New | Are hunger strikes effective? What Occupy students could learn from historical protests
As Hong Kong student leader Joshua Wong calls off his fast after four days, we look at some historical hunger strikers
Hunger strikes have been used by a wide variety of political dissidents in a number of countries, with mixed success. While Gandhi was something of a master at holding his own body hostage to extract concessions from his opponents, other hunger strikers often had to pay a high price for victory, if it came at all.
Mohandas Gandhi
During the fight for Indian independence, Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi often used fasting as a form of non-violent resistance. Between 1913 and 1948, he went on hunger strike a staggering 17 times, with the longest fast lasting 21 days.
Due to his stature and popularity, Gandhi’s fasts were successful both in attracting international media attention and forcing action from those he sought to pressure.
In 1932, he went on hunger strike to protest a British proposal to separate India’s electoral system by caste, giving the so-called “untouchables” their own separate political representation for a period of 70 years.
“This is a god-given opportunity that has come to me to offer my life as final sacrifice to the downtrodden,” Gandhi said, vowing to “fast until death” unless the plan, which he felt would permanently divide India’s social classes, was dropped.