New Delhi: Hunger strikes are passé. Now, a senior Communist leader wants you to try a “digital” fast.
M.A. Baby, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary and former Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament, has called for a week-long “digital satyagraha” to protest the protracted Gaza war, which started on 7 October 2023.
From Saturday night, between 9 pm and 9.30 pm daily, the leader from Kerala has urged people to switch off their devices, such as mobile phones and desktops, as a symbolic act of solidarity with the Palestinians, now facing the double sword of war and starvation as Israel prevents international organisations from entering the region with humanitarian aid.
“No social media, no messages, no comments, just 30 minutes of digital silence,” Baby’s post on X read, adding that such a small act could register dissent against what he described as a “genocide being carried out by Israel in occupied Gaza”.
A close aide and successor to Sitaram Yechury in the party, Baby has served as the Education and Culture Minister in Kerala and represented the state in both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.
Known for his Marxist style and Gandhian vocabulary, Baby’s latest appeal blends 21st-century tools with vintage protest techniques.
He came up with the X post to support Palestinians just days after United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese released a report naming 48 major technology companies, such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM, as entities allegedly profiting from the Gaza war. The investigation has reportedly listed more than 1,000 such corporate entities.
“In this context, this digital fast is all the more relevant,” his post read.
The CPI(M) leader’s tweet joins a growing wave of international protests, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and accountability for corporate complicity through the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement targeting firms that directly benefit Israel.
Moving away from large rallies or street demonstrations, Baby’s proposed form of resistance fits neatly into a world run by algorithms: just log off.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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