Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has appealed for dialogue with protesting students and climate activist Sonam Wangchuk, saying the anger on display at Jantar Mantar reflects the deep betrayal felt by a generation that believes the merit-based system has failed it. Opposition parties are also set to raise Wangchuk’s plea in Parliament, with Shiv Sena (UBT) leaders saying their MPs will flag the issue during the Monsoon Session and support the July 20 march to Parliament on behalf of protesting students.
Uddhav Thackeray has also said the matter is not political but concerns the future of the country’s youth, while calling on parties across the spectrum, including Rahul Gandhi, to stand with the agitation.
In an open letter posted on X, Tharoor said the issue is not one of indiscipline but of young Indians whose trust in examinations and fair opportunity has been shattered.
Shashi Tharoor framed his message as deeply personal, recalling his own middle-class upbringing and the importance of merit in shaping his life. He wrote that his father was a salaried newspaper employee and his mother was a homemaker, with three children to educate on one income. For a family like his, he said, “scholarships, fair examinations, honest results” were the only ladder to progress.
An Open Letter to the Jantar Mantar protestors:
My dear young friends,
I address you today not as a politician or an MP, but as someone deeply troubled by what is happening to your generation of young Indians.
This is personal for me. I was born to a middle-class family: my…
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) July 15, 2026
He said he studied in Mumbai and Kolkata, then in Delhi, where he topped the university and earned admission into IIM before choosing instead to pursue his passion for international affairs in the United States on a scholarship.
“Nothing was inherited; everything was earned by hard work and yes, Exams,” he wrote, stressing that a fair, merit-based system is essential for young people from lower and middle-income families.
‘Anguish of generation that did everything right and was still betrayed’: Tharoor
According to Shashi Tharoor’s social media post on X, when that ladder breaks through paper leaks, cancelled examinations and a collapse of trust, it is the children of ordinary families who suffer most. The rich and powerful, he said, have other paths, but for ordinary students the betrayal can destroy dreams and, in some cases, even lives.
Addressing the young people gathered at Jantar Mantar and those protesting peacefully elsewhere, he said the country hears them. Their anger, he wrote, is rooted in anguish, not indiscipline, because they did everything right and were still betrayed.
Shashi Tharoor appeals to Sonam Wangchuk
Tharoor made a direct appeal to Sonam Wangchuk, asking him to end his fast. He said Wangchuk has already awakened the conscience of the nation and that India needs his voice for the long road ahead.
“Please end your fast,” Tharoor urged, adding that Parliament would soon be in session again and that the students’ issues should be raised there, not through a fast unto death.
He also called on the government to engage with the protesting youth. Dialogue, he said, is not weakness but statesmanship, and the democratic system owes its young citizens a response.
Legal and political pressure amid Wangchuk’s hunger strike
His remarks came as a PIL was moved in the Delhi High Court seeking immediate medical intervention for Wangchuk, who has been on an indefinite hunger strike at Jantar Mantar since June 28. The plea says his health has deteriorated sharply, with weight loss, low blood sugar, dizziness and weakness, and asks authorities to provide urgent medical treatment and begin dialogue.
The issue is unfolding amid wider political support for the protest. Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday spoke to climate activist Sonam Wangchuk and appealed to him to call off his fast during the ongoing protest by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) at Jantar Mantar. Yadav said he had called the Ladakh activist to enquire about his condition and extended the party’s “open support” to Wangchuk’s satyagraha. He urged Wangchuk to heed the appeals coming from across the country and the world, and to pause the protest for a few days to recover.
Taking a swipe at the BJP, the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said Wangchuk should help expand the campaign against a “negative, corrupt, dishonest, anti-democracy, communal” government.
“After speaking with the world-renowned Shri Sonam Wangchuk ji over the phone, I learned about his health and appealed to him to break his fast. We extend our open support to his satyagraha. We believe that he should consider this request in the public interest,” he said on X.
विश्व विख्यात श्री सोनम वांगचुक जी से फोन पर बात करके उनके स्वास्थ्य के बारे में जाना और उनसे अनशन तोड़ने की अपील की। उनके सत्याग्रह को हमारा खुला समर्थन है।
हमारा मानना है कि वो जनहित में इस आग्रह पर विचार करें। देश की संपूर्ण युवा शक्ति, उनके अभिभावकों, परिवार और परिजनों की… pic.twitter.com/Fx5lGb9w7M
— Akhilesh Yadav (@yadavakhilesh) July 14, 2026
“The aspiration of the entire youth power of the country, their guardians, families, and relatives is the same, because the nation is in great need of his moral strength; therefore, accepting the appeals coming from the entire world, he should break his fast, take a few days for health recovery, accumulate new energy, and then rejoin a new movement. With humble insistence, we urge him to expand the movements against the ‘negative, corrupt, dishonest, anti-democracy, communal BJP‘ across the entire country and become an unbroken chain of public unity,” Tharoor further stated.
Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and party leader Aaditya Thackeray have also backed the protest, calling it a matter of the country’s youth rather than party politics. The protest at Jantar Mantar, led by the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), has now continued for 25 days, with Wangchuk joining on June 28. The group is demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and compensation for families affected by the NEET paper leak controversy, while also raising concerns over examination irregularities.
Tharoor’s intervention stands out because it combines personal memory, political criticism and a direct moral appeal. By centring the issue on merit, anxiety and youth betrayal, he has framed the protest not as a narrow agitation but as a larger test of how the state responds to the hopes of young Indians.
