🏔️ Ladakh’s New Regulations: Between Administrative Reform and Constitutional Gaps

GOVERNANCE –

Post Date: June 5, 2025
Focus: GS2 – Federalism | Domicile Policy | Sixth Schedule Demands

🕊️ Intro Whisper

In the land where glaciers whisper and mountains echo culture, governance now speaks a new dialect — one that promises protection, but stops short of permanence.

🔍 Key Highlights: What Has Been Notified?

1. 🧾 Ladakh Civil Services (Amendment) Regulation, 2025
   • Introduces domicile requirement for all government job recruitments.
   • Domicile includes:
     • 15-year residents
     • Students who studied for 7 years and passed Class 10 or 12 from Ladakh
     • Children/spouses of Central Govt staff serving 10+ years in Ladakh
     • Children/spouses of Ladakh domiciles
2. 📄 Domicile Certificate Rules, 2025
   • Tehsildar as issuing authority, Deputy Commissioner as appellate body.
   • Standardizes the process of verification for job eligibility and benefits.
3. 📊 Reservation Amendment, 2025
   • Caps reservation for SC, ST, OBC, and socially backward groups at 85%,
   • Excludes 10% EWS quota, maintaining total within constitutional norms.
4. 🗣️ Official Languages Regulation, 2025
   • Recognises English, Hindi, Urdu, Bhoti, and Purgi as official languages.
   • Offers institutional promotion to Shina, Brokskat, Balti, and Ladakhi.
5. 👩‍💼 LAHDC (Amendment) Regulation, 2025
   • Reserves one-third of Hill Council seats for women, through rotation.

🚫 Limitations & Local Concerns

📚 Sixth Schedule: What Ladakh Demands But Hasn’t Received

• Applicable to tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram
• Grants legislative, judicial, administrative autonomy to Autonomous District Councils
• Councils can make laws on:
  ✅ Land, Forests, Customs, Policing
  ✅ Village Governance, Health, Property, Social Practices
  ✅ Tribes-only courts for minor offences (<5 years sentence)

🧭 GS Paper Mapping

🪔 A Thought Spark — by IAS Monk

“Protection on paper may soothe the day — but without roots in the Constitution, even the tallest mountain may feel unanchored.”

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Ladakh’s Autonomy Debate: Domicile, Development and the Demand for Constitutional Safeguards

Introduction

Since its bifurcation from Jammu & Kashmir in 2019, Ladakh has emerged as a region at the intersection of administrative reform, identity assertion, and geopolitical sensitivity. The recent set of regulations notified by the Centre — addressing job reservations, language preservation, and domicile rules — reflects a long-awaited response to the demands of Ladakhi civil society. However, these administrative measures raise a larger constitutional question: Is executive benevolence enough to protect the socio-cultural and demographic identity of a fragile Himalayan frontier, or does Ladakh require deeper constitutional safeguards akin to the Sixth Schedule? This essay explores the implications of these reforms and their adequacy in securing Ladakh’s future.

Background: A Region in Transition

Ladakh became a Union Territory (UT) on August 5, 2019, after the revocation of Article 370. Unlike Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh was not granted a Legislative Assembly. The region, comprising the Buddhist-majority Leh and Muslim-majority Kargil, was initially euphoric about its new status, expecting direct development intervention from the Centre.

However, the euphoria soon gave way to apprehension. Civil society groups, student bodies, and local leaders raised concerns over demographic change, job displacement, cultural erosion, and the absence of legislative safeguards. In particular, the demand for:

• Inclusion in the Sixth Schedule,
• Job and land protections,
• Separate parliamentary constituencies for Leh and Kargil, and
• Statehood for full-fledged democratic governance

gained momentum, culminating in coordinated protests and dialogues with the central government.

What Do the New Regulations Say?

The Centre has now notified a package of executive regulations under Article 240, which governs UTs without legislatures. The key highlights include:

🧾 Domicile-Based Recruitment

The Ladakh Civil Services (Decentralization and Recruitment) Regulation, 2025 introduces domicile as a requirement for government jobs. A person is considered a domicile if:

• They have resided in Ladakh for 15 years, or
• Studied for 7 years and passed Class 10 or 12 from Ladakh, or
• Are children/spouses of Ladakhis or Central Govt employees who served in Ladakh for 10+ years.

