How hunger strikes shaped India’s history as Sonam Wangchuk’s fast enters day 20

As Sonam Wangchuk’s fast over exam irregularities enters its third week, we trace the history of hunger strikes in India—from Mahatma Gandhi and Bhagat Singh to Irom Sharmila—highlighting how the ultimate protest tool continues to shape the nation's conscience

New Delhi: Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh, Potti Sreeramulu, Irom Sharmila, Anna Hazare… And Sonam Wangchuk today. The list is long, the causes different, the means the same – fasting to register protest and make yourself heard.

From a few days to 16 years. The many hunger strikes of varying scale buried under the sands of time have tugged at the heartstrings of a nation that takes pride in its legacy of fasting against injustice as a protest tool.

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As Wangchuk’s strike, in solidarity with the Cockroach Janta Party over irregularities in the exam system, entered day 20 on Friday, attention swivelled to Delhi’s Jantar Mantar where hundreds have been gathering to express their support to him and other students fasting with him.

Wangchuk’s fast unto death lies on the bedrock of hunger strikes through contemporary Indian history, starting with Gandhi and including Irom Sharmila who went off food for 16 years against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and holds the record for the longest hunger strike anywhere in the world.

“…a fast which a votary of non-violence sometimes feels impelled to undertake by way of protest against some wrong done by society, and this he does when he as a votary of Ahimsa has no other remedy left. Such an occasion has come my way.” Gandhi, one of the strongest proponents of fasting as a way of protest, wrote this ahead of the last of his 18 fasts on January 13, 1948 from Birla House for restoration of communal peace across the nation. Two weeks later, he was assassinated in the same place.

“I never like to feel resourceless, a Satyagrahi never should. Fasting is his last resort in the place of the sword – his or other’s,” he wrote in Harijan.

The father of the nation undertook 18 fasts for various reasons, starting from a seven-day fast in Phoenix, South Africa, as penance for the inmates, followed by another daylong fast at the ashram for similar reasons.

The longest of his fasts lasted 21 days, including those for Hindu-Muslim unity, against untouchability, and detention by the British without charges.

Gandhi’s idea of hunger strike found resonance in his followers, most prominently with freedom fighter Potti Sreeramulu.

The staunch Gandhian played a pivotal role in the creation of Andhra State. He started fasting in October 1952, demanding a separate state for Telugu speakers, something that prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had resisted.

On the 58th day, he died.

The region burst into the flames of violent protests, forcing the government to chalk out the land that later came to be known as Andhra Pradesh.

In death, Sreeramulu managed to change the country’s map through the sheer resolution of a hunger strike.

According to Ajay Gudavarthy, associate professor of political science at JNU, Gandhi’s understanding of fasting went beyond just seeing it as a means for putting pressure on the government.

“…he also saw it as a sense of self purification to make one’s own intentions clear. And he thought that arguments don’t make intentions clear. The preparedness for suffering does. Fasting was that kind of a self purificatory act to express one’s purity of one’s own intent,” Gudavarthy told PTI.

In pre-Independence India, the names of Bhagat Singh, Batukeshwar Dutt, and Jatindra Nath Das are remembered for leading a hunger strike in 1929 to improve prison conditions where they were held for the killing of John Saunders.

They demanded to be treated as political prisoners and equality in food standards, clothing, toiletries, and access to books and newspapers. The protest received support from Nehru and Mohammed Ali Jinnah.

After 63 days and many attempts by the British government to break their resolve, Das succumbed to starvation.

Singh broke his fast after 116 days but not without securing significant prison reforms for other Indian prisoners.

“It’s very well recorded Bhagat Singh’s hunger strike led to prison reforms. He was able to change a lot of things in the prison where he was kept,” said Ajay Mehra, former principal, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Evening College.

In more recent times, Manipuri activist Irom Sharmila began her hunger strike on November 5, 2000. She was repeatedly arrested in different Indian states before ending her fast on August 9, 2016.

Beyond raising political awareness about the issues surrounding AFSPA, Sharmila’s protest achieved little in terms of her original demands. The following year, she entered electoral politics by contesting the state elections but suffered a crushing defeat, securing fewer than 100 votes.

While Sharmila was braving starvation in Manipur, social activist Anna Hazare sat on a hunger strike in Delhi in August 2011 to demand enactment of an anti-corruption law.

Even though the fast lasted 11 days, it caught the public sentiment in a way that was unprecedented in recent years.

Centred around the protest at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan, where thousands of supporters gathered, many similar protests broke out across the nation, demanding a strong anti-corruption law.

The Lokpal Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha in December 2011, by the Rajya Sabha in December 2013 and came into effect on January 16, 2014 after then President Pranab Mukherjee’s assent.

In 2013, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal went on a 15-day hunger strike to protest against allegedly inflated electricity and water bills in Delhi.

There have been others.

Activist Medha Patkar went on a 20-day hunger strike in 2006 to protest the raising of the Sardar Sarovar Dam height and demanded rehabilitation of tens of thousands of displaced families.

The same year, TMC leader Mamata Banerjee went on a 26-day hunger strike to protest against the Left Front government’s acquisition of fertile farmland in Singur for a Tata Motors factory.

One of the most notable hunger strikes in recent times was undertaken by environmentalist G D Agrawal in June 2018.

An IITian, Agrawal sat on several hunger strikes with demands to stop environmentally damaging projects and ensure the uninterrupted flow of the Ganga. After 111 days on fast, Agrawal died of starvation at the age of 86.

Wangchuk should not die.

That’s the appeal from people across all verticals, including politicians, showbiz stars and academics.

As the educator and climate activist gets weaker by the hour, he has asserted that he will “stay alive till July 20 at any cost”, the day the CJP has planned a protest march to Parliament.

The CJP has been demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Rs 1 crore compensation for the families of students who allegedly died by suicide over alleged examination irregularities.