We are accustomed to protest action against government policy proposals or corruption in the form of marches through the streets of the capital, pickets outside Parliament, and such like. These are the ordinary expressions of our right to free speech, assembly and association. As vehicles of rational persuasion, they hardly raise an eyebrow. The hunger strike is a fundamentally- different form of protest.
Because it involves the voluntary surrender of the most precious of rights, the right to life, it is a potent means of communicating with and educating the public about official shortcomings. It is also an effective tool for negotiation with public officials by way of an "astonishing example." Ghandi considered it one of the "mightiest" forms of civil disobedience.
By putting on display the slow ebbing away of his life, the hunger striker draws attention to the cause for which he is prepared to die and his absolute commitment to that cause. It is impossible for the public to turn away from this spectacle of slow death. The hunger striker says to us: "Look at what I am prepared to give up for your betterment.
What are you prepared to do in return?" Our natural instinct for the preservation of life and the guilt we are made to feel for our own feckless inactivity in the face of such utter resolve engenders in us, first, compassion and then an unconscious, if not outright affiliation with the hunger striker's cause. We are forced to scrutinise the Government's refusal to give in to his demands more closely than we might otherwise have.
In this charged atmosphere, it becomes so easy to judge harshly the Government's every response and ultimately to blame the Government for the hunger striker's eventual demise. But it is difficult to figure out whether our display of support is derived entirely from rational assessment, or from an emotional response to the hunger striker's suffering and a sense of loyalty to his apparent selfless sacrifice.
That Wayne Kublalsingh's hunger strike has had the desired effect cannot be doubted. In an age of seven-day wonders and media cycles, Wayne's now 30- day fast has attracted almost daily media attention as the deterioration in his health, and any apparent improvement, are minutely chronicled. His sacrifice has brought out an estimated 1,000 supporters on a cool Sunday evening. He has moved a gaggle of religious leaders to visit him at his campsite.
He has stimulated the nobility of young environmentalists who have pledged to stage a rotating, tag team, 24-hour fast in solidarity. The Prime Minister has been stirred to visit him at his hospital bed, lest she be criticised as heartless. The ministry has put out full-page ads justifying its stand. And there are in fact meetings taking place on the Armstrong Report with Wayne's alter egos, even if he does not think his full demands for mediation are being met.
There have also been challenges to the genuineness of Wayne's claim to a total fast, including a full-page ad lampooning him. Which is all fair game, because if his rallying point is self sacrifice, it is important to know whether he is really faking it. I doubt whether the environmental destruction and the hypocrisy of government ministers, who once opposed the highway extension but now supports it with such passion, would have garnered such attention and achieved such partial success, if Wayne had simply chosen to stand vigil outside the Prime Minister's office, having his three square meals every day.
To the extent that the use of the body as a weapon achieves results that other forms of protest would not, I have found myself asking whether there is any basis upon which one can judge the legitimacy, or even the morality of a hunger strike. But I have struggled to find any framework in which that judgment can be made. The Government has characterised Wayne's hunger strike as a form of blackmail.
And if it could be so characterised, it would justifiably attract condemnation. But there is no threat to take a third party's life, or to expose the misdeeds of some government minister if the Government does not change course. Wayne has been threatening to take his own life. I also cannot see that the legitimacy of a hunger strike can be judged by the lack of substance of the cause in support of which it is staged.
The counter hunger strike started by Mr Maharaj is just plain stupid. A hunger strike to further a lost cause will simply be ignored. And where there is merit to the hunger striker's cause, it does not lie in the mouth of the Government to complain about the legitimacy of the hunger strike when, for its part, it cannot lay claim to total legitimacy or morality.
Indeed, it is because there is some substantial merit to Wayne's charges of environmental degradation and official hypocrisy that his hunger strike has gained such traction and instilled such fear in the Government that they appear to have abandoned their "no negotiation with terrorists" stand and have quietly, and without admitting surrender, been engaging with the Armstrong Report.
The hunger striker's opponent is usually the State which has at its disposal limitless resources to defend its position. It is difficult therefore to condemn Wayne as illegitimately or even unfairly adopting such a potent tactic.