FOCUS

Ladakh (or ‘La Dags’,the land of the high passes) today, is situated under the Karakoram

range, much of it being above a height of 3000 mts, in the trans Himalayan region of the

Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. A key staging post on the ancient Central and South

Asian trade routes, indigenous Ladakhi expression intermixes with Tibetan, Kashmiri and

Central Asian elements, reflected in the incredibly rich tapestry of the arts and material heritage of the land.

Living in such rough climes, the Ladakhi people have developed creative ways of

channelising their limited resources through the ages, employing innovative methods of

irrigation for their crop(the only water source being glacial brooks), weaving for cloth,

architecture, art.

A completely self sustaining culture now enduring great changes.

CURRENT STATE

Primarily a mix of Buddhist and Islamic communities, when India got its independence in

1947, Ladakh became a part of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir,and was open to the

public only in 1974.

Consequently, a skewed idea of development in the state by the government has led to

alarming shifts in a culture which believed in ‘merging its technologies and aesthetics with the

land’ for centuries to opt for ‘progress’ measured by a fixed income, by material assets, by a matchbox home, by tar roads.

This idea of ‘development’ has snowballed over the last years and the way of life in Ladakh is

changing because it has been exposed to the same air of modernity reducing culture in other

parts of our country to displays at a thrift shop, with the young beginning to reject their cultural

wholesale out of a sense of shame.

The same story mirrored in so many cultures all over India.

If technology and the needs of of the economy are our starting point, then we have what we

are faced with today-a model of development that is dangerously distanced from the needs of

particular peoples and places and rigidly imposed from the top down.

With the young leaving their homes in search of a fixed income,the highly self sustaining manner of living in Ladakh teeters towards complete malfunction.

As is the case with many ancient cultures,there is no documentation of the scale of the

dilution of the culture whatsoever.

ACTION

Ladakh is an ‘ancient future’, as a reknowned conservationist working in the region, Helena

Norberg Hodge calls it.

With the passing away of each older person, there is a loss of heritage.

All over the world, ideas exploring sustainable ways of living are being sought.

All over the world, and now all over India people are now resorting back to the practices

handed down through generations of elders for agriculture, masonry, forestry, education.

In Ladakh,we have an elder living, whom we must learn from before she crumbles into some-

thing unrecognizable, a product of our industrial sludge..

There is an urgent need to document the Ladakhi culture.

I completed my post graduation in film from the National Institute of Design, and in keeping with the methods handed down by one of the founding fathers of our institute,

Charles Eames, I intend to document this culture with the help of my already enthusiastic

trained colleagues : textile designers, product designers, animators, film makers, furniture designers, exhibition designers, ceramic designers to document the linguistics, the art forms

and the innovative ways these people practise to survive in their rugged climes.

Working shoulder to shoulder with the Ladakhi people,

working towards keeping their ancient arts alive.

The aim is

1. to promote self respect and self reliance amongst the people, thereby

protecting life sustaining diversity and creating the conditions for locally based

truly sustainable development

2. to make the material available for an India which can learn from the respect and

gratitude the Ladakhi have for their limited resources.

Milann Tress John, BE IT,

PG Film and Video Communication Design,

National Institute of Design,

Ahmedabad, Gujarat,

INDIA

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