Arvind Kejriwal has launched a sharp attack on the Modi government, accusing it of forcibly detaining Sonam Wangchuk and calling the move a display of unchecked arrogance. In a post on the social media platform X, Kejriwal argued that dialogue, not force, should have been the government's first response, and that the way the situation was handled says more about the government's mindset than about Wangchuk himself.
What Kejriwal said in his post
Kejriwal wrote that so much arrogance is not right, and that instead of forcibly picking up Sonam Wangchuk, the Modi government should have chosen to speak with him directly. He suggested that such heavy handed action only deepens the standoff rather than resolving it, and that force is rarely a substitute for conversation when the other side is raising a genuine grievance.
Forcing Sonam Wangchuk is a defeat for the Modi government.
With that single line, Kejriwal framed the detention not as a show of strength but as proof that the government had failed to handle the situation through persuasion or negotiation. His comment questioned both the intent and the method behind the government's move, suggesting that reaching for coercion so quickly reflected a lack of confidence in the government's own arguments.
The cockroach movement and the demand to fix education
Referring to what he called the cockroach movement, Kejriwal urged the Modi government to stop trying to crush the protest and instead fix the country's education and examination system. His remark pointed to the underlying frustration among students and young people over how exams are conducted and how those grievances have been handled so far. Kejriwal argued that if the government genuinely wanted to resolve the issue, it needed to address the systemic flaws driving the unrest rather than trying to suppress it through force. He framed the episode as a question of the government's priorities, suggesting that before resorting to a crackdown, officials should have asked why students and activists were taking to the streets in the first place. According to him, the real solution lies in reform of the system, not repression of the people demanding that reform, and treating the movement as a law and order problem rather than a policy problem was, in his view, the wrong approach from the start.
Public reaction
Kejriwal's post drew a mixed response on social media. One section of users backed his stand, describing the government's action against Sonam Wangchuk as an overreach of power and endorsing the call to reform the education and exam system. Another section pushed back, defending the government's move and dismissing Kejriwal's remarks as politically motivated. Several users also raised questions about why no room for dialogue between the government and the protesters could be found before matters escalated, with some framing it as a sign of a wider gap between the government and young people demanding change. Overall, the post kept the conversation going online, generating a mix of support, criticism and pointed questions from different quarters, underlining just how divisive the episode had become within hours of it being posted.
