Dear Readers,The Cockroach Janta Party’s (CJP) sit-in at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, seeking the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over irregularities in the NEET examination, entered its 28th day this Friday, with hardly any outreach from the government to resolve the matter.What troubles me more, though, is the worsening health of the protestors, particularly of Sonam Wangchuk, who, according to reports, has lost close to 9 kg in the hunger strike that entered its 20th day today.Wangchuk is no stranger to hunger strikes; we have watched him deploy this act of civil disobedience for various causes over the last three years. In March 2024, his fast lasted 21 days, and by all indications, his Jantar Mantar vigil will surpass that record. His fast last September, planned for 35 days, was cut short when the protest turned violent.At that time, the demand was for the implementation of the Sixth Schedule and statehood for Ladakh, along with environmental and political protections for the region. This time, it is in solidarity with students agitating for education reforms under the banner of the CJP. The CJP’s sit-in at Jantar Mantar began on June 20; Wangchuk joined on June 28. Wangchuk’s wife, Gitanjali J. Angmo, later said he had joined to ensure the movement was not hijacked by “nefarious” elements.His declining health has concerned many, including the courts. The Delhi High Court, hearing a public interest litigation on July 16, observed that the life of any citizen is precious and that the authorities ought to make every effort to save it. It directed the Centre and the Delhi government to ensure his condition is monitored “clinically and otherwise” every day, with medical intervention if required.The PIL argued that the government could not act as a passive spectator and that its inaction could amount to “abetment of suicide” under Section 108 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. Wangchuk himself seems unbothered. His Instagram post on July 15 read: “I’m not in good shape but not so bad either… Rather than asking me to break my fast, please join me on July 20... Peaceful March to the Parliament.”Wangchuk’s fasts—this is his fifth since 2023—belong to a much older tradition of hunger-strike politics in India, one with a decidedly mixed record. Take Anna Hazare, who fasts with almost metronomic regularity. He recently threatened an indefinite hunger strike from July 5 over the Maharashtra government’s new Right to Information rules, only to call it off after the State put the rules on hold. Around the same time, residents of his village, Ralegan Siddhi, pleaded with him not to fast at all, citing his age; he is 89.Hazare’s best-remembered strike was in 2011, when he launched the anti-corruption movement demanding the Jan Lokpal Bill, an agitation that eventually produced the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act in 2013. One of his lieutenants, Arvind Kejriwal, went on to found the AAP and become Delhi’s Chief Minister.On July 16, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, extending support to the CJP agitation, pointedly noted that the Manmohan Singh government had at least sent Ministers to negotiate with Hazare, whereas the current BJP dispensation has offered no such courtesy to Wangchuk or the CJP.Social media, meanwhile, has been busy resurrecting photographs of Indira Gandhi flying to Leh to meet Wangchuk’s father, Sonam Wangyal, then on a hunger strike over the Ladakh question, offering him juice to break his fast. Whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take the hint remains to be seen.I well remember environmentalist and former IIT professor Guru Das Agrawal, better known by then as Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand, whose 111-day fast in 2018 demanding a clean Ganga ended in his death. It was not his first such campaign; he had spent the better part of a decade petitioning successive governments on the issue, with mixed results. One of his earlier fasts did extract a concession: a stretch of the Bhagirathi from Gaumukh to Uttarkashi was declared an eco-sensitive zone, and a National Ganga River Basin Authority was set up. But that came some years before the fast that killed him. In 2018, he ignored appeals from environmentalists and activists to stop, insisting the campaign for a clean Ganga would outlive him.The other hunger-strike death that made national headlines was Swami Nigamananda’s, in Haridwar in June 2011. He had been demanding an end to illegal quarrying in the Ganga and had alleged mafia involvement in the trade. He died after 115 days, triggering a political storm, with rumours, never proven, that he had been poisoned at the stone-crushing lobby’s behest.The Congress held power at the Centre then; the BJP governed Uttarakhand. The then Union Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, accused the State government of responsibility for Nigamananda’s death. Both Nigamananda and, later, Agrawal had opposed a set of proposed hydropower projects on the Ganga and its tributaries, urging the government to scrap them on environmental grounds.Irom Sharmila’s 16-year hunger strike, from November 2000 to August 2016, drew the world’s attention to her demand that the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act be withdrawn from Manipur. She began fasting after 10 civilians were killed at Malom, near Imphal. Force-fed through a nasal tube for most of those years, she eventually ended the strike and turned to electoral politics.Mahatma Gandhi treated the hunger strike as an instrument of moral pressure, most famously during his 21-day fast in Delhi for Hindu-Muslim unity in 1924. Vinoba Bhave used it far more sparingly—a five-day fast in 1979 to demand a ban on cow slaughter—but turned it on himself with brutal finality in 1982, refusing both food and medicine after a heart attack, and died.Wangchuk, in his way, inverts the old saying that a hungry man is an angry man. By most accounts of those who have met him lately, Wangchuk is not angry. Neither Agrawal nor Nigamananda were angry either, though their fasts certainly angered those with something to lose.Support for Sonam Wangchuk keeps arriving from unlikely quarters: sombre politicians, authors, columnists, film stars, and stand-up comedians. Whether this protest forces a political response or slowly fades into another footnote in the history of public dissent remains an open question.In this age of fast-forward politics, where discourse is dictated by social media posts and event management, is going without food still an effective strategy at all?Do write back with your thoughts. As for Wangchuk, I will keep my fingers crossed.Anand MishraPolitical Editor, FrontlineCONTRIBUTE YOUR COMMENTS