Four hunger strikes over four decades—from Ladakh to the Ganga to Jantar Mantar—reveal a profound shift in how Indian governments respond to citizens who choose self-sacrifice over violence. OSWALD PEREIRA reports
In 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi flew from Delhi to Leh to meet fasting Ladakhi leader Sonam Wangyal. In 2011 and 2018, two fasting monks—Swami Nigamananda Saraswati and Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand—died without securing comparable political engagement.
On 18 July 2026, educational reformer and environmentalist Sonam Wangchuk—the son of Sonam Wangyal—was taken away by the police and hospitalised, reportedly against his will on the twenty-first day of his indefinite fast at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi.
He was fasting in solidarity with students protesting the NEET-UG paper leak scandal and other examination irregularities, demanding reforms to restore the integrity of India’s public examination system. He also sought the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, an independent investigation into the scandal and greater accountability in educational governance.
A hunger strike is perhaps the most profound expression of non-violent protest. It neither threatens nor coerces. It appeals instead to the conscience of those who govern. Whether that appeal is acknowledged—or ignored—reveals much about the quality of democratic leadership.
History offers a compelling answer from Ladakh.
In January 1984, veteran Ladakhi leader Sonam Wangyal began a five-day fast in Leh demanding Scheduled Tribe (ST) status for Ladakh’s indigenous communities. It was a moral appeal rooted in the belief that the region’s unique cultural identity and developmental needs deserved constitutional protection.
The government’s response deserves to be remembered as much as the protest itself.
Rather than allowing confrontation to escalate, Indira Gandhi travelled personally to Leh. It was an extraordinary gesture. Few prime ministers would interrupt their schedules to meet a regional protester in one of India’s remotest frontiers. Yet Gandhi recognised that a peaceful fast was not a threat to the state but an opportunity for democratic engagement.
She met Wangyal, listened to his concerns and reportedly offered him a glass of juice—or, according to some accounts, a soft drink—to end his fast with dignity. More importantly, she assured him that the government would seriously consider the demand for Scheduled Tribe status.
That meeting conveyed an enduring democratic truth: dialogue is not a sign of weakness but of confidence. Governments secure in their legitimacy need not fear peaceful protest. Citizens who embrace self-sacrifice instead of violence deserve to be heard.
History intervened tragically. Indira Gandhi was assassinated on 31 October 1984 before her assurance could become policy. Yet the commitment survived her. In October 1989, under Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, Ladakh’s indigenous communities were formally granted Scheduled Tribe status. For many Ladakhis, it remains a powerful example of peaceful protest achieving constitutional change.
The episode also offers a more nuanced understanding of Indira Gandhi herself. Only a few years earlier, she had imposed the Emergency, suspending civil liberties, censoring the press and imprisoning political opponents. That constitutional aberration remains one of the darkest chapters in independent India. Yet history is rarely one-dimensional. Her decision to travel to Leh did not erase the Emergency, but it demonstrated an appreciation that dialogue is preferable to coercion when citizens choose peaceful means of protest.
The contrast with later decades is striking.
In February 2011, Swami Nigamananda Saraswati began a fast-unto-death demanding a complete ban on illegal sand mining and quarrying along the Ganga near Haridwar. After fasting for 115 days, he died in a Dehradun hospital during the tenure of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Seven years later, Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand—formerly Professor G D Agrawal of IIT Kanpur, one of India’s foremost environmental engineers—undertook an indefinite fast seeking a comprehensive Ganga Protection Act, an end to hydroelectric projects on the river’s upper reaches and a halt to illegal sand mining. After fasting for 111 days and eventually giving up water, he died at AIIMS Rishikesh on 11 October 2018 during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tenure.
Each protest was peaceful. Each sought to awaken the nation’s conscience rather than challenge the state through violence. But the responses were very different.
This comparison is not intended to romanticise one government or vilify another. Every administration faces competing priorities and difficult policy choices. But democratic leadership is judged not only by the decisions it ultimately makes; it is equally measured by its willingness to engage citizens who place their own lives at risk for a public cause.
The image of Indira Gandhi travelling to Leh therefore carries significance far beyond Ladakh. It reminds us that dialogue can itself be an act of democratic statesmanship. Listening does not require agreement. But refusing to engage risks suggesting that even the most peaceful forms of dissent no longer merit attention.
The larger question transcends individual prime ministers and political parties. Why has a hunger strike that once drew the personal attention of the country’s highest elected leader become less capable of opening channels of dialogue? Why should peaceful protest struggle for recognition in a democracy built upon the moral force of non-violence?
These are uncomfortable questions. But democracies mature only by confronting uncomfortable truths. If citizens willing to sacrifice their own lives for a public cause cannot command meaningful engagement, what message does that send to future generations about the value of peaceful protest?
The image of a Prime Minister travelling to a distant Himalayan town to meet a fasting citizen is more than a historical anecdote.
It is a reminder that the distance between power and the people should never become so great that dialogue becomes impossible.
Democracies endure not because governments always agree with those who challenge them, but because they are willing to listen before it is too late. When citizens stake their lives on peaceful protest, indifference is not strength—it is democratic failure. The measure of a democracy is not how loudly it celebrates freedom, but how faithfully it listens when conscience speaks.
Oswald Pereira, a senior journalist, has written ten books, including The Vijay Revolution: People Power & the Politics of Hope, Beyond Autobiography of a Yogi, The Newsroom Mafia, Chaddi Buddies, The Krishna-Christ Connexion, How to Create Miracles in Our Daily Life and Crime Patrol: The Most Thrilling Stories. Oswald is a disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda, and practises Kriya Yoga.
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Some images are AI-generated