Centre offers Ladakh an Article 371(K) body, not statehood and not a legislature

The Ministry of Home Affairs has proposed a new constitutional clause, described as Chapter K under Article 371, to create a directly elected Union Territory-level body for Ladakh. The offer was put to the Leh Apex Body and the Kargil Democratic Alliance at a sub-committee meeting in New Delhi on 9 September. It is not statehood. It is not a Union Territory with a legislature of the Pondicherry or Delhi type. Ladakh Chief Secretary Ashish Kundra said on Thursday that the arrangement would be sui generis and would need a constitutional amendment passed by a two-thirds majority in Parliament.

Ladakh became a Union Territory without an assembly on 31 October 2019, when the former State of Jammu and Kashmir lost Article 370. Since then the Leh Apex Body and the Kargil Democratic Alliance have asked for statehood, Sixth Schedule tribal protections, and a say over land. Wednesday's meeting is the latest attempt to close that file without granting either of those two demands in full.

Officials told the groups that the new body would be elected directly from constituencies, not indirectly through the two Autonomous Hill Development Councils. It would have legislative power over land, culture and language, forests, environment, natural resources, and other subjects reserved for the Union Territory under Article 240, which lets the President make regulations for certain territories. Executive, budgetary, planning, financial and law-and-order powers were left open.

Kundra said the groups had agreed on direct elections. He also said the Ministry had sent them a list of about eight to ten questions on how the new body would sit next to the Leh and Kargil councils, which powers would stay with the councils, and which would move up. The groups have been asked to consult locally and reply before any legal text is drafted. The next round is scheduled in Kargil in the first week of October.

The reception split on party lines inside Ladakh's civil society. Cherring Dorjay Lakruk of the Leh Apex Body told The Hindu he was disappointed. He said the session repeated the 22 May meeting and that the Ministry showed a PowerPoint slide named Chapter K without handing over a draft. Other representatives said they want to see text, not a deck. Kundra called the meeting positive.

Article 371 already holds special clauses for several states, from Maharashtra and Gujarat to Nagaland, Assam, Manipur, Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Goa and Karnataka. A Chapter K for Ladakh would add a Union Territory to that list. Because the change would alter the constitutional map of a territory created in 2019, the government itself says it cannot be done by executive order. It needs Parliament.

What the proposal does not do is restore an assembly or grant statehood. Kundra was explicit: it will not be a state, and it will not be a Union Territory with a legislature. The name of the body has not been fixed. The groups still want Sixth Schedule protections and a veto on land transfers before any large administrative change. Those points were not closed on Wednesday.

The politics sit on a thin population and a long border. Ladakh's two districts, Leh and Kargil, do not vote as one bloc. Any elected body that writes rules on land and resources will have to live with that split and with the Union Home Ministry's residual control. The October meeting in Kargil is where the eight to ten questions are supposed to get answers. Until then Chapter K is a heading on a slide.