CONCLUSION Ladakh Is a Region That Has Long Been Pulled in Different

CHAPTER TEN CONCLUSION Ladakh is a region that has long been pulled in different directions by political, economic, religious and cultural forces on all sides. For centuries Tibet, to the east, was the source of the religious and cultural influence of Buddhism. Its texts and teachers offered the Ladakhi people a sophisticated philosophical framework, with elaborate images of moral and cosmological order, and its leaders interfered in Ladakh’s internal power struggles. The all-powerful Tibetan monasteries have now substantially been relocated to India, but the identity of Ladakhi Bud- dhists with their religion is strong and they are conscious of a shared religious and cultural heritage with Tibet. Kashmir, to the west, was long seen as a military threat, whose leaders not only tried to dominate the region but also to convert its people to Islam. The resulting interface between the Buddhist and Islamic worlds has created a sense of split identity for many Ladakhis, especially those of the Kargil region, who feel culturally and linguisti- cally part of Ladakh but tied by religion to Kashmir. This religious divide has been exploited by Ladakhi politicians agitating for regional autonomy, giving rise to communal violence and lingering mistrust. Despite these historic tensions Kashmir has always been a source of trading opportunities. The descendants of Kashmiri traders form a distinct group in and around Leh, where they mingle with contemporary entrepreneurs and governmental administrators. From the north and east traders used to arrive from central Asia and Tibet, having crossed monumental passes with their horses, donkeys and sheep before travelling on into India, bringing salt, pashm, cloth, rice and exotic goods and bearing away apricots, barley, wool and butter. These routes also provided the opportunity for Ladakhi traders and monks to travel, bringing back religious knowledge, foreign ideas and wealth. Now the old trade routes have been closed and consumer goods are trucked in from the south and west, along roads that also take Ladakhi pilgrims south into India and transport tourists in large numbers during the short summer months. The construction of the airport means that politicians and development workers, traders and administrators can fly in throughout the year, bringing opportunities for business and employ- CONCLUSION 197 ment and the values of consumerism and international development, as well as the democratic processes and ideals of the nation state.1 Among all these influences Ladakhis have found numerous sources of order, both in the controlling hand of leaders and in the more ideological influence of iconic events and ideas. The Ladakhi kings’ struggles with their powerful neighbours shaped the nature of the polity and the power they wielded over its population; Buddhist monks, colonial leaders and Indian administrators have all sought to impose their own models of order on the region. Order has, at times, been imposed as a matter of command, as part of the control exercised by a powerful leader or state. In Weber’s (1968) terms these have included patriarchy (in the case of aristocratic families), feudalism (in the case of their relations with the kings), charisma (in the case of certain influential lamas) and, now, the rational bureaucracy of the modern nation state. Wars, communal tensions and the region’s incorporation into India have shaped a Ladakhi sense of identity or, rather, given rise to multiple and varying ideas about regional autonomy, religious allegiance and communal differences. There has been a simultaneous distancing of external power- holders and the embrace of the economic opportunities provided by trade, the market economy and tourism. There is both distrust and acceptance of consumerism, competition and the new forms of status they provide. Nevertheless, more localised forms of order have simulta- neously been maintained within the numerous small communities of which Ladakh is composed, supported by local social and moral norms. These, in turn, have developed alongside the powerful ideological forces of Buddhism and the economic, ecological and material values of the late twentieth century. In this book I have not attempted to map out all these forces. Rather, my task has been to investigate the ways in which Ladakhi people have 1 Baltistan must not be forgotten. The Balti people share considerable linguistic and historical features, especially with the people of Kargil and they previously represented important trading partners for the whole of the western part of Ladakh. My older informants in Photoksar recalled taking grain to trade in Baltistan, where they could just about understand the dialect, returning with locally-made earthenware pots. Since the war between India and Pakistan, the line-of-control has severed the two regions but in the summer of 2005 some Balti scholars were, for the first time, able to travel to Kargil. They made the arduous journey via Islamabad, Lahore, Amritsar, Delhi and Leh, to arrive, after three days, at a point less than 140 kilometres (via the old Indus valley trade route) from Skardu. Here they were greeted with immense excitement by the Kargilis, who were soon listening enraptured to their songs and stories, all familiar from their own cultural heritage..

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