The politics of being buddhist in zangskar partition and today

Sanguida

Informations

• Publié par: opakito
• Nombre de lectures: 298
• Langue: English

Extrait

India Review, vol. 5, nos. 3–4, July/October, 2006, pp. 470–498 Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN 1473-6489 print; 1557-3036 online DOI:10.1080/14736480600939306

F1II45nN57d73iaD-  36 T R0348e69view, Vo h l. 5, No. 3 e -4, Au  gust 200 P 6: pp. 1—1 o 3 litics of Being Buddhist in Zangskar: Partition and Today

BIendiina K gRBeuvdid I eZwnisthi M angska  r GUTSCHOW

The role of religion in Indian Jammu and Kashmir has been subject to lengthy and sustained debate. Many trenchant analyses of the Kashmir conflict have focused on the more heavily populated and contested valleys of Jammu and Kashmir from which the state takes its name. 1 Although important, such accounts ignore the east- ern and less populated half of the state, consisting of Kargil and Leh districts. Together, Leh and Kargil districts account for roughly 58 percent of the state’s geographic area but only 2.3 per- cent of its population. Similarly, the region of Zangskar comprises over half of Kargil district in area but only 10 percent of its popula- tion (Figure 1). 2  to the broader politicsWhile Zangskar is subalt ern of Kargil district, both Leh and Kargil districts are considered mar- ginal to Jammu and Kashmir. Zangskar reflects a contested set of religious and regional iden- tities that are similar to t hose characterizing the state more broadly. This essay considers the Himalayan margins of the state in order to understand how religion can be both a strategy and an identity, today as well as during partition. It provides thick ethno- graphic description of how religion and region intersect to mar- ginalize and politicize the concerns of Zangskari citizens within their district, their state, and th eir nation. Such an analysis may shed some light on how and why religion has developed such a salient identity today. I will begin with several narrative s that offer a subaltern perspec- tive on the chaos as well as calm that have pervaded partition and as well as contemporary circumstance s in both Kargil and Leh district. 3 Before 1979, these two districts we re known jointly as Ladakh, a name still used to refer to the entire re gion. Ladakh, in turn, once comprised a much larger region known as Ladakh Wazarat that accounted for more than half of princely Jammu and Kashmir before partition in

Being Buddhist in Zangskar 471

F I G U R E 1 T H E D I S T R I C T S O F I N D I A N J A M M U A N D K A S H M I R

This map shows the Line of Control between India and Pakistan, but does not show the eastern portions of Ladakh seized by China in 1962, known as Aksai Chin. Adapted from the Census o India website, 2001

1947 (Figure 2). The Ladakh Wazarat covered most of the eastern and northern part of the state, stretching from Tibet in the east to the Gilgit Agency in the far northwest. While more than half of Ladakh Wazarat wound up in India fol- lowing the pitched war between India and Pakistan from 1947 to 1949, this outcome was hardly certa in for most of the conflict. The partition narratives illustrated below suggest a set of confused loyalties and contested identities that played a crucial role in determining how most of Ladakh Wazarat, including all of Zangskar, wound up in India rather than Pakistan. Today Zangsk ar’s central valley lies some 230 kilometers south of the ceasefire line (renamed the Line of Control in 1972) that roughly marked the position of the Indian and Pakistani troops at the close of the war on January 1, 1949. Yet as very few historians have noted, these troops still battled for control in Zangskar some six months after the ceasefire of 1949. 4  This essay analyzes firsthand