In “The Hunger Artist”, Kafka describes an invented spectacle of professional fasting. The hunger artist is a performer that invites large crowds from across the country, who sit from morning till night watching him in the cage. He describes suspicious night watchers who would sit outside the cage all night, waiting to see if the artist would quietly nibble at his private stash of food. They would jeer and tempt him with large breakfasts, inherently suspicious of his hunger. Kafka writes, “Nothing annoyed the artist more than these watchers; they made him miserable; they made his fast seem unendurable; sometimes he mastered his feebleness sufficiently to sing during their watch for as long as he could keep going, to show them how unjust their suspicions were. But that was of little use; they only wondered at his cleverness in being able to fill his mouth even while singing.”

Today, when I watch videos of Sonam Wangchuk accused of smuggling chicken soup into his water bottle, it reminds me of the inherent suspicions in watching a man so admirably fight for the youth’s dignity. In response to these claims Wangchuk said on camera, “Even if I die, they will say it was for my selfish needs.” It echoes the dismissive, almost painful response the night watchers have to Kafka’s hunger artist. But the suspicion is unavoidable. One’s own hunger is certainty, but to hear about another’s is doubt. This very suspicion is perhaps the reason hunger strikes continue to unsettle us. It urges us to confront food at its most radically political; not when it is served, but when it is deliberately refused.

REFERENCES:

1. Abrahamsson S, Danyi E (2019) Becoming stronger by becoming weaker: The hunger strike as a mode of doing politics. Journal of International Relations and Development 22(4): 882-898.
2. How Delhi Police removed Sonam Wangchuk from Jantar Mantar.
3. ‘Cockroach Janta Party’: Top Indian judge’s comment sparks satire, protest.

4. Aitchison, G. (2022), Fragility as Strength: The Ethics and Politics of Hunger Strikes*. Journal of Political Philosophy, 30: 535-558. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopp.12261

5. Scarry, Elaine. The Body in Pain: Making and Unmaking of the World. Oxford University Press, 1983.

6. Kafka, Franz (1981), translated by J. A. Underwood. Franz Kafka: Stories 1904-1924. Great Britain: Macdonald & Co.; also published in 1995 by Abacus, p. 242.

7. Al-Naji, Hala (2025). The Culmination of Policy: Israel’s use of starvation in Gaza. Al-Majalla

Namita Krishnamurthy is an actor and writer from Chennai, India. Her work has appeared in Hammock India and Strange Horizons among others. She enjoys cooking, writing, and thinking about food, almost all the
time.

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