Indian courts have consistently recognized fasting as a legitimate and constitutionally protected form of peaceful protest under the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. The judiciary has also acknowledged that a mentally competent individual, fully aware of the medical risks associated with prolonged fasting, has the legal right to refuse food.
At the same time, the courts have clarified that a hunger strike cannot automatically be treated as an attempt to die by suicide. In a significant 2021 judgment, the Madras High Court ruled that a farmer protesting against the now-repealed farm laws could not be considered to be attempting suicide merely because he had undertaken a hunger strike. The ruling established an important legal distinction, preventing the state from treating such protests as criminal acts and using that reasoning to justify force-feeding or forcibly ending the protest.
However, judicial precedents have also emphasized that governments carry a constitutional responsibility to safeguard the lives of citizens. In a landmark judgment delivered in February 2013, the Supreme Court held that it is the "bounden duty" of every state to ensure that the lives of its citizens and all other persons remain protected at all times. The ruling drew its authority from Article 21 of the Constitution, which guarantees the protection of life and personal liberty and has repeatedly been interpreted by the judiciary as imposing a positive obligation on the state to act whenever a person's life faces imminent danger.
This interpretation creates a difficult legal and constitutional dilemma. While an individual retains the right to continue a hunger strike, the state may be compelled to intervene if medical evidence indicates that continued fasting poses an immediate threat to life. The government's obligation to preserve life could therefore require intervention once the protester's condition reaches a medically critical stage.
The conflict between the right to peaceful protest, bodily autonomy, and the state's constitutional duty to protect life has created what many describe as a legal Catch-22. Indian courts have repeatedly held that the right to assemble peacefully and protest without arms forms one of the cornerstones of a democratic society. Hunger strikes have long been accepted as a legitimate expression of that constitutional freedom, although the right remains subject to reasonable restrictions imposed in the larger public interest.
In situations such as Wangchuk's, determining the scope of those reasonable restrictions becomes particularly challenging. Force-feeding is neither expressly permitted nor specifically authorized under Indian law. As Wangchuk's wife, Gitanjali Angmo, and his legal representatives have argued, forcibly administering food while he remains hospitalized would violate his bodily autonomy. They have further maintained that transferring him from the protest site to a hospital does not legally invalidate or terminate his hunger strike.
Nevertheless, the government also faces a constitutional obligation to ensure that Wangchuk's health does not deteriorate to the point where his life is endangered. That argument formed a central element of the proceedings before the Delhi High Court, highlighting the state's responsibility to prevent irreversible harm while simultaneously respecting constitutional freedoms.
The Wangchuk case has therefore emerged as a significant legal test of the limits of democratic protest, personal autonomy, and the state's constitutional obligation to protect life. It underscores the continuing challenge of balancing fundamental rights with public responsibility, leaving courts and authorities to navigate one of the most difficult constitutional questions in a democratic society.
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