Why India Must Support Sonam Wangchuk?

 "Why is it important to support Sonam Wangchuk?" I asked her during our routine morning walk today. 

The scientist, social reformer, and educationist has been on an indefinite hunger strike for the past 20 days, literally sitting at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, waiting for an arrogant Indian Government to budge on a corrupt administration—and, more importantly, the politically dominant education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, who has the audacity to stay in power while ignoring the cries of students across the country.

"So that you do not get treated by an incompetent doctor who is the product of a rich, nepotistic father" she replied. "And so that you do not die in a car accident after hitting a pothole," she continued.

Paper leaks in competitive exams have been a growing cause of unrest in India. Peaceful protests by students are one way of venting this frustration.

"Doesn't it follow the law of Karma?" I asked.

"Of course it does. It is hard to explain, but I want my kids to be part of a fair education system. Sonam Wangchuk is the name given to this urge for a clean education system that parents of numerous Indian children aspire to," she said.

A man like Sonam is built of divine soil. Governance in India has miserably failed while political leaders shamelessly strive to fulfill their vested interests. Education is power; it shapes the human ability to think rationally and question the regime. It hurts to see the people of India failing to act on these serious issues, while a handful of them, blindly going against their own conscience, support falsehoods and ideologies harmful to national integrity.

Sonam is a phenomenon that was bound to occur. When evil tries to overpower, the good emerges and shines.

India has no idea what a great loss it would be to lose a man like Sonam Wangchuk. Indians are living in an era of blindness, utterly ignorant and quiet about how fools are spending their tax money—and this is exactly the kind of apathy a bad education system will foster.

When an internationally respected innovator, educator, and Magsaysay awardee has to starve himself on the streets of the capital for three weeks just to ask for fair examinations and basic educational reform, the silence of mainstream media channels isn't accidental. It is a designed, calculated absence.