Education for Political Transformation: Mobilisation of Ladakhi Youth in Himalaya, India

Abstract

Mobilisation of Ladakhi youth in the upper hills of western Himalayas through education represents a distinct cultural and ethnic identity. Notwithstanding the possibility of studying such mobilisation as effects of education, this article highlights that, being educated outside of Ladakh, the youth not only cultivate and develop multiple levels of consciousness about their situation but also carefully employ their cultural imperatives to mobilise politically. In a regional historical context with a comparative perspective, education is analysed as a tool for mobilising youth which subsequently shaped the local community for political transformation. Instead of talking of youth in isolation, the analytical framework captures the narrative structures of educational transformation and political mobilisation in a region. Becoming a Union Territory in 2019 after the bifurcation of the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state is the untold story behind the consistent struggle led by the Ladakhi-educated youth to articulate cultural and territorial identity and meet a long-standing demand for the regional autonomy. Through the narratives of history, this article highlights that the youth of Ladakh has been very much part of mobilisation for education as well as central to internal educational reforms and social progress that forecast the political imagination of a regional identity.