Balancing modern education with traditional values

Ladakh is a part of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, situated high above the rest of the world, cradled carefully between the towering peaks of the Himalayas. Ladakh’s landscape is made up of sky-high mountains and peacefully inhabited valleys speckled dark with terraced farming fields.

For thousands of years, agriculture has remained the principal means of support for the Ladakhi people. Almost every family living in Ladakh owns a farm on which they sustain themselves throughout the year. Today, though, with a new understanding of an education’s importance, many young Ladakhis are moving away from the farms in order to reach a higher education, and then to move on to get a better-paying job.

When I first arrived in Ladakh my conceptions about modern development seemed to be constantly changing as Ladakh began to show me how there are always two sides to every issue. To me, education is one of the most important aspects of society, especially in that of a developing nation or region. As I spent more time here in Ladakh I began to notice a difference in personal and cultural values between the young and old populations. Just in the two and a half months that I have been here I have seen the contrast of young Ladakhis dressing in jeans and t-shirts, while uneducated Ama-les and Aba-les (mothers and fathers) have talked desperately about the lack of help on their farms.

“People who go off to get an education often come home with different values,” Atcho Dorjay of Likir passionately told me in the comfort of his own kitchen. “Before, life was so much simpler ... before the pressures of the modern world had taken over our youth.”

With the opening of Ladakh’s roads in 1974, large industries began to flourish rapidly in Leh (Ladakh’s capital), and people started to take on a new curiosity of the world around them. No longer were the young Ladakhis expected to retain ancient traditions that had been passed down for generations. With the push of globalization there suddenly became pressure for Ladakhis to make a more profitable income, creating a greater dependence on government jobs and causing higher education to appear more attractive.

The criteria of the education system that the local government, the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council, established in 1993 has absolutely no relevance to the Ladakhis themselves or to the land that they inhabit. Each of their classes is taught in either English or Urdu, two languages that are completely foreign to their native tongue.

Urdu is the official language of Pakistan, one of Ladakh’s neighboring nations. Also, originally Ladakh was under British control, supplying the English influence. Teachers that were hired in the government schools were often not native to Ladakh. They usually came from Kashmir or Southern India and were not used to the lifestyle or language barrier of the Ladakhi people. The textbooks that were used in the classrooms were created with completely different factions of people in mind.

The changes to the education system that has been instituted throughout the region of Ladakh inevitably brought not only matriculation rate of 5 percent, but it also caused students to drift away from their homes and communities, far away from the practices of their traditional values.

Then in 1994 Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL) was founded with the principal objective to educate the Ladakhi youth while keeping in mind the value of traditional preservation. SECMOL instituted language and textbook educational reform, as well as a training program for teachers living in Ladakh. In response to SECMOL’s educational adjustments Ladakh experienced a 45 percent increase in matriculation rates of Ladakhi students.

“Nomadic families in particular are facing huge problems,” Sonam Anchuk of Leh’s Lamden school recounted. “With their children off at school, these families will either hire extra help or are just left with additional work throughout the year.”

Another problem is that with Ladakh’s exceptionally harsh winters, school vacations are set up with the school economics in mind — long vacations in the winter and diminutive breaks in the summer. School institutions throughout Ladakh benefit greatly by not having to pay heating bills in winter, using only passive solar techniques during the summer.

Although this is both an economic and ecological incentive for the government, it once again adds to the stress of a lack of help during the harvesting season of Ladakhi farmers. Harvesting seasons throughout Ladakhi history had created this bond between families and generations, developing a true sense of community.

“Agriculture is important to us, just as education is,” Tsering Kunzes, a student at SECMOL stressed to me. Many of the children know the value of both education and traditional practices, and apply this to their daily life.

To compensate for less agricultural help around the house, many Ladakhi families have started taking to more contemporary farming methods. Traditionally, Ladakhis used solely animal labor and grew all of their crops organically. Today, many Ladakhi families have begun to add modern machinery as well as a wide variety of pesticides on their fields to their time and labor that they spend on their fields daily.

Modernization has unquestionably brought along with it numerous benefits to the people of Ladakh that surely cannot be ignored. The importance of education should not be devalued. Also, Ladakhis should not feel restricted to continue the role of their traditional way of life, if they feel compelled to follow contrasting ambitions.

But it is troubling that if western principals become more of the norm here, that more and more young Ladakhis will resort to more economic careers, and will forget the benefits of sustainable agriculture and living of living close to the land. Here in Ladakh where agriculture is still so much a part of the people’s identity, it is hard to imagine what life might be like if one day traditional values are completely eliminated. 

Ella Belenky is a junior at Cabot High School in Cabot. She spent her spring semester abroad in the high Himalayas of Ladakh, India, with Vermont Intercultural Semesters (VIS). An aspiring photographer, when she looks through her camera’s lens she sees the world as an artist’s pallet. 