Who Wants Sonam Wangchuk to Die?

That is not a question designed to shock. It is the only question that matters now.

Every day Sonam Wangchuk remains on a hunger strike over the NEET paper leak scandal, his body grows weaker while the politics around him grows stronger. Agree with him or disagree with him, that should disturb anyone with a conscience. Hunger strikes are not television serials that can be stretched because the ratings are holding up. The human body eventually surrenders. Politics almost never does.

I have never understood the strange romance Indian activists have with martyrdom. If a movement cannot gather strength from the people, it begins drawing strength from the suffering of its leader. The weaker the body becomes, the stronger the headlines become. That is a dangerous bargain.

Look around Jantar Mantar today. Is this still Sonam Wangchuk's movement, or has it become everybody else's? The familiar faces are all there—professional protesters, Left activists, YouTube revolutionaries and politicians who can smell a television camera from a kilometre away. The cause is slowly disappearing behind the crowd claiming to defend it.

Every protest has a moment when the masks slip. For me, that moment arrived when Arvind Kejriwal climbed onto the stage, followed by Rakesh Tikait. Until then, one could dismiss the talk that Kejriwal was the invisible hand behind the agitation as political gossip. After his appearance, the gossip acquired flesh and blood. I cannot say whether he scripted the movement from day one. I can say this: he looked less like a guest and more like a man arriving at a house he already knew well. Once Kejriwal occupied centre stage, Sonam Wangchuk was no longer the story. Politics was.

I refuse to believe that Sonam Wangchuk's moral authority was not seen as a political asset. His international reputation, his image as the innovator who inspired 3 Idiots, and his credibility were capable of reviving a movement that had failed to capture the country's imagination. Whether that was by design or by political opportunism is open to debate. What is not open to debate is that, after Kejriwal's arrival, the optics of the agitation changed dramatically.

Yet the arithmetic has not changed. The crowds remain modest. Parliament has not trembled. India has not come to a standstill. Even the Congress, despite attacking the Centre on almost every issue, kept its distance for days. That, too, tells a story.

Now comes the grand finale—a march to Parliament.

Really?

Governments that dragged Olympic wrestlers off Delhi's streets are hardly going to welcome a much smaller procession with flowers. This script has already been written. Only the names of the actors have changed.

Then there are the optics. Left activists visiting the Chinese Embassy in the middle of a politically sensitive agitation. Perhaps there is an innocent explanation. Perhaps there isn't. Politics is judged as much by appearances as by facts, and appearances can destroy credibility faster than facts can restore it.

The Delhi High Court has now directed the Centre to ensure Sonam Wangchuk undergoes daily medical examinations and receives treatment if his condition deteriorates. That is perhaps the wisest intervention so far. Because beneath all the politics is a man whose body has no ideology. Cells do not vote. Muscles do not recognise the Left or the Right. Starvation is stubbornly non-partisan.

If this agitation has reached a stage where the health of its principal face requires daily judicial oversight, then the conversation can no longer remain confined to slogans and strategy. At some point, every movement must decide whether it is serving its cause or consuming the very person who gave it credibility.

If you ask me, the government has waited long enough. Either this protest has enough public support to sustain itself, which, to my mind, it plainly does not, or it has become an exercise in political theatre. Theatre has an interval. It also has an ending.

No political cause is worth a funeral.