Sonam Wangchuk’s fast enters day 25, as CJP urges him to end it 

Sonam Wangchuk has not eaten in 25 days. On Wednesday, as the engineer-turned-activist lay at Gurugram’s Medanta Hospital, the fight around his hunger strike moved from the streets of Delhi to the corridors of Parliament, and finally to his hospital room. 

Wangchuk joined the Cockroach Janta Party’s protest at Jantar Mantar on 28 June, lending his voice to students demanding accountability over alleged irregularities in the NEET-UG examination and reforms in India’s education system. He has since refused to break his fast, even after a police crackdown on the group’s march to Parliament on 20 July left several protesters injured and led to the detention of Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi. 

That crackdown hardened his resolve rather than weakening it. Wangchuk had earlier indicated he would end his strike if political parties assured him the issue would be raised in Parliament. After the police action, he chose to continue instead, and was moved from Safdarjung Hospital to Medanta as his worsening condition drew growing concern. 

On Wednesday, that concern found its way into two separate appeals. CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke posted on X asking Wangchuk to call off his strike, saying his life was too valuable to risk further, while making clear the sit-in at Jantar Mantar would continue regardless.  

Separately, a delegation of opposition MPs, including Congress’s Vivek Tankha, TMC’s Sagarika Ghose and CPI(M)’s John Brittas, planned to visit Wangchuk at Medanta to assure him that the matter would be taken up on the floor of Parliament. 

Reverberations felt far and wide 

Inside Parliament, the protest was already being felt. Both Houses were adjourned on Wednesday morning after opposition MPs, many dressed in black, protested the police action against students. Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge alleged that students had been lathi-charged and tear-gassed during the march, forcing an adjournment of the Rajya Sabha until noon. The Lok Sabha, too, was pushed to 2pm, even as Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government was open to a discussion on the paper leak issue. 

The Supreme Court, meanwhile, declined to hear an urgent plea over the police action, with Chief Justice of India Surya Kant telling the petitioner’s lawyer that the court had no interest in watching videos of the incident and no time to spare. 

Delhi, for its part, has taken on the feel of a city bracing for more. Sixteen metro stations have been shut, twenty additional companies of the CRPF flown in from West Bengal, and roads around the protest sites cordoned off ahead of the Monsoon Session.   

Wangchuk, now immortalised for many Indians as the inspiration behind 3 Idiots, remains the still point around which all of it turns, a 58-year-old educator whose refusal to eat has, once again, become the loudest form of protest in the room.