The Nation (doesn't) Wants to Know

Like many others who took the same path, I guess the ongoing hunger strike by Sonam Wangchuk will also meet a tepid end - and will be forgotten in due time. But right now, I am immensely affected by what's going on. There's no one to share my thoughts with as I am labeled "left-winged" if I talk. 

But I wish to tell you about it...

There was something almost inconvenient about Sonam Wangchuk's protest. He wasn't blocking highways, burning buses, or hurling slogans through loudspeakers. He was simply refusing food. Amd it is difficult to demonize a man who is quietly becoming weaker. Much easier, perhaps, to question his motives than answer his questions. 

Governments often possess an extraordinary appetite for symbolism. They celebrate mountains, glaciers, and the resilience of those who guard India's frontiers. Yet when someone from those very mountains asks for dialogue, the signal mysteriously weakens. Meetings are "under consideration," urgency fades, and silence acquires the reassuring label of procedure. Perhaps fasting has become an outdated language. In an age of prime-time theatrics, quiet dignity simply does not generate enough ratings. Remember, our elected head of the state made noises with empty utensils to fight the pandemic; but a nation is judged not by the noise it amplifies, but by the silence it chooses to ignore.

The students, meanwhile, are receiving an education that never appeared in any syllabus. They are learning that merit can be undone by a photograph forwarded on a messaging app. They are learning that months of discipline and sleepless nights can be rendered useless by a few minutes of dishonesty. Every paper leak teaches two subjects - one, the prescribed curriculum, and the other is cynicism. The second appears to enjoy a near-perfect pass percentage.

Parents counted coaching fees, application charges, travel expenses, and sacrifices made over months, years. Students counted lost sleep, abandoned holidays, and opportunities slipping away through no fault of their own. Authorities counted press statements. Committees were constituted. Investigations announced. Suspensions promised. Another examination scheduled. Somewhere, another printer quietly prepared for the next leak. The remarkable thing was no longer that question papers leaked; it was how efficiently the country had begun treating each leak as an annual ritual, namely, unfortunate, regrettable, entirely predictable, and somehow never preventable.

One wondered what lesson the Republic (pun intended!) is teaching its youngest citizens. Study hard. Follow the rules. Believe in fairness. And if fairness escapes through the back door before the examination begins, kindly remain patient and prepare once more. Resilience, it seemed, has become a substitute for accountability. The burden of institutional failure was quietly transferred onto the shoulders of those least responsible for it.

Perhaps that was the invisible thread connecting the fasting man of Ladakh and the anxious student in an examination hall. One waits with an empty stomach, hoping those in power would agree to a conversation. The other waits with an admit card, hoping effort would still matter. Both placed their faith in institutions. Both discovered that silence can sometimes be the most enduring policy.

Until, of course, a cockroach appears.

Then the nation suddenly remembers how to pay attention.Somewhere, one imagines the Cockroach Party holding its first national convention. Membership is effortless. No ideology. No manifesto. No accountability. Just the remarkable ability to distract a nation. The guest of honour is not a politician, but a fasting Sonam Wangchuk, who waits quietly outside the venue because peaceful dissent requires an invitation that never arrives. Inside, the cockroach receives wall-to-wall coverage, expert panels, and ministerial reactions. Outside, a citizen asking for dialogue is rewarded with silence, suspicion, and whispers of being a "foreign agent." The cockroach is declared a national concern; the man risking his health for a cause is treated as a national inconvenience. Perhaps that is the safest form of politics today, not solving uncomfortable problems, but ensuring that a cockroach occupies the headlines while inconvenient questions are left waiting at the door.

Maybe it's time to realize that when cockroaches become headlines and citizens become conspiracies, democracy needs more than pest control.