THE creation of five new districts in the vast Himalayan region of Ladakh is a very critical step towards better governance in the area as well as a promise of vastly improved national security -- from multiple angles. Though the development is administratively ‘small’, its importance in the direction of a better unification of the far-flung region with the rest of India cannot be overstated. Now, the organism of the Government will be available in vaster areas of Ladakh, right up to the international border with China. Until now, most of the areas of the five new districts, administration was available only for marking the presence -- naturally leading to a massive vacuum in governance. When a region is next to a hostile neighbour -- like China -- then a vacuum of this sort should be an anathema to good administration and governance. With the formation of five new Districts in Ladakh, the administrative vacuum will be removed. Now, the region will have a complete bureaucratic and administrative machinery to take care of the various tasks the Government is expected to do normally. Until now, that element was missing because there was no credible administration responsible for and empowered by good and just governance (in border areas).

 

Now that lacuna will be addressed -- on official terms as well as cultural considerations. This vaster spread of administrative outreach will benefit the country in another area -- of national security. That will be so because the region is in close vicinity of a zone of international conflict or hostility or dispute. When the whole administration is present in the area, the best benefit comes by way of a closer monitoring of all aspects of governance of which security is a major concern. Presence of a complete administrative machinery in more segments of the vast and thinly populated region in the Himalayan heights, therefore, will make a critical difference by way of an immediate reporting of minute developments right to the Government at the Centre. The five areas of Zanskar, Drass, Sham, Nubra, and Changthang now will be ‘districts’. Each of these areas has had a history of problems of different nature including enemy intrusion. The military -- Army and Air Force -- is certainly taking care of strategic defence, all right, in all these areas. But in modern times, mere military presence without the framework of civil administration is only partially utilised in real sense.

For, in modern conflict, management of detail includes a closer monitoring of administrative matters and issues. For, as experience the world over shows, the enemy often makes sly entry into the eco-system whenever there is a gap or slackness of control or last-mile connect between the governors and the governed. Another implication -- whose benefit will be available in due time -- will be in the form of more number of elected representatives in various bodies from the local to national levels. That will mean the last-mile stake-holder presence in the overall eco-system of governance -- which is most welcome in a representative democracy since it serves the principle of devolution of power. In the final analysis, it may be said safely that the step of forming five new Districts in Ladakh will improve the quality of governance -- which, in Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi’s words, is a ‘step towards better governance and prosperity’ of Ladakh and thereby the rest of the nation. This step should be considered as one of the most critical decisions the Central Government has made in recent times in favour of better strategic and administrative considerations in the far-flung region of Ladakh.