From Gandhi to Sonam Wangchuk, the politics of fasting reveals what happens when governments stop listening
By Ramphal Kataria
Abstract
The indefinite fast has occupied a unique place in the political history of India. It is at once a moral appeal, a form of self-suffering, and a democratic warning signal. From Mahatma Gandhi’s fasts against colonial rule and communal violence to Bhagat Singh’s prison hunger strike, from Potti Sriramulu’s sacrifice for linguistic reorganisation to Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand’s final fast for the Ganga, the fast unto death has emerged whenever institutional channels appear exhausted. The contemporary protest of Sonam Wangchuk raises a larger question: what becomes of a democracy when governments no longer consider dialogue with dissenters a political necessity? This essay traces the historical evolution of hunger strike as a democratic weapon, compares Indian experiences with Ireland, Britain, Turkey and the United States, and examines the changing relationship between the Indian state and protest movements. It argues that the health of a democracy is measured not by whether governments concede every demand, but by whether they recognise dissent as legitimate, engage it in good faith, and preserve the moral space in which disagreement can be heard.
A government may reject a demand; a democracy cannot reject the right to be heard.
I. When a Democracy Stops Listening
Reports of Sonam Wangchuk’s deteriorating health during his indefinite fast should disturb every citizen regardless of political affiliation. The issue is larger than one individual or one protest. It concerns the relationship between the Indian state and dissent. Competitive examinations, paper leaks, administrative accountability and the anxieties of students may be the immediate context, but the deeper question is whether governments still feel compelled to engage with those who challenge them.
The moral power of Wangchuk’s protest does not arise from physical force. It arises from vulnerability. A person who voluntarily embraces suffering places before society a difficult question: if institutions refuse to listen, what remains except the body itself? That question has echoed through Indian history for more than a century.
Democracy is not merely a system of elections. It is a continuous conversation between rulers and the ruled. Parliament, courts, media, trade unions, student organisations, farmers’ movements, women’s groups and civil society organisations exist because representative government cannot hear every grievance directly. Political theorists from Alexis de Tocqueville to Robert Dahl recognised that pressure groups are not a distortion of democracy; they are part of its circulatory system. When channels of communication narrow, protests intensify. When dialogue disappears, fasting becomes a final appeal.
II. The Ancient Logic of the Fast
The hunger strike did not originate with modern nationalism. In ancient Ireland, the practice of troscadh allowed a wronged person to fast at the doorstep of an offender, placing moral pressure upon him. Similar traditions existed in parts of the Indian subcontinent, where fasting could be used to demand justice from rulers or creditors. The logic was simple: self-suffering created a public moral obligation.
Modern politics transformed this custom into a weapon of resistance. Unlike armed rebellion, a fast does not seek to destroy the opponent. It seeks to expose the opponent’s conscience. Gandhi understood this distinction better than any modern leader.
III. Gandhi and the Politics of Self-Suffering
Mahatma Gandhi did not invent the fast, but he gave it unprecedented political meaning. For Gandhi, fasting was not blackmail. It was a form of satyagraha—truth-force—through which the protester purified himself while appealing to the moral imagination of the adversary. Gandhi fasted against British repression, against communal violence, against caste discrimination and even against his own followers when he believed they had strayed from non-violence.
His 1932 fast in Yerwada Jail against the British decision to create separate electorates for the Depressed Classes became one of the defining episodes of the freedom struggle. The fast compelled intense negotiations that culminated in the Poona Pact. Gandhi’s final fast in January 1948 sought peace between Hindus and Muslims in a city torn by communal hatred. It ended only when leaders across communities pledged to restore harmony.
The British Empire possessed armies, prisons and laws. Gandhi possessed a frail body. Yet the empire feared the political consequences of his suffering because it understood that moral authority can outlast coercive power. The colonial state often arrested Gandhi, but it rarely ignored him. Negotiation remained unavoidable.
The British imprisoned Gandhi repeatedly; they did not pretend he did not exist.
IV. Bhagat Singh, Jatin Das and the Prison Hunger Strike
The revolutionary tradition reached a similar conclusion through a different route. In 1929, Bhagat Singh, Batukeshwar Dutt and other political prisoners launched a hunger strike in Lahore Jail demanding equal treatment with European prisoners, access to reading material, decent food and recognition as political prisoners. The strike lasted for months.
