them build these structures, the next step was to soften local communities’ attitudes towards snow leopards. In 2003, the SLC-IT under the leadership of Rinchen started the pioneering Himalayan Homestay Programme in Rumbak Valley of the Hemis National Park to help villagers offset the financial loss they suffered after losing livestock to snow leopards. At the time, Dr Namgail was researching the Tibetan Argali (wild mountain sheep) and visiting these parts with Rinchen Wangchuk.

“It was actually some of the women in Rumbak village who first proposed this local homestay model to Rinchen. They suggested ‘instead of camping out and littering the place, why can’t tourists live with us inside our homes instead?’ If tourists stay at their homes, they can avoid the trouble of carrying a lot of the camping gear on horses that were grazing on the same pastures as the vulnerable Tibetan Argali and eating up all their food. The SLC-IT also conducted a survey among tourists and locals in the area whether such a model would be acceptable to them,” says Dr Namgail.

So far, the SLC-IT has helped establish 200+ homestays across Sham Valley, Rong Valley and Zanskar. These homestays are in critical snow leopard habitats or along popular trekking routes. Residents are earning anywhere between Rs 15,000 to Rs 2.5 lakh per season (tourist season lasts about six months) depending on the location and popularity of trekking routes. Besides homestays, the SLC-IT encourages the sale of local handicraft products that tourists can take home as souvenirs, creating Eco Cafes serving local delicacies along trekking routes and provision of solar water heaters.

“Conservation-linked homestays were first started in Ladakh and then slowly took off in other areas of the Himalayas. It became a good way of obtaining the support of local communities in snow leopard conservation. It was not snow leopards who were at risk of losing their lives to herders, but wolves as well. The same people who killed these predators in the past are now inviting tourists to their villages to see snow leopards and other wild critters. These homestays were first started in Rumbak in the Hemis National Park, which the state wildlife department took over in 2006,” says Dr Namgail.

“Under Rinchen’s guidance and leadership, the team at SLC-IT developed one of the most successful models of community-based tourism in the Hemis National Park, the Sham region of Ladakh and Zanskar. The Ladakh Himalayan Homestays programme helped the poorest families in villages along popular trekking routes earn an income from tourism. This helped, in part, to offset to a certain extent the economic losses incurred when their livestock was predated upon by snow leopards and Tibetan wolves and fuelled attitudinal changes of villagers towards predators,” writes Sujata Padmanabhan, for Sanctuary Asia, in a tribute to Rinchen, who passed away on 26 March 2011 at the age of 42.

Over the years, many experts contend that there has been a complete shift in local attitudes towards snow leopards in the last 10-15 years. Converting these angry farmers into active conservationists is a significant achievement. Today locals scan the higher reaches to see whether a mother snow leopard has given birth to cubs or not in positive anticipation.

“However, occasional killing on high pastures persisted. To resolve this, SLC-IT started a community-controlled livestock insurance program, whereby the villagers collected premiums from insured animals, and SLC-IT provided a matching fund to create a corpus. The villagers then got compensated from the corpus, which keeps growing in the bank,” notes this story in the Vikalp Sangam publication.

Another facet of their conservation effort was developing a biodiversity resource kit for schools in Ladakh called the Ri-Gyancha meaning ‘jewels of the mountains’ in Ladakhi about a decade ago, alongside Kalpavriksh, a Pune-based NGO.

“The kit contains information about biodiversity, ecosystems, Ladakh’s wildlife, threats faced and conservation actions. It also contains detailed descriptions of 80 activities that can be conducted as part of the program. The kit is illustrated with many photographs and drawings and is in full colour to make it appealing to teachers and children. It includes ready-to-use educational materials such as posters, a board game, card games, worksheets and puzzles,” notes the SLC-IT website.

They also conduct regular workshops in schools and colleges in Leh and Kargil to spread awareness about Ladakh’s biodiversity and help youngsters understand the role of ungulates or snow leopards in maintaining the region’s ecological integrity.

Other Initiatives

Since Rinchen’s passing on at the age of 42 because of a deteriorating neurological condition, Dr Namgail has carried on his mentor’s work. However, between 2011 and 2013, the SLC-IT went through a period of real uncertainty.

It was a serendipitous meeting with the outgoing director in Leh Bazaar during his holidays in 2013, which got him to stay and take over the SLC-IT reins. “It was a difficult decision because I had a good thing going in the US, but at some point, I always wanted to come home and do something for these animals that I held so dearly. After much thought, I took over because Rinchen was such a good friend and mentor to me,” he says.

Since taking over, he has only strengthened the SLC-IT’s initiatives across Ladakh.

“In the early years, Rinchen found it difficult to obtain funding. Whatever initiative he envisioned and started, it was on a smaller scale. In my view, Dr Tsewang Namgail is Ladakh’s most accomplished wildlife scientist. Over the years, he has conducted critical scientific research on not just the snow leopard. Moreover, he has expanded the scale and scope of SLC-IT’s work, particularly in Zanskar and the upper Indus river belt,” says Khenrab Phuntsog, a wildlife guard in Hemis National Park, to The Better India.

During his tenure, he has started a series of initiatives, particularly from 2015 onwards. He started the monastic education programme. SLC-IT apprises Buddhist monks, nuns and religious heads of all the major conservation issues and the wild animals that are threatened or endangered. In return, they impart the message of conservation through the lens of Buddhist principles like inter-dependence and non-violence to their followers.

They have also engaged local villagers in surveying wild animals around their villages and the higher pastures where they take livestock to graze. For the past five years on Snow Leopard Day, these villagers have been going up on the mountains conducting surveys and recording whatever they have roaming in these areas. These findings go into creating a biodiversity profile of the respective villages. The SLC-IT is in the process of analysing all the data that has been collected in the past five years. The results will be published in a local publication sometime next year.

Also, as reported in The Better India, Ladakh has struggled with an explosion of feral dogs, threatening both people and the local wildlife. This is a human-made problem.

“We have realised that spaying and neutering these dogs may help in the short term, but in the long run, unless we manage the wet waste which is being created mostly by tourism and the military, we won’t succeed in managing the problem well. Last year, we developed a biodigester prototype to produce biogas at military camps funded by the United Nations Development Programme under their Secure Himalaya Project. We set up one at a paramilitary camp in Choglamsar area of Leh, housing the unit inside a greenhouse. We showed them that this biogas digester could operate in winters as well,” says Dr Namgail.

But the question is whether the armed forces have the will to assist conservation efforts. In remote areas right alongside the border where the military is camped, there are endangered species like the Wild Yak, Tibetan Antelope, Snow Leopard and Black-Necked Crane under threat from these feral dogs. This is why they must act soon.

Meanwhile, the struggle goes on for the likes of Dr Namgail, who carries forward Rinchen’s legacy. “After all, protecting and conserving the snow leopard in particular and wildlife in general is my life long mission,” he says.

(Edited by Vinayak Hegde)

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When 24-year-old Zulikha Bano found out last month that she was the first woman from her native Balti community in Ladakh to graduate from law school, her heart was filled with pride.

(Image above of Zulikha Bano on the left and her sisters on the right.)

From the border village of Bogdang in Nubra Valley, Zulikha finished her five-year LLB course from the Libra College of Law, Dehradun (affiliated to HNB Garhwal Central University).

“Initially, I wasn’t aware of my achievement as the first female law graduate from the Balti community in Ladakh. Once my final year results were announced, I began receiving congratulatory messages on social media. I was surprised to receive this news but was also immensely happy. Upon reflection, I thought about the great sacrifices my mother, father and elder sister made to help me reach where I am today. My parents also received congratulatory messages from my native village, some of whom had once forced us out of there,” says Zulikha, speaking to The Better India.

Balti Community & Operation Sadbhavana

Who are the Balti people of whom Zulikha is a part of? Living in some of the northernmost villages of India across Kargil, Nubra, Leh and present-day Gilgit-Baltistan province in Pakistan, it’s a community with their distinctive language and culture that predominantly professes the Islam faith.

Since Independence, the Line of Control that divides India and Pakistan has changed a few times, and among the most affected communities in this regard were the Baltis.

The last significant division of the Balti people happened after the 1971 War, which brought villages like Turtuk, Thyakshi, Thang and Chulunka in the Nubra Valley into the Indian fold.

