dharna

plural dharnas · alternative dhurna

1. IndiacountableuncountableA sit-in.

   ln December 1974, Morarji Desai, gave a threat of staging a dharna inside the Lok Sabha chamber. ln June 1975, Morarji Deshmukh, the Jana Sangh leader, stated that there had to be a Delhi Bandh to compel the Prime Minister to resign.

   2005, Je Varalakṣmi, Varalakshmi Jnapathy, Indira Gandhi: Woman of India's Destiny, Gyan Publishing House, →ISBN, page 115

2. IndiacountablespecificallyuncountableA fast undertaken at the door of an offender, especially a debtor.

   1 more example

   […] house-tax having been imposed on the natives during Lord Minto's government […] the Brahmins resolved to try the virtue of a dharna; […] The local government was exceedingly perplexed; for, besides the risk of hundreds perishing, there was the certainty of a famine, from the cessation of agricultural labour if the dharna continued.

   1854, William Chambers, Robert Chambers, Chambers's Miscellany of Useful and Entertaining Tracts, Edinburgh: W. and R. Chambers, page 30