Demchok, Ladakh

Demchok is a historic area of Ladakh, having been part of the kingdom from its inception in the 10th century. The description of the kingdom in the Ladakh Chronicles mentions Demchok Karpo, also called Demchok Lhari Karpo or Lhari Karpo,[10] as being part of the original kingdom.[11][12] This is a possible reference to the rocky white peak behind the present-day Demchok village.[13][14] [lower-alpha 3] The Lhari peak is held sacred by Buddhists. Demchok (Sanskrit: Cakrasaṃvara) is the name of a Buddhist Tantric deity, who is believed to reside on the Mount Kailas, and whose imagery parallels that of Shiva in Hinduism.[17][18] The Lhari peak is also referred to as "Chota Kailas" (mini Kailas) and attracts pilgrimage from Hindus as well as Buddhists.[19][20] Tibetologist Nirmal C. Sinha states that Demchok is part of the Hemis complex.[21] Ruined houses belonging to the Hemis monastery were noticed by Sven Hedin in 1907,[22] and the monastery continues to own land in Demchok.[23]

The stream that flows beside the Lhari peak, referred to as the Lhari stream in historical documents ("Charding Nullah" or "Demchok River" in modern times), was set as the boundary between Ladakh and Tibet at the end of the Tibet–Ladakh–Mughal War in the 17th century.[24]

When Henry Strachey visited the area in 1847, he described Demchok as a "hamlet divided by a rivulet [the Lhari stream]", with settlements on both the sides of the stream. The stream was the prevailing border between Ladakh and Tibet.[25][26] A governor (wazir-e-wazarat) of Ladakh visited the area in 1904–05 and found the Tibetan Demchok village housing 8 to 9 huts of zamindars (landholders) while the Ladakhi Demchok village had only two zamindars.[27] When Sven Hedin visited the area in the November 1907, he described Demchok as four or five huts lying on the southeastern bank of the Lhari stream in Tibet, with the Ladakhi side of the Lhari stream only containing the pyramidal Lhari peak and the ruins of two or three houses.[28][22] According to the Indian government, the Ladakhi Demchok village was used for seasonal cutivation by nomadic farmers.[29]

When independent India defined its borders in 1954, it set its border five miles southeast of Ladakhi Demchok.[30] This would have made the Tibetan Demchok village a part of its territory. During the 1962 Sino-Indian War, the Chinese forces reclaimed the areas southeast of the Lhari stream. The Line of Actual Control resulting from the war runs along the Lhari stream.[lower-alpha 4]

Demchok was on an old route linking Ladakh and Tibet along the bank of the Indus River,[32] which ran mostly through plains to Lake Manasarovar approximately 300 km away.[33]

The Line of Actual Control (LAC) passes along the southeast side of the village, following the Charding Nullah upstream from the nearby Indus River. The Chinese-administered village of Dêmqog, Ngari Prefecture is 600m away, across the stream.[9][34] The Indian-claimed border extends 3 miles (4.8 km) southeast of Demchok, while the Chinese-claimed border extends 10 miles (16 km) northwest of Demchok.[35]

As of 2005, the route from Demchok to Lake Manasarovar in Tibet is closed and local trade with China is prohibited, although local residents admit that clandestine trade with China had been ongoing for decades.[32]

In April 2016, the Daily Excelsior reported that local discontent over Chinese army objections near the border resulted in demands for resettlement from Demchok.[36] Later in 2016, the Nubra constituency MLA Deldan Namgyal reported that the Chinese military suggested to the sarpanch of Demchok "to join China rather than [sit] with India" due to the infrastructural differences across the border.[36][37] Demchok residents protested after the Indian Army refused permission for the local residents to construct irrigation canals to avoid a reaction from Chinese army.[37]

In 2019, the sarpanch of Demchok said that residents of Demchok were moving to the town of Leh due to a lack of infrastructure and jobs.[38]

Map including Demchok (Army Map Service, 1954)

Map showing disputed areas in Ladakh, including Demchok in southeast (CIA, 1988)

Demchok had 31 households and a population of 78 according to the 2011 Census of India. The effective literacy rate (i.e. the literacy rate of population excluding children aged 6 and below) is 42.47%.[39] According to the sarpanch of Demchok in 2019, the village had a population of 69 people who are mostly nomads.[38]