The most tragic figure was Jatin Das. He refused food for sixty-three days despite severe physical deterioration. On 13 September 1929 he died in Lahore Jail. His funeral procession from Lahore to Calcutta became a national event. Thousands lined the railway tracks to pay homage. Bhagat Singh’s own fast continued for more than one hundred days before being suspended.
What gave these young men the strength to endure such suffering? Historians of political imprisonment often point to three sources: ideological conviction, collective solidarity and the belief that personal sacrifice could awaken a larger public. The body becomes bearable when the cause appears greater than the self. That is why hunger strikes frequently emerge in prisons, where every other instrument of protest has been removed.
Bhagat Singh’s fast demonstrated that even revolutionaries who believed in armed struggle recognised the extraordinary symbolic power of voluntary suffering. The British authorities eventually negotiated on several demands because the protest had become impossible to ignore.
V. Death and State Formation: Potti Sriramulu
Independent India inherited this political language. The most consequential post-independence fast was undertaken by Potti Sriramulu for a separate Telugu-speaking state. After fifty-eight days without food, he died on 15 December 1952. Massive protests erupted across the region. The Government of India soon announced the creation of Andhra State in 1953, setting in motion the larger reorganisation of states on linguistic lines.
Sriramulu’s death established a difficult democratic precedent. Governments realised that ignoring a fast unto death could produce greater instability than negotiating with protesters. The lesson was not that every demand must be accepted. Rather, delay and silence could transform a limited agitation into a mass movement.
VI. Punjab and the Politics of Fasting
The Punjabi Suba movement also employed fasting as a political instrument. Master Tara Singh undertook a fast in 1961 demanding a Punjabi-speaking state. The fast ended after assurances from Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, though the demand remained unresolved. Later, Sant Fateh Singh launched his own fast and threatened self-immolation if Punjab was not reorganised. The eventual creation of the present state of Punjab in 1966 emerged from a complex process involving negotiations, commissions, electoral pressures and mass mobilisation.
These episodes reveal an important feature of Indian federalism: hunger strikes rarely succeed in isolation. They become effective when combined with organisational networks, public sympathy and political bargaining. The fast acts as a moral catalyst rather than a substitute for democratic negotiation.
VII. Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand and the Ganga
In recent memory, no fast carried greater environmental symbolism than that of Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand, formerly Professor G.D. Agrawal of IIT Kanpur. A distinguished environmental engineer, he undertook multiple fasts demanding protection of the upper Ganga from destructive hydropower projects and ecological degradation. In 2018 he fasted for 111 days before dying on 11 October.
Sanand’s death was a profound indictment of the gap between official reverence for the Ganga and concrete ecological action. Governments of different parties had launched ambitious river-cleaning programmes, yet a scientist-monk felt compelled to risk his life to secure attention for environmental concerns. His fast demonstrated that moral authority can emerge from expertise as well as spirituality.
The question raised by Sanand remains unresolved: what does it mean when a republic celebrates a river symbolically while a respected scientist dies demanding its protection?
VIII. Hunger Strikes Beyond India
India is not unique. Around the world, hunger strikes have appeared wherever protesters confront powerful institutions.
Ireland
Irish republicans transformed the hunger strike into a global symbol. Lord Mayor Terence MacSwiney died in Brixton Prison in 1920 after seventy-four days without food. His death generated international outrage and strengthened support for Irish independence. In 1981, Bobby Sands and nine other Irish Republican Army prisoners died during the Maze Prison hunger strike demanding political status. Sands was elected to the British Parliament while still fasting, demonstrating the extraordinary political force of self-sacrifice.
Britain and the Suffragettes
Women campaigning for the vote used hunger strikes extensively after imprisonment. The British government responded with force-feeding, a practice widely condemned as cruel and degrading. Public sympathy increasingly shifted toward the suffragettes as images of women being physically restrained entered political debate.
Turkey
Turkish prisons witnessed prolonged death fasts in the 1990s and 2000s against prison conditions and isolation policies. Hundreds died over several years, illustrating how hunger strikes can become tragic wars of endurance when negotiations collapse completely.
