Ladakh unrest explained: Bandh, curfew and the paper trail behind Wangchuk

New Delhi: Four people were killed and dozens injured on September 24 after a bandh over statehood and Sixth Schedule protections for Ladakh spiralled into arson and clashes in Leh. Curfew followed by nightfall. 

A day later, on September 25, the administration detained innovator-educator Sonam Wangchuk under the National Security Act (NSA), saying his mobilisation aggravated tensions. His supporters call the detention punitive; the administration says it is a law-and-order response.

The unrest has welded together three threads that have shadowed Wangchuk over recent months – a cancelled land lease for his flagship education project, questions around foreign-funding compliance for organisations associated with him, and his public shift from cheering Ladakh’s Union Territory (UT) status in 2019 to backing statehood and Sixth Schedule safeguards in 2025. 

Those strands now sit inside a larger political confrontation over who speaks for Ladakh and how dissent is policed in a sensitive border region.

The day the bandh turned violent

By mid-morning on September 24, Leh observed a shutdown called by groups seeking statehood and constitutional protections for land, jobs and culture. Through the afternoon, protests devolved: government and party offices were attacked, vehicles were set on fire and clashes broke out with police. 

By night, the casualty count had reached four, with dozens injured; a curfew was announced as reinforcements moved in. On September 25, police invoked the NSA to detain Wangchuk, arguing that continued mobilisation risked further unrest. Supporters described the move as an attempt to chill a popular movement.

The administration has maintained that the violence was not spontaneous but the outcome of sustained agitation. Opposition figures and several local groups counter that the escalation reflected grievances ignored by Delhi and the UT administration for months. The factual core remains stark: a shutdown that turned violent, loss of life, and a prominent activist in custody.

A public figure whose stance has shifted since 2019

Wangchuk’s public arc complicates the politics. Known widely for education and climate projects and for inspiring a character in 3 Idiots, he welcomed the 2019 decision to carve Ladakh out as a Union Territory, publicly thanking the Prime Minister and describing UT status as the fulfilment of a longstanding local demand. 

In 2025, he has positioned himself at the front of a statehood and Sixth Schedule push, arguing that Ladakh’s needs have changed and that stronger local protections are now essential.

Critics call it a reversal and say his politics align with shifting personal and institutional interests. His supporters insist it is a legitimate re-reading of ground realities, especially on questions of land, employment and environmental stewardship. The shift in position is central to how both sides now frame his leadership: opportunism to some, adaptation to others.

The Phyang land-lease order that lit the fuse

A key administrative action sits at the heart of today’s confrontation. On August 21, 2025, the Deputy Commissioner, Leh, cancelled a 40-year lease covering roughly 135 acres at Phyang that had been allotted in 2018 for the Himalayan Institute of Alternative Learning (HIAL). The order cited non-commencement of a recognised academic programme even six years after allotment, lack of substantive development at the site and unpaid lease dues running into crores, and it directed reversion of the land to the government and recovery of dues. There were also local complaints of encroachment, according to the order.

Wangchuk rejected the cancellation, calling it politically motivated. He said development and compliance were underway, that affiliation processes take time in remote regions and that the project was conceived as a long-horizon institution rather than a quick build. 

In response to the order, and to underline the larger statehood demand, he began a 35-day hunger strike, which became the focal point for supporters in Ladakh and online. The strike ended before the bandh but helped place him at the centre of the agitation.

Funding and compliance questions that predate the current clash

Separate from the land dispute, organisations associated with Wangchuk, notably the Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL), have faced Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) action. Authorities have alleged irregular reporting, use of funds beyond permitted activities, and other compliance gaps. Supporters have said the actions form part of a broader clampdown on civil society and insisted that remedies would be sought through the legal route.

It is also true that concerns date back well before the current UT administration: as early as 2007, during the UPA years, local authorities flagged questions about land use and funding around the same ecosystem, and security agencies recorded anxieties about certain international linkages. Those references have acquired new heat amid the present confrontation. The administration treats them as a pattern; Wangchuk’s camp says they are being reprised selectively to discredit a mass movement.

