Stalled talks amid sweeping changes to local governance a year after a violent crackdown on protests have left Ladakh's leaders convinced that Delhi is reshaping the region's political future without its people's consentA year after four persons were killed and dozens injured in protests that shook Leh, the conflict between Ladakh’s civil society and the Centre has entered a more complicated phase. The anger remains.
The negotiations have stalled. And while talks over constitutional safeguards remain unresolved, New Delhi has proceeded with a sweeping restructuring of local governance in the Union Territory.For Ladakh’s political and civil society leadership, that sequencing is the problem.
In recent weeks, the Centre has moved rapidly to expand the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC) system across all eight districts, including the newly created Sankoo. It has amended the 1997 law governing the councils and redrawn electoral constituencies.
Dissolving the Kargil hill council on October 21, the lieutenant governor’s (LG) administration notified 100 elected constituencies for the eight new hill councils. On the same day, the State Election Commission issued a notification proposing panchayat elections in November.“Under LAHDC (Amendment) Regulation, 2026, I have officially notified 100 constituencies for the eight Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Councils.
This almost doubles the number of councillors from the existing 52 to 100, across our newly structured councils—Leh: 22, Kargil: 21, Sankoo: 13, Changthang: 10, Nubra, Sham & Zanskar: 9 each and Drass: 7,” LG Vinai Kumar Saxena said in a late evening tweet on October 21, a day after notifying the amended regulation promulgated by President Droupadi Murmu on October 16. The amendments concern the councils’ composition, electoral procedures, tenure, administrative powers and finances.
The Union Cabinet had approved the changes on October 14.Under the new provisions, the LG’s administration will fix the number of elected members (seven to 24) and may nominate up to four members. The councils, once called “autonomous bodies”, will now exercise only district-level panchayat powers.
District plans must follow administrative guidelines, and bye-laws need the LG’s approval. Earlier, five new districts—Sham, Nubra, Changthang, Zanskar and Drass—were created on April 27 and inaugurated on April 30.
Sankoo became the eighth district on October 16. To the administration, these measures represent a strengthening of grassroots democracy by enhancing local representation and promoting inclusivity.
To the Leh Apex Body (LAB) and the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA), two organisations leading the movement for a Union Territory-level elected body and constitutional safeguards to the region’s autonomy, they represent something else: a unilateral reordering of Ladakh’s political architecture while negotiations are still underway.Both LAB and KDA have rejected the amendments to the 1997 law, saying they curtail the elected councils’ powers, dilute their autonomy and tighten the grip of the LG’s administration. Local leaders even argue that the amended regulation seems to be designed to weaken any future Union Territory-level elected body.The disagreement is no longer merely about powers and institutions alone.
It is about trust, too. “These councils have been thrust upon us,” says KDA co-chairman Sajjad Kargili. The LAB co-chairman Chering Dorjey Labrook fully agrees, adding it was done “without taking anyone into confidence”.
The sub-committee level talks held in Leh on October 15 ended in impasse. Both LAB and KDA rejected a 32-page Ministry of Home Affairs draft as a “dilution of earlier assurances”.According to the two groups, the draft offered only a Territorial Council-style framework instead of an elected assembly or Article 371 protections even though the Centre had allegedly agreed at a May 22 meeting in New Delhi to the idea of a directly elected Union Territory-level body with legislative, executive, budgetary and financial powers. “We have reiterated our reservations and demands in a new proposal already forwarded to the Centre,” Labrook says.A DIALOGUE THAT LOST MOMENTUMSeveral rounds of talks between the Centre and representatives of LAB and KDA have produced little progress.
Kargili describes the situation as a “deadlock”. The latest round, expected on October 22, did not take place after neither organisation received an invitation nor any indication of a revised schedule.
That absence has reinforced a growing perception among Ladakh’s negotiators that Delhi is more interested in implementing administrative changes than resolving the political questions at the heart of the agitation.The central demands remain unchanged. Civil society groups continue to seek constitutional protection for Ladakh’s land, culture, language and resources through either Sixth Schedule safeguards or a provision similar to Article 371.
They also want a directly elected Union Territory-level legislative body with substantive legislative, executive and financial authority.These demands emerged from a deeper anxiety that followed Jammu and Kashmir’s reorganisation in 2019. When Ladakh became a Union Territory, many initially celebrated the separation from Srinagar’s political orbit.
The enthusiasm, however, gradually gave way to concern. Without a legislative assembly, power became concentrated in the office of the LG and the bureaucracy.
The question ceased to be whether Ladakh wanted Union Territory status; it became whether Union Territory status also meant diminished self-government. The protests that culminated in the violence of September 2025 grew from precisely this tension.GRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY OR ADMINISTRATIVE CENTRALISATION?The Centre’s latest reforms sit squarely at the intersection of those competing interpretations.
