Satyagraha in modern India

The fast-unto-death by Potti Sreeramulu and his consequent death in 1953 made the government to pass the States Reorganization Act in 1956, which dissolved the old states and new states were created based on language and ethnicity. Thus was inclusion of a new tool in the Indian constitution, so that people can demand their constitutional rights. As someone said, in India everybody knows their rights, but no one knows their duties.

But I am not writing this post to show how the act was used (exploited) over the years. I just want to present two parallel stories of fast-unto-death – one whose aim is to divide an existing state and another for peace, sans media attention.

Case 1: The 21st century Potti Sreeramulu or is he?


As I write this post, it’s been 11 days since K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR as he is popularly known) started his fast-unto-death demanding the formation of a separate Telangana state. The doctors at NIIMS, Hyderabad say that he shows signs of protein malnutrition and there is an urgent need for insertion of central intravenous lines for administration of fluids and medicines. While this happens in the hospital, the supposed Satyagraha, we see a different situation outside. The so-called future of the Telangana state (if one gets created) especially the university students, hit the streets, pelted stones on the police and vandalized public property. Students (future of Telangana) from the prominent universities in the state took to the streets, protested, burnt buses and brought the state to a halt. Some protesters even immolated themselves.

Self-immolation – a mindless concept, popularized in India by Rajiv Goswami in protest of the Mandal Commission in 1990, where neither the person who is immolated nor the purpose of his act is fulfilled.

In all this, the media, especially the Andhra Pradesh media which has about fifteen dedicated 24-hour news channels (probably the highest in the country) played a major role to track every single breath of KCR and his violent supporters, protesters, agitators…whatever you call them. The detailed follow-up of the events is so intense that you would feel that you were part of the agitation yourself, even if you are in some remote part of the world. The capitalistic media surely has a major role in a dividing the country but not always in uniting people.

Now, I am just waiting to see what happens next and what will happen to Hyderabad, if a new state is created.

Case 2: Irom Sharmila’s bounden duty, 10 years later...
Wait…let me start this case the same way as I started the previous one.

As I write this post, it’s been almost 10 YEARS since Irom Sharmila started her superhuman fast protesting the indefensible Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) that has been imposed in Manipur and most of the North-east since 1980. The Act allows the army to use force, arrest or shoot anyone on the mere suspicion that someone has committed or was about to commit a cognizable offence. The Act further prohibits any legal or judicial proceedings against army personnel without the sanction of the Central Government.

In 2006, Irom Sharmila had not eaten anything, or drunk a single drop of water for six years. She was being forcibly kept alive by a drip thrust down her nose by the Indian State. For six years, nothing solid had entered her body; not a drop of water had touched her lips. She cleaned her teeth with dry cotton and her lips with dry spirit so she would not sully her fast. Her body was wasted inside. Her menstrual cycles had stopped. Yet she was resolute. Whenever she could, she removed the tube from her nose. It was her bounden duty, she said, to make her voice heard in “the most reasonable and peaceful way”.

The humbling power of Sharmila’s story lies in her untutored beginnings. She is not a front for any large, coordinated political movement. The 34-yearold’s Satyagraha was not an intellectual construct. It was a deep human response to the cycle of death and violence she saw around her — almost a spiritual intuition. “I was shocked by the dead bodies of Malom on the front page,” Sharmila had said in her clear, halting voice. “I was on my way to a peace rally but I realised there was no means to stop further violations by the armed forces. So I decided to fast.”

Such a fast is absolutely unparalleled in the history of political protest anywhere in the world, ever. Yet you have been oblivious of her. A hundred TV channels. An unprecedented age of media. Yet both Indian citizens and the Indian State were oblivious to her.

(Case 2 excerpted from the article Irom And The Iron In India’s Soul by Shoma Chaudhury in Tehelka Magazine, Dec 05, 2009)

Read Shoma Chaudhury's complete article here.

Related links
Gandhiji’s rules of Satyagraha