India, July 17 -- Three generations of the Gandhi family have now, in different ways, found themselves entangled with Sonam Wangchuk's politics of the fast, even as Narendra Modi's government remains indifferent at best to the protest at Jantar Mantar.

As Wangchuk's hunger strike entered its 20th day in Delhi on Friday, the Congress's response to the activist and the Cockroach Janta Party's (CJP) protest has moved on three tracks - one rooted in family memory, one of caution as main Opposition, and a third keeping some measured distance for a parallel track.

The memory being invoked belongs to 1984, a year that's seminal for many reasons. Sonam Wangchuk's father, Sonam Wangyal, undertook a five-day hunger strike that year demanding Sche...