The 21-day fast of Mohandas K. Gandhi is the Mahatma's tenth public hunger strike since 1918. Many were for minor reasons. Only twice before has Gandhi fasted "against" the British.
Gandhi considers a fast a spiritual weapon, at once an appeal to moral forces and a self-searching of his own motives and failings, not to be undertaken unless the person fasting is certain of his moral ground. Thus on Aug. 19, 1939 Gandhi wrote in his newspaper, Harijan:
"The hunger strike has positively become a plague. On the slightest pretext some people want to resort to a hunger strike. It is well, therefore,...
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