Social change in Indian Tibet

Abstract

The traditional economy of Ladakh was based in a polyandrous domus transmit ted between generations by primogeniture. Different forms of polyandry and its monogamous alternative are related to contrasts in the subsistence base as bet ween agricultural production and an urban cash economy of traders. The con struction of the military road from Kashmir to Leh, the capital of Ladakh, has facilitated shifts in resource availability which affect numerous interconnected features of the Ladakhi pattern of living; marital patterns, educational orienta tion, the stability of the monastic land-owning system, the balance of influence between muslim and buddhist Ladakhis on the one hand and newcomers mostly from Kashmir on the other and the use of the Ladakhi language. While the monastic system is clearly under strain and the whole buddhist culture of the region threatened there are signs of strength and adaptability in the old culture that may still reorient to the demands of the developing economy. Tourism merely accentuates the pressures and changes which the strategic open ing of Ladakh during the conflicts of India with Pakistan and China had already begun.