I’ve never understood this. Isn’t it in the interest of people in power or people jailing you to watch you starve to death? Yet in prisons and detention centers, it’s always the go-to. Why do they work?
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The idea behind a hunger strike is less to encourage the people in power to change and more to bring social/political pressure on them.
For example if a prisoner were to go on a hunger strike in the USA, the prison is generally under strong social/political pressure not to let their prisoners die. So the hope is, they will be pressured to cave to your demands before you get too sick/die. As u/Lithuim points out, they’ll probably just force feed you intravenously first.
Outside of prison, the idea is generally to bring attention to your cause. “This person is willing to die over this!” tends to incite some action. This doesn’t work all this well for the average person on the street, but for some more famous or followed folks, it can be a huge call to action. Ghandi being the most famous example.
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