ABSTRACT
Between September 1932 and May 1933, a span of mere eight months, Gandhi undertook two of the 17 fasts of his long public life. The first of these, which resulted in the Poona Pact, was his most political and, as a result, most controversial and eventful fast. The second fast, which for Gandhi was but a resumption of the first, was the most ethical and, as a result, the most unknown and uneventful. Focusing on these twin fasts, this chapter makes some disconcerting suggestions about the correlation between ethics and politics and, inevitably, therefore, about the fate of one who was determined to make ethics integral to politics.
