But the diet too did not fast for too long. Even before K. L. Sharma could benefit from his limited abstinence, he was depicted on television and on the front pages of newspapers happily being spoon-fed rich rice pudding. The kheer which the Delhi Chief Minister, Sahib Singh Verma, was shown putting into Sharma's mouth must have more than made up for the brief voluntarycarbohydrate-deprivation. There were smiles all round as Sharma was shown breaking the metaphorical bread and, since he apparently believes that man does not live by bread alone, also adding to his intake sweetmeats proffered by his ministerial colleagues of the BJP.

Public memory is indeed notoriously short and the antics of the BJP ``martyr-chands'' hardly engages more than fleeting attention. However, the memory of the people is not so short as to totally forget the many issues that arise from K. L. Sharma's farcical ``fast''.

First, K.L. Sharma's fruits-and-vegetables fast was ostensibly aimed to protest against the virtual collapse of civic amenities in the nation's capital city. As a Member of Parliament, one representing the largest number of voters, Sharma had declared that he was articulating the grievances of the people of his enormous constituency. The fact that he was protesting against the performance of the government run by his own party made his act even poignant. The fact that heterminated his protest without achieving any improvement whatsoever in civic life showed up the theatrical nature of BJP activism.

Second, even in terms of staging gimmicks, the BJP only succeeded in reducing the sublime to the level of the ridiculous. Fasting as a mode of sell-purification has been an ancient tradition in India, though Siddartha Gau-tam discovered even before he became the Buddha that it could be carried to extremes of unnecessary self-mortification. It has also long been a vehicle for individuals to register their protest and there are many instances of its efficacy. Both the personal and social elements of fasting were combined by Mahatma Gandhi who made it into a powerful political instrument. After independence too, fasts have been used to draw attention to social ills and to get political demands. It has become a special feature of Indian politics in which the democracy of numbers is supplemented with unique methods of exerting moral pressure in a non-violent manner. This potentpolitical weapon has been brought to ridicule by K. L. Sharma's abbreviated ``fast''.

Third, it is clear that there was neither a spiritual content nor a political element in K.L. Sharma's ``fast''. The Buddha put himself through the extremes of rigorous fasting before realising that, as far as the quest for Enlightenment is concerned, fasting is fruitless. Sharma's ``fruits only'' diet surely did not serve any spiritual quest nor did it lead him to any Middle Path except for the one by which he subsequently went on a tour of his constituency. Mahatma Gandhi was able to exert enormous moral, pressure on politics through his fasts because they were well considered moves with clear objectives. He was thus able to push through his moral social and even political agenda. By contrast, K. L. Sharma's ``fast'' was pure symbol without substance.

Fourth, it is obvious that neither Sharma himself nor his colleagues in the BJP took the ``fast'' with any degree of seriousness. This was exposed by the very nature ofthe ``fast'', the briefness of its duration, the manner in which it was terminated and, most of all, the cavalier attitude to the issues on which the exercise was undertaken. There is a singular insensitivity in the decision of a leader to go on a well-publicised ``fruits only'' protest diet precisely at a time when the prices of fruits and vegetables are sky-rocketing. And it would have provided the citizens of Delhi much food for thought that those who rule the city did nothing to attempt to solve civic problems even when their attention was drawn in this dramatic manner.

Finally, there are aspects of civic life in the nation's capital which cannot be trivialised through mock hunger strikes. When people who can be assumed to be responsible allege that there is a mafia which operates the city's power supply or that its public transport is controlled by other mafias, the citizens have cause for serious concern. Further, when one faction of the ruling party, which flaunts its ``disciplined'' nature, eitheraccuses or ridicules another set, it suggests that the rulers are more interested in scoring points against each other rather than in addressing real problems.

The farcical ``fast'' also provides a foretaste of things to come when Delhi is granted full statehood. The size of the political cake available for distribution of slices of patronage will grow in consequence and factional fighting for the loaves and fishes of office will intensify. The party's response to the Sharma fast has not been to try to improve the city's water supply, for instance, but merely to consider transferring authority from the Delhi Jal Board to municipal councillors so that they can more easily slake their own thirst for privileges and patronage.

K. L. Sharma is no parvenu in the sangh parivar. He is an old RSS hand, the BJP's public face as its spokesman and a part of the parivar's brains trust. That such a leader had to take recourse to staging a comical ``fast'' and ultimately eat humble pie speaks a great deal for the kindof party where the people, deprived of bread, can well be asked to eat cake.