‘Honest leaders are the first step to a better future’: Cockroach hunger striker targets India’s political class

Sonam Wangchuk is given a back massage while on hunger strike in July. Photograph: Bhawika Chhabra/Reuters

For 26 days, India watched as Sonam Wangchuk wasted away. His hunger strike, held in solidarity with India’s “Cockroach” youth protest movement, would prove to be one of the most politically consequential fasts held in the country’s modern history.

Many in the country view the gruelling fast, which began on 28 June, as the crucial spark that helped propel the Cockroach movement into one of the most formidable challenges to the government of prime minister, Narendra Modi, in more than a decade.