I’m angry.
Not because a man is protesting.
I’m angry because we’ve reached a point where someone believes starving is more powerful than speaking.
That, to me, is a failure.
We celebrate Chandrayaan. We celebrate Digital India. We celebrate becoming a global power.
And we should.
But what is the point of all that progress if people feel unheard?
How do we reach a point where a man believes risking his own life has a better chance of starting a conversation than simply speaking?
That thought should terrify us.
Maybe this isn’t just about Sonam Wangchuk anymore.
Maybe it’s about what we’ve normalized.
We’ve normalized waiting.
Waiting until someone’s health becomes breaking news. Waiting until hashtags start trending. Waiting until a protest turns into a countdown.
Only then do we start paying attention.
You don’t have to agree with every protest or every demand.
But if people repeatedly feel that pain is the only way to be noticed, then we should all be asking uncomfortable questions.
Because a democracy shouldn’t wait until someone’s body starts giving up before it starts listening.
Progress isn’t just about how high our rockets fly.
It’s also about how low a citizen has to fall before someone in power looks up.
