The protest fast, used to historic effect by Mahatma Gandhi in his fight against British rule, has made a comeback in India among activists seeking to pressure the government on a host of issues.
A series of high-profile fasts — mostly focusing on corruption — have garnered national attention in recent months and posed a public relations challenge to the scandal-tainted coalition of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
However, where Gandhi’s fasts are still seen as models of principled, non-violent self-sacrifice, the modern-day versions have been criticized by some as publicity-seeking stunts that are also undemocratic.
In April, 73-year-old veteran activist Anna Hazare — an ardent admirer of Gandhi — launched what he said would be a fast to the death to demand greater civil participation in the drafting of anti-corruption legislation.
Mounting popular anger over graft, Hazare’s frail resemblance to Gandhi and blanket media coverage supported by Twitter and Facebook campaigns lent the protest an unexpected momentum that took the authorities by surprise.
In the end, the government agreed to certain concessions and Hazare called off his fast after 98 hours.
Then early this month, India’s most celebrated yoga guru, Baba Ramdev, embarked on a similar hunger strike to highlight the issue of “black money” — illicit cash squirreled away by officials in foreign bank accounts.
This time the government took a harder stance, sending in police with tear gas to clear Ramdev and his supporters from their camp in New Delhi — an operation that was seen by many as desperate and heavy-handed.
Ramdev finally called off his strike on Sunday.
A day later, another Indian guru and social activist, Swami Nigamananda, died in the northern town of Dehradun after a four-month fast to highlight corruption and rising pollution in the Ganges.
Observers said the various fasts had caught a national mood, with public outrage over official corruption running at an historic high.
“Their rise is best explained by the falling credibility of the ruling political class,” said Aroon Purie, editor-in-chief of India Today.
“What matters is the message: India is erupting against corruption and those who are shielding the corrupt,” Purie added.
Indian political analyst Parsa Venkateshwar Rao agreed that timing had helped Hazare and Ramdev become “very visible icons” of protest.
“They are very conspicuous dissidents, while political parties have been marginalized,” Rao said. “Hazare’s main backing has come from the urban middle class, who are outraged by corruption and are all for taking up cudgels against it.”
While public opinion in India is united behind the anti-corruption message, there are those who question the motives and tactics of the fasting messengers.
The Congress Party, which leads the ruling coalition, spoke of the threat to democracy posed by “unelected tyrants,” while others questioned whether Hazare’s drive to have non-elected representatives on a law-drafting committee was constitutional.
Many are especially skeptical about Ramdev, a strict social conservative who claims he can “cure” homosexuality, cancer and AIDS through yoga and other therapies.
Never one to shy away from publicity, Ramdev holds regular televised yoga sessions that draw millions of viewers.
“The desire to leave his ashram for the arc lights was entirely in character,” historian Ramachandra Guha said of the guru’s anti-corruption fast.
“Ramdev occupies an important place in the history of publicity, rather than in the history of spirituality,” Guha said.
An editorial in the financial daily Mint also said that Ramdev was hard to take seriously.
“Leaving aside his concerns about black money — ones that a majority of citizens would share — nearly all his demands can be dismissed out of hand,” the newspaper said. “His lack of understanding of how the Indian political system works and the seriousness with which he is believed by a massive number of followers shows how dangerous such stunts are for democracy.”
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion