In the cold desert of Ladakh, silence has always been its own language. It is a silence shaped by the high-altitude winds, by Buddhist monasteries perched on crags, by Muslim hamlets along rivers, by the discipline of mountain survival, and by the rituals of a borderland that has lived at the uneasy edge of empires. Yet today, the silence of Ladakh is not contemplative. It is the silence imposed by curfews, by internet shutdowns, by the choking of dissent, and by the state’s refusal to heed voices that demand recognition....