Dear Sonam WangchukI had requested a young friend to pass on this message to you at Jantar Mantar today; but I hear you have been `picked up’ and taken away in police action. What a tragedy it is that there is complete silence from those whose duty it is to speak to us, and that force and coercion are sent in their stead. This reinforces what I set out to say to you, which is this:As it is with many many others, I too am deeply concerned about your fast, and the state of your health. Of equal concern is the health of Neha, Manish and Aameen, who have been on the fast alongside you.It is not difficult to understand why you felt the imperative to ask for a responsive state in the midst of declining standards in the education system. Your commitment to education, and your fostering of curiosity and imagination, are no secret. You are known to have given new meaning to the word `innovation’. HIAL, the institution you founded, holds a place all its own, and, much as it needs desperately to be replicated, there is plainly a load of work to be done if it is to happen.As a significant part of the leadership that is engaged in conserving Ladakh’s culture and ecology, your idea to send teams across Sixth Schedule states gave many of us a basis to understand the politics that geography demands.I know I speak along with many many others when I say we cannot afford to lose you, even as it would be a huge tragedy to lose any of you who are on the fast. And I write to ask you to reconsider the nature of your fast.A few years ago, when you were on a fast for the government to keep its word on Ladakh, and when you began to weaken, you were clear that what you were on was not a fast unto death, but, to paraphrase you out of recognition, to get the government to listen and keep its word on Ladakh.The fast, as you demonstrated then, is a moral tool in the armoury of the peaceful protester who is speaking to the state and is asking the state to hear and respond. It is not always about a particular action, but about the state’s response to what is troubling the people deeply. It is demanding the attention of the state, and calling upon it to meet and talk matters over with the people. It is a public expression of deep discontent and the sense of injustice, and the fast is to force the state to listen.Yet, it is not just the state. It is about every one of us. The conversation is not just between those speaking to the state and the state. It is everybody’s business that the education system is collapsing; that exams, which have become more and more crucial for determining what the future of the young will be, are flawed and mired in fraud and error; that there is a shrugging off of responsibility, and the minister in charge does not just not resign, but the government carries on without a hint that it must answer and pin accountability, both for the wrongs that occurred, as also to remedy what has gone terribly wrong.Your fast has already succeeded in reaching the public with this message. It has exposed the crumbling state of the education system, moving to rise and act. A significant part of your purpose has already been served.Fasting is not a creed but a mode of action. It ought not to become a prelude to martyrdom. It is important to take account of the nature of the adversary. A government that has kept its gaze averted will not see. Experience tells us that martyrdom will not alter the direction of that averted gaze. The resignation or sacking of one minister does not seem a reason sufficient to justify martyrdom.Nor can the ills of the education system be remedied by martyrdom. You are among the very few who has the experience and the wisdom to give meaning to education. When the students raised a slogan asking for you to be the education minister, it is true that it was laden with irony, but it was also an expression of what they are missing and how much they want it. You couldn’t possibly have missed their message.It is amazing, too, how a spontaneous movement of outraged and distressed youth has begun to learn about the practice of democracy with you in their midst. This is such an important facet of education, and you have a wide spread of youngsters willing, and waiting, to learn responsibility amidst civility.I close with a plea, that you do not mistake a mode of action for a creed. The moral force of your fast has already been felt in all corners of our country and way beyond. That should mean something. Also, honestly, martyrdom in the cause of the resignation of a minister is such a disappointing purpose; that deserves relentless agitation, not effacement.In solidarityUsha Ramanathan