However, Zulikha and her four siblings (three sisters and a brother) are from Bogdang, which has remained with India since 1948. Until Class 4, Zulikha studied at the Army Goodwill School there, which was established by Lt. Gen (Retd.) Arjun Ray, former Commander of the 14 Corps who launched Operation Sadbhavana.

Following the Kargil War in 1999, there were fears that certain border villages in Ladakh suffering as a result of poor governance and conflict would fall into the hands of insurgency spilling over from Kashmir. To forestall this potential insurgency, Lt. Gen Ray realised that they would have to win the hearts and minds of these alienated communities. With this purpose in mind, he launched ‘Operation Sadbhavna’, where the military would work towards facilitating development, building up infrastructure and encouraging key stakeholders.

The Army Goodwill School in Bogdang was part of this initiative. Among the first parents to send their children there was Ahmed Shah Balti, who at the time was a small-time contractor and the village Numberdar. He would coordinate with the local Indian Army unit to fulfil labour requirements. He sent both daughters—Zulikha and her elder sister Sherine Fatima—and his only son Shabbir to study there.

“In 2000, I was appointed as the village Numberdar. At the time, watching television, constructing a mobile tower or even bringing tourists there weren’t permitted. Girls’ education was barely a consideration. Back then, upon passing Class 8, local clerics would take our girls out of the local government school. Yes, some families couldn’t afford to send their daughters, but social restrictions on girls’ education also existed. When I was a child, families in Bogdang didn’t even consider sending their daughters to school. Villages like Turtuk and Tyakshi that were liberated from Pakistan after 1971 were more open-minded about modern education. Thankfully, the situation in Bogdang today has improved to some extent,” says Ahmed Shah.

He remembers as a young Class 7 student walking around to each house with the headmaster of a local government middle school asking families to send their children there to study. Sadly, Ahmed Shah could not study beyond Class 8 because his family couldn’t afford it even though he performed well in school.

“Thus, I have a deep-seated respect for modern education and an innate desire to educate my children unlike some of my fellow contemporaries who believe that women must always live under the cover of a purdah and impose other such restrictions,” he says.

Progress and Exile

As Numberdar, Ahmed Shah was constantly in touch with senior officers. During his tenure, the Indian Army, as part of Operation Sadbhavana, suggested opening up economic opportunities there through tourism and establishing a school in Bogdang.

“I enrolled my two daughters and son into the Army Goodwill School. Encouraged by the army, we also organised a local cultural programme in which Zulikha danced and Sherine sang. Watching them perform evoked a very adverse reaction from certain influential clerics in the village, who said our family had strayed from the path of Islam. It was something they couldn’t digest. Also, I began working for the local unit of a political party, which professes an ideology that many in my village had strong disagreements with. Even though I was barely influential in garnering votes for the party, many frowned upon me for even working for them,” recalls Ahmed Shah.

Encouraged by conservative clerics, influential residents of Bogang began imposing a social boycott against the family. The boycott, which saw the family barred from entering the local masjid and imposition of fines against anyone associated with them, took hold in 2004.

“That’s when we decided to leave the village. We sent Zulikha and Shabbir to Dehradun to continue their studies while the rest of us moved to Leh for a while. I lived and worked in Leh till 2006 as a small-time contractor. Despite reaching out to all the authorities, local elected representatives and even talking about our problems to local media outlets in Leh and Kargil, I received no justice for the social boycott my family suffered,” he recalls.

“My father was forced to sell his favourite gipsy and his land to fund our education. He was among the more progressive men in the village who believed that his daughters should receive a proper education. Even my mother, Sakina Bano, felt that if her daughters can’t receive a good education without interference from the local community then what’s the point of staying in Bogdang,” recalls Zulikha, who was in Class 4 when she moved to Dehradun.

Emerging from Exile

With life not quite working out for the family in Leh, some of Ahmed Shah’s friends and well-wishers suggested that he start a hostel for young Ladakhi students in Dehradun. They promised to admit their children into his hostel and encourage others to do the same.

“Moreover, my two children were already studying there. They would pay us Rs 5,000-6,000 a month for hostel fees that would cover school uniforms, food, etc. From Kargil and Nubra combined, we started with about 35 students,” recalls Ahmed Shah.

“My elder sister, Sherine, helped out my mother with cooking, washing utensils, pressing children’s clothes and other menial work. When we moved to Dehradun, there was no source of family income besides the hostel. Once my sister finished high school, she began her career as a Balti folk singer. Although her popularity among the Balti community, particularly in Gilgit-Baltistan, had grown very rapidly, it wasn’t enough to sustain her financially. Instead of studying further, she told our father to spend money educating my younger sisters, brother, and I, while she helped our mother run the hostel,” recalls Zulikha.

Coming Back Home

Despite their many differences with Ahmed Shah, the residents of Bogdang today see the value of what he has done for his daughters and the sacrifices made.

“In the past decade or so, there has been a gradual shift in their thinking. More girls have started studying for their college graduation, and those who have had the chance to see the world, as a result, are very happy. Families have realised the value of educating their daughters, although there are financial constraints of sending them outside Ladakh,” says a resident of Bogdang working in Delhi today, who wishes to remain anonymous.

“Despite whatever happened, I still have a lot of love for my village. When I came back to Bogdang after more than a decade in exile about two years ago, it felt like heaven. As a lawyer, I want to work for my village, particularly the new generation and the young girls coming through. I want to disseminate the importance of higher education to girls in my village. When I went back to Bogdang during my third year of college, I talked to some of the young girls there about what I was studying. They didn’t even know what the word ‘advocate’ meant and I spent over two hours explaining it to them. Those who studied with me in the Army School were married with two or three children, and they expressed to me how lucky I was to have such a father who allowed me to study further,” says Zulikha.

With a law degree, Zulikha has plans of working as an advocate, starting her practice in Nubra and harbours a wish to become a judge one day. Next month, she will visit the High Court to complete her registration and begin her practice. Meanwhile, she also wants to start an NGO in Bogdang for children with physical and mental disabilities. Zulikha’s younger siblings, meanwhile, are doing well. Her younger sister Hassina Bano is one year away from finishing her Bachelor’s degree in mass communication and youngest sister Nayima is studying Class 11. Shabbir, meanwhile, has done his B.Tech and is applying for a job.

From living in exile to now encouraging other girls to pursue their education in Bogdang, Zulikha has indeed come a long way. May her tribe grow further!

(Edited by Yoshita Rao)

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For Urgain Phuntsog, a 48-year-old resident of Gya village, which is located approximately 70 km from Leh and perched at an altitude of nearly 14,000 feet above sea level,  farming is pretty much all he has known. Losing his father at the age of 12, the organic farmer’s childhood memories are replete with stories of helping his mother collect mountain shrubs or dry dung for heating or cooking, among other chores. His younger brother, Stanzin Dorjai is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, and elder sister, Tsering (53), meanwhile would take care of the family livestock, which include cashmere goats, sheeps and yaks, out to graze on higher ground.

“My father passed away when I was barely 12 years old, and I had no choice but to quickly learn ploughing, sowing, grinding flour and making irrigation channels as a young boy. Of course, starting out I would struggle with these tasks, but back then other residents of the village didn’t mind showing me the ropes. On the family farm, we would grow mustard, potatoes, peas and barley, but our main source of income and sustenance, particularly during the winters, was our livestock. The fondest memories I have of my childhood is working in the fields,” Urgain tells The Better India.

Like many youngsters of his generation, Urgain, who had finished high school, harboured aspirations of leaving his village and obtaining a government job. There were opportunities of enlisting in the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and he even applied to the Indian Navy. But with his mother suffering from a serious knee-related condition, Urgain had little choice but to assist her in maintaining the family farm.

“I realised that there was no one to look after my family and it was hopeless to expect a government job considering the circumstances of my family. My sister, Tsering, who decided to forego marriage and take care of our livestock, said that it would be a matter of shame if we didn’t work together to hold onto the land our ancestors left behind,” says Urgain.

Today, Urgain owns about 31 kanals of land, but cultivates about 62 kanals that also includes the share of his younger brother. “Urgain Phuntsog, popularly known as ‘Mitti Ka Aadmi’ in the village, has been successfully following an integrated farming system approach. At a height of 14,000 feet, where it is difficult for even human beings to survive, he is producing different vegetables, growing cereals like barley, raising livestock, cultivating mushrooms, rearing sheep and goats and producing vermicompost from his farm, animal and household waste,” noted a 2019 paper published in the International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences.

