`Participational development' in Ladakh
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COMMENTS 
A women's organisation puts Ladakh on the road to development without severing it from its local culture
In the remote tourist paradise of Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir, an organisation called the Women's Alliance of Ladakh (WAL) is fighting to raise the status of rural women and strengthen the local culture and agriculture against the onslaught of unplanned development.
WAL is the brainchild of linguist Helena Norberg-Hodge who has been working with the Ladakhi people to protect their culture and environment since 1974. Norberg-Hodge was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 1996 for her pioneering efforts.
Set up with the help of the International Society of Ecology and Culture ( ISEC) in 1991, the Women's Alliance today has a membership of over 5,000 women from more than 100 villages. It has charted a course of 'participational development', aimed specifically at women, to prove that traditional values need be neither anachronistic nor antithethical to development.
At its humble headquarters in Leh, women dressed in traditional clothes sell local crafts and food. The centre serves as a market for handmade goods like woollen caps, hemp bags, Ladakhi jewellery, organic produce and seeds.
The Alliance supports local knowledge and skills including spinning, weaving, dyeing and cooking. `Clean Up' campaigns are organised to encourage community participation in protecting the environment; and there are 'No Television Weeks' to curtail the intrusion of `harmful' non-Ladakhi culture. WAL has persuaded farmers to depend on traditional labour rather than hired labour to arrest bankruptcy within the farming community. Dramas are staged to raise awareness regarding the problem of waste. And the organisation launched a successful campaign aimed at discouraging the use of plastic bags in Leh.
A new centre was built for the organisation to ensure greater visibility at the political level. The new building serves as an information centre and a venue for the Alliance's programmes.
Helena recalls the region's self-sufficiency back in 1975. "The houses I saw were so beautifully constructed that I asked my guide to show me the places where the poor lived. But he told me that there were no poor houses in Ladakh," says Helena. Later, however, government-sponsored development programmes and tourism led to deprivation and impoverishment of the people. It was this paradox that interested Helena and moved her to begin work on bringing about change by consolidating the tenets of Ladakhi culture.
"I started my work to break these impressions people have about development," says Helena who set up the ecology group in Leh to train the local population in ecological sustainability. She also encouraged organic farming and solar power projects to enhance indigenous productivity. The WAL project is a continuation of this work.
"Only a few years ago women were considered backward and ignorant. Now we're respected as one of the most influential voices in Ladakh," says Dolma Tsering, WAL's director. These simple words stress the huge achievements of a woman (Helena) who was labelled a CIA agent by the local administration and an eco-fascist by western academicians.
Contact:
Women's Alliance of Ladakh
Sankar Road , Chubi
Leh 194101, Ladakh
Jammu and Kashmir
Tel: 91- 1982-50293