On the morning of January 31, as Gitanjali Angmo took the stage at a literary festival in Thiruvananthapuram, her husband and renowned climate activist Sonam Wangchuk was being moved from a jail to a hospital in Jodhpur. The 56-year-old had been experiencing stomach ailments after spending 125 days in detention at the Jodhpur Central Jail in Rajasthan. He had been detained under the National Security Act, for allegedly inciting violence during protests in Ladakh, a claim called false by Gitanjali and his legal counsel Kapil Sibal.
“They want to silence him because he wants development that considers the environment and wants people to be party to the policies made [for Ladakh]. Perhaps the [Union] government wants to do something there without the consent of the people, which is why they did not want them to be party to the policy formulation,” Gitanjali told TNM in a short interview after her session at the Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters (MBIFL).
Sonam, a scientist who inspired the popular Hindi film 3 Idiots, had in September led weeks of protest in Ladakh for statehood and constitutional safeguards. The protests, which unexpectedly turned violent, resulted in the death of four civilians. Sonam was arrested, with the police alleging that he made provocative speeches about overthrowing the government on the lines of the Arab Spring. Sonam denied the charges and Gitanjali said his words were taken out of context.
When asked about other undertrial prisoners like Umar Khalid, who has spent more than five years at Tihar Jail over accusations of inciting the Northeast Delhi riots in 2020, Gitanjali said that freedom is everyone’s right. “If someone has made a remark, it has to be understood in its context. In Sonam’s case, it has been completely distorted. He did not even say those things [he has been accused of saying]. He was referring to a speaker before him, but they cut that part out. They have not used the part where he says we will not [provoke acts of violence]. It is a distortion,” Gitanjali said.
“Not being open to dissent is in itself bad. But distorting something to suit your narrative and frame somebody is criminal,” Gitanjali said.
Sonam Wangchuk was detained on September 26 last year. A week later, on October 2, Gitanjali filed a habeas corpus petition at the Supreme Court, which is being heard on Monday, February 2.
She has spoken about Sonam’s poor treatment in jail on a few occasions. It was during one of their meetings in jail that she learned that he did not have enough blankets to protect himself in the harsh Delhi winter.
Shaping alternatives
Gitanjali and Sonam met years ago, at a conference in Mumbai, at a time when she was thinking of starting a school in Chennai and he was planning to set up a university in Ladakh. They asked each other to join their own projects, eventually launching the Himalayan Institute of Alternatives, Ladakh (HIAL) for alternative education 2017. Before moving to Ladakh, she had been leading a successful corporate career in Chennai, drawn to there from Odisha by the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo.
What they teach at the HIAL is experiential, she says. “You apply what you learn and grow through experience, it’s not just theory. You focus on the context and the problem, and make students change makers and impact creators so they can actually make the place better and thereby help the government come up with policies that are aligned to that context.”
The response has been great, she says. HIAL has been picked as a role model for universities by the University Grants Commission and by the Parliamentary Committee on Education. They have received standing ovations for their presentations in Cambridge, Oxford, and Harvard, she says. The system they follow is the traditional gurukul one in which about a hundred students chosen for fellowship stay in residence.
‘One-size-fits-all won’t work’
During her session at MBIFL earlier that day, Gitanjali said that Ladakh had always wanted statehood and Sonam's was one voice reminding the government to fulfil that promise.
Before 2019, Ladakh was under the state of Jammu and Kashmir and was protected under Article 370. But when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government abrogated Article 370, removing the special autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh lost that protection. Sonam had believed that becoming a Union Territory would bring Ladakh its own legislature, but realised later that it would be governed directly by the Union government through a Lieutenant Governor.
"Ladakh has a fragile ecology, high altitude, and cold mountains. The temperatures go to -20 degrees, whereas the rest of India experiences tropical climate. Policies formed for Ladakh should be different from the rest of the country. You cannot apply the solutions that you apply in the rest of India, for disasters in Ladakh," Gitanjali explained.
“We have different cultures and different climatic zones,” she further said, adding, "Hinduism encourages plurality and diversity, allowing every region to express themselves. But the government talks about centralisation, not allowing diversity, and uses the one-size-fits-all formula.”
“India was always a diverse federal State that had a strong centre for defence and protection from outside [forces]," she said. What united India across its different cultures and people, Gitanjali said, was the pursuit of truth.