From fast to detention

The hunger strike, images showed Wangchuk wrapped in blankets in sub-zero conditions, produced a stream of statements and solidarity posts that travelled well beyond Ladakh. In one of his videos, he predicted that detention was likely and argued that jailing him would not blunt the agitation. The NSA detention on September 25 allowed authorities to hold him beyond regular criminal-procedure timelines. Lawyers following the case expect a review board process as mandated under the Act; whether that proceeds quickly will be watched closely by both supporters and critics.

For the administration, the case is about public order after a day of violence. For supporters, the detention is framed as the criminalisation of dissent. The courts, and the paper trail around the detention and preceding FIRs, if any, will shape which reading prevails in the near term.

An online battle over narrative

As the shutdown and detention unfolded, social media amplified both sides of the story. On one side were posts positioning Wangchuk as a reformer standing up to an unresponsive system; on the other were claims that the agitation was organised and amplified by opposition-aligned handles and networks beyond Ladakh. Administratively, there has been no granular public disclosure of a coordination map; politically, the allegation of orchestration helps the government argue that the violence was manufactured, while supporters say the charge is a routine way to delegitimise local anger.

Wangchuk’s own rhetoric has given critics material to work with. Over the years he has referenced the Arab Spring, Sri Lanka’s economic collapse and street unrest in Bangladesh while warning about the risks of ignoring Ladakhi grievances. He has also spoken about potential discontent within sensitive institutions, including at the time of the Agnipath debate. Opponents present these references as an attempt to normalise instability; his camp says they are cautionary analogies intended to steer policymakers away from brinkmanship.

Why Wangchuk is the story

Strip away the noise and the question that remains is whether Wangchuk’s leadership has become the organising frame for the statehood-and-safeguards movement, and whether the administration’s approach to him is escalating or diffusing that movement. He is not the only figure in Ladakh’s civic space, but his profile, his projects and his ability to attract attention have made him the axis around which the last month has turned.

The 2019 tweet lauding UT status and the 2025 campaign for statehood are not mere footnotes. Together they mark a public transition that opponents interpret as inconsistency and supporters as evolution. To a national audience, that transition is the easiest way to read the present crisis: is this the story of an activist whose politics changed with his projects and pressures, or of a citizen leader whose reading of Ladakh’s interests has matured with experience?

What matters next in the law and in the district office

Three documents will matter in the coming weeks. First, the NSA detention papers and the review board timeline, those will indicate the strength and specifics of the administration’s public-order case. Second, the Phyang lease cancellation order and any appeal or writ that challenges it, courts will test whether the grounds (non-commencement, development gaps, dues, encroachment complaints) were sufficient and whether due process was followed. Third, any FCRA orders and their appellate status, these will separate allegation from finding on the funding front.

A clear, public accounting of casualty and arrest figures, the sections invoked and the status of investigations into arson and violence will also be essential. Absent that, both sides will keep filling the vacuum with claims that suit their politics.

The risk calculus for Ladakh

Beyond personalities, Ladakh is a strategic frontier: it borders China, hosts critical Army deployments, and depends on tourism and infrastructure flows that are acutely sensitive to perceptions of instability. Prolonged unrest imposes real costs, on livelihoods, on administration, on security management, and hardens positions on all sides. That is the context in which the present confrontation is playing out, and it is why the manner in which the agitation is led and the manner in which it is policed both matter.

Key takeaways

What began as a bandh over statehood and Sixth Schedule safeguards has become a referendum on Wangchuk’s leadership and on the administration’s appetite for confrontation. The death toll, the curfew and the NSA detention have raised the stakes. The Phyang land dispute and funding-compliance questions, long in the background, now sit squarely in the foreground of political argument.

Whether Sonam Wangchuk is remembered as a reformer who adapted or as a provocateur who overreached will not be decided by memes or by the volume of statements from either side. It will be shaped by the documents that move through offices and courts in the next few weeks, by the discipline of protests if they continue, and by the willingness of Delhi and the UT administration to engage in structured talks on statehood and safeguards.

For Ladakh, the costs of failure are obvious. Stability, livelihoods and the credibility of institutions are all on the line. For Wangchuk, the burden of leadership is equally clear: to show that the energy he has mobilised can remain inside the guardrails of law even as it presses for constitutional change. For the administration, the test is to demonstrate that public order can be upheld without treating dissent as a security problem by default.

That is where the Leh story sits tonight – at the intersection of a leader’s evolution, an administration’s choices and a region’s future.