The Fast Strikers

Hunger strikes, a noble way to protest, are in vogue and has gained momentum with Anna Hazare—the Gandhian, as named by the people. Some among us keep it to draw attention to a cause, to mess with the authorities (as done by the prisoners), to oppose laws on trivial or big issues, protest to raise their living standard, to support a cause or against the wrongdoings of functionaries.

Some make the hunger strikes a practice to blackmail higher authorities to meet their demand. Aristocrats would call it a mode to opress the government. In a way it is, but on the other hand, it's a way to ask rightfully for your rights and stand against the suppression that comes or may come forward in any form. When we talk about the strikers we never forget to include Mahatma Gandhi in our list. Though with his fasts he won public stature, but the British never gave independence for them. No one puts light on his cause which is always welcomed as an “agitational-kit” and not as a blackmail.

Irom Chanu Sharmila—a true Gandhian in the eyes of an avid follower of the Mahatma—has been circumvented by a similar situation. She has been on fast since last 10 years against the Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA), 1958, akin to Rowlatt Act imposed by the British in colonial India. Standing for the rights of North-East Indians, practically in the Gandhian style of non-violence, she is asking our Govenment to follow the same practice (of democratic principles) in India itself which it preaches to other countries.

The duo Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev have used the tool of hunger strike to stand against the government, have won thousands of supporters and even the government on their side. They certainly leave us in a dubious state of mind—are they the fast strikers or merely have the art of the hunger strike?