“A key feature of his farming system is that he uses the output of one component as input of another component thereby reducing his cost of cultivation and raising his income,” it adds.

“The name Mitti Ka Aadmi (man of the soil), which my fellow villagers have given me comes from my obsession with farming. They say I am too engaged with farming since there is soil on my clothes all the time. Even my sisters scold me saying that I spend too much time alone working with soil, which they argue will reduce my lifespan,” he laughs.

Diversifying organically

Urgain’s eyes were opened to the possibilities of growing a variety of crops back in March 2010 when the local agriculture department in collaboration with the horticulture department organised a 10-day exposure tour for a select group of Ladakhi farmers.

“They took us to agricultural universities in Srinagar, Jammu and Pusa, where they exposed us to growing new crops on our farms and novel methods of farming. It was quite an insightful trip. Earlier, I would cultivate barley or potato without much thought. After visiting these institutions, I began cultivating new crops using a greenhouse,” he recalls.

Urgain began with growing cauliflowers and cabbage, before progressing to quinoa, corn, fennel seeds and garlic. Seeds for certain crops were procured from friends visiting Ladakh. Today, he grows about 20 varieties of crops including kidney beans, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, onion, fennel seeds, garlic, four varieties of radish, turnip, potato, pea, cucumber, lettuce, strawberries and even watermelons.

Earning from cultivation and milching cattle

In terms of cereals, he primarily grows barley and wheat. In a season (four months), he earns a yield of about 35.7 quintals over 42 kanals of land (85 kg per kanal). He sells his wheat for Rs 50 per kg in parts of Ladakh including Demchok and Kharnak in the Changthang area. He also sells wheat in the Sheynam and Tukcha area in Leh.

Most of his vegetables are grown in his two greenhouses measuring 32×16 feet and 100×25 feet, which are used intensively during winter. Since he produces his own seed for almost every vegetable, the cost of cultivation is limited to labour costs involved in the preparation of beds, weeding, and in transportation. The entire exercise requires about 12 man days at Rs 600 per labourer including other expenses.

“Leaving aside all expenses, I earn around Rs 1,20,000 per season on all crops,” he claims.

When it comes to livestock, the cashmere goats and sheeps are a great source of pashmina and wool. From a single goat, he extracts about 150 gm of Pashmina and about 1.7 kg of fleece is obtained from each sheep. In total, his goats produce about 20 kg of pashmina. In total he earns about Rs 27,000 from the sale of pashmina and fleece in any given season.

Meanwhile, he also earns a net income of Rs 80,700 over nine months from his milching cattle.

Besides, his family assists him in making traditional dresses like the Goncha, caps, gloves and other accessories, which fetches him additional income, not to mention that he also makes his own bread. This is served to foreign tourists residing in local village home stays.

“I have also made a tiny homestay, where I train or host people interested in organic agriculture. It runs throughout the year and it gives me enough income for sustenance. Every year about 200-250 people, including students, come to learn about different facets of organic farming from me,” he claims.

“Urgain is even growing crops like tomatoes and watermelons in such conditions. He has majorly employed the mulching technology, which allows him to grow such crops. Also, as a result of the cold climate, the farming season in villages like Gya starts later and ends sooner by around 15 days or so, thus giving them a shorter window. However, he overcomes that challenge using traditional farming methods alongside modern innovations like mulching, greenhouses and vermicomposting,” notes Dr Tsering Stobdan, an agricultural scientist responsible for introducing key innovations to Ladakhi farmers.

(Check out our detailed explainer on how black plastic mulching is helping farmers in Ladakh)

A dedication to organic farming

Urgain’s family claims to have never used chemical fertilizers or pesticides subsidised by the government. It’s a practice he has continued, although the difference with his farm is the generation and usage of vermicompost. All the animal waste and farm waste are recycled through earthworms to produce vermicompost.

“As of today, we have 306 livestock animals with a majority of them being goats. We have about five milk giving cows and eight other bovines which includes dzos (a yak-cow cross breed). We also own eight horses,” he recalls.

He currently has about 1200 bags (each bag measuring 50 kg) of manure. He never uses cattle or horse dung like firewood for heating or cooking. Instead, he collects manure, and leaves it rotting for a year. “I had heard from the TV and radio programmes that using organic manure leads to healthier crops and lessens the chances of falling prey to diseases. But we need to let it rot for a year before using it on the field or vegetable garden. I have been practicing it for six to seven years now. However, despite having ample manure, I use vermicompost manure,” he notes.

He began practicing vermicomposting about two years ago, when he bought kilos of earthworms from Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK), Leh. When it worked out well on cattle manure, he used horse dung. When that worked out well too, the following year saw Urgain using it on pulverized cattle dung (locally called ldur), which is of a slightly stronger variety.

“Today, I cultivate my own earthworms. This year, my yield was 500 kg. Usually, the selling price of earthworms is Rs 600 per kilo in Ladakh. Thinking about other farmers like me, I sold these worms to the agriculture department and KVK at a discounted price of Rs 300. In addition to organic manure, we use farm waste, kitchen waste, fallen leaves of poplar, etc,” Urgain says.

Dr Stobdan adds, “Maintaining those worms during peak winters is very challenging and he is able to keep them alive even during peak winters. Another impressive facet of his farm is how he has diversified into growing cash crops like mushrooms as well.”

Besides employing natural fertilizers and vermicomposting, Urgain uses a combination including a solution of stinging nettle and locally found wild herbs as insecticides.

When farming at 14,000 ft…

The challenges of growing crops at this altitude is very real with winter temperatures dipping to -30º C and winds blowing at around 25 kmph. These conditions particularly impact the polythene sheets used in the greenhouses. These sheets (costing about Rs 12,000-13,000 each) suffer regular wear and tear and replacing them regularly isn’t easy.

“Our place is very windy and temperatures fall precipitously. To assist the polythene sheets, I visit second hand stores, buy clothes in big sizes, sew them together as a blanket and put them in the greenhouse. I remove them for a while after an hour of sunrise and cover them an hour before sunset on them with stones to maintain temperature levels inside. During snowfall, they slip and sometimes tear the plastic sheets as well,” he notes.

“Also, due to the altitude and cold, the chances of a pest invasion is very low. We have a systematic water distribution system for irrigation for equitable distribution. A major challenge is that during spring, we have a shortage of water due to slow snow melting. In autumn or summer, when the weather gets hot we have too much water,” he adds.

Moreover, with little access to markets outside Ladakh and limited markets within, selling his produce has proven to be a real challenge. He recalls an instance a couple of years ago, when he wanted to sell 200 kg of cauliflower.

“Sellers in the Leh area said that they can pay me only Rs 25 per kg despite telling them that I have grown it organically. They were bargaining it for Rs. 20 per kg. When I asked them how much they charge, they told me Rs.60 per kg.

Unhappy, I brought them back and offered it to monasteries and cooperatives or dried them up for the winter season,” he laments, adding, “Many are ignorant about what it takes to grow food in a topographically harsh place like Ladakh.

Another concern is the growing mechanisation of farming in Ladakh, particularly the use of tractors which he considers a ‘necessary evil’.

“But we must recognise Urgain’s self-sustained organic farm, how he employs innovative farm techniques and markets his produce in remote corners of Ladakh like Changthang. More importantly, he trains his fellow villagers in his organic farming techniques and facilitates exposure tours to Leh and the surrounding areas where such progressive farming practices have been taken up,” notes Dr. Stobdan.

‘Leaving our land useless is a sin’

“It takes a lot of patience to see something grow and yield well. The best thing about farming is becoming self-sufficient in terms of food without having to ask anyone. That was proven well this year during the COVID-19 induced lockdown. I have wheat, mustard, and various vegetables and dried them for winter consumption. With sufficient food at home, I donated some vegetables to my neighbours who didn’t have enough. In the event of a natural calamity or lack of road connectivity, we don’t have to put our hands out to anyone,” he says.

However, he argued that none of this would have been possible without his family, particularly his younger brother Stanzin, sister Tsering and his wife, Chamba Dolkar.

