: How Jawaharlal Nehrus First Visit to Ladakh Changed the Destiny of Its People #IndiaNEWS #History When Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, passed away on 27 March 1964, his friend and

How Jawaharlal Nehrus First Visit to Ladakh Changed the Destiny of Its People #IndiaNEWS #History
When Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, passed away on 27 March 1964, his friend and confidant, the 19th Kushok Bakula Rinpoche—a Buddhist spiritual leader and MLA representing Leh at the time—was in deep mourning.
(Image above on the left of Kushok Bakula Rinpoche greeting Prime Minister Nehru in Leh on 4 July 1949. )
After all, it was Nehru who convinced Rinpoche to enter politics in service of the Ladakhi people. Following Nehrus advice, Rinpoche would go onto serve in a multiplicity of roles as a minister in the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir government, Member of Parliament and its tallest political leader of the 20th century with distinction. Decades later, he would also serve India as Ambassador to Mongolia with distinction. Such was his contribution to the people that former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh once called him the ‘Architect of Modern Ladakh’.
Offering his deepest condolences to Nehru’s daughter and future Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, in a letter dated 1 June 1964, Rinpoche wrote:
The passing away of our most beloved and distinguished Pandit ji is one of the saddest events in the history of man. Mother Earth has become poorer. Man will have to perform deeds of merit for thousands of years before [another] one like him walks upon this earth againIt is the pious wish of our people that a portion of the last remains of the ones who took so much interest in their well-being should be taken to Ladakh so that they may have the sacred opportunity of showing their reverence according to their religious rites. This implies the building of a Stupa and enshrining the sacred remains therein. I would therefore, request you kindly to feel considerate to our deeper sentiments and oblige us by giving a portion of the last rites of our Pandit ji in favour of the people of Ladakh.
Like millions of their fellow Indians, people in Ladakh held Nehru in high esteem. This is the story of how the first Prime Minister’s visit to Leh changed the history of Ladakh.
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Incursions by the Pakistani tribal raiders in 1947-48 had brought into sharp focus the vital importance Ladakh held as a strategic border area. In early 1948, when tribal raiders from Pakistan had made incursions into Ladakh, Rinpoche had successfully coordinated Indian efforts on the ground to protect the region. A year later, when discussions were ongoing in the United Nations for a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir, Rinpoche received an invitation to meet Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in person on 20 May 1949 at his residence in Teen Murti Bhavan, New Delhi.
Thus, in the spring of 1949, accompanied by a delegation and Mr Wangbo Nangso as the interpreter—since Rinpoche at the time couldn’t speak Hindi, Urdu or English—he set off on a long journey to New Delhi.

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