Fasting as Dissent: Examining the Body Discourses and Publicity of Mahatma Gandhi and Irom Sharmila

ABSTRACT\ud FASTING AS DISSENT: EXAMINING THE BODY DISCOURSES\ud AND PUBLICITY OF MAHATMA GANDHI AND\ud IROM SHARMILA\ud by\ud Arjun Buxi\ud Master of Arts in Communication Studies\ud California State University, Chico\ud Summer 2011\ud In this thesis, I explore the efficacy of hunger striking as a method of exposing\ud the unjustness of a powerful, repressive State. I confront the exclusion of oppressed\ud minorities from the arena of public debate based on the attributes that make them ???different.???\ud As recourse, I argue that the minority dissident???s last resort for resisting the\ud State is the creation of bodily discourses and a spectacle of his/her suffering. However,\ud what are the effects of the minority hunger striker???s attributes of ???difference??? on his/her\ud fast? Conversely, what are the effects of fasting on behalf of a minority group? I attempt\ud to advance some answers to those questions through a comparative analysis between\ud Mahatma Gandhi and Irom Sharmila, who respectively fasted on behalf of, and as a\ud member of, an oppressed minority. Through analysis of news media discourses,\ud documentary footage, and biographies, this thesis examines the implications of a hunger\ud striker???s battle for autonomy while imprisoned and subverted by the State, and his/her\ud efforts to gain publicity and sympathy from an audience.\ud I demonstrate the limitations Sharmila faced as a female, ethnic minority\ud hunger striker, and the implications of the State???s counter-discourses upon a fast-untodeath.\ud It is shown that by a problematic application of the law, force-feeding, and hospitalization,\ud the State weakened Sharmila???s spectacle of suffering, and framed her humanitarian\ud crisis as a problem of ???national security???. As contrast, I present how Gandhi\ud successfully framed his fast as confronting first and foremost a social problem, using a\ud dual argument of political and social reform to successfully implicate both State and\ud society for moral transgression. Though Gandhi enjoyed a more well known persona\ud and achieved more tangible reform, Sharmila has gained some public support and spoke\ud up against injustice. The sheer longevity of Sharmila???s fast-unto-death (10 years and\ud still going) demonstrates the efficacy of hunger striking in enabling a desperate, forgotten,\ud minority citizen to continually and determinedly resist a State with his/her last resort,\ud the body.CSU, Chic