Sonam Wangchuk ends hunger strike as India protests continue

Sonam Wangchuk ended a 26-day hunger strike on Friday after receiving assurances from the government and members of Parliament that the fight over exam accountability would be discussed in Parliament. The move closed one dramatic phase of a protest wave that has become one of India’s largest youth mobilizations in recent years, but it did not end the campaign.

His fast had become the most visible symbol of anger over allegations of irregularities in India’s examination system, including the NEET-UG medical entrance test. The protest has drawn students and young activists under the banner of the Cockroach Janata Party, or CJP, and they have kept their demand focused on Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation.

Supporters said the movement would continue even without Wangchuk fasting in public. Opposition leaders also backed the call for Pradhan to step down, adding political pressure to a campaign that began building weeks earlier. Wangchuk had already said he would join a CJP protest on June 6 if the education minister had not resigned by then, showing that the challenge to the government was escalating well before the fast ended.

Wangchuk’s protest also carried a personal cost. He was forcibly taken to hospital after 20 days of fasting, underscoring how far the standoff had gone before the latest concession. Even so, the government’s agreement to put the issue before Parliament gave him enough to end the strike, while leaving the core grievances unresolved.

The protests now stand as a test of whether a movement centered on a single high-profile activist can outlast the fast that helped ignite it. In New Delhi, the CJP has tried to keep the focus on exam accountability and on Pradhan’s role in the crisis, while Wangchuk’s withdrawal from hunger strike shifts the confrontation from a public sacrifice to a broader political contest over India’s testing system.