Ladakh bureaucrats worse than Britishers, says activist Wancghuk’s wife Angmo on stalling of kindergarten

Gitanjali J Angmo, wife of educator and climate activist Sonam Wangchuk. File. | Photo Credit: PTI

Ladakh activist Sonam Wangchuk’s wife, Gitanjali J. Angmo, on Tuesday (November 3, 2026) accused the Ladakh bureaucrats of being “worse than Bristishers for stopping a kindergarten school under different pretexts” and termed it “a witch-hunt”.  

“This government is incompetent and indulges in witch-hunting. They do not know how to run educational institutes but are good at stalling others from doing so. On the one hand, national institutions ask us to impart lectures on setting up similar educational institutes; on the other, the Desert Flower School, which is a kindergarten level, is stopped from starting admissions,” said Ms. Angmo.

On Tuesday (November 3, 2026), the Ladakh administration said the Himalayan Institute of Alternatives, Ladakh’s (HIAL) Desert Flower School commenced functioning “without necessary approvals from the competent authority”. It asked the HIAL to strictly maintain the status quo and avoid causing any prejudice to the land lease case pending before the High Court of J&K and Ladakh.

She said the construction of the school started in 2023 with the donations of Public Sector Units “after due diligence and compliance”. “We could not start admissions last year due to the September 24 incident. We have followed the process of approvals but were directed to get a no-objection certificate from the Deputy Commissioner on not having any political members in the managing committee. While one office says it is a requirement, another denies the same,” said Ms. Angmo.

She said the official approvals “ideally should be granted after the school is functional and its infrastructure and teaching staff were evaluated”. 

“I challenge this government to set up a school like Desert Flower School in five years. Bureaucrats are supposed to facilitate the public-private partnership. However, they are stalling it. Do we have any university featuring among the top 10 in the world? We want answers,” said Ms. Angmo.

Questioning the Ladakh administration’s statement on land lease to the HIAL, Ms. Angmo said the claims made in the government order were “baseless”. 

“We have already informed the court about the land lease. In August last year, we informed the court about the eight applications, 10 rounds of the offices and 50 calls made to officials on the issue of the extension of land lease, which was pending for other institutes including government institutes. In its order, the court underlined that the third-party rights cannot be established and the HIAL activity could continue and highlighted the official delay in the extension,” said Ms. Angmo. 

Mr. Wangchuk, who reacted to the latest official notice, also described it as a witch hunt. “It seems my association with the struggle to establish democracy and seek constitutional safeguards is being pointed out. Ever since V.K. Saxena took over as Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh, the administration goes after all those who raise their voice against their policies, whether it’s liberal liquor policy, nautor land or rock dams on the Sindh river, which is an ecological disaster,” said Mr. Wangchuk.  

He said the latest notice is to scare parents from admitting their wards into the school. “I hope the honourable courts will go into the substance of it. The notice is to tarnish us and confuse the parents,” he added.

Published - November 05, 2026 03:20 am IST