New Delhi, India — On the night of August 5, 2019, hundreds of Kashmiris were arrested amid a crackdown by Indian security forces that followed the Indian government’s decision to strip the region of its special rights and status as a state.

Sonam Wangchuk celebrated, and thanked Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“THANK YOU PRIME MINISTER,” he wrote on X, then Twitter, “for fulfilling Ladakh’s longstanding dream.”

One of India’s best-known innovators and education reformers, Wangchuk was referring to a decades-long demand from many in Ladakh, for the cold desert bordering China to be separated from Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian-administered part of the disputed region that Pakistan also claims. Until August 2019, Ladakh was part of Jammu and Kashmir. With the Modi government’s move,

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