“People tell me that continuous use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides has made our farmland more vulnerable to the vagaries of nature. We only live for a certain amount of years and leaving our land useless for future generations is a sin. We must go organic. Being religious means nothing if we cannot help future generations,” he says.

(With key inputs from Namgail Angmo)

(Edited by Yoshita Rao)

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Ladakhi engineer, education reformer and innovator, Sonam Wangchuk, is at it once again.

In an announcement made on Twitter last night, Sonam revealed that his team at the Himalayan Institute of Alternatives (HIAL) have developed the prototype of a unique solar-heated tent for Indian Army soldiers stationed in the cold and high-altitude climes of Ladakh.

Exhibiting its insular properties in his tweet, Sonam noted how temperatures inside the tent stood at +15 degrees Celsius at 10 pm on a day when the minimum temperature outside was -14 degrees Celsius. Besides offering more space than the container cabins the Indian Army uses for its soldiers, this structure requires no kerosene for heating purposes and thus emits zero pollution into the environment.

“This is the second prototype of a solar-heated tent I have made. The first one was made about a decade ago for nomads living in the Changthang region, who are constantly on the move but require an upgrade in their living facilities. While people in cities can live comfortably in solar passive houses, these nomads live in smoky old tents with a big gaping hole at the top for the smoke to go out. This leaves them in the cold and in bad health. Unfortunately, the government did not pick up on this innovation and instead continued distributing cotton tents for them, which I thought was a bad idea,” Sonam tells The Better India.

Although this innovation didn’t get picked up, the idea of making a solar-heated tent stayed with him. However, things dramatically changed in the past winter when the Indian Army sent its troops to locations like the Galwan Valley following the recent standoff with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

“Suddenly, the Army had to station a large number of soldiers in places where suitable accommodation was barely present through the winter, which meant they brought with them things unsuitable for the local environment. Our soldiers, for example, brought large quantities of kerosene which they burnt to keep themselves warm. This is not only a drain on the state exchequer and a massive onslaught against the local environment but also creates serious discomfort for soldiers since kerosene-powered heating is prone to fire accidents. All these reasons made me think about refining the prototype for military use,” he says.

Cost-effective and Balmy Accommodation

This tent is a solar-passive structure that is portable, prefabricated and can be assembled on the spot. Although the globally renowned Ladakhi innovator couldn’t get into the finer details of what materials were used to build this tent since his patent application is being processed, the structure is built on similar scientific principles as solar houses.

“The tent is very insulated from its surroundings with high degrees of solar intake and offers all the space for absorbing the sun. The design is very simple. We use the sun to collect the heat, water to store it and the tent’s insulation properties help retain it in the tent for jawans at night. The tent offers solar intake through the part facing southwards. Insulation comes from all the other sides of the tent,” he says.

Meanwhile, one can dismantle the tent and set it up again anywhere else. Each of the pieces dismantled weighs under 30 kgs, which he argues, can be carried by local porters and jawans and assembled very easily. The conditions are very difficult at high altitudes and the soldiers often carry single-layered tents and piece them together. For soldiers stationed in strategically important and high-altitude locations like the Black Top Hill or the Siachen Glacier, this tent offers comfortable and non-polluting shelter, he claims.

“The number of pieces needed to build this tent depends on the size. You can make it for 10 soldiers, five soldiers or an officer. To build a tent for 10 soldiers, it would require 40 such pieces,” notes Sonam.

It costs about Rs 5 lakh to build this solar-heated tent prototype. In production, he states that it may cost the same or a little less depending on the scale. “What’s important to note is that the container cabins they are using, which offer smaller spaces than our prototype, costs about Rs 9-10 lakh. Our tent will be made at half the cost, offer double the space and deliver the ultimate levels of portability that their current cabins don’t have,” he adds.

But this solar-heated tent that Sonam has developed need not be restricted to simply military use. He notes that these tents can work for anyone who needs ‘quick accommodation’ that is warm, heated and requires no fuel. One obvious market is the tourism sector.

“Any place that attracts tourists but doesn’t have the necessary infrastructure or facilities can use these tents. You can build resorts or camps with these passive solar-heated tents and offer comfortable accommodation for tourists during the annual Chadar trek in winters, for example, where there aren’t any good places to sleep. These tents can also be used for labourers working with the Border Roads Organisation, who otherwise live in pathetic single plastic tents. Instead, they can live comfortably in our tents without contributing to pollution,” he notes.

At the moment, Sonam is in close contact with the Indian Army about his solar-heated tent but production decisions will only be taken after further testing. In about a week or so, they will test the tent at one of the highest motorable roads in the world.

“We will test this tent at Chang-La pass—which is at about 17,600 feet above sea level and on the way to Pangong Lake—for extreme weather and wind conditions. This is as tough as a location for testing purposes,” concludes Sonam.

(Edited by Yoshita Rao)

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In the aftermath of the 1962 India-China War, 30 families from Tibet migrated to Ladakh and settled in the village of Dungti to form among the very first Tibetan Refugee (TR) villages in India. Located in the picturesque Changthang region of Ladakh on the Nyoma-Demchok circuit, Dungti lies perilously close to the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Residents here are predominantly herders of the Pashmina goat and their primary source of livelihood comes from selling the fine Pashmina wool that comes from it. Despite playing a pivotal role in bordering India’s borders for decades, this settlement has lived in complete darkness since 1962 with no access to basic electricity.

All of this changed on the night of 4 February 2021, when a team of four Ladakhi engineers working with the Global Himalayan Expedition (GHE) brought light to this village by harnessing the power of solar energy. For the first time in nearly 60 years, this village experienced what many of us city folk take for granted—the magic of electricity.

Surveying the village

It takes about seven hours by road to reach Dungti from Leh. After passing Nyoma, you cross the Loma Bridge and take a left from there on an unpaved road to Dungti and Demchok, which was recently in the news during the recent tensions on the border.

“In the past eight years, we have electrified about 100 villages in Ladakh with solar-based DC electricity. But we realised that not a single project was done in a TR village. In the past, we had crossed Dungti while travelling to Demchok. We knew of its existence but weren’t sure whether the village had electricity or not. Prior to the project, we surveyed the village and found that it was in darkness for nearly 60 years,” says Shakir Hussain, the lead engineer of this project from Chuchot village.

While surveying the village, Shakir and his team found that of the 65 plus homes in this village, only 52 were occupied with permanent residents. The rest either lived as nomads in rebo tents or left for Leh in search of work. Although the village boasts of stunning scenic beauty, people there live in extremely difficult conditions. Situated at an altitude of 13,000 to 14,000 feet above sea level, temperatures in the winter range between -25 to -30 degrees Celsius.

Shakir tells The Better India that in the past, the village was given a diesel generator by the local administration but it was left unused because there was no fuel to run it. In addition, no transmission lines were running through the village.

Electrifying the village

Establishing an 8.6 KW setup for the entire village, each house received a solar nano grid with three LED lights and two LED batons alongside USB charging facilities. Besides bringing light to 52 homes, the team also set up 10 solar LED street lights and even electrified the local community hall and monastery where residents go to pray.

“We took about five days to electrify the village. I was accompanied by three solar engineers from GHE. Having said that, there were some real challenges. Residents there lived in homes with just two small rooms and initially, they didn’t have much living space where we could lay our head down. But they were kind enough to adjust themselves and let us live in one of their homes. Another challenge was the biting cold, but once again the villagers were kind enough to burn dried goat dung all through the night to keep us warm,” says Shakir.

Gurmet Angmo, a solar engineer with the team, meanwhile spoke of another challenge. “It’s so cold in these parts that wiring is difficult, particularly outside the house. We sometimes have to take the wiring inside, heat it up next to the bukhari, and then cut it,” she says.

However, it was the village’s hospitality and desire to light up their homes that saw the team get through some difficult circumstances. As Lobzang, the headman or Goba of this village, says, “Residents living in this Zero Border village have suffered for years without the benefit of modern amenities like electricity. Despite requests in the past to various authorities, we received no electricity. I had never seen electricity since my childhood and we’ve been here since 1962. For nearly 60 years, we lived in darkness.”

Bringing light to their lives

With equipment for the village sponsored by the CSR (corporate social responsibility) arm of Royal Enfield, the GHE team electrified the village on the night of 4 February. “After we electrified the village with all the necessary wiring and switched the lights on, the villagers were very extremely happy. Every household gave us khatags (a traditional ceremonial scarf given on various occasions in Tibetan Buddhist communities) to express their gratitude,” says Shakir.

