For 19 days now, Sonam Wangchuk hasn’t eaten.

The 59-year-old engineer and education reformer—whose life famously inspired a lead character in 3 Idiots (2009)—has been camped out at Jantar Mantar, a protest site tucked near India’s parliament in New Delhi.

Since 28 June, he has refused food through weeks of sweltering Delhi heat and his health has deteriorated.

Wangchuk is fasting in solidarity with the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a satirical, Gen Z-led protest movement founded by Abhijeet Dipke, which has been holding its ground at the same site since 20 June.

Their ask is simple, even if the anger behind it runs far deeper. For the Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to resign over the leak and cancellation of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test—India’s fiercely competitive medical entrance exam, sat by more than two million hopeful students this year.

The exam, held on 3 May, was scrapped just nine days later once investigators confirmed the paper had been leaked and quietly passed around beforehand.

What followed wasn't just outrage—it was grief, raw and widespread. At least 12 students who’d sat the test have reportedly died by suicide in the weeks after, according to consistent reporting across Indian outlets. It proved too much to carry pouring years into preparing for a system that could no longer be trusted.

It’s this grief and anger that Wangchuk has put his body on the line for. Dr Satish Lamba, the physician monitoring him, said he’s lost more than 9kg since the fast began, his weight now down to 57.15kg.

His blood pressure has dropped to 105/61 mmHg—although his oxygen saturation is holding steady at 97 per cent—doctors say he now needs continuous monitoring. Whilst he remains conscious, lucid and speaking he is far from doing fine by all accounts.

After petitions were filed asking the Court to force Wangchuk to eat, Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia ordered the government to have him checked daily and step in medically when his doctors deem it necessary.

“Every life is precious,” the bench said. The Centre told the Court it would comply.

Wangchuk, for his part, isn't backing down. In a video posted Wednesday night, weary but composed, he told supporters he was “not in good shape but not so bad either” and gently asked they stop begging him to eat.

Rather, he encouraged them to put that energy into what's coming next: a mass march on parliament, “Chalo Sansad”, planned for 20 July.

Centre-left Indian National Congress MP Shashi Tharoor made a public appeal for Wangchuk to stop, telling him he'd already “awakened the conscience of the nation”.

More than 1,800 artists, academics and activists have publicly backed the protesters’ demands, while urging them to look after themselves.

Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap has been one of the loudest voices calling out the government's silence. Politicians Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav, Uddhav Thackeray and Arvind Kejriwal have made similar pleas, as has veteran Bollywood actor Zeenat Aman.

However this plays out, it's shaping up to be one of the most visible challenges Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has faced in its 12 years in power. The real question now is whether the Centre acts before 20 July or before Wangchuk's body forces the issue first.

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Image source: Reuters