Tag: baba ramdev

Ramdev's Hunger Strike Media Campaign

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Kathryn Montalbano: India, home to the longest-running hunger strike in the world, has a history of starvation as protest, most prominently stemming from the non-violent practices of Mahatma Ghandi who, single-handedly, turned the ubiquitous hunger strike into an Indian-specific political symbol.  But contemporary criticism of the use of hunger strikes in India questions the virtuousness of the method, noting how recent protests often implement coercive, sometimes violent means to blackmail governments into compliance.

Subhash Kashyap, former secretary-general of India’s lower house of parliament, claims in an article by  Ben Doherty, “Gandhi never fasted on major issues like his country’s independence, or where there was room for difference of opinion. …His hunger strikes were only for causes where there was so obvious a right and wrong ‘that not conceding would be palpably unjust.'” Continue Reading →

Ramdev’s Hunger Strike Media Campaign

Posted on by

Kathryn Montalbano: India, home to the longest-running hunger strike in the world, has a history of starvation as protest, most prominently stemming from the non-violent practices of Mahatma Ghandi who, single-handedly, turned the ubiquitous hunger strike into an Indian-specific political symbol.  But contemporary criticism of the use of hunger strikes in India questions the virtuousness of the method, noting how recent protests often implement coercive, sometimes violent means to blackmail governments into compliance.

Subhash Kashyap, former secretary-general of India’s lower house of parliament, claims in an article by  Ben Doherty, “Gandhi never fasted on major issues like his country’s independence, or where there was room for difference of opinion. …His hunger strikes were only for causes where there was so obvious a right and wrong ‘that not conceding would be palpably unjust.'” Continue Reading →

Ramdev’s Hunger Strike Media Campaign

Posted on by

Kathryn Montalbano: India, home to the longest-running hunger strike in the world, has a history of starvation as protest, most prominently stemming from the non-violent practices of Mahatma Ghandi who, single-handedly, turned the ubiquitous hunger strike into an Indian-specific political symbol.  But contemporary criticism of the use of hunger strikes in India questions the virtuousness of the method, noting how recent protests often implement coercive, sometimes violent means to blackmail governments into compliance.

Subhash Kashyap, former secretary-general of India’s lower house of parliament, claims in an article by  Ben Doherty, “Gandhi never fasted on major issues like his country’s independence, or where there was room for difference of opinion. …His hunger strikes were only for causes where there was so obvious a right and wrong ‘that not conceding would be palpably unjust.'” Continue Reading →

Give Us This Day Our Daily Links

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A small parade was held in Philadelphia this weekend, made up of area Muslims.  Their objective was to counter media representation of Muslims as terrorists and to bring awareness to the fact that about two thirds of Muslims in American cities are black.  There are about 100 mosques in the Philly area. || A New Jersey mother and her roommate are being held for the death of an 8 year old.  The family claims that the women were under the influence of a local pastor who enforced extreme fasting on church members, encouraged them to avoid family, and to not hold jobs, even preaching that swallowing one’s own saliva is a sin. || Indian doctors have advised that Baba Ramdev, the Indian yoga guru on hunger strike to protest goverment corruption, should be force-fed. ||  Iranian journalist Hoda Saber has died in prison from a heart attack brought on by a 10-day hunger strike he began in protest of the death of a fellow journalist dissident.  Both were members of the Nationalist-Religious movement in opposition to the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. || Mark Oppenheimer writes for the NYT about a recent picnic in Utah that aims to close the door on the Mormon Church’s racism.  The picnic featured members of the Genesis Group, a social organization for black Mormons that was founded in 1971. || Meanwhile, the Mormon Church has issued a statement on immigration. ||  Despite much skepticism that conversion of Anglican’s to Catholicism will catch on en masse under guidelines recently instituted by the Vatican, an Episcopal congretation in Maryland has become the first to do so. ||  The current “Mormon Moment” is, of course, not without some push-back. || An art handling agency is looking for a miracle in Encinitas, California.  A mural of a surfing Madonna, the Virgin of Guadalupe, has caused a stir there, with some collectors offering to buy the piece as the city searches for a way to have it removed from where it suddenly appeared, on the side of a train bridge support.  Because of regulations that qualify the mural as graffiti, the city must find a way to remove it. Continue Reading →