From NEET to Ethanol, the Government’s Silence Is No Longer Indifference – It Is Institutional Arrogance
For more than two weeks, activist Sonam Wangchuk has sat on a fast at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. Day after day, medical reports have grown more alarming. Doctors have warned of significant weight loss, muscle wasting and a steadily deteriorating physical condition. Yet, as concern over his health has intensified, one question has become increasingly difficult to ignore: where is the government?
This is not a question about whether the Centre should accept Wangchuk’s demands. Democracies function through disagreement, and governments are under no obligation to concede every protest. But democracies are equally expected to engage with peaceful dissent, especially when that dissent reaches a stage where human life may be at risk. Dialogue has always been the first responsibility of a confident government, not a reluctant concession extracted by political pressure.
The silence surrounding Wangchuk’s fast has therefore become larger than the protest itself. It has sparked a broader debate about how governments respond when citizens question official decisions. Is the absence of engagement simply administrative indifference? Is it bureaucratic apathy? Or has something deeper taken root—a style of governance that increasingly views criticism not as democratic participation but as an inconvenience to be ignored until it disappears?
Viewed in isolation, any one controversy may have its own explanation. But when multiple controversies begin to display similar patterns, citizens are justified in asking whether those patterns reveal something more fundamental. Over the past few years, several major public debates have followed an eerily similar script. The NEET examination controversy, the growing debate over ethanol-blended petrol, and now the government’s response to Sonam Wangchuk’s fast all raise a common question.
Has silence become a governing strategy?
The NEET Controversy: When Questions Were Treated as the Problem
The NEET examination controversy shook the confidence of millions of students and parents across India. Allegations of paper leaks, irregularities and compromised examination integrity triggered nationwide protests and legal challenges. For aspirants who had spent years preparing for perhaps the most important examination of their lives, even the perception that the process had been compromised was devastating.
Instead of immediately acknowledging the depth of public anxiety, the initial official messaging focused largely on reassuring the public that the examination system remained fundamentally credible. While investigations eventually expanded and arrests followed in several states, many students felt their concerns had first been met with scepticism rather than empathy.
This distinction matters.
A government does not weaken itself by acknowledging public anxiety. It strengthens trust by recognising that even perceptions of unfairness deserve serious attention. Yet the impression many students carried was that those demanding accountability were themselves becoming part of the problem.
Only after sustained public pressure, judicial scrutiny and relentless media coverage did the controversy receive the level of official attention many believed it deserved from the beginning.
The lesson was uncomfortable.
Citizens increasingly felt that raising legitimate questions was insufficient. Those questions had to become impossible to ignore before they received meaningful engagement.
The Ethanol Debate: Critics Faced Pushback Instead of Answers
A similar pattern appears to be unfolding in the debate surrounding ethanol-blended petrol.
The government’s objective of reducing crude oil imports, supporting farmers and encouraging cleaner fuels has significant economic and strategic logic. Few would dispute the importance of energy diversification.
However, public policy does not become immune from scrutiny simply because its objectives are well intentioned.
Vehicle owners have reported compatibility issues. Automotive experts have questioned the preparedness of older vehicles. Independent content creators have raised concerns about storage conditions, water contamination risks, pump compliance, staff training and quality control procedures.
These are not unreasonable questions.
Ethanol is chemically different from conventional petrol. It absorbs moisture more readily and requires proper storage and handling practices throughout the fuel supply chain. If implementation standards vary across thousands of fuel stations, legitimate operational questions deserve transparent technical answers.
Instead, much of the public discussion has shifted away from engineering and towards confrontation.
Critics have found themselves accused of spreading misinformation. Legal notices have reportedly been issued against some individuals raising concerns. Public debate has increasingly focused on defending the policy rather than openly examining whether implementation challenges exist.
That approach risks creating an unfortunate perception.
When criticism is treated as hostility, technical questions begin to acquire political significance. Citizens stop asking whether the policy is correct and begin asking whether criticism itself is being discouraged.
Confident governments should welcome independent verification because evidence strengthens credibility. Defensive governments often end up weakening it.
Sonam Wangchuk: When Silence Becomes the Message
This brings the conversation back to Sonam Wangchuk.
India’s democratic history is deeply intertwined with peaceful protest and fasting as instruments of moral persuasion. From Mahatma Gandhi onwards, hunger strikes have occupied a unique place in the country’s political tradition.
Governments have not always accepted the demands of fasting protesters. Nor should they be expected to.
But governments have almost always recognised that preserving dialogue is itself a democratic obligation.
Meeting a protester does not imply surrender.
Listening does not imply agreement.
Attempting persuasion does not imply weakness.
In fact, governments often send representatives precisely because democratic legitimacy is strengthened when political disagreements remain political rather than becoming humanitarian emergencies.
As Wangchuk’s health reportedly deteriorates, the absence of any visible high-level political outreach inevitably becomes part of the story itself.
Whether the government is engaging behind closed doors is known only to those directly involved. But public leadership is not judged solely by private conversations. It is also judged by visible efforts to reassure citizens that peaceful dissent is being heard.
Silence communicates.
Sometimes it communicates more loudly than words.
A Common Pattern: Critics Become the Story
Taken together, these controversies reveal what many citizens increasingly perceive as a recurring pattern.
A concern is raised.
The government initially dismisses or minimises it.
Critics find themselves portrayed as misinformed, politically motivated or obstructive.
Meaningful engagement often appears only after prolonged public pressure, court intervention or sustained national attention.
Whether this perception is entirely fair is almost secondary.
Politics ultimately operates on public confidence.
If citizens begin believing that governments respond only when compelled rather than persuaded, trust inevitably erodes.
Democracy functions best when governments distinguish between political opposition and public accountability.
Not every critic is an enemy.
Not every uncomfortable question is propaganda.
Not every protest is an attempt to undermine the state.
Sometimes citizens simply want answers.
Democracies Need Confidence, Not Defensiveness
Strong governments are not defined by how rarely they are criticised.
They are defined by how confidently they respond to criticism.
Publishing evidence.
Inviting independent experts.
Allowing technical scrutiny.
Meeting peaceful protesters.
Correcting implementation flaws.
Explaining policy choices transparently.
These actions project confidence, not weakness.
Indeed, governments secure their greatest political victories not when they silence criticism but when they convincingly answer it.
The paradox of democratic leadership is that openness often strengthens authority far more effectively than defensiveness ever can.
History repeatedly shows that governments willing to listen usually emerge stronger than governments determined only to be seen as right.
Is Institutional Arrogance Becoming a Governance Model?
No government deliberately sets out to become disconnected from the people it governs.
But institutional cultures evolve over time.
When electoral success becomes overwhelming, political confidence can gradually transform into institutional certainty. Institutional certainty can become impatience with criticism. And impatience, left unchecked, can eventually harden into institutional arrogance.
That is the concern emerging from controversies as different as NEET, ethanol-blended petrol and Sonam Wangchuk’s fast.
None of these issues are identical.
None deserve simplistic comparisons.
Yet all raise the same democratic question.
Is the government still willing to engage first and defend later? Or has it begun defending first while postponing engagement indefinitely?
The distinction is crucial because democracies are sustained not merely by elections but by continuous conversation between governments and the governed.
Policies will always be debated.
Governments will always face criticism.
Protests will always occur.
That is not a sign of democratic failure.
Ignoring them, however, might be.
If citizens increasingly come to believe that they must first approach the courts, capture national headlines or risk their own health before the government is willing to listen, then the greatest casualty will not be any single policy. It will be public confidence in the simple democratic expectation that governments remain accessible, accountable and willing to engage—even with those who disagree.
