India, Sept. 26 -- It is unfortunate that four young lives were lost in the violence and police action in Ladakh Wednesday, during a protest demanding statehood. The signs of unrest were already there, but the leadership of the Union Territory (UT) seemed to have failed to gauge its intensity. Ever since Ladakh became a UT in 2019, there have been protests - street action, even a padyatra from Leh to Delhi by local leader Sonam Wangchuk, alleged to be the mastermind behind Wednesday's violence - demanding statehood and inclusion in the Sixth Schedule (a constitutional provision that provides measures of autonomy and self-governance to the Scheduled Tribes in the hill regions of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram). A restive Ladakh, with its long border with China and Pakistan, does not augur well for national security. There are two takeaways from the protests. One, the statehood and Sixth Schedule demands in Leh have wide support. The idea of Ladakh as a state is based on the region's distinct geography, faith traditions and customs, and predates the events of 2019. The Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Councils (of Leh and Kargil), set up in 1995, were expected to be a platform for self-governance. This has failed to meet local political aspirations in the absence of administrative autonomy and financial agency. The Centre could explore the Fifth and Sixth Schedule options, which empower district and village councils and give them a say in the distribution and management of resources, particularly land, a sensitive issue in the UT. Two, mass mobilisations and protests are safety valves in a democracy. Arson and violence are unacceptable, but State power should be used judiciously against protesters. Authorities must address core issues rather than reduce agitations to the influence of any single individual/leader. Discrediting local leaders is unlikely to resolve what is essentially a political issue. Worse, they give protestors a personality to coalesce around. Ladakh's concerns, unique in some ways, also mirror similar contexts in the northeastern (NE) states, where tribal groups have in the past protested seeking autonomy in governance. The Centre negotiated these with unique instruments - the Sixth Schedule, autonomous councils and other such - and subsumed local identity assertions within the larger rubric of federalism. A beginning was made in Ladakh in June, when the Centre notified a set of rules - allowing reservation up to 85%, a 15-year residency requirement for domicile status, setting aside a third of the seats in hill councils for women, and recognising five official languages, among them - to address fears of loss of identity and land alienation. It needs to now intensify its outreach, and also communicate its sincerity....