But what about maintenance work? How are the village and the GHE going to ensure that this solar infrastructure remains standing for years to come? “We follow the same system of maintenance in every village we electrify. Each household here deposits Rs 100 every month into a joint account of the village. Every six months we visit the village and the annual maintenance costs for these solar lights are paid for from that joint account. By depositing their own money, they have a stake in ensuring this works in the long run,” he adds.

In a video shot by Iftikhar Hussain, a Ladakhi filmmaker, one elderly resident is heard saying, “Earlier, if I opened the door in the day, the biting cold wind would come inside. If I closed the door, I couldn’t see anything. Now, I can close the door and see, thanks to people at GHE. I am very grateful to them.”

Meanwhile, Irfan Hussain, a Naropa Fellow interning with GHE, who went with the team to Dungti, speaks to The Better India of the importance of bringing light to this remote corner of India.

“People of Dungti lived in darkness. After the electrification project, residents told us how they have found a new lease of life. There was a lot of cooperation from the local administration and the affected community. Although it’s a stunningly beautiful place, living there is very hard. With just three toilets for 52 homes, it’s imperative for the administration to assist in the development of this village. If this route opens for border tourism, it’s going to be a very spectacular destination,” he says, adding, “If you want to see the real Tibet in Ladakh, you must visit Dungti. Residents there practice a very unique culture that past generations from Tibet brought with them from their dress, cuisine to their nomadic lifestyle.”

Taking the long view, Irfan makes a very valid observation. While preserving their way of life, the local district administration must introduce basic developmental measures. Of course, it’s a tough balancing act. But without compromising their culture and way of life, introducing basic facilities such as quality healthcare, education, electrification and sanitation is necessary. If not anything else, the incentive for the Indian state here is ensuring border security. If residents migrate to Leh, who will monitor what’s happening on our borders? After all, no one understands the terrain better than those who have lived there for generations.

(Edited by Yoshita Rao)

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Padma Yangchan and Jigmet Disket represent a new generation of Ladakhi entrepreneurs. Coming from relative privilege, these young women see themselves as not only preservers of culture and heritage, but also and more importantly, as creators of wealth reminiscent of a time when Ladakh was an integral part of the global ‘silk route’. Ladakh’s role as a major player in global trading routes has been long lost because of the geopolitical compulsions.

But in ventures like Namza Couture, an apparel brand conceived by Padma and Jigmet in 2016 to create a renaissance of traditional Ladakhi textile heritage, we see the tiny acorns that could one day facilitate Ladakh’s re-emergence as a hub for commerce. In their own words, Namza Couture “advocates curiosity and retains the silhouette of traditional Ladakhi clothing through an additional modern and easy-to-wear design.”

The balance between preserving tradition and furthering its appeal to audiences outside Ladakh is central to what they do. As they note, “By keeping in mind the impact of the silk route in the region, the label strives to keep the Himalayan clothing culture alive by designing on the basis of preserving the original traditional elements. Maintaining a balance between traditional and boldness every garment is made with laborious old techniques.”

Padma and Jigmet are achieving this by pioneering the use of fine Ladakhi textile, whether it’s Nambu (sheep wool), Khulu (yak wool), camel wool or pashmina, with their in-house production of woollen and pashmina fabrics. Another way they are achieving this objective is by using local natural dyeing processes and employing a community-based network of local artisans to handcraft the final garment, which also helps keep their traditional craft alive.

The results of this endeavour have been quite eye-catching. Speaking to The Better India, Padma says, “We were invited to showcase our beloved fabrics and our designs at the London Fashion Week (Autumn/Winter ‘19). It was a great opportunity to showcase the textile heritage of Ladakh like Nambu and Spuruks (textured sheep wool from Zanskar) on an international platform which was highly appreciated by the international fashion media.”

Coming back home

After graduating from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University, with a Bachelors in Sociology, 31-year-old Padma did a course in fashion designing before finding work in different design houses spread across London, Mumbai and Delhi.

But it was in college, where she first found inspiration. “In college, I did my project on Thikma (a traditional method of tie and dye), which took me on a journey of researching Ladakhi textiles and art. The project was an eye-opening experience for me and I fell in love with the work they were doing back home in Leh. Witnessing the richness of Ladakhi culture and heritage helped me understand the value in working respectfully with artisans,” she says.

For 32-year-old Jigmet, however, the journey was a little different.

After her B.Tech in biotechnology from a Delhi-based varsity, she first encountered traditional textiles as part of an internship with the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). During this internship, she studied the floral diversity of the Leh area.

“Among the things I studied was how you could use different plants and flowers for natural dyeing. After my internship, I worked at a pharmaceutical company in Delhi, but felt something was missing. That’s when I met Padma. Both of us wanted to come back home and start something. That’s how Namza was born,” she says.

Looking Beyond Pashmina & Working With The Community

There are many ventures in Leh that revolve around leveraging the global appeal of Pashmina, but Namza decided to take a slightly different path with emphasis on Nambu, Khulu and camel wool. With so many players engaged in the business of Pashmina in Ladakh and Kashmir, it takes a lot of attention and effort to make a mark. Instead of taking a similar route, Namza decided to initially focus on Nambu and Khulu.

“Ladakh has much more to offer than pashmina. We have barely scratched the surface in exploring the possibilities offered by Nambu and Khulu,” says Jigmet.

“With our own in-house handloom production unit, Namza is one of the few sustainable design houses to develop a direct relationship with the source itself. Wool sourcing is done mainly from the Changthang region as well as Nubra Valley. Apart from our woollen fabrics we also use cotton, silk, linen which directly comes from different cottage industries in India. Each wool has its own unique characteristics. Nambu is made from indegenous sheep wool and mostly worn in winters to keep the cold at bay. It is heavier in weight and coarser than pashmina. Yak wool or Khulu is one of the most breathable wool as it can absorb moisture and release it into the air. It is coarser than other wool,” says Padma.

Namza’s production needs are met by a community-based network. “We work with around 40 local artisans and ensure a positive impact on the people involved in the supply chain by paying fair wages and investing in the development of rural Ladakh through different handloom projects. It’s a long process from collecting raw materials till the finished products that is why production of garments is not seasonally based,” she adds.

Jigmet notes, “Right from sourcing raw wool to the final garment, the production network in Ladakh is so vast. For example, we source our raw material from one women-led self-help group (SHG) and to wash it, we approach another. Aside from Nubra and Changthang, you can source wool from Choglamsar as well, which is just outside Leh town, where people from the countryside have settled. For spinning, we approach SHGs in Stok village and Phyang village. The winter season is a really crucial time for us, especially for spinners. During the winters, women are willing to take on more work since they have more time on their hands. Their summers are taken up by either tending to their farms or other commercial work. For weaving we approach artisans in different parts of the Leh area.”

Take the example of sheep or yak wool. You have to first wash them with your hands, following which you seperate the down fibre from the yak hair, which is coarser. Yak hair is ultimately used to make the rebo tents for nomads and Challi, a coarse woollen fabric, used to make blankets, rugs and saddlebags. Namza uses the down fibre to make shawls and stoles. After cleaning, you use the carding machine, which also helps in cleaning and intermixes the fibres to produce a continuous web or sliver suitable for further spinning.

“I was initially engaged in the washing process, but as volumes grew, it became imperative to seek assistance from others. Washing the wool requires a delicate and specialised technique. The end product depends on how you treat the wool,” recalls Jigmet.

One of the standout features of Namza Couture-made garments is how they employ the traditional Thikma dye on their garments, notes Padma.

“This process involves resist-dyeing on woollen cloth. The tools used for practising this craft are threads and cords. Thikma is similar to the technique of Bandhani. The colours used are natural dyes made of marigold flower, onion peel, walnut and rhubarb. Thikma was originally exclusive to the Ladakhi royal family, but it was more generally worn from the late 19th century. Thikma has its unique identity in terms of colourful panels, dyed circle and cruciform motifs on a woollen fabric which is confined to the Trans-Himalayan region,” she says.

