I used to work as a site engineer in a real estate company after graduating in Civil Engineering.
One incident from that time still stays with me.
I was inspecting a wall near an open edge on the 5th floor when a few labourers stopped me and said, “Sir, please don’t stand so close. It’s not safe.” I appreciated their concern, but at the same time I couldn’t ignore the irony—they were looking out for my safety while many of them worked at heights with inadequate safety gear.
Later, my project manager told me something that has never left my mind.
He said that at one of his previous companies, a labourer fell from the 7th floor into the L2 basement. He died on the spot.
According to him, the AGM informed the police, the necessary formalities were completed, an ambulance took the body away, the family was given ₹1 lakh, and construction resumed the very next day.
I remember sitting there completely numb.
Whether every detail happened exactly as described, I can’t personally verify. I’m only sharing what my manager told me because it changed the way I looked at construction sites.
What disturbed me wasn’t just the accident—it was how routine it sounded. As if a worker’s death had become another project delay to manage.
Construction workers build our homes, offices, malls, and cities. Many work long hours in extreme heat, at dangerous heights, often with inadequate safety measures. Yet when tragedy strikes, their families are left with almost nothing.
No amount of money can replace a human life. ₹1 lakh certainly cannot.

I keep seeing the same word under every post about Sonam Wangchuk. Anti national. So let's actually hold it up to the light, because the people throwing it around clearly love this country. Obviously they do.

In 2020, when China crossed the line in Galwan and our soldiers were freezing up there, he designed solar tents for them. 15 degrees of warmth inside while it was minus 14 outside. Half the cost of the army's own cabins. That same year, he told the whole country to boycott Chinese goods.

But sure. Anti national.

His main demand is the Sixth Schedule. That is not some foreign import. It's Article 244 of our own Constitution, the same protection Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram already have. He wants Ladakh's land, jobs and culture kept safe, inside India.

And he didn't even come up with it. The BJP put the Sixth Schedule for Ladakh in its own 2019 manifesto, and again in 2020. The Scheduled Tribes Commission recommended it. The Home Ministry raised no objection.

So that's the treason, apparently. A man asking the government to keep a promise it printed itself.

Then there's the big one. The government stood up in the Supreme Court and said he wants Ladakh to become like Nepal or Bangladesh. Here's what he actually says, in his own words. Ladakh is the crown of India.

Yeah. Clearly a man trying to break the country apart.

He's never thrown a stone. Never picked up a weapon. He just stops eating. That was Gandhi's entire method. The one that got the British out.

So I guess Gandhi was one too.

And right now, at 59, on day 18 without food, what's the actual demand? That the 22 lakh kids whose medical entrance exam got leaked, twice, finally get one person at the top to own it. One resignation. That's the whole ask.

But he's the anti national here. Not the people who sold the paper to the highest bidder.

I'll stop there, because I'm not trying to put words in your mouth. I don't have their talent for that.

Just this before you scroll on. The nation isn't a party. It isn't a minister. It isn't whoever's holding the chair this year. The nation is those 22 lakh kids who studied for years and got robbed. It's the soldier who slept warm in his tent on the China border.

So the next time someone hands you that word and tells you to throw it at him, scroll back up. Read it again. Then ask them, quietly. Who here actually served India. And who just ruled it.

Can a democracy truly function when its citizens no longer feel compelled to pay attention? Somewhere along the way, we've become spectators to our own country's problems. We consume politics like endless content, debate for a few hours, choose a side, and then scroll to the next headline. The outrage fades long before the consequences do.

A hunger strike is among the oldest forms of peaceful protest because it asks the public one simple thing: to stop, notice, and question. Whether you agree with Sonam Wangchuk is secondary. The real question is why concerns over the integrity of an examination system affecting millions of students struggle to command sustained public attention.

Instead of asking what went wrong, who should be held accountable, or how trust in public institutions can be restored, we spend more time debating the credibility of the person speaking than the issue being raised. It's a pattern that repeats itself every time someone protests.

Support for an issue shouldn't depend on complete agreement with the individual behind it. But we’ve somehow managed to convince ourselves that unless a messenger clears every ideological purity test, their message itself deserves to be ignored. It’s an impossible standard that only serves those already in power.

The most worrying trend isn't disagreement, it's indifference. Democracies can survive fierce arguments. They struggle when people stop caring enough to ask difficult questions.

