India needs Fastpal bill to fight fasting mafia

Dear reader, allow me to begin with an apology. In my last column I called Baba Ramdev the Jim Morrison of Indian politics. I was wrong. He’s the DK Bose of Indian politics. I think like everyone else, I got confused because of the hair and the beard and the mass hysteria. It was only when he ran that everyone noticed the error. The magic of DK Bose, as you know better than me, dear reader, is not in standing but in the running.

The Baba Ramdev kand has shown how dangerous political hunger can be, which is why I think the government should, as fast as it possibly can, start work on a legislation to regulate fasting, especially fasting-unto-death, all over the country. The bill must be drafted in consultation with all political parties, political fixers, and intelligence agencies, and could perhaps be called the Fastpal bill.

The bill should outlaw any kind of fasting that is not strictly religious in nature. Following the passage of the bill, anyone who undertakes a hunger strike will be banned from standing for any public office and politicians who undertake a hunger strike following the passage of the bill will not be allowed to hold any party position as well.

In terms of its constitutional reach and individual empowerment, the Fastpal bill should read like the Lokpal bill on amphetamines, but the prime minister should be exempt and must have the freedom to starve. However, the prime minister must take at least two thirds of parliament into confidence and should disclose all her/his illegal wealth/hidden food stash before sitting on a fast-unto-death.

In case the prime minister doesn’t require medical attention, he/she should be tried for eating on the sly and cheating the nation. The country should then decide his/her fate through a poll on Facebook or Twitter.

Lawmakers are advised to speak openly about their denial of hunger as a legitimate political tool and should publicly denounce the fasting mafia. The legislation should recognise political fasting as a contagious phenomenon. People who encourage political fasting by liking certain pages on Facebook should be monitored by the CID and hounded on Twitter.

The lawmakers should work hard to create a body of rules that restores the fear of God in the minds of such people. In advertising parlance, the law should be over the top in a subtle sort of way. As a start, the census should have a special fasting check-box called the Bhookh Hartali: citizens with a history of non-religious fasting.

Chronic fasting should be singled out as a national malaise. But there should be a special provision for the poor and the perpetual hungry, wherein the poor should be required to give an undertaking saying that their chronic fasting should be treated as akin to chronic hunger, which is completely poverty-driven and devoid of any political intent. The poor must, additionally, commit to never attaching political significance to any phase of their current phase of chronic fasting when they talk about the phase at a future date, either orally in the form of an anecdote or by way of a memoir or a biography.

Farmers should be required to give an additional undertaking that in the likelihood of their deciding to commit suicide due to poverty, they won’t, under any circumstance, starve themselves to death. The legislation should invoke the fear of hunger in the minds of people who have an anti-national familiarity with hunger and have learned to transfer their petulance into power. Once the law is passed, anyone in India found hungry and angry better have an excellent explanation.

Mayank Tewari is a writer

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