As a proponent of Ladakhi textiles, Padma personally and meticulously researches and experiments the Ladakhi textiles before translating them into couture pieces. “For the most part, you don’t have to get out of Ladakh to source materials or natural dyes. Each and every village in the Leh area offers its own herbs or plants to make our dyes,” says Jigmet.

Enter Pashmina

Namza sources its pashmina from the Changthang Pashmina Growers Cooperative Marketing Society, which operates a dehairing plant in Leh.

This society and the dehairing plant was set up to primarily protect the commercial interests of Changpa nomads from the Changthang region, who rear the Pashmina goats.

“We source most of our Pashmina from there. With Ladakh obtaining Union Territory status, there is much anticipation that the abundance of funds from the Central government would result in repairing the current dehairing plant and then establishing a new one. If the Pashmina is not de-haired properly, you can’t compete in any competitive market. There are concerns surrounding the functioning of the current de-haring plant in Leh, and hopefully new and improved machinery is installed soon. It’s easier to source from Leh and local rules mandate that you have to buy it from the dehairing plant,” says Jigmet.

While the supply chain for sourcing and dehairing is more well-established in pashmina, that is not entirely the case with wool. “I have seen people from outside Ladakh come and buy tonnes of sheep wool and even arrange for transporting it because of the raw material quality on offer. You don’t really need a dehairing plant for Nambu and Khulu, but this market requires greater organisation,” adds Jigmet.

Garments on Show

Namza creates each piece with sincerity and close attention to detail. It could take a few days or even up to a month to create the bespoke pieces at Namza.

“We are proud to say that the majority of our products are made from scratch. There is a great deal of personal satisfaction in seeing the raw materials turn into priceless pieces of work. Major steps involved in making a piece include focusing on the aesthetics of the design as well as smooth finishes of the end products,” says Padma.

Every region has its own traditional costumes that go back thousands of years, and designers often get inspired by their proud heritage. However, they also want to modernise and make it wearable in today’s time. “There is a continuous need to be versatile and be able to understand the choices of local people as well. And while working on it you always tend to bring your own aesthetics to the table. Being a Ladakhi, I always present some elements in a very subtle way, acknowledging my own rich culture and heritage while balancing traditions with modernity,” she says.

“Foreign tourists often buy our Nambu jackets or flared sleeve capes, whereas locally the demand is for the traditional Kos or Goncha. Interestingly enough, a lot of Indian tourists are looking to buy traditional attire like the Kos or Goncha. Our products are priced from anywhere between Rs 12,000 and up to Rs 5 lakhs depending on fabric, the amount of work and days that go into designing, making, finishing a piece,” notes Jigmet.

Their online presence is limited to Instagram and Facebook and they are working towards building a website. People based outside of Leh can visit their store in Shahpur Jat, Delhi, or they can also order online through Instagram and Facebook. But like most businesses around the world, the pandemic has affected Namza as well. A few of the projects they had planned in 2020 had to be put on hold but they claim to have ensured that their “artisans were least affected”.

Having said that, they are optimistic for the coming year.

That optimism extends to many other young Ladakhis who are coming back home to start various businesses whether it’s in tourism, food processing, apparel wear or something else.

They no longer see Ladakh as merely a place where they return for their summer holidays or family functions. Leveraging the region’s untapped or disorganised resources, ancient culture and heritage, they represent a generation that isn’t satisfied with merely working in secure public sector jobs or running hotels/guesthouses.

Truth be told, this can only be good for the region’s future.

(Edited by Yoshita Rao)

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In September 2018, Rigzin Angmo met three friends who would a year later join her as co-founders of Kangla-Nyishar, which means sunflower in Ladakhi. The Leh-based startup makes artisanal food with locally-sourced organic produce that benefit small growers, producers and the local economy.

Joining Rigzin Angmo, you have Rigzin Yangdol, Padma Angmo and Padma Angmo in the Martselang village, who source their raw materials from local farmers and make products like three varieties of pesto—walnut, apricot and sun-dried tomato—and buckwheat tea.

All four had first met as part of the Naropa Fellowship programme, a one-year course focussed on creating “agents of change” working towards “fostering an ecosystem of entrepreneurship and growth” while preserving the “heritage of Ladakh” and the larger Himalayan region. Naropa Fellows are housed inside a residential campus in Hemis village, which lies 40 km away from Leh and barely a 1km from the banks of the Indus river.

By the end of this one-year course, they were awarded a postgraduate certificate in Leadership and Entrepreneurship. As part of the programme, students are required to come up with an idea for a business venture and the means of developing it. These four women were part of the very first batch of Naropa Fellows, who graduated in August 2019.

What inspired these women in their twenties to establish this startup? Speaking to The Better India, Rigzin Angmo recalls a class in Design Thinking, which took them on a field trip to Leh Bazaar. Their brief was to observe the different commercial establishments inside Leh Bazaar, identify a major problem and present those observations back on campus.

“We were divided into groups of four and that’s how we came together. One thing we noticed during our survey of Leh market was that most shops were run by non-Ladakhis. Even the shops run by Ladakhis were selling products manufactured in Himachal Pradesh. Funnily enough, raw materials for the products we saw in Ladakhi-owned establishments like apricot scrub and apricot oil were sourced from Ladakh. Besides Ladakhis getting shut out at the lower end of the supply chain, it was evident there weren’t many indigenously made or manufactured products that had a distinct local identity,” Angmo says.

Going Local

Backed by a strong desire to make indigenous products representative of Ladakh, the four women felt that a venture most likely to succeed would be one which maintains a close relationship with the land and local community. Following the conclusion of the programme, they spent time researching different plant species, herbs and crops grown in Ladakh, and the possible products they could make based on them.

“We visited different parts of Ladakh like Hanu and Markha Valley, met with farmers who told us about their endangered food culture, learnt their recipes and took down the names of these local plants. Upon returning to Leh, we went online and visited experts at research institutes like Defence Institute of High Altitude Research (DIHAR), where we learnt the English names for these locally-found plants and crops. Surprisingly, many of them are considered premium products outside India. For instance, buckwheat is considered a superfood in the West. In fact, during our research, some people from Mumbai asked us whether we could supply cloudberries to them. But we did not want to be the ones supplying local raw produce outside. Instead, we decided to do something with such locally-found raw produce ourselves,” says Angmo.

That’s how Kangla Nyishar was born. “We were just looking through a list of Ladakhi names for different plants and came across Kangla Nyishar. It’s just something we felt sounded nice,” she adds.

After some initial brainstorming, they narrowed down the products they would make to pesto and buckwheat tea.

In a March 2020 Instagram post, one of the captions read: “Pesto also known as Barims in Ladakhi has been prepared in Ladakhi kitchens since time immemorial. We bring to you the recipe not inspired by Liguria (Italy) but from our very own ancestors. We present you the richness of this traditional pesto made with organic produce foraged from the different regions of Ladakh sans artificial preservatives.” Barims or pesto is made and consumed locally in areas like Sham and Hanu. In the Hanu area, it is consumed daily for breakfast.

“We initially focussed on buckwheat, barley and sea buckthorn tea since they were easier to prepare. Also, we were figuring out how to preserve pesto without harmful chemical preservatives. A month before COVID struck last year, we launched buckwheat tea and three different varieties of pesto—walnut, sun-dried tomato and apricot. We also showcased these products at the three-day National Organic Festival in February 2020 in New Delhi. There, we bagged a prize for the most unique products,” recalls Rigzin Angmo.

Working with the community

Kangla-Nyishar sources their raw materials largely from farmers in Takmachik, a certified eco-model village where farming is completely organic. It’s located 112 km west of Leh. From there they source walnut, buckwheat and apricot kernel, etc. Padma Angmo, one of the co-founders, is a native of Takmachik, and her relatives assist in procuring them.

They have recently ventured into making nettle tea. It is an herbal ‘tea’ made from the leaves and roots of the stinging nettle plant. The leaves and roots are sourced from Rumbak village, but they are also reaching out to farmers in villages like Tukla in Nyoma tehsil.

Since they don’t export their products and largely cater to the Leh market, their raw material demands aren’t very high. In Takmachik, for example, they source from just six farmers, but they procure buckwheat, walnut, apricot kernel, nettle, Himalayan chives and cumin as well.

As a result of COVID-19, they stepped away from creating their own large manufacturing unit, for which they were about to take a loan. Instead, they rented out a unit in Leh. And they do possess a Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) license and are subject to operational checks by officials for hygiene and other requirements.