There has been a traditional road between Fukche and Demchok, which connects Demchok to Koyul, Dungti and beyond, but the road is in poor condition.[32] Attempts to improve the road in the past are said to have raised objections from China.[40]

A new road from Chisumle in the Koyul Lungpa valley to Demchok was constructed by the Border Roads Organisation in 2017, via the Umling La pass (32.6964°N 79.2842°E / 32.6964; 79.2842) at a height of 19,300 ft (5,900 m). It is billed as the "world's highest motorable road".[41][42]

Demchok is on the list to receive mobile phone connectivity from Jio under the Universal Service Obligation Funding (USOF) programme.[43]

• Fukche
• India-China Border Roads
• Chumar

• India, Ministry of External Affairs, ed. (1962), Report of the Officials of the Governments of India and the People's Republic of China on the Boundary Question, Government of India Press
  • Indian Report: Part 1 (PDF); Part 2 (PDF); Part 3 (PDF); Part 4 (PDF)
  • Chinese report: Part 1 (PDF); Part 2 (PDF); Part 3 (PDF);
• Ahmad, Zahiruddin (September–December 1968), "New Light on the Tibet-Ladakh-Mughal War of 1679-84", East and West, Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO), 18 (3/4): 340–361, JSTOR 29755343
• Arpi, Claude (December 2016) [abridged version published in Indian Defence Review, 19 May 2017], The Case of Demchok (PDF)
• Bray, John (Winter 1990), "The Lapchak Mission From Ladakh to Lhasa in British Indian Foreign Policy", The Tibet Journal, 15 (4): 75–96, JSTOR 43300375
• Francke, August Hermann (1926). Antiquities of Indian Tibet, Part 2. Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing – via archive.org.
• Emmer, Gerhard (2007), "Dga' Ldan Tshe Dbang Dpal Bzang Po and the Tibet-Ladakh-Mughal War of 1679-84", Proceedings of the Tenth Seminar of the IATS, 2003. Volume 9: The Mongolia-Tibet Interface: Opening New Research Terrains in Inner Asia, BRILL, pp. 81–108, ISBN 978-90-474-2171-9
• Fisher, Margaret W.; Rose, Leo E.; Huttenback, Robert A. (1963), Himalayan Battleground: Sino-Indian Rivalry in Ladakh, Praeger – via archive.org
• Handa, O. C. (2001), Buddhist Western Himalaya: A Politico-Religious History, Indus Publishing Company, ISBN 978-81-7387-124-5
• Hedin, Sven (1922), Southern Tibet: Discoveries in Former Times Compared with My Own Researches in 1906–1908: Vol. IV – Kara-korum and Chang-Tang, Stockholm: Lithographic Insitute of the General Staff of the Swedish Army
• Howard, Neil; Howard, Kath (2014), "Historic Ruins in the Gya Valley, Eastern Ladakh, and a Consideration of Their Relationship to the History of Ladakh and Maryul", in Erberto Lo Bue; John Bray (eds.), Art and Architecture in Ladakh: Cross-cultural Transmissions in the Himalayas and Karakoram, BRILL, pp. 68–99, ISBN 978-90-04-27180-7
• Lamb, Alastair (1964), The China-India border, Oxford University Press
• Lamb, Alastair (1965). "Treaties, Maps and the Western Sector of the Sino-Indian Boundary Dispute" (PDF). The Australian Year Book of International Law. 1 (1): 37–52. doi:10.1163/26660229-001-01-900000005.
• Lange, Diana (2017), "Decoding Mid-19th Century Maps of the Border Area between Western Tibet, Ladakh, and Spiti", Revue d'Études Tibétaines,The Spiti Valley Recovering the Past and Exploring the Present
• McKay, Alex (2015), Kailas Histories: Renunciate Traditions and the Construction of Himalayan Sacred Geography, BRILL, ISBN 978-90-04-30618-9
• Petech, Luciano (1977), The Kingdom of Ladakh, c. 950–1842 A.D. (PDF), Instituto Italiano Per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente – via academia.edu

• Demchok Western Sector (Chinese claim), OpenStreetMap
• Demchok Eastern Sector (Indian claim), OpenStreetMap