Sonam Wangchuk's Father Ended 1984 Fast After Indira Gandhi Met Him in Leh

As activist Sonam Wangchuk continues his indefinite hunger strike at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the NEET paper leak, his protest echoes a similar act by his father, Sonam Wangyal, decades ago.

Wangyal had fasted for 16 days in 1982 and again for five days in 1984 to demand Scheduled Tribe (ST) status for the people of Ladakh. The 1984 hunger strike ended when then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi flew to Leh to meet him. She persuaded him to end his fast by offering him a glass of soft drink and indicated her intention to grant the ST status. However, she was assassinated later that year, delaying the implementation.

It was under Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi that the ST status was finally granted to several Ladakh communities in 1989.

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

Wangyal noted that in 1982, a campaign was launched involving both Muslim and Buddhist communities of Ladakh. 'To help express the frustrations of the people against the indifference of the government towards this long-standing demand, I went on hunger strike for 16 days from the 15th to the 30th of January. In 1984, I again went on hunger strike for five days,' Wangyal recalled. 'Mrs Indira Gandhi, then the Prime Minister of India, visited Leh and assured us that Ladakh would be granted Scheduled Tribe status. She asked me to withdraw my hunger strike, and offered me a glass of soft drink.'

Upon returning to Delhi, Indira Gandhi announced the government's intention to grant ST status, but the decision was not implemented until 1989.

Wangyal, who came from an underprivileged family in Ladakh, had a long political career. He first met Shridhar Koul Dulu, who was raising a volunteer force to counter the Pakistani invasion in October 1947, and volunteered. Dulu advised him to go to Delhi for schooling and wrote a letter to then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Wangyal walked from Manali to Delhi over 45 days, and Nehru granted him a scholarship. He later studied at SP High School in Srinagar and became private assistant to Kushok Bakula, the head Lama of Spituk Monastery.

Wangyal then led anti-corruption campaigns, was arrested and jailed multiple times, and allegedly beaten by police. He became the Leh district president of the National Conference and later the Congress unit chief. He served as an MLC from 1957 to 1967 and as an MLA from Leh on a Congress ticket in 1967, later becoming a minister in the Jammu and Kashmir Cabinet.