Sonam Wangchuk
| Photo Credit: Illustration: R. Rajesh
On October 2, Gitanjali J. Angmo, wife of the 59-year-old engineer-turned-teacher-turned-climate-activist Sonam Wangchuk, moved the Supreme Court seeking to know the whereabouts of her husband. Days ago, on September 26, Mr. Wangchuk was detained under the National Security Act (NSA), 1980, from his village Uleytokpo by the Ladakh police and sent to the Jodhpur central jail.
The education reformer, who inspired the Hindi movie 3 Idiots (2009), has been labelled by the police as the “ring-leader” of the September 24 violence in Leh city that led to the death of four persons and resulted in injuries to around 150 people.
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After Article 370 of the Constitution was read down by Parliament in 2019, Ladakh civil society groups have been protesting for constitutional safeguards such as Statehood and inclusion under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. The groups came together in 2020 to demand protection from outsiders, following which the government formed a high-powered committee (HPC) in January 2023. However, Mr. Wangchuk was roped in by the groups, and he soon became the face of protests in Ladakh.
Mr. Wangchuk used social media as well as conventional media to educate people about the happenings in Ladakh. He initially projected the protests as an attempt to save the fragile ecology. He highlighted that the proposed solar projects by big corporations could sound the death knell for the region. But the protests later attained a political tone.
Past incidents
His ongoing detention under the NSA is not his first brush with the law. On October 10, 2024, Mr. Wangchuk was released following five days in police detention in Delhi after a foot march, which he started from Leh on September 1, 2024, was curtailed in Delhi. He went on a hunger strike while in detention. He broke his fast after the Union Home Ministry promised to resume dialogue with the civil society leaders. Asked if he would pursue legal action against the Delhi Police, he told The Hindu in an interview, “We are only interested in saving the Himalayas, particularly Ladakh. We are very grateful that they detained us. They acted like amplifiers, loudspeakers for our message.” “I am an environmentalist, not a politician,” he added.
On September 25, hours before he was detained, Mr. Wangchuk told this newspaper that he had strong suspicion that he would be detained under the “draconian Public Safety Act (PSA, applicable in erstwhile J&K). The Home Ministry accused him of making “provocative statements”, and the Ladakh administration accused him of suggesting “self-immolation” to the people of Ladakh on “multiple occasions” along the “lines of protests in Tibet”. Before he was detained, Mr. Wangchuk had denied all charges, and said the government was making him a scapegoat.
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Mr. Wangchuk and 15 others were on the 15th day of their 35-day hunger strike when the violence erupted. This was his fifth hunger strike in the past five years to draw the government’s attention.
A government official said the activist was using the protests as a platform to mislead the people and fulfil his political ambitions. “Earlier, he was not part of the government-constituted HPC, but after the last rounds of talks on May 27, which were successful and led to the Ministry notifying domicile and reservation policies for the region, he started a campaign to include him in the committee.” the official said.
In the past month, the Ladakh administration cancelled the land allotted to the Himalayan Institute of Alternative Learning (HIAL), founded by Mr. Wangchuk in 2018. After the September 24 violence, the Home Ministry cancelled the FCRA registration of Students Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL), a school which he founded in 1988 for students who failed the Board examinations.
Winner of the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2018, he was instrumental in the launch of Operation New Hope, a triangular collaboration of the government, village communities and civil society to bring reforms in the government school system in 1994. Since there was no school in his village, he was home-schooled by his single mother in Ladakhi language till the age of 9. His uncle, who followed Islam, taught him English and Urdu through radio and billboards. “My uncle read the Koran and made me read Buddhist scriptures,” he said in an interview.
Published – October 05, 2025 01:15 am IST
