In Kargil, Stirrings Of Dissent, Unease newsclick.in

Most discourse ignores Kargil’s growing social schisms.In the national discourse, Kargil, a remote district in the Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir, has been projected as jubilant at the bifurcation of their state and hiving it into Union Territories. But what this narrative ignores is the growing schism between the Shias in Kargil and Dras and the Buddhist-dominated rest of Ladakh. The 2011 Census reports 77% of Kargil as Muslim. Most of them follow Shia Islam. The Census records the proportion of Buddhists and Hindus at just over 14% and 8% respectively in Kargil. In Ladakh excluding Kargil, it is the Buddhists who are in a majority, though they are just about 40% of the region’s total population. In the months after the Centre revoked the special status of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, a number of Kargil’s Shia Muslims are aligning with their brethren in Kashmir, which is overwhelmingly Muslim in demography. Undoubtedly, the Buddhists are largely backing the Centre’s 5 August decision formally split the state in two. Some Leh residents had celebrated the revocation, despite their apprehensions about the future, Kargil and Dras residents had stepped out on the streets to protest. But on 31 October, the day the state’s split formally came into effect, making Kargil a part of the Ladakh Union Territory, there was a shutdown in Kashmir and unease in Ladakh.