The amendments to the LAHDC Act substantially expand the hill council framework. Eight councils will now function across the Union Territory, with elected representation spread across 100 constituencies.
Officially, the move seeks to improve local representation and deepen decentralisation. But decentralisation is not measured only by the number of elected representatives.
It is also measured by the powers they possess. This is where critics see a contradiction.Under the amended framework, the LG’s administration will retain substantial authority over the councils’ composition, finances, planning processes and regulatory powers.
District-level plans must conform to administrative guidelines, while bye-laws require approval from the LG’s office. To LAB and KDA, these provisions transform bodies once described as autonomous councils into institutions functioning more like district panchayats. “The powers have not been devolved; they have been recentralised” is the underlying argument emerging from Ladakh’s civil society leadership.Their concern is not only about today’s councils but also tomorrow’s politics.
If future elected institutions operate within a framework where key authorities remain vested in the LG administration, many activists fear that any eventual Union Territory-level elected body could also function under similar constraints.THE POLITICS OF TIMINGPerhaps more contentious than the amendments themselves is their timing. The Centre approved the changes while negotiations over constitutional safeguards were still under way.
For LAB and KDA leaders, this is evidence that Delhi is defining the institutional landscape before the political conversation is concluded.Kargili has publicly described the pace of decision-making as excessive and warned that major political questions are being settled without local consent. LAB leaders have similarly argued that the amendments dilute earlier powers and were introduced without adequate consultation. “They have reduced these councils to no more than district panchayat bodies, with no clarity on even the earlier nomenclature as ‘autonomous hill councils’,” says Labrook. “The amendments have diluted all the provisions of the 1997 law.
Earlier all the state land in the Ladakh region was vested with the Autonomous Hill Council. Now the discretion lies with the LG, which is a dilution of the hill council’s powers.
Tomorrow, if any Union Territory-level elected body wants to make laws about the hill councils, they will have to seek the LG’s approval.”According to Kargili, the hill councils under the new regulation are “disempowered, toothless bodies” that would have to seek the administration’s approval “even to spend a penny”. “The pace with which the LG administration is rushing all the decisions, without consulting the people of Ladakh, is bound to cause an accident,” says the KDA co-chairman. “The notification of eight new councils came when talks on constitutional safeguards between us and the Centre were still under way. This is very unfortunate and not acceptable at any cost.”The administration rejects that interpretation and views the reforms as an overdue modernisation of local governance.
Yet politics often turns less on intent than on perception. And in Ladakh, the perception that decisions are being imposed rather than negotiated has become increasingly difficult to dispel.THE ROAD AHEADPrivately, even some leaders within the movement acknowledge that statehood or Sixth Schedule-style protections remain politically difficult propositions for the Centre.
Yet the persistence of that realism has not diminished public anxiety about land ownership, demographic change and cultural identity. Those fears continue to animate the movement.Labrook warns that unmet demands would leave only one option: “resumption of the agitation” until Ladakh gets a Union Territory-level elected legislative body with meaningful powers and Article 371 safeguards. “Our main demand was about article 371,” he says.
According to both LAB and KDA, the Centre is reshaping the very institutional framework that is under negotiation by amending the 1997 law.“We wanted the hill councils to be truly empowered,” says Kargili. “Under the new notification, however, all the powers related to planning have been snatched, and the powers related to administrative approvals almost done away with. There is also a big question about the composition of the hill councils.
Earlier, 26 seats were fixed. Now, under the new notification, there would be seven to 24 seats.
This leaves a lot of scope for gerrymandering. It also raises a big question over empowerment.”The dispute is often framed as a technical argument over councils, constituencies and constitutional provisions.
It is not. At its core lies a more fundamental question: who gets to shape Ladakh’s future?Civil society groups believe the Centre has gradually retreated from commitments they say were discussed in earlier negotiations, particularly regarding a directly elected Union Territory-level body and stronger constitutional protections.
Government officials see the new councils as instruments of representation and development. The problem is that both sides increasingly appear to be speaking past one another.Delhi talks about decentralisation.
Ladakh talks about autonomy. Delhi points to elections.
Ladakh asks about power. Delhi offers institutions.
Ladakh demands guarantees. The distance between those positions remains considerable.For now, neither side appears ready to yield.
The Centre is moving ahead with its governance roadmap. Both LAB and KDA are rejecting it as inadequate.
Negotiations remain suspended in uncertainty. That leaves the possibility of renewed agitation hanging over the region once again.The immediate dispute may concern hill councils and constitutional clauses.
The larger contest is about legitimacy. A year after the protests, Ladakh’s leaders are no longer asking only what powers Delhi is willing to devolve.
They are asking whether Delhi still intends to negotiate with them at all.Subscribe to India Today Magazine- Ends