Sonam Wangchuk
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A profile
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From: Satarupa Paul, Engineer-turned-educationist Sonam Wangchuk is changing the education landscape of Ladakh, one failed student at a time, Dec 08, 2016: The Hindustan Times
From: Satarupa Paul, Engineer-turned-educationist Sonam Wangchuk is changing the education landscape of Ladakh, one failed student at a time, Dec 08, 2016: The Hindustan Times
Sonam Wangchuk born, near Alchi, in the Trans Himalayan region of Ladakh, India is an engineer, innovator, and an education reformist. He is the Founding Director of the Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL) which was founded in 1988 by a group of students who had been in his own words, the ‘victims’ of an alien education system foisted on Ladakh. Sonam spent the first seven years of his childhood with his mother in a remote Ladakhi village, climbing trees, helping her with housework, and learning to read and write Ladakhi. He feels that the opportunity to learn Ladakhi was one of the best things she provided, particularly since the schools he attended later did not teach the language.
In 1988, a year after graduating as an engineer, Sonam, with his brother and five peers, formed the Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL). Their first fundraising effort, a Ladakhi cultural show, proved to be a huge success. Until 1990 Sonam coached school students and offered vocational training courses to dropouts. Sonam had to get to the root of the problem, and the solution to that lay in localizing the system of elementary education. He did not think of building an alternate system because it would have resulted in a waste of resources. Besides, most of the children in Ladakh attended government-run schools.
In 1991 Sonam started his first intervention in the government school of Saspol with permission from the chief education officer of the region. The success of the model created popular demand for his training, and 33 villages came forward to adopt the model before the newly formed Hill Council adopted it as official policy. When he saw people struggling to meet their basic water requirements in Ladakh, he came up with a solution of creating vertical ice stupas to store water for a longer time. The average stupa is 35 meters to 40 meters high and can store upto 16,000 cubic litres of water which is enough to irrigate 10 hectares of land. Read how Wangchuk plans to create 80-90 such stupas to solve all of Ladakh’s water troubles.
He became fascinated by mirrors and lenses after reading about them in his school textbooks, and then took a solar-energy study option during his engineering studies – which, in turn, triggered his interest in renewable energy. “And from there, I was completely into environmental issues,” he recalls. He later did a two-year specialization in Grenoble, France, studying earthen architecture.
Much of his career has focused on developing solutions to problems encountered by communities living at high altitudes such as education, climate-responsive housing and now access to water.
His journey into education reform began when he had to find a way to finance his engineering course and started teaching during his college holidays. “I started thinking about things that could make a real impact on people’s lives, mainly through meaningful education,” he says. “All these young Ladakhis – 95 per cent of them – were failing in the educational system owing mainly to their being a cultural and linguistic minority.”
In 1988, he co-founded SECMOL, the Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh, and slowly reduced the failure rate to 25 per cent; and then, in 1994, he led the establishment of a solar-powered, student-built, student-run alternative school where teenagers who still fail in the conventional education system get a second chance. It was at this school that the ice stupa and many such innovations were born.
Wangchuk’s interest in educational reform has resulted in his appointment to the Jammu and Kashmir State Education Advisory Committee, the Indian government’s National Governing Council for Elementary Education and several other similar assignments across South Asia.
As of 2026 July
Himanshi.Dhawan, July 26, 2026: The Times of India
It was after midnight on July 23 when educationist Sonam Wangchuk broke his fast. Sipping juice, he told the politicians gathered around his hospital bed at Medanta, “After 26 days, this tastes good, but hunger doesn’t taste bad either.” It was a remark reflective of his ability to make light of his long ordeal despite being 11 kgs lighter.
But just hours later, in the face of trolling and criticism for breaking his fast in the company of govt ministers, the 59-year-old had to post an impassioned 24-minute video, declaring that he didn’t need a “character certificate” to show his commitment to the movement, and explaining how he was held in “North Korea” like conditions while negotiating for the safety of protestors from hospital. His wife, Gitanjali J Angmo, whose LinkedIn profile shows her in martial arts attire, also sprang to his defence.
“He’s tough and very headstrong,” says Mohd Shafi Lassu, a childhood friend and a member of the Apex Body Leh (ABL), who was in Delhi to meet Wangchuk. Lassu says that many in Ladakh were concerned about Wangchuk’s health as the days ticked by, but they need not have worried. “He is an anshan (hunger strike) champion…10 days of anshan is like one day for him,” Lassu says, adding that Wangchuk had been willing to stretch the fast by another week if needed.
The apple does not fall very far from the tree. Wangchuk’s father, Congress politician Sonam Wangyal, fasted twice to demand Scheduled Tribe (ST) status for the people of Ladakh. Wangchuk himself has sat on three fasts since 2023, demanding protections for Ladakh’s land, ecology and people. The NDA govt and ABL are close to a final draft following three years of negotiations. But the climate activist’s attitude towards the govt was not always as confrontational or hostile. In fact, when Article 370 was abrogated and Ladakh was granted the status of a Union Territory, there were celebrations in Leh.
ICY RESOLVE
Wangchuk was born in Uleytokpo, a small village with barely five households, near Alchi in Ladakh. Initially, he was home-schooled as there was no school close by. “I learnt from farmers, birds, animals, and my mother,” he says in a video describing his childhood years in a large family of nine siblings. At nine, the family moved to Delhi where he studied at a Kendriya Vidyalaya, graduating in mechanical engineering in Srinagar.
Though he could have easily bagged a govt job, Wangchuk returned to Ladakh to found SECMOL (Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh), to reform the govt school system in 1988. Only 5% of Ladakhi students would pass the state board exam. The language of instruction was Urdu, which most students and even many teachers did not understand. Textbooks printed outside the state had little connection to life in the cold, harsh desert. “We used to learn F for fridge and F for frog. No Ladakhi child had seen either,” says Konchok Norgay, a former teacher and director at SECMOL.
