A prominent Indian activist who has been on a hunger strike for three weeks, demanding the education minister’s resignation over a series of botched entrance exams that affected millions of students, was forcibly taken to a hospital by the police on Saturday, the authorities said.
The activist, Sonam Wangchuk, has been fasting in New Delhi in solidarity with a wider protest that began after India’s medical school entrance exams were canceled in May because test questions had been leaked. Such leaks, in entrance exams for medical schools and coveted government jobs, have become a chronic problem, adding to many young Indians’ anger over high unemployment and what they see as broader mismanagement in education.
A video posted on Saturday by the “Cockroach Janta Party,” the grass-roots organization that started the protest — its name comes from a judge’s disparaging remark comparing young, unemployed Indians to cockroaches — showed police officers in civilian clothes forcing their way through a group of Mr. Wangchuk’s supporters, picking him up and carrying him to an ambulance.
“They dragged Sonam sir away while hurling abuse at him,” said Abhijeet Dipke, the founder of the Cockroach Janta Party. Mr. Dipke said he was assaulted by police officers when he tried to enter the protest site.
The Delhi police said officers had moved Mr. Wangchuk “to the hospital for essential medical care” in keeping with court orders. They seemed to be referring to a court directive that called on the authorities to monitor Mr. Wangchuk’s health and “intervene” if they determined that he needed treatment.
“We request the protesters at Jantar Mantar to peacefully vacate the place at the earliest,” the police said in a statement, referring to the site in New Delhi where the demonstrations have mostly been held.
The protests have tapped into palpable anger across India over the issue of entrance exams and, more broadly, a lack of opportunity for young people. Families often sell land or borrow money to put their children through coaching centers to prepare for the exams, seeing the tests as their best chance to escape poverty, only to find that the questions had been leaked and sold, giving some affluent students a leg up.
The protesters say fasting is one of the few ways to draw attention to their concerns at a time of shrinking space for peaceful dissent under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His government has resisted public calls for accountability in the past over issues such as deadly rail disasters.
The protesters have grown in number since Mr. Wangchuk, a longtime activist on education and climate issues, began his fast and his health began to deteriorate. The government has not responded to his demands, which include the resignation of the education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, under whose watch a number of national exams have been marred by leaks.
Mr. Pradhan has been dismissive of the protests, calling the Cockroach Janta Party the “B-team of terrorists” in an interview last month. As of Saturday afternoon he had made no public statement about the police’s removal of Mr. Wangchuk, though he posted birthday greetings to a fellow minister.
At the Jantar Mantar protest site on Saturday, Neha Bora, one of a number of students who have been fasting alongside Mr. Wangchuk, accused the police of “sycophancy” toward the government. She said officers had tried to remove student hunger strikers, too, but had been prevented from doing so by the crowd of supporters, which had grown since Mr. Wangchuk was taken away.
On a stage, the bed where Mr. Wangchuk had been fasting was empty, with a portrait of him on the pillows. Nearby were portraits of two students, who protesters said had taken their lives after the medical school exams were canceled. Three student leaders were fasting on the stage, and Mr. Dipke said he, too, would begin a hunger strike.
Mr. Wangchuk, who said on Friday that he had lost 20 percent of his body mass — “after fats, it will be the organs, and then the brain,” he said — had promised to join a protest at Parliament on Monday. In recent days, protesters had worried that the government might seize and force-feed him, rather than concede to his demands and risk undercutting Mr. Modi’s strongman image.
The only time Mr. Modi has directly given in to public protest on a major issue was in 2021, after farmers blocked major entrances to New Delhi and sat in protest for a year, demanding the repeal of new laws that removed state protections for agriculture.
Protesters said the police presence around Jantar Mantar had ramped up before Mr. Wangchuk’s forced removal on Saturday, and that roads leading to the site had been blocked. Earlier, Delhi’s police chief was abruptly replaced.
“This is not out of a concern for Sonam Wangchuk’s health,” said Anish Gawande, an opposition politician who has frequently visited the protest camp. “This is to shut down a democratic protest. Instead of protecting students, the government is protecting the education minister.”
Before the police removed him, Mr. Wangchuk said he had been asked whether he thought the government could be moved to action by his fast. He said he had replied that in India’s history, three governments had fallen because of protests over onion prices.
“We are talking about the lives of our children here” he said, adding, “It will affect your house also. This protest can’t even bring an answer, a resignation?”
On Friday, government doctors tried to move Mr. Wangchuk to a hospital, but he resisted. “They don’t understand,” he said. “This is not a disease or disorder — this is a self-chosen fast.”
Mr. Wangchuk’s wife, Gitanjali J Angmo, said on Saturday that she had reached the hospital where her husband had been taken and warned the authorities against interfering in his strike. She told an Indian news outlet that he was continuing his fast and that he would join the protest on Monday.
“Nothing should be administered to him,” orally or intravenously, without his consent, she said in a post on social media.
Hari Kumar contributed reporting.
