Some good old blackmail

I’ve done one token political fast in my life. That was in solidarity with the victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy. I didn’t last 24 hours. The first hint of light-headedness and I reached for the nearest glass of lemonade. Ever since, I’ve thought a lot about hunger strikes.

There are alternatives to fasting. One can sit on a dharna outside parliament, or march, or throw stones, or burn effigies, or sign letters of protest. Hey! One can click a button on Facebook. But nothing works like fasting-unto-death.

Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption fast worked, although it faces criticism. It is hard to understand why lakhs were spent when people weren’t eating. Eyebrows are being raised about corporate sponsorship, given that corporate corruption made the biggest headlines this year. The other criticism is ‘blackmail’.

Blackmail is all about fear and shame. It means that someone can make you do something you don’t want to do because you are ashamed of the consequences. When Gandhi-ji fasted, he persuaded colonial rulers and Indian mill owners to overturn decisions that hurt millions of people.

Why didn’t they just let him die? Even Bhagat Singh went on hunger strike, although he didn’t believe that non-violence was the only acceptable means of protest. He was force-fed in prison to keep him alive. Why? There might have been an angry riot or an outpouring on the streets. But those were times when hundreds of thousands were demonstrating. Lockouts and strikes were common. Mass murder was already happening — directly, like in Jallianwala Bagh, or indirectly, like the Bengal famine. If the government wasn’t ashamed of starving millions, why was it afraid of one old gent starving to death?

I think it’s because when somebody goes on hunger strike, his life is at the mercy of the collective. It is like saying — “I think my life is not worth living under these circumstances. You can choose to do something about it. Will you?”

You can argue. But you cannot deny that a problem exists and must be fixed urgently. If this person is a moral force, a representative of what is good and necessary, the pressure is higher. Governments worry because people will be watching, perhaps joining the campaign. After all, when the best amongst us show themselves to be the bravest, their voice becomes impossible to ignore.

Maybe people won’t care. But if we don’t, it is a sign that we no longer have faith in the possibility of change. And people of zero faith are dangerous in a democracy. Which is why a government — one that wants to be seen as a moral government — cannot afford to ignore indefinite fasts.

Which brings me to the question of why some fasts are ignored. Hazare’s fast lasted five days and the state blinked. But for 22 days in 2008, Bhopal gas tragedy victims and activists like Sathyu Sarangi were fasting at Jantar Mantar. When they were close to critical, they stopped and another bunch of activists took over. No blink.

The difference between Hazare’s campaign and that of the Bhopal gas tragedy’s victims is that the latter are mostly poor people who have little to blackmail the state with. And we are not much ashamed of what happens to them.

The state was afraid to oppose Hazare because it would be seen as anti-anti-corruption. It would be seen as anti-poor, anti-elite, anti-everybody. Everybody isn’t upset enough about toxicity yet to demand new laws relating to pollution. I just worry sometimes about what it might take before we decide that the situation is untenable and resort to a little old-fashioned blackmail.