United States
Labour leader César Chávez used repeated fasts during the farm workers’ movement to reaffirm non-violence and draw national attention to the conditions of agricultural labourers. His 1968 fast lasted twenty-five days and received support from figures across the political spectrum, including Senator Robert Kennedy.
These international examples confirm a common pattern: the hunger strike emerges when protesters believe ordinary institutional channels have failed. Its power lies not in coercion but in the moral discomfort created by visible suffering.
IX. From Dialogue to Distance: The Changing Indian State
The central democratic question today is not whether governments should surrender to every protest. No responsible state can govern by permanent capitulation. The question is whether governments consider dialogue an obligation even when they intend to refuse the demand.
The contrast between different moments in recent Indian politics is instructive. During the 2011 India Against Corruption movement, the United Progressive Alliance government engaged repeatedly with Anna Hazare’s team despite deep disagreements over the Jan Lokpal Bill. Negotiations were often contentious and politically costly, but the government recognised that sustained public protest required sustained political conversation.
The farmers’ movement against the three farm laws between 2020 and 2021 lasted for more than a year, roughly thirteen months from June 2020 to November 2021. The Union government held multiple rounds of talks with farmer organisations, yet many protesters believed the negotiations lacked genuine flexibility. Eventually the Prime Minister announced the repeal of the laws. The episode demonstrated both the capacity of mass mobilisation to influence policy and the dangers of prolonged mistrust between state and society.
The emerging concern is that contemporary governance increasingly treats protest as a law-and-order problem rather than a political conversation. Barricades, detentions, internet shutdowns and preventive restrictions often appear before meaningful engagement begins. Even when talks occur, they are frequently episodic and tactical rather than continuous and institutionalised.
A republic is not weakened by listening to dissent; it is weakened when dissent is treated as an administrative inconvenience.
X. Is This Fascism? A Necessary Distinction
The term “fascism” is often used loosely in contemporary debate. Historical fascism involved one-party rule, suppression of elections, organised political violence, destruction of independent institutions and a totalising ideology centred on the nation and the leader. India remains a constitutional democracy with competitive elections, an active judiciary, opposition parties and a vibrant, if pressured, civil society.
Yet political scientists use the concept of “democratic backsliding” to describe systems that retain elections while gradually weakening institutional checks, concentrating executive power, marginalising opposition voices and narrowing the space for dissent. Scholars such as Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have argued that democracies often erode not through sudden coups but through incremental changes that normalise exceptional power.
Seen through this lens, the concern is not that India has become a classical fascist state. The concern is that democratic habits—consultation, tolerance of criticism, respect for autonomous institutions and willingness to negotiate with opponents—may be weakening. The language of nationalism can become a substitute for political persuasion, and majoritarian electoral success can be treated as a mandate to dismiss all dissent as anti-national.
That tendency deserves criticism precisely because it threatens the pluralist foundations of the Constitution
XI. Pressure Groups and the Democratic Order
Farmers’ unions, student organisations, environmental movements, women’s groups, trade unions and regional parties are often portrayed as obstacles to governance. In fact they are essential intermediaries between citizens and the state. Democratic theory recognises that elections occur periodically, while grievances emerge daily. Pressure groups aggregate interests, generate information and compel governments to justify their decisions publicly.
When governments stop engaging such groups, two consequences follow. Moderate leaders lose credibility, and more confrontational forms of protest gain appeal. The history of Punjab, Assam, Kashmir and numerous regional movements demonstrates that sustained refusal to negotiate rarely eliminates dissent; it often radicalises it.
The constitutional architecture of India assumes negotiation. Federalism, coalition politics, parliamentary committees, labour boards, university bodies and local governments all exist to channel conflict into institutions. A democracy that relies exclusively on executive command gradually empties these mediating structures of meaning.
XII. The RSS, BJP and the Question of Democratic Legacy
Any assessment of contemporary Indian politics must also examine the historical evolution of the Bharatiya Janata Party and its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Historians broadly agree that the RSS, founded in 1925, focused primarily on Hindu social organisation rather than leading the major mass campaigns of the anti-colonial movement such as the Non-Cooperation Movement, Civil Disobedience Movement or Quit India Movement. Individual members participated in various capacities, but the organisation as a whole was not a central force in those nationwide struggles.
