Football fever hadn’t yet cooled, and I was still savouring the afterglow of Jannik Sinner’s fifth Grand Slam — that gutsy, set-down comeback at Wimbledon that had the whole tennis world talking — when the algorithm on X did what algorithms do best: it served me something entirely unrelated. Shashi Tharoor’s open letter to the young protesters at Jantar Mantar and to Sonam Wangchuk, eighteen days into his fast over the examination leaks.

The letter was measured where it could have been theatrical, empathetic where it could have been merely political. I read it twice. And somewhere in that reading, my mind — trained as it is on the Shiva Sankalpa Suktam — began to travel, far and near, gathering what it recognised. I thought of Kejriwal’s fasts in Delhi, of Karunanidhi’s decades earlier in Tamil Nadu, and further back, past living memory, to the freedom struggle itself — to a time when a fast still meant something the cameras had not yet learned to consume.

Every generation has its symbols.

For India’s freedom fighters, a fast unto death was an act of extraordinary moral courage — a visceral, deeply personal sacrifice against an empire that denied them voice and dignity. Its power came not from cameras or viral outrage, but from the quiet, agonising willingness to suffer without certainty of victory. That silent resolve gave the act its unshakeable moral force.

Today, the phrase “fast unto death” still carries heavy emotional weight. Yet we must pause to ask an uncomfortable question: Has its meaning remained the same?

In our era, modern fasts have largely mutated into media events. Press conferences are scheduled with precision; support teams shape the messaging; political parties calculate the optics. Television channels debate the spectacle hour by hour, while social media amplifies every gesture into digital frenzy. The protest has become performance as much as petition.

This is not to question the sincerity of every individual who takes such a vow. Many grievances are agonisingly real. Students whose futures are stolen by leaked examination papers deserve justice. Citizens demanding basic accountability deserve to be heard. Peaceful protest remains a sacred constitutional right. Yet a functioning democracy should not require its citizens to risk their lives before the machinery of institutions begins to turn.

If every unresolved grievance must end in a hunger strike, the failure lies not with the protester, but with the institutions built to protect them.

The Politics of Performance

India has gradually become a society that rewards the performance of duty long before the duty itself is performed. And that habit did not begin in the halls of parliament; it was cultivated in the cinema.

Cinema is a remarkable, transformative art form. It entertains, inspires, and holds up a mirror to society. Yet over the decades, the line between fictional heroism and real-world leadership has blurred into invisibility. Tamil Nadu offers one of the clearest illustrations.

M.G. Ramachandran spent decades on screen as the tireless protector of the poor and the incorruptible hero. Those celluloid virtues eventually fused with his public persona, converting emotional resonance into electoral capital. By contrast, the disciplined, spiritually inclined M.N. Nambiar became forever identified with the villains he portrayed.

The lesson is older than cinema: repeated narratives breed familiarity; familiarity breeds trust; trust becomes political capital. This is not a quirk unique to Tamil Nadu — it is a fundamental feature of human psychology.

When Politics Becomes Theatre

Inevitably, politics borrowed the intoxicating language of cinema. We now expect grand entrances, emotionally charged speeches, carefully crafted public images, and symbolic fasts. Creating disturbances to the ruling government through scripted theatrics has become the new visual education of Gen Z. The crowd applauds. The cameras roll. The headlines arrive right on cue.

But true governance cannot be measured by applause. It is measured by institutions strengthened, systemic corruption reduced, jobs created, examinations conducted with ironclad fairness, infrastructure built, and justice delivered with blind consistency. Democracy ultimately deserves administrators far more than it needs performers.

Many hope that education will serve as the antidote to this culture of spectacle. Education does possess the power to forge critical thinking. Yet the institution of education itself is not immune to polarisation, commercial pressures, ideological battles, or systemic decay. When public trust in institutions weakens, citizens retreat to the comfort of emotion, identity, and familiar narratives.

The answer is not to abandon the promise of education, but to fortify it — to protect merit, encourage fiercely independent thought, and teach citizens the vital art of separating empirical evidence from theatrical spectacle.

The Forgotten Meaning of Merit

Merit is too often reduced to examination scores. It is far more profound. Merit is quiet competence — the unglamorous, consistent labour of strengthening institutions, reducing corruption, ensuring fair examinations, and delivering justice without fanfare. It is unwavering integrity and the grueling work of solving complex problems without needing a dramatic gesture to prove commitment.

A society that breathlessly celebrates charisma while neglecting this deeper merit will eventually pay a steep price.

The Democracy We Need

Our freedom fighters fasted because they were systematically locked out of democratic institutions. Modern democracies possess legislatures, independent courts, election commissions, investigative agencies, a free press, and robust constitutional mechanisms. Yet when hero-worship and performative politics dominate, these institutions are slowly starved of accountability — leaders are judged by spectacle rather than stewardship, and the quiet, grinding work of governance loses its claim on public attention and reward.

Those institutions must once again carry the weight that hunger strikes once did. A nation cannot build a sustainable future by repeatedly leaning on the crutch of symbolic sacrifice. It must build institutions that render such sacrifices unnecessary.

One Fast Unto Death

Perhaps the fast our democracy truly requires today cannot be undertaken by an individual. It must be a collective fast — a shared resolve to abstain from personality cults, from hero worship, from the confusion of performative theatrics with genuine competence, from rewarding symbolism over substance, and from surrendering reason to the seduction of emotion.

When we finally break that fast, what has real education taught us?