From Ladakh to Delhi: The unwavering stand of Sonam Wangchuk and Gitanjali Angmo

It was a cool May morning in Leh. Climate activist Sonam Wangchuk and educator Gitanjali J. Angmo were teaching a class at the Himalayan Institute of Alternatives. The institute, which the couple co-founded in 2018, rejects traditional learning, favouring an experiential and transdisciplinary approach. Its campus itself looks nothing like a traditional institute.

When THE WEEK met the couple, it had been two months since Wangchuk’s release from Jodhpur Jail, where he had spent six months under the National Security Act. He had called Angmo his “best-kept secret”—an acknowledgment of the woman who had long worked behind the scenes, and stepped into the public spotlight while he was incarcerated.

Even after days of fasting in Ladakh’s sub-zero temperatures, six months in jail, and being branded an “anti-national” and a “Chinese agent”, Wangchuk appeared unperturbed. Quick to smile, he paused for a moment before answering each question. The accusations and actions against him seemed to have done little to shift his focus: holding the government accountable for the promises it had made, and failed to keep.

While the earlier protest demanded constitutional safeguards for Ladakh, the current one is centred on education—both causes closely tied to the couple’s work. The latter no less than the former. They met at an education conclave, and later went on to start an institute.

“Education is the thread that holds us together,” she has often repeated. “This isn’t merely a protest; it’s a cause close to our hearts. At the same time, it is an interruption of the work we have dedicated our lives to.”

The protest, called by the Cockroach Janta Party demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the alleged NEET paper leak and the spate of student suicides that followed, gained wider attention after Wangchuk began an indefinite hunger strike on June 28.

However, it was only after a surprise Delhi Police action on July 18, when Wangchuk was forcibly taken to Safdarjung Hospital on the 21st day of his strike, that the protest drew thousands to Jantar Mantar. The Sansad Chalo March followed on July 20.

While the police maintained that Wangchuk was shifted on medical grounds, Angmo described it as a “detention”.

“The way Sonam was brought in, it was the police, not hospital staff, and they kept him in ICU, which was not needed,” she told the media. “In fact, hospitalisation was not needed. They did it because the rule is that no one can take electronic devices. It was a detention so that he can’t contact anyone.”

Meanwhile, on July 21, the Delhi High Court allowed him to be shifted from the state-run Safdarjung to the private Medanta Hospital.

The couple, meanwhile, has not escaped scrutiny—from questions over Wangchuk’s motive for joining the protest to Angmo’s announcement, a day before the Parliament march, that he would end his fast “if political leaders meet him at the hospital and assure him that they will raise the issue of education accountability during the Parliament session”.

On his decision to join the movement, Angmo said it was “organic”.

“He is passionate about education and connected with the issue and the youth’s discontent,” she said.

Wangchuk, who founded the Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh in 1988 for students who had failed their board examinations, also reportedly inspired the 2009 Bollywood blockbuster 3 Idiots. Actor Aamir Khan, who played the Ladakhi innovator Phunsukh Wangdu, however, denied that the character was based on Wangchuk. The film, which went on to gross over ₹390 crore, helped put Ladakh on the tourist map. “I don't want Phunsukh Wangdu to die,” actor Omi Vaidya, who played the popular character Chatur in the film, said after Wangchuk’s arrest.

Whether Wangchuk is Wangdu or not, the educator was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for his contributions to innovative, community-driven education reforms in Ladakh.

Angmo said: “It’s unfortunate that on such an important issue as education, which concerns the future of the youth, such a big protest has to be staged in this country.”

As the protesters marching towards the Parliament met with lathi-charge and tear gas, Wangchuk announced his fast would continue. “Seeing the brutality with which peacefully protesting youth are being dealt with, I have decided to continue my fast until the youth leaders are allowed to meet the parliamentarians at the Sansad Bhawan or I am allowed to meet them here at the hospital,” he said.