Starving on soundbites

Moreover, those who use history selectively need to be told that the Mahatma usually fixed a time limit for his fasts though he did undertake a few 8216;fasts undo death8217; when the stakes were very high. One such occasion arose because of Babasaheb Ambedkar8217;s demand for separate electorates for the Scheduled Castes. Eventually, Gandhi won his point. Ambedkar agreed to what is known as the Poona Pact.

Incidentally, long, long before Gandhi thought of a fast unto death, an Irish freedom fighter, Terence MacSweeny, had starved himself to death in a prison. But that is a different story.

In independent India, Potti Sriramulu was the first individual to actually fast unto death in 1953. His cause was the separation of Andhra from what was then the Madras Presidency. Jawaharlal Nehru refused to succumb to this pressure because he realised that to do so would open the floodgate for similar blackmail. In fact, the first time the Mahatma undertook a 8216;fast unto death8217; in the thirties, Nehru was 8220;shocked8221; by what he described as 8220;primitive and irrational tactics8221; but his enormous love and reverence for Gandhiji prevented him from voicing his criticism publicly. However, he refused to be so indulgent to anyone else.

The state of Andhra was formed, of course, but some months after Sriramulu8217;s death, and this became the prelude to the redrawing of the country8217;s political map along linguistic lines.

Like her father, Indira Gandhi also looked the other way when an Akali member of the Rajya Sabha, Darshan Singh Pheruman, followed Sriramulu8217;s example on the issue of transfer of Chandigarh to the Punjabi suba she had conceded a few years earlier. The city that Le Corbusier built remains the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana.

Nearly a decade before Pheruman, the much taller Akali leader 8212; indeed the tallest at that time 8212; Master Tara Singh had also undertaken a 8216;fast unto death8217; demanding that a Punjabi suba be formed at once. It became something of a joke. As Nehru remarked in Parliament, 8220;What kind of a fast it is that goes on and on?8221; The House laughed because most people knew that Masterji was taking care quietly to consume enough calories every night. Consequently, Tara Singh lost not only face but also the Akali leadership to Sant Fateh Singh. Even more prolonged and farcical was the subsequent fast of the Shankaracharya of Puri who wanted a complete ban on cow slaughter. He did not save the cow and its progeny but lived a long and healthy life himself.

In a different class was the fast, also 8216;unto death8217;, that Morarji Desai embarked upon in the spring of 1975. The Gujarat state assembly had been dissolved at the start of the year because of the famous Nav Nirman agitation. Desai was not alone in believing that Indira Gandhi was deliberately delaying the fresh poll, and demanded that it be held immediately. This time around her reaction was entirely different. She asked her confidant, Uma Shankar Dikshit, to fly to Ahmedabad. His brief: 8220;Settle with Morarjibhai whichever way you can.8221;

Against this rather bizarre backdrop isn8217;t it time to end not only the mounting crisis in Kolkata but also the unacceptably crass use of the 8216;weapon8217; of fast unto death? Especially because compared with what Sriramulu, Pheruman and Morarji were seeking, the problem in Singur is simpler and relatively minor?

Both sides are agreed that half the land acquired at Singur is kosher. The dispute is about the other half roughly 50,000 acres. Mamata and her followers assert that this land was acquired forcibly, not 8216;surrendered8217; voluntarily. To this Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee8217;s answer is that he is willing to discuss the problem and find a way out by consensus. However, the Trinamool leader characteristically insists that the state government should first cancel the allotment of land to the Tatas and that she would give up her fast and agree to talk only after this was done.

Understandably, the chief minister too has dug in his heels. There is no way he would say no to the Tatas because this is the surest way to block all private investment in West Bengal. It is the proverbial situation involving irresistible force and immovable object.

To resolve this deadlock, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former Prime Minister V.P. Singh, West Bengal Governor Gopal Gandhi and several others have earnestly appealed to Mamataji to give up her fast and hold talks with the state government. At the same time, the BJP, which has its own fish to fry, has joined the fray primarily to reinforce her obstinacy. Just shows how bereft of principles

Indian politics has become.

The writer is a senior political commentator