In a hospital room in Gurugram, just after midnight, a man who had not eaten for 26 days lifted a cup to his lips. Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda steadied the cup; another minister, Jitendra Singh, helped him sit upright. Sonam Wangchuk’s wife, Gitanjali Angmo, stood beside the bed. The activist, who had lost 11 kilograms during his fast, broke it with a sip, marking the end of a hunger strike that had become the emotional anchor of a nationwide student movement.

Wangchuk, a climate activist from Ladakh, had joined the protests at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar on 28 June, lending his presence to the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a youth-led campaign demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over repeated leaks of competitive exam papers. His fast, undertaken on nothing but salt and water, drew visits and letters from 65 members of parliament across party lines. In a social media post after breaking his fast, Wangchuk said the decision followed “long negotiations on various conditions” and was taken “in view of possible violence in the country.” He promised to release a video detailing the terms, while urging supporters to remain vigilant against any unrest.

The CJP, whose name reclaims the slur often hurled at dissenters, has framed the protests as a fight for the future of India’s youth. The movement erupted after the alleged leak of the NEET-UG medical entrance exam, but quickly broadened into a demand for systemic accountability. Wangchuk’s hunger strike, a tactic with deep resonance in India’s political history, galvanised the agitation. Even after police forcibly removed him from the protest site and hospitalised him, his image—gaunt, fasting—appeared on placards at Jantar Mantar. “By putting your own life on the line, you awakened the conscience of an entire nation,” CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke said.

The government’s response came in a flurry of late-night announcements. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a video message, called paper leaks “very painful” and promised fast-track courts and a new bill with stricter punishments. The cabinet reshuffled the top bureaucracy in the education ministry. Yet the CJP dismissed these moves as insufficient. “You are applying medicine after an injury, but our struggle asks why the injury has to happen,” spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka said. The party insisted the protest at Jantar Mantar would continue until Pradhan resigns. Indian analysts noted that the government was attempting to defuse the crisis without conceding the central demand, a familiar tightrope walk.

As Wangchuk recovered under medical supervision, the streets remained restless. The image of a man being helped to drink by two ministers—a gesture of care that was also a political tableau—hung over the ongoing demonstrations. It was a moment of personal relief, but the questions that had driven thousands of young Indians to sit in the summer heat were far from settled.