Why nobody cares about hunger strikes anymore
Fasting is a common and ancient form of austerity across cultures in India and is usually undertaken to show one's solidarity towards a cause or belief.
For instance, on the occasion of certain Hindu festivals such as Maha Shivratri, Durga Puja, Navratras, to mention a few, the worshippers observe fasting either for a day or for a number of days. Those who undertake fasts or vow to worship deities also follow specific traditional rituals besides following a strict code of conduct with regard to their eating and other activities.
In some festivals, fasts are women-specific. Such ceremonies are mainly meant for the protection and well-being of the husbands as often observed during Karva Chauth and some observed by mothers for the well-being of their sons (and not their daughters).
Some festivals, both men and women also observe fasting on specific days of a week or month, generally considered auspicious or favourite days of certain deities. People also observe fast to fulfil their wishes, overcome adversity, drive away evil spells, please the gods and obtain their blessings.
However, the fasts observed for purely political reasons are completely free from any such obligations or encumbrances and can be both symbolic as well as indefinite or time-lined. There are no rules to start or end such fasts except an assessment that these can send some powerful messages to the authorities.
Although the efficacy of such repeated fasts received a dent after Anna Hazare's latest rounds of fasts for Lokpal. the veteran social activist has been the only man in recent times who successfully took up "this form of protest". The recent call by some leaders of the Congress party to sit on a hunger strike over various issues, including alleged caste and communal violence, too does not seem to have impressed the powers that be.
Although it could not be denied that this kind of a fast could be undertaken at any time of the day on an empty stomach or after a stomach full of breakfast, as happened with a section of the Delhi-based Congress followers, it came as an opportunity for the BJP cadres to propagate it as an act of ridicule, or "uphaas". The common man, anyway, could hardly understand any difference between a symbolic and an indefinite fast.
Perhaps in the history of independent India, freedom fighter Sant Darshan Singh Pheruman was the only person who resolved to sit on an indefinite hunger strike and did not budge even as those in power didn't not heed to his demands, and he passed away on the 74th day, inside a Punjab jail.
The other such glorious event of fasts undertaken by Indian leaders of substance include 116-day hunger strike by Shaheed Bhagat Singh inside the jail along with his fellow comrades Sukhdev, Rajguru and others - in which Jatin Das, unfortunately, passed away on the 63rd day.
The fast that Bhagat Singh and his in jail inmates kept became necessary to protest against a foreign rule of Britishers against the prejudiced difference in treatment of the white versus native prisoners and for their demand to be recognised as political prisoners.
During the same, in pre-independent India, Mahatma Gandhi - the father of the nation - too undertook 17 fasts with the longest three lasting 21 days each in Delhi, two observed for Hindu-Muslim unity and communal harmony and the third for improvement of conditions of Harijans among other causes, before he could call off the each after getting his objectives fulfilled.
As against all these stories of fasting for the good of the society and others, the over 16 years of hunger strike observed by the Manipuri civil and political rights activist Irom Chanu Sharmila, and some of our Jain munis (monks) too deserve a special mention here, as an inspiration to all.
It seems time has come when we need to realise that fasts, whether indefinite or symbolic, dharnas, mass protests have to give way to better forms of protests in Parliament or in the legislative assemblies and outside.
The day does not seem far off when the parties in power expected to govern the nation will also be seen sitting outside protesting with the Opposition every now and then.
Also read: When chhole bhature gave Congress a stomach ache: Twitter reactions