Maybe the greatest threat isn't a single scandal or a single institution failing. Maybe it's a society that has become so accustomed to crisis that it no longer feels shocked by it.

A democracy isn't weakened only by those who abuse power. It's weakened when the rest of us slowly stop demanding better.

Anti national.

The horrible narrative spewed by bjpee to label citizens as anti nationals needs to be turned around. Terrorizing citizens for asking questions using political machinery, ED, CBI, and even actual gundas.

Anti national Bjpee supporters and bots are out discreetly trying to malign the protests at jantar mantar by spewing false narratives.

Let's talk about the economy a bit.

Bjpee has also managed to lower economic growth, arguably the most important metric for a country like India. If you check IMF data real gdp growth rates during bjp have averaged 6% over the last 12 yrs while it was 6.9% during congress. Btw both aren't good enough given India's demography. And the fx crisis under bjpee further shows usd gdp only grew by about <6% per annum during bjpee while it was over 11% per annum during congress. I don't have the exact numbers but these are accurate approximations.

Let's also not forget crude oil prices were record lows during bjpee's term. This reflects in the inflation data where bjpee did manage to get inflation down by 2-3% on average. Credit where it's due but it also didn't translate into higher economic growth.

And last but not the least wealth inequality has significantly worsened under the bjpee. Make of this what you will.

If not bjpee then who? Even a slug would be better than these illiterate gundas, at least it'd not try to polarise people based on bronze age beliefs.

You read that right. We’ve spent the last three weeks demanding Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation over the NEET-UG disaster. But while we’ve been focused on one corrupt minister, the people at the very top—Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah—are actively committing atrocities against their own citizens. Asking them to resign is too polite. They need to be locked up.

Look at what is happening to Sonam Wangchuk right now. One of India’s most celebrated innovators is on Day 19 of an indefinite hunger strike at Jantar Mantar. He has lost nearly 9 kg, his muscles are wasting away, and his organs are at risk of failing. He’s surviving purely on salt water.

And what is the PMO's response? What is the Home Ministry's response? Absolute, calculated silence. They are waiting for him to die.

This isn't just negligence; it's attempted murder by state apathy. And it's part of a documented, malicious pattern by Amit Shah's Home Ministry to destroy anyone who dares to demand accountability..

Let’s review the crimes this administration has committed against Wangchuk and the people of Ladakh: * Weaponizing Draconian Laws: In 2025, when Wangchuk peacefully demanded the Sixth Schedule protections that the BJP literally promised Ladakh in their manifesto, Shah's Home Ministry slapped him with the National Security Act (NSA). The NSA is for terrorists and threats to the state. They threw a climate activist and educator into a Jodhpur jail for months just to shut him up. That is an abuse of power.

• Targeted Sabotage: When jail didn't break him, the Home Ministry cancelled the FCRA registration for his educational NGO, while the administration revoked the 40-year land lease for his Himalayan Institute of Alternative Learning (HIAL). They actively try to destroy the institutions of those who oppose them. That is political persecution.

• Criminal Negligence: It took a PIL in the Delhi High Court yesterday just to force the Centre to agree to monitor Wangchuk's failing health. A government that has to be ordered by a judge to care whether a national hero starves to death on their doorstep is fundamentally evil.

The arrogance is staggering. While Wangchuk and student activists like Deepak (who was hospitalized this week with hypovolemic shock) risk their lives, Modi is busy with photo ops and Shah is scheming the next crackdown. They are handing over Ladakh’s fragile ecosystem to their corporate cronies while starving the man trying to protect it. Pradhan is just a puppet. The rot comes straight from the Prime Minister's Office and the Home Ministry. If an ordinary citizen locked someone in a room and starved them, they would be charged with murder. When the PM and HM use the entire state apparatus to do it to a peaceful protester in broad daylight, we call it "politics." No more. don't just ask for resignations. Demand justice. Demand that the men orchestrating this cruelty face the inside of a jail cell themselves. We don't just need a new government. We need a reckoning.

Every social media app is filled with content about protest. Its impractical for me to travel to Delhi to show my support. I was thinking what is the best way i can choose to show support. I saw online someone posted a reel saying send a post card to ministry of education saying "get well soon" (munabhai reference), which got me thinking, prime minister of india is a very legit man and has a website pmopg.gov.in where one can create a account and send a digital letter to PM modi.

