Kevin Grant - Last Weapons: Hunger Strikes and Fasts in the British Empire, 1890–1948

Last Weapons

The publisher and the University of California Press Foundation gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Ahmanson Foundation Endowment Fund in Humanities.

BERKELEY SERIES IN BRITISH STUDIES

Edited by James Vernon

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Smyrnas Ashes: Humanitarianism, Genocide, and the Birth of the Middle East, by Michelle Tusan

Pathological Bodies: Medicine and Political Culture, by Corinna Wagner

A Problem of Great Importance: Population, Race, and Power in the British Empire, 19181973, by Karl Ittmann

Liberalism in Empire: An Alternative History, by Andrew Sartori

Distant Strangers: How Britain Became Modern, by James Vernon

Edmund Burke and the Conservative Logic of Empire, by Daniel I. ONeill

Governing Systems: Modernity and the Making of Public Health in England,18301910, by Tom Crook

Barbed-Wire Imperialism: Britains Empire of Camps,19761903, by Aidan Forth

Aging in Twentieth-Century Britain, by Charlotte Greenhalgh

Thinking Black: Britain,19641985, by Rob Waters

Black Handsworth: Race in1980s Britain, by Kieran Connell

Last Weapons: Hunger Strikes and Fasts in the British Empire,18901948, by Kevin Grant

Last Weapons

Hunger Strikes and Fasts in the British Empire, 18901948

Kevin Grant

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.

University of California Press

Oakland, California

2019 by Kevin Grant

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Grant, Kevin, 1965 author.

Title: Last weapons : hunger strikes and fasts in the British empire, 18901948 / Kevin Grant.

Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2019] | Series: Berkeley series in British studies ; 16 | Includes bibliographical references and index. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2018057018 (print) | LCCN 2018059956 (ebook) | ISBN 9780520972155 (e-book) | ISBN 9780520301009 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780520301016 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH : Hunger strikesGreat Britain20th century. | Hunger strikesIreland20th century. | Hunger strikesIndia20th century.

Classification: LCC HN 400. H 84 (ebook) | LCC HN 400. H 84 G 73 2019 (print) | DDC 303.6/1dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018057018

Manufactured in the United States of America

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To Lisa, Anita, and Neil

They think it is crazy for a man to despise beauty of form, to impair his strength, to grind his agility down to torpor, to exhaust his body with fasts, to ruin his health and to scorn all other natural delights, unless by so doing he can more zealously serve the welfare of others or the common good. Then indeed he may expect a greater reward from God.

THOMAS MORE , UTOPIA (1516)

I know not what the younger dreams

Some vague Utopiaand she seems,

When withered old and skeleton-gaunt,

An image of such politics.

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS , IN MEMORY OF
EVA GORE-BOOTH AND CON MARKIEVICZ (1927)

Suffering even unto death and, therefore, even through a perpetual fast is the last weapon of the satyagrahi. That is the last duty which it is open to him to perform.

MOHANDAS GANDHI , WHEN IS IT POSSIBLE? HARIJAN , 18 FEBRUARY 1933

Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

In July 2004, on Bastille Day, Anita and Neil arrived. Lisa and I spent three months with them in southern California, then we all moved to Bombay for most of a year. The kids have been excellent travelers ever since. They did not realize until relatively recently that their parents travel not just to talk about history, but also to do historical research. They learned even more recently that the research for this book began a couple of years before they were born. Their obliviousness to this work-in-progress for most of their lives has helped me a great deal. It provided perspective on history. Lisa, meanwhile, has provided both historical perspective and a wonderful life in the present. I dedicate this book to the three of them, who are everything to me.

Various parts of this book appeared in conferences, beginning with a memorable conference in honor of Thomas Metcalf in 2003. I subsequently presented work at the Anglo-American Conference of Historians in London and at a few versions of the North American Conference on British Studies. I first published on this topic in an essay titled The Transcolonial World of Hunger Strikes and Political Fasts, c. 19091935, which appeared in 2006 in a collection edited by Durba Ghosh and Dane Kennedy.where I received incisive and generous feedback. I have also benefited over the years from numerous conversations with friends and colleagues who may or may not have known that they were broadening my perspective or changing my mind. Thank you especially to Faisal Devji, Nasser Hussain, Thomas Laqueur, Philippa Levine, Thomas and Barbara Metcalf, and Krystyna von Henneberg.

I am grateful to those who took a direct hand in the present book: Lisa Trivedi has informed my thinking and writing in all ways. Sudipta Sen read the introduction and , offering insightful critiques and creative ways in which to broaden my arguments. Shoshana Keller read the whole manuscript and required me to explain myself to the general reader, which was invaluable. Richard English read the whole manuscript and offered comments and suggestions that were critically constructive and right. Seth Kovens meticulous reading of the whole manuscript enabled me to see the project anew. His comments and suggestions were transformative. In the homestretch, Holly Bridges provided thoughtful and careful copyediting. James Vernon deserves special credit for both skillful editing and editorial endurance over the life of this project. He was in the audience for my first presentation in 2003, and he has provided relentless support ever since. He has read everything that became this book, and everything was made better by his reading.

I am pleased to thank others who made this book possible. Kristin Strohmeyer, an extraordinary research librarian, helped me to think about historical sources, then find them. Robin Vanderwall, who manages Hamilton Colleges history department, provided me with every assistance, every day. Shoshana Keller guided me through all things Russian, and John Bartle kindly provided an English translation of a key section of Vera Figners Russian-language autobiography. Abhishek Amar shared his expertise on ancient India and the politics of its modern representation. Jonathan Fiedler prepared an annotated bibliography of scholarship on Irish hunger strikes that guided my initial research for . Toms Mac Conmara and Paul Minihan graciously assisted me in learning a great deal more about the hunger strikes by Clare Volunteers.