India: Activist Sonam Wangchuk forcibly hospitalized after a 20-day hunger strike

Indian law enforcement evicted activist Sonam Wangchuk from his protest site in New Delhi on Saturday morning, where he had been on a hunger strike for twenty days in support of a movement demanding reforms to the education system.

Shortly before 7:30 a.m. local time, dozens of police officers and paramilitary forces stormed Jantar Mantar, a three-century-old observatory in the heart of the Indian capital, where the 59-year-old activist was lying. The officers covered Wangchuk with sheets before carrying him away, while protesters attempting to intervene were pushed back. An ambulance left the scene a few minutes later.

The activist's wife, Gitanjali Angmo, announced on the adult entertainment network that he had been admitted to Safdarjung Hospital. She demanded that no oral or intravenous treatment be administered to him "without the consent of his family and the doctors who have been monitoring his health for the past twenty days." The hospital's medical director, Dr. Charu Bamba, stated that Wangchuk was "fully conscious and stable," suffering from mild dehydration and weakness related to prolonged fasting.

Deputy Police Commissioner Sachin Sharma justified the intervention by citing a Delhi High Court order issued on Thursday, which instructed the federal government to regularly monitor the activist's health and provide him with necessary care. Wangchuk had lost over nine kilograms since beginning his hunger strike, consuming only salt water, but refused to end it despite repeated appeals.

A few days before his hospitalization, he had told the assembled crowd: "I am weak on the outside, but strong on the inside." He had even joked that if death took him before the planned march to Parliament on Monday, "his ghost would participate."

The movement he supported, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), emerged in May as a satirical online initiative to denounce exam leaks and irregularities in national entrance exams. Its members are demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, whom they believe must bear moral responsibility for the cancellation of a medical school entrance exam in early May following a leak of the questions. The government of Narendra Modi has not engaged in dialogue with the protesters.

Wangchuk's arrest prompted CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke to begin an indefinite hunger strike. He announced that the march to Parliament on July 20 would proceed as planned and broadened his demands to include the resignation of Prime Minister Modi. "If the government thinks that Wangchuk's abduction will end this movement, it is mistaken," he said.

Members of several opposition parties condemned the intervention, calling it "coercive state violence" and an "attack on democracy." On Thursday, former Delhi Prime Minister Arvind Kejriwal visited Wangchuk in the hospital and called on the authorities to open a dialogue, even suggesting that Minister Pradhan be replaced by the activist himself.