A fast fast

June 8, 2023

Over the years I’ve spent many hours on Reddit in r/fasting, a community of hundreds of thousands of people interested in the practice. There are often notes of despair, of fasts begun with great intentions, only to be ended within a day or two. I read about a similar incident in The Life and Death of Mahatma Gandhi, where Gandhi began a fast on June 8, 1940.

India was in turmoil on June 2, a pawn in the larger war ravaging Europe and Asia. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were being evacuated from Dunkirk as France fell to Germany. Mohandas Gandhi was in turmoil as well within his ashram in Sevagram, India. A pen and letter had been removed from Kasturba’s room. Who was the culprit?

The pen was found later by the hospital gate, and the shredded bits of the letter were discovered also. On Monday, Gandhi’s weekly day of silence, the inmates of the ashram were summoned to hear a reading of Gandhi’s letter on the subject. “I hope the culprit will bring me peace by making a clean breast of it and save me from having to fast in these critical days…. I myself stole once. I owned it up and freed myself of the taint forever.” (Gandhi seems to have forgotten that he confessed to stealing on several occasions in his autobiography.)

Over the next few days, everyone was questioned but no new information was discovered. On Friday, Gandhi accused a Muslim woman, Amtul Salaam, who denied any knowledge of the theft. He kindly explained that “no one should look at A[mtul] with hatred… Let no one presume that she is a liar and that my suspicion is well founded.” (With friends like that, who needs enemies?) On Saturday, June 8, 1940, Gandhi began his fast.

Mahadev Desai, Gandhi’s faithful secretary, had been doing his best all week to restore peace. He had written Gandhi a long letter, asking him to reconsider, but Gandhi was unpersuaded. On Saturday morning, Desai tried again, and this time, he succeeded. Gandhi called off the fast just two hours after it had begun, concluding his shortest public fast ever.

Have you ever accused someone, only to decide later that you were mistaken?