After independence, the political tradition associated with the RSS evolved through the Bharatiya Jana Sangh and later the BJP. It participated in electoral politics, opposed the Emergency, and eventually emerged as a dominant national party. The Ram Janmabhoomi movement of the 1980s and 1990s became its most significant mass mobilisation campaign, reshaping Indian politics around questions of religion, identity and nationalism.
The democratic challenge today is not whether the BJP has the right to govern; repeated electoral victories have unquestionably given it that right. The challenge is whether overwhelming electoral strength will be accompanied by equal commitment to institutional restraint, transparency and accommodation of dissent. Majoritarian legitimacy and constitutional democracy are not identical. The Constitution protects opponents as well as supporters.
XIII. Transparency, Temples and the Public Trust Question
Debate over the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust reflects a broader national question: how should religious institutions that receive enormous public donations be regulated? The trust was created in 2020 following the Supreme Court’s Ayodhya judgment, and government officials serve on its board alongside religious representatives. RTI activists have argued that such institutional links justify greater transparency, while the trust has maintained that it is not a “public authority” under the Right to Information Act. The matter has been contested through legal and administrative proceedings.
It is therefore inaccurate to state categorically that there is “no audit” or that wrongdoing has been legally established. What can be said is that significant public debate exists regarding disclosure of donations, land transactions, decision-making procedures and the applicability of transparency laws. Comparable religious bodies—including the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams in Andhra Pradesh, the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board in Jammu and Kashmir, the Guruvayur Devaswom in Kerala and the Travancore Devaswom Board—operate under statutory frameworks that provide varying degrees of public oversight and financial reporting. Whether the Ayodhya trust should be brought under a similar regime is a legitimate democratic question requiring legal and parliamentary debate rather than unverified accusation.
Transparency is not hostility to faith. On the contrary, institutions built in the name of faith often command greater public confidence when their finances and decisions are open to scrutiny. The principle is simple: the larger the public trust, the stronger the case for public accountability.
XIV. How Democracies Become Authoritarian
Authoritarianism rarely arrives announcing itself. It advances through habits: treating critics as enemies, rewarding political defection, weakening independent institutions, concentrating media narratives, and converting electoral majorities into claims of moral infallibility. Citizens gradually become accustomed to the idea that disagreement is disloyalty.
India’s constitutional founders feared precisely this possibility. B.R. Ambedkar warned that constitutional morality required restraint from both rulers and citizens. Jawaharlal Nehru argued that criticism was indispensable to parliamentary government. Even leaders who enjoyed enormous popularity recognised that democratic authority must remain answerable.
The danger today is not simply the strength of one party. It is the weakening of the expectation that governments must explain themselves to opponents. Delimitation debates, party defections, investigative agencies, media concentration and restrictions on protest are all contested political questions. Taken individually, each can be defended as lawful. Taken together, they create a perception that power is becoming increasingly insulated from dissenting voices. Perception itself matters in a democracy because legitimacy depends not only on legality but also on trust.
XV. Sonam Wangchuk and the Future of Democratic Conversation
The immediate issue before the country is not whether every demand raised by Sonam Wangchuk or his supporters should be accepted. Governments may conclude that some demands are impractical, excessive or unsupported by evidence. Democratic politics allows disagreement. What democracy cannot afford is indifference.
A government confident in its position should have no fear of open dialogue. It should meet protesters, present evidence, explain constraints and justify its decisions publicly. If the demand is rejected, let it be rejected after hearing, reasoning and accountability. Silence is not strength. Distance is not authority.
The history of India’s great democratic movements—from Gandhi and Bhagat Singh to Sriramulu, Tara Singh, Anna Hazare and G.D. Agrawal—teaches a consistent lesson: the fast unto death becomes powerful only when people believe ordinary channels have failed. Every hunger strike is therefore also a referendum on the responsiveness of institutions.
A republic that forces citizens to speak through suffering has already lost part of its democratic imagination. The task before India is not merely to end one fast. It is to rebuild the habit of listening before another citizen feels compelled to place his body between power and conscience.
“The body becomes a political argument only when institutions cease to listen.”
“Gandhi’s fasts worked not because the British lacked force, but because they feared the moral consequences of ignoring suffering.”
“A democracy is judged not by how loudly the government speaks, but by how seriously it hears its critics.”
“The question is not whether every protest must win; the question is whether every protester remains visible to the republic.”
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