New Delhi, Oct. 8: Mahatma Gandhi drove the British out of India with his fasts. Mamata Banerjee ejected the CPM from Writers’ with her fast over Singur.

Fasting and politics have had a rich association in India. Now comes the non-political — and structured — fast, courtesy of Narendra Modi.

Prime Minister Modi’s decision to skip all food during his five days in the US, spanning two cities and at least 35 diplomatic or cultural events, has stirred hushed conversations in New Delhi’s diplomatic enclave.

Throughout his five days in the US and four more days that together constitute the nine-day Navratri festival, Modi consumed nothing but water, or water laced with lemon.

But he isn’t the only world leader known to fast. Most deeply religious world leaders strip their diet bare in the fasting season, or reduce the number of meals they eat, and simultaneously stay on home soil during such periods, said experienced diplomats involved with planning foreign trips by their leaders.

A senior western European diplomat said: “It isn’t easy to plan state banquets when the visiting head of government isn’t eating at all.”

“I can’t think of when we’ve faced a similar predicament, but I can imagine many nations may now try to see if they can squeeze in visits by the Indian Prime Minister on days he isn’t fasting.”

Modi watched his colleagues and Barack Obama savour compressed avocados, crisped halibut with ginger carrot sauce, goat cheese and baby bell peppers, farm stand succotash and saffron basmati rice at the dinner thrown by the US President in his honour on September 29.

But the Prime Minister’s dietary routine is harsh even by standards practised by most households that observe Navratri.

Philippines President Benigno Aquino, a Roman Catholic, is known to maintain religious fasts far more rigorously than most that follow the faith. But even he doesn’t starve during Lent, the most sacred period of the year for Roman Catholics.

If Modi chose to sit and watch others eat, the Filipino President had to bail out early from a state dinner in his honour thrown by Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard in 2012 in Canberra because of an upset stomach. Aquino is known to have a sensitive stomach, an Indian official involved in ties with the Philippines said.

Modi’s abstinence from all food in the US isn’t the first time the dietary habits of world leaders have come under sharp scrutiny. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows what and where he eats can trigger a controversy. Recently, reports accused him of eating at two popular New York non-kosher restaurants — Italian cuisine at Fresco by Scotto, and the seafood joint Chart House.

Netanyahu denied he ate any non-kosher food there. But the controversy was particularly acute because it fell during the 10 days Jews consider holiest, the period that begins with Rosh Hashannah (the Jewish New Year) and ends with Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement).

American leaders have learned they must be careful in picking who to break bread with. In 2007, when the US and its allies were slowly warming up to Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, America’s then national security adviser Condoleeza Rice visited Tripoli as a part of that thaw.

The embarrassment the US faced when Gaddafi was overthrown in a popular revolt less than five years later was accentuated when a series of photographs were discovered at the Libyan leader’s palace after he was killed. Among them was an image of Rice breaking the Ramazan fast with Gaddafi late one night during her 2007 trip.

Practices of other leaders