India, Oct. 8 -- At noon on May 8, 1933, within Yerwada Central Jail, Mahatma Gandhi drank a glass of water with salt and soda, beginning a 21-day fast. Before nightfall, the colonial state ordered his release, fearing the consequences should the 63-year-old prisoner die in custody. Gandhi was taken to Parnakuti, the stone villa of Lady Premlila Vithaldas Thackersey. There, on an open terrace, Gandhi spent the next three weeks enduring the physical strain of what was perhaps his most misunderstood political method: the fast for self-purification (atmashuddhi).

Gandhi saw fasting as a way of cleansing politics and bringing it closer to his spiritual ideals. Eight months earlier, in September 1932, his "fast unto death" against Ramsay MacD...