There are moments in a marriage when you suddenly realise that the thread holding your lives together has always been the same. For Sonam (Wangchuk) and me, that thread has been nation-building through education and the evolution of human consciousness.As Sonam’s fast enters its 22nd day, many people ask me what it means to us. For me, it is not merely a protest. It is the heartbreaking interruption of a life’s work.AdvertisementFor more than three decades, education has been the language through which we have tried to serve our country. Long before SECMOL (Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh) and HIAL (Himalayan Institute of Alternatives) came into being, we had dedicated our lives to reimagining what education could become. Sonam did so by building schools, institutions and innovations that helped young people learn from life itself. My journey unfolded more quietly through an inner search into what education ought to awaken in a human being. Different paths, one shared dream.Also Read | We’re no longer hungry. Is that why Sonam Wangchuk’s fast doesn’t move us?In 1989, while still a school student, I visited the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Puducherry. Until then, like millions of Indian students, I believed education happened through classrooms, textbooks and examinations. There I encountered Sri Aurobindo’s vision of integral education: The harmonious development of the physical, vital, mental, psychic and spiritual dimensions of the human being.I returned with a question that has never left me: Could education help us discover not only what we know, but who we are?AdvertisementFrom then on, my life unfolded along two parallel paths. One led through schools, degrees and a profession. The other had no syllabus. It taught me to observe myself, cultivate character and search for a deeper purpose. One prepared me for a career. The other prepared me for life.Looking back, I realise how fortunate I was. My formal education never asked these questions. I encountered them only because I happened to walk into the Ashram. It was, in many ways, an accident of grace.Foundational literacy and numeracy remain essential. Every child must learn to read, write and calculate well. But education once asked an equally profound question: Who are you, and what are you here to become? The Indian knowledge tradition never saw these as competing aims. It cultivated mastery of the outer world alongside discovery of the inner one — competence with character, knowledge with self-knowledge. Somewhere along the way, we separated the two.Today I find myself asking: Why should such an education depend on luck? If education can awaken the whole human being, should we not design a national education framework that makes such awakening a transformation by design, not by chance?Perhaps that is why so many young people leave our institutions qualified but not fulfilled, employed yet unable to express their deepest potential. We celebrate employability but rarely ask whether education has helped a young person discover the work that calls forth the very best within them.The real crisis is not that our children lack skills. It is that our education too often fails to help them discover and develop their highest potential. When education does not help young people discover their deepest capacities, they often settle for work that neither fulfils them nor fully serves society. Nations flourish when people discover not merely how to make a living, but how to make their lives count.Years later, when Sonam and I began building educational institutions together, I realised that our journeys had converged. Sonam wanted education to become more relevant to society. I wanted education to become more relevant to the human being. HIAL became the meeting point of those two dreams.Its philosophy grew not from theory but from lived experience: Learning rooted in local realities, transdisciplinary problem-solving, and education that nurtures intuition, empathy, character, and swadharma alongside competence. These principles matter even more in an age shaped by artificial intelligence, where distinctly human qualities will define our future.Looking back, I realise these are not merely HIAL’s principles. They point towards the educational transformation India needs: Examinations that reward understanding rather than memory; teachers who are trusted and respected; schools that reconnect learning with life; public education of the highest quality for every child, regardless of circumstance; sustained investment in education and research; and reforms that outlast electoral cycles. Together, they nurture not only capable minds, but compassionate hearts and purposeful lives.This is why Sonam’s fast has been so painful to witness. I do not see a protester. I see an educator being pulled away from the work he was born to do. Today, that pain has deepened further. Instead of being allowed to recover in the care of those he trusts, he has been forcibly taken to Safdarjung Hospital, where we remain under heavy police presence, our movements severely restricted, making it feel less like medical care and more like detention. Every day spent fighting for the right to educate is a day not spent mentoring students, building institutions or imagining solutions for communities. A nation loses something whenever its educators have to stop educating simply to persuade policymakers that education deserves their attention.Yet I remain hopeful. For perhaps the first time in years, education has entered the centre of our national conversation. My hope is that when Parliament adjourns and the headlines fade, our concern for education does not fade with them. The future of our children cannot depend on the lifespan of a news cycle or a parliamentary session.Sometimes I think back to that young student who walked into the Ashram, unaware that a single visit would change the direction of her life. I often wonder how many children across India are waiting for a similar awakening, and how many may never encounter it because our education system was never designed to offer it. A nation should not leave such transformations to chance.you may likeThe purpose of education is more than preparing children for careers. It is to help them discover their deepest capacities and find meaningful ways to serve the world. That is the educational renaissance we dream of.Today, as Sonam endures the physical cost of his conviction, I hope we look beyond the fast itself. His greatest sacrifice is not measured in days without food, but in days taken away from the classrooms, students and communities he has devoted his life to. The finest tribute we can pay him is not sympathy. It is to march to parliament today to sensitise parliamentarians to build an education system where every child has the opportunity to become their full selves. Not by chance. By design.The writer, Sonam Wangchuk’s wife, is the founder of Himalayan Institute of Alternatives, Ladakh