Norgay was part of the earliest batch to be enrolled in the ‘school for failures’ that provided alternative methods for students who hadn’t fared well in exams. Unlike other students, Norgay’s grades were good because he could “mug up” page after page. But sitting in the SECMOL classroom felt like “the cataract infecting my eyes had been removed”, Norgay says.
Encouraged by these initial successes, Wangchuk launched Operation New Hope, building a collaborative effort with village communities and the govt to improve learning outcomes and eventually co-founded Himalayan Institute of Alternatives Ladakh (HIAL) with his wife. He also introduced innovations like sustainable buildings that run on solar power and can maintain a temperature of 15 degrees C even when it’s below freezing outside, and conical artificial glaciers called ice stupas to mitigate the summer water crisis.
‘ACHO’ WITH LOVE
A researcher who has worked closely with him says, “He has a hopeful way of looking at the world that is infectious. And unlike a scientist who looks at empirical data, Wangchuk is always very mindful of the impact any decision might have on ordinary people.” Lassu says everyone in Ladakh knows him as ‘acho’ or older brother, and he has earned enormous goodwill amongst people because of his knowledge and generosity. “There are so many students who have gone from failures to successes. It is because of his influence,” says Ashraf Ali Bracha, ABL leader and a family friend.
As ‘Kaga Le’ or ‘sir’ at HIAL, he continues to teach classes, give lectures, and introduce students to the teachings of Gandhi and Krishnamurthy. Others cite his generosity when it comes to endowments for education and climate change. In March 2022, he handed over prize money of Rs 1 crore for women empowerment programs in Leh and Kargil. On social media, Wangchuk enjoys a following of nearly 8m. But his first tryst with fame came in 2009, when the film ‘3 Idiots’ was released and people thronged to Ladakh to visit the ‘Rancho school’. Last week, though, actor Aamir Khan clarified that the film was not based on the activist.
CONTESTED LEGACY
During the pandemic, Wangchuk supported the BJP govt’s call to boycott Chinese products, hitting China, as he put it, “not with bullets but with wallets”. He remained supportive of the Centre till Jan 2023 when, in a video message from Khardung-La, he sought a legislative framework to back the promises made. It was only after that the relationship began to sour. In Sept 2025, Wangchuk was arrested under the National Security Act (NSA) and kept in detention in Jodhpur when he sat on another hunger strike.
Nudged by the Supreme Court, the Centre withdrew NSA, and Wangchuk was released in March 2026. Even after a sixmonth stint in prison, he had no complaints, only empathy. “He said, ‘Though I was behind bars, my guards seemed to be more imprisoned than me,”: one researcher recalls him saying, “because they had long working hours and could not eat till they were relieved of duty.” He spoke of sharing his food with them and how prison gave him time to think.
Over the last ten days, much of Gen Z’s engagement with him has flattened into little more than a hashtag. With police reportedly restricting visitors and communication during his detention, it fell to Angmo to issue statements, approach the courts, and ensure his voice was heard.
Finally, there have been the inevitable comparisons with Anna Hazare and the JP movement. Both were buoyed not just by the politics of Gandhian sacrifice and anshan, but also by real-world demands of political change. While no one doubts Wangchuk is a man of conviction, some say he is politically naive. But it is Wangchuk who may have had the last laugh. Like he says in his video, “A successful gambler is not one who wins every time, but who knows when to fold.”
Politics
Becoming a political provocateur/ As of 2025
Naseer.Ganai, Sep 27, 2025: The Times of India
Srinagar : Phunsukh Wangdu, protagonist of 2009 film 3 Idiots, would famously work his way out of trouble with ‘All izz well’. Ladakhi Sonam Wangchuk , said to be the inspiration behind the endearing character essayed by Aamir Khan, has since gained a reputation more as a political provocateur than a proponent of philosophical life hacks. Wangchuk, variously described as an innovator, activist and climate warrior, did not stumble into politics overnight.
Four months after abrogation of Article 370 in Aug 2019, he released a video thanking PM Modi for making Ladakh a UT, albeit with a veiled warning. “People here have started asking whether UT status was granted to exploit Ladakh’s vast resources, and whether our resources will be exploited the way China does in Tibet,” Wangchuk said, urging the Centre to safeguard the region under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.
In Jan 2023, he announced a five-day climate fast at Khardung La, one of the world’s highest passes, where winter temperatures plunge to minus 40°C. The administration prevented him from reaching the site, forcing him to pitch tent in Leh instead. The protest, complete with political speeches, music, solidarity gatherings and anti-establishment rap, galvanised Wangchuk’s mission.
A year later, in Oct 2024, he ended another 16-day fast only after the MHA agreed to resume talks with Ladakhi organisations. After negotiations stalled, he launched a new 35-day hunger strike on Sept 10 this year, demanding statehood for Ladakh with Sixth Schedule safeguards.
Last Wednesday, he called off the fast after violent protests erupted across the region, leaving four dead and dozens hurt. Born in 1966 in a village near Leh, Wangchuk was homeschooled till he was nine. In 1975, after his father Sonam Wangyal became a minister in the then J&K govt, the family moved to Srinagar. He later studied engineering at NIT Srinagar and got another degree from CRATerre School of Architecture in Grenoble, France.
In 1988, Wangchuk cofounded Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh to reform the education system. He argued that Ladakhi children, struggling with textbooks designed for other regions, were being unfairly labelled poor performers.
Wangchuk’s activism and political discourse in Ladakh now run parallel. Roots of the present turmoil lie in 2020 Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council polls, when most political parties called for apoll boycott until Sixth Schedule protection was granted.
See also
Sonam Wangchuk