I know that it literally doesn't mean it will send a letter to pm's desk, but atleast it will go somewhere. Someone will read it, and if everyone outside and inside india who cannot join the protest in person sends a letter, someone has to pay attention to it or atleast it will be in their conscious. My question is who all think this is a good way to show support? I am willing to put my own money in an run an ad campaign on insta and Facebook to get traction and make sure people in every corner of world does something other than just posting story and making reel.

In the noise of our democracy, the quietest protests are often the most deafening. Today, as we witness Sir Sonam Wangchuk battling the bitter cold and government indifference for the future of Ladakh, we are haunted by a chilling historical parallel.

Eight years ago, another distinguished scientist-turned-satyagrahi, Professor G.D. Agrawal (Swami Sanand), sat in a similar silence. He waited 111 days for a response that never came—until his heart stopped.

If you want to understand the gravity of Sonam Wangchuk’s current struggle, you must understand the tragedy of Professor Agrawal.

1. The Man: Who Was G.D. Agrawal?

Before he was a sanyasi, G.D. Agrawal was not just an activist; he was the architect of India’s environmental regulations.

• The Scientist: He was a Professor at IIT Kanpur and the first Member-Secretary of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). He held a PhD from UC Berkeley.
• The Believer: He bridged science and spirituality, believing that the Ganga was not just a water body (H2O) but a living ecological system with self-purifying qualities (Aviral and Nirmal).
• The Shift: Realizing that policy papers were ignored by politicians, he renounced his comfortable life in 2011 to become Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand, using Satyagraha (fasting) as his last weapon.

2. The Struggle: The 111-Day Fast (2018)

In 2018, at the age of 86, Professor Agrawal began his final fast at Matri Sadan, Haridwar. His demands were not radical; they were scientific necessities for the river's survival:

• Stop Hydroelectric Projects: Halt the construction of dams on the pristine upper reaches (Alaknanda, Mandakini, etc.) that were choking the river’s flow.
• The Ganga Act: Enact the Ganga Protection Management Act (a draft he helped prepare) to give the river legal rights.
• End Mining: Stop illegal riverbed mining in the Kumbh area.

3. The Timeline of Apathy

This is where the story mirrors the current reality of Ladakh:

• June 22, 2018: He begins his fast.
• The Letters: He wrote three separate letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, explaining the science and his demands.
  • Result: He received no direct reply from the PM. The only response was a bureaucratic letter from Minister Nitin Gadkari urging him to stop.
• October 9, 2018: Disheartened by the government's prioritization of "development" over the environment, he renounced water.
• October 10, 2018: Authorities forcefully removed him from his protest site to AIIMS Rishikesh, citing his health.
• October 11, 2018: He passed away from cardiac arrest. He died feeling betrayed by the very system he had served as a scientist.

The irony: Condolences poured in on Twitter after his death, from the very leaders who ignored his letters while he was alive.

4. The Parallel: Sonam Wangchuk (The Current Struggle)

Today, Sonam Wangchuk stands where Professor Agrawal stood. The parallels are terrifyingly exact:

• The Profile: Like Agrawal, Wangchuk is a man of science (Engineer, Innovator, SECMOL founder) who has dedicated his life to solutions, not just problems.
• The Cause: Just as Agrawal fought for the ecological integrity of the Ganga, Wangchuk is fighting for the ecological integrity of the Himalayas. His demand for the Sixth Schedule is essentially a demand for legal protection against unchecked industrial exploitation—exactly what Agrawal’s "Ganga Act" was.
• The Method: Both resorted to the Gandhian tool of indefinite fasting (Climate Fast) because all other avenues of dialogue were shut.
• The Response: The "deafening silence." Just as Delhi ignored the letters from Haridwar in 2018, there is a perceived lack of urgent, high-level engagement with the demands rising from Ladakh today.

History has a cruel way of repeating itself. In 2018, we lost a legendary IIT professor because the state calculated that his protest could be waited out. It ended in a national tragedy.

Sonam Wangchuk's struggle is not just about Ladakh; it is a test of whether our democracy has learned anything from the death of G.D. Agrawal. We cannot afford to lose another visionary to the silence of the administration.