“We sell our products to retail stores in Leh. Once we enter the market in full swing, we will leverage one of the many schemes offered by the Ladakh Union Territory administration for small businesses and apply for a loan. For the time being, the four of us handmake jars of pesto weighing 200gm each and buckwheat tea packets weighing 100gm each. While each 200gm jar costs Rs 250, one 100gm packet of buckwheat tea costs Rs 100,” says Angmo.

“We have held discussions on whether to mechanise the entire process, but I have reservations about what this can do to the natural and organic process. While making pesto takes some amount of time, we can prepare 30-40 packets of Buckwheat tea in 2 to 3 hours. Besides Leh, we have received orders via Facebook and Instagram, and shipped our products to Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Himachal and Dehradun so far,” says Yangdol.

Spirit of Ladakhi Entrepreneurship

Like many young Ladakhis, these four women have made the journey back home after studying in other cities. They have come back home to start various businesses, whether it’s in food processing, apparel wear, construction or tourism. They are leveraging the region’s natural resources, familial and community networks to create something distinctly Ladakhi, but with a flavour of the world outside. After all, Ladakh has the resources to make it happen.

All four women are from different parts of Ladakh. Angmo is a native of Thiksey village, while Yangdol is from Basgo. One Padma Angmo is from Martselang village, while the other bearing the same name is from Takmachik. They have studied in schools and universities outside Ladakh in cities like Delhi, Jammu and Chandigarh.

Having said that, Kangla-Nyishar is still in its nascent stages as a venture. A few of them even work in local non-profits, while working on their startup’s products from 6pm onwards, all the way into the wee hours of the next morning.

“As a result of COVID, we couldn’t launch our products in a major way. We are currently at the stage of rebranding, coming up with a new label, different stories to describe our products and alternative packaging design. In fact, we are in the process of changing our name from Kangla-Nyishar to Nima Goos Goos, which we feel registers better in the minds of our customers outside Ladakh. Nima Goos Goos is also another name for sunflowers in Ladakhi. Once this is done, we will launch our own nettle tea and you will find our products on different e-commerce platforms,” says Angmo.

Making Pesto and Buckwheat Tea

Yangdol goes on to explain the process of making these products.

One of the examples she cites is walnut pesto or Barims which is often used as a sauce, spread or dip.

Here is how they fill up a 300 gm jar of pesto:

Ingredients:

-½ cup walnut
-1 clove garlic
-¼ of a bunch of coriander
-2-3 sprigs of mint leaves
-Salt as per taste
-Olive oil to drizzle over the top

Method: 

-Put the ingredients except the salt and olive oil in a stone pestle or mixer till it forms a paste.
-Take the paste out in a bowl and mix some water to get the consistency you like.
-Add salt for taste.
-If not consuming immediately, add olive to thinly cover the top to maintain its freshness and colour.

“This can fill a 300gm jar, but that is up to the person on how much water/buttermilk they want to add. One point to note is to store it in a non reactive container. You can replace water with buttermilk for a refreshing spread,” says Yangdol.

With a light nutty taste, the main ingredient in buckwheat tea is whole grain buckwheat.

Method:

-Handpick the impurities in the grains.
-Put the pan over the wood fire or stove.
-Put the grains into the pan and once the pan heats keep stirring with a wooden spatula to roast uniformly.
-When it turns light brown or releases a nutty aroma, take the pan off the fire and spread the grains on a cotton cloth.
-Allow it to cool before storing in an airtight container.

A point to note: If the grains start to pop, stir more frequently.

Steeping method:

-Put half tea-spoon buckwheat into a cup.
-Pour boiling water.
-Keep it covered for 2 mins.
-Buckwheat tea is ready to drink.

A point to note: Add honey for sweetness

“Chew on the goodness of soaked grains after you finish the tea,” adds Yangdol.

(Edited by Yoshita Rao)

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In 1978, there was a devastating flash flood in the Indus valley of Ladakh, which claimed many lives and damaged many homes, particularly in Leh district. Seeking outside help, the then Member of Parliament (MP) from Ladakh, Diskit Angmo, who was popularly known among Ladakhis as ‘Ama Gylamo’ (Queen Mother) or the ‘Rani of Stok’, reached out to Sir Robert Ffolkes of Save The Children-United Kingdom, a non-profit.

Save The Children-UK agreed to send assistance and, for the next six months, organised relief work in coordination with the local administration. They saw a region long deprived of primary health facilities, accessibility to basic medicines for curable diseases, multiple cases of anaemia and stunted growth, and a high infant mortality rate.

Responding to these conditions, they initiated the Leh Nutrition Project (LNP) in 1979 and were allotted around 20 villages south of the Indus river by the district administration to organise relief work. In the four decades since, LNP grew into Ladakh’s first non-profit organisation (registered in 1988) and delivered yeoman service in child nutrition, education, rural development, livelihood generation, primary healthcare, watershed development, etc.

Celebrating LNP’s immense contribution to addressing the developmental needs of Ladakh’s remotest villages, a documentary titled ‘Mountain Changemaker: 40 Years of LNP Legacy’ directed by independent Ladakhi filmmaker Stanzin Dorjai Gya was released last month.

The documentary offers previously unheard insight into how Ladakh’s oldest non-profit addressed some of the region’s major rural developmental challenges.

Thukpa Centres and Vaccines

“Our first objective was to work for the wellbeing of children. We first focussed on the south of the Indus river because foreigners weren’t allowed to enter the rest of Ladakh. Backed by a mutual understanding with the local district administration, LNP used to work in about 20 villages south of Indus from Singey Lalok to the Rupshu-Kharnak area in Leh district. Initially, our focus was on children’s health, education and well-being. We began by establishing feeding centres in these villages. In the early years, children from these villages suffered from anaemia, high infant mortality (180 per 1,000 births) and stunted growth. There was no serious fresh vegetable intake in their diet, which was dominated by meat. We initiated a supplementary nutrition programme, primary healthcare service, school education and building awareness. This was done in close cooperation with local authorities and sectoral agencies,” says Eshey Paljor, the executive director of LNP, speaking to The Better India.

The supplementary nutrition programme began in remote villages like Chilling Sumda, Skyu, Markha and villages near the Singe-La mountain pass, where children suffered from stunted growth. With an emphasis on nutrition, the initiative was called Leh Nutrition Project (LNP). These feeding centres were popularly known as ‘Thukpa Centres’ for serving Thukpa (nutritious porridge with a mix of rice, pulses, leafy vegetables and meat).

“Initially, LNP used to get ration and ‘Thukpa’ for the children made from rice, pulses, vegetables and spices. Villagers would go to Lamayuru village to fetch these items. LNP had appointed people from each hamlet who would prepare meals for the children. They would go and fetch the rations. No connectivity meant we would have to trek up to Lamayuru, and it was difficult. We used to get all this stuff by putting the loads on donkeys, and the trip would take two days. The first day, they would go and the next day come back with the items. Upon getting these items, they would prepare the meals and children from every hamlet were fed every day,” says Sonam Jordan Shaskarpa, a resident of Wanla village in Khalsi tehsil, in the recently released documentary ‘Mountain Changemaker: 40 Years of LNP Legacy’.

“Those feeding centres weren’t just for young children, but also pregnant and lactating mothers since at the time we didn’t have functioning Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS). Whenever our field staff or local health personnel visited, they would check the progress of each child. The feeding centres would provide supplementary nutrition daily with an emphasis on vitamins and minerals. Local volunteers who made the food would also measure arm circumference and other metrics. If these children were found anaemic, they were provided with a special diet and care. To assist us, we would have a government doctor, nurse on deputation and a medical assistant trained at Sonam Norboo Memorial (SNM) Hospital in Leh for two years who would end up joining LNP. Over three decades, our supplementary nutrition programme regularly impacted 41 villages and nearly 11,000 beneficiaries in the remotest corners of Ladakh, including Singey-Lalok, Lingshed, Wanla, Skyu-Markha, Gya-Miru and Kharnak,” recalls Eshey Paljor, who joined the LNP in 1983.