📜 Reservation Regulation

The Reservation Regulation, 2025 caps quotas for SCs, STs, OBCs, and other backward communities at 85%, exclusive of the 10% EWS quota. This aligns with the Supreme Court-mandated reservation ceiling and caters to the region’s tribal demographics.

🗣️ Language Recognition

The Official Languages Regulation, 2025 grants official language status to Hindi, Urdu, English, Bhoti, and Purgi, while recognizing Shina, Balti, Ladakhi, and Brokskat for cultural preservation.

👩‍💼 Women’s Representation

Through amendments to the LAHDC Act, 1997, one-third of seats in the Hill Development Councils (Leh & Kargil) will now be reserved for women, on a rotational basis.

Symbolic Gains, Structural Deficits: Key Criticisms

While these regulations mark progress, several critical limitations have emerged:

❌ No Constitutional Permanence

The regulations are executive in nature — issued under Article 240. They lack the durability of constitutional provisions and can be modified or repealed at the Centre’s discretion.

🏔️ No Land Safeguards

Unlike the Sixth Schedule or Article 371 provisions, these regulations do not restrict land ownership by outsiders. This raises fears of demographic dilution, unregulated tourism, and ecological stress.

🚫 No Legislative Autonomy

The Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Councils (LAHDCs) remain advisory and administrative bodies, lacking the power to make binding laws — a key feature of Autonomous District Councils under the Sixth Schedule.

🗣️ Language Promotion Lacks Teeth

While multiple languages are recognized, there is no roadmap for their usage in official communication, education, or judiciary. This reduces the linguistic provisions to tokenism.

Sixth Schedule: What Ladakhis Really Want

The Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, applicable to certain tribal regions in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, and Mizoram, grants autonomous district councils (ADCs) the power to:

• Make laws on land, forests, agriculture, customs, and local governance
• Establish tribal courts for civil/criminal matters among STs
• Control revenue and local resources
• Frame rules on marriage, inheritance, and social norms

For a region with 80% tribal population, Ladakh is arguably eligible for similar protections. Inclusion under the Sixth Schedule would provide constitutional safeguards that cannot be undone without a constitutional amendment — unlike executive orders.

Why These Reforms Still Matter

Despite their limitations, the new regulations offer several important gains:

✅ Legal Recognition of Identity

Domicile requirements formally recognize Ladakhis as a distinct local category, prioritizing them for public employment and administration.

✅ Codification of Language Diversity

The linguistic recognition, even if symbolic, sets a foundation for future expansion into education, preservation, and inter-generational transmission of local cultures.

✅ Affirmative Action with Demographic Relevance

The reservation structure reflects ground realities where Scheduled Tribes (STs) form the majority. It strengthens representation in bureaucracy and ensures policy sensitivity.

✅ Gender Inclusion

Reserving seats for women in the LAHDCs is a progressive step toward inclusive governance in a region traditionally dominated by patriarchal hierarchies.

Balancing Autonomy and National Interest

Ladakh is not just a cultural zone — it is also a strategic frontier, sharing borders with China and Pakistan. The Indian government’s reluctance to offer full legislative autonomy or Sixth Schedule inclusion may stem from:

• Security considerations (sensitive military deployment)
• Need for central control in border zones
• Desire to avoid setting a precedent for other UTs or regions demanding similar privileges

However, this must be balanced with the aspirations of Ladakhi citizens, whose demands are rooted not in secessionism but in preservation and participation.

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The Way Forward: Toward Meaningful Autonomy

If the Centre is serious about “development with identity”, it must move beyond executive safeguards and pursue a dialogue-based constitutional roadmap, which could include:

• Inclusion in the Sixth Schedule, or a tailor-made provision under Article 371
• A UT Legislature for greater representation and law-making autonomy
• Special Land Protection Law to prevent indiscriminate sale of land to non-domiciles
• A Language Promotion Commission to institutionalize native languages in governance
• Annual Social Audit of affirmative action measures and domicile implementation

Conclusion

Ladakh’s journey from a picturesque frontier to a political hotspot encapsulates the tensions between national integration and local empowerment. The Centre’s new regulations represent an acknowledgment of Ladakhi aspirations, but not their fulfillment. In the absence of constitutional protection, these gains remain reversible.

The essence of governance in such ecologically fragile and culturally unique regions lies not just in allocating resources or issuing notifications, but in recognizing that identity, autonomy, and representation are foundational to stability. As the mountains stand still but the political winds shift, the need for trust-building constitutionalism has never been more urgent.

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Topic: Ladakh