There are a lot of unorthodox weapons that are surprisingly effective. Take a piano wire, for example. The name alone elicits a peculiar effect on my brain because it can be benign or lethal, depending on the situation. Many of the weapons that injure governments can be equally as unorthodox. Hunger strikes are my favorite example of a bizarrely effective weapon that has the potential to cripple governments, and no one performed them better than Mahatma Gandhi.
On this day in 1933, Gandhi started his 11th hunger strike to oppose the caste system after being released from jail. The fast was Gandhi's third strike against the mistreatments of the Dalit's- the lowest rung of the caste system. Lasting 21 days, the strike ties with two of Gandhi's other fasts as the longest abstentions he observed. The other two strikes took place in 1924(spanning from September 18th- October 8th) and 1943(February 10th-March 3rd), focusing on Hindu-Muslim unity and a protest against his imprisonment by the British, respectively.