Underpinning efforts like these were an emphasis on training local human resources, imparting awareness, letting stakeholders take decisions and not imposing a top-down approach. This approach is what created an environment of sustainability in their efforts. For example, there was a Goba (Village Headman) and other important decision-makers who took key decisions regarding any LNP initiative at the village level. Instead of reinventing the wheel, what the people at LNP did was work with and strengthen existing institutions.

As Eshey notes, “About 35 years ago, vegetable cultivation in remote areas was barely practised. They had no experience of cultivating vegetables because of the climatic conditions. Instead of merely depending on sourcing vegetables from outside, LNP took some progressive farmers from around Leh to train residents of these remote villages. They taught locals things like making a garden bed, what should be its size, how much manure one should mix, what should be the depth of sowing the seeds and how much should be the gap between them. It was elaborately taught on the field.”

“We benefited a lot. Ajang (Uncle) Sonam came and taught us to cultivate cabbage and not cultivate just one vegetable. He said, ‘one should also grow cauliflowers, cabbages, carrots and anything else’. From that moment forward, we saw changes. Now everyone is growing cauliflowers, carrots and tomatoes. Those who have a greenhouse can grow eggplant, capsicum and almost everything. As a result of LNP’s efforts, we have benefited a lot. Now we can grow many crops and vegetables,” says Sonam Choron from Wanla.

Another area of focus in the first two decades was the delivery of medicine and immunisation.

“In coordination with the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state government and district administration, we also conducted immunisation drives for measles, DPT and polio, amongst others. We took the responsibility of inoculating about 6,480 children from 35 villages over the course of a 12-year period from 1983 to 1994/95,” claims Eshey.

And in those days when road connectivity was still a distant reality, the LNP team took foot journeys from winding paths in precarious mountain edges. On certain occasions, they would even trek about 15 days to immunise two to three children in a hamlet.

In the documentary, Chotak Gyatso, a Program Coordinator with LNP, talks about the difficulties in vaccinating children from these remote corners. “During those times, LNP oversaw efforts from Dipling to Rupsho-Kharnak. Immunisation was a challenging task during those days because first, the villages were far; second, it was difficult to maintain the cold chain of the vaccines. For example, if you go from Dipling to Lingdshed, it would take 25 days to get there by foot. One had to maintain the cold chain for that long,” he says.

With a deprived primary health system at the time, it was difficult to access medicines. Moreover, residents didn’t have the means of buying these medicines. Working with government doctors on deputation, LNP would often pay for the medicines distributed.

Ask Lundup Gyatso, the Sarpanch of Samad Rakchan village in Nyoma Tehsil.

“During those days, we did not have medicines for the children. Many children used to pass away due to lack of medication. So, LNP came and gave us medicines. Many children benefitted and as well as expecting mothers. They provided us with Thukpa and other nutritious food for children like milk and other supplementary. People in the Changthang area (eastern Ladakh) used to put fire on the hearth in the tent itself and cook, and the tea would be smoked. Whatever we cook would be infused with smoke. That is when LNP advised us of the ill effects of smoke on our throat and eyes. LNP gave all the villagers a Bokhari (cooking stove) free of cost to each household,” he says.

He also recalls how his village used to suffer from a water crisis. Residents would trek about 30 minutes with a can in hand to fetch water. In response, Lundup remembers how LNP set up pipes from the water source to ensure they had access to it on their doorstep.

“It has been almost 30 years since they’ve been visiting us. I have six children who are all beneficiaries of their work. During those days, there were a large number of infant mortality cases. After LNP came, all the children and expectant mothers got treatment. Some were even taken to Leh for treatment. Such was the help we got from LNP,” he recalls.

The emphasis on child rights, particularly in health and education, got a massive boost in parts of rural Ladakh thanks to the proliferation of IEC (Information, Education and Communication) material in the form of posters, leaflets and audio-visual mediums. On certain occasions, LNP workers would carry a television alongside a generator on their backs to remote villages and showcase films on child rights.

Educating and Empowering

When it came to education, LNP knew it couldn’t do much about the school syllabus. What they could do was get teachers to these villages. The State education department had a system whereby if a village could build a school; they would have to appoint a teacher there. Since villagers couldn’t afford to build schools, LNP intervened.

“At that time, we did not have a school. LNP bought the land to construct the school. We can still see it standing right over there. They bought the land when villagers had no money. They gave books, uniforms, sports equipment and many other important things to children. This was around 30 years back. In winters, they even provided tuition fees for teachers. They even extended their program to Hinju, Ursi and upto Lingshed,” recalls Sonam Jordan.
According to Eshey, the LNP ran such schools in almost 16 villages.

Another key element in LNP’s educational initiatives is the child sponsorship program it ran to deter school dropouts and increase enrolments. Since its inception in the early 1990s, more than 500 students have been successfully sponsored. The initiative began as a collaboration between Save The Children, LNP and Lions Club, Leh.

In the documentary, Tashi Lanzom Cho, a nurse once deputed to Mangyu village, speaks of how LNP’s work inspired many young women not just to continue their studies but pursue a college education. Following a selection process, some women from villages like Yulchung-Neraks and Lingshed were sent by LNP to Leh for further studies. Many of them were able to finish college, while those who didn’t at least knew how to read and write.

“Deserving children who expressed a genuine desire to study but couldn’t afford an education were selected for the sponsorship programme. We provided little amounts of cash that they could use to buy stationery and books. Such sponsorship programmes were present in almost 17 villages. However, besides sponsoring children, LNP ran a similar initiative for families as well that would have about 12 to 13 members in one joint household and often just one male breadwinner,” explains Eshey.

Families could do what they chose to with the money. Tashi Phuntsog of Wanla Gyamtsa village, for example, constructed a house with two rooms with that sponsorship money.

Besides all these initiatives, LNP played a pivotal role in offering a multitude of livelihood opportunities. Take the example of Indus Tsestalulu Society, a women-led Self-Help Group (SHG) from Chuchot, Leh, which makes juices, jams and lollipops from locally-found fruits like sea buckthorn and apricot. It was founded with support from LNP about 30 years ago.

In the documentary, Yourol Palmo of Tsestalulu Society talks about how LNP trained them in the food processing business and even built a small manufacturing unit. She recalls in the early days using their own wooden spatulas and ladles to make pulp. With a capping machine, these women would make their own bottles and sell them. After picking up the requisite skills and setting up their unit, they began training other women-led organisations.

“Initially, only a few of us were there. Currently, there are 30 women in this society. After completing training, various NGOs across Ladakh asked us if we can impart training to other women associations. They took us to impart training to different places in Nubra, Shayok, Kargil, Sham and even Himachal Pradesh,” she recalls.

Climate Change and Looking Ahead

LNP was among the first organisations in India to recognise the effects of climate change on the ground in Ladakh with frequent droughts and water scarcity. These events began causing serious problems for farmers looking to sow their crops in spring. To address these concerns, LNP got Chhewang Norphel, a Padma Shri-award winning engineer, on board. He came up with the idea of building artificial glaciers, popularly known as Ice Stupas today.

After retirement from government service in 1994, Chhewang joined LNP’s Watershed Development Project and took over proceedings. Back when our parents were growing up, Ladakh would experience heavy snowfall throughout the winter. When spring broke in April and May, the watering of fields would happen with melted snow water. In certain parts, groundwater would be overcharged to such an extent that fields there were hard to plough.

Since the 1990s, however, the condition has changed rapidly. There was no water to drink. For farmers, the situation was even direr, with water unavailable for the sowing period. He constructed artificial glaciers in villages through the watershed project, particularly those located in valleys, which face water shortage during spring. This is a low cost and simple innovation, which he believes is eminently teachable. You can read our story to know more.

This is just one example of LNP changing with the times. With a new generation of social workers joining the cause, they are on the ground advocating more modern causes like greater participation of women in local governance. In terms of child rights, they recently conducted a ‘multi-sectoral assessment’ to understand what sort of interventions are required from an organisation that has long worked with Ladakh’s children.

Around 20 themes have been observed so far, including child sexual abuse, drug abuse, and other emerging issues. Other issues that they are addressing include organic farming and entrepreneurship development by leveraging traditional practices and community networks with modern innovations and technologies. In this regard, a major project they are looking to help realise is Ladakh Organic Mission 2025, which seeks to ensure that all farmers in Leh district practice organic farming. The new generation only has to look back at the incredible legacy LNP leaves behind to fulfil its mission.

(Edited by Vinayak Hegde)

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