Image copyrightAFP

A 22-year-old, who has become the new poster boy of protests in India, has announced plans for a 10-day march through major cities in the western state of Gujarat to press for his controversial demand that the Patels - widely considered to be among India's most affluent communities - be given better access to government jobs and education through the quota system.

Hardik Patel, along with hundreds of thousands of supporters, dominated the headlines in India last week when he led a massive protest which shut down Ahmedabad, the main city in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state of Gujarat.

Now he is about to set out to replicate independence hero Mahatma Gandhi's famous "salt march" from Ahmedabad to Dandi - except he's going to reverse the route by starting on the beach of Dandi and ending at the Gandhi ashram (commune) in Ahmedabad.

Mr Patel is not the first protester to grab eyeballs in India which, as Nobel Prize-winning author VS Naipaul famously said, "is a land of million mutinies".

The BBC's Geeta Pandey in Delhi profiles some of India's most unusual protests - and protesters.

---

'Father' of all protests

Image copyrightGetty Images

Mahatma Gandhi - also known as the Father of the Nation - is India's most well known protester.

His methods were rather unusual - he believed in non-cooperation, non-violence and hunger-strikes. He preached passive resistance and convinced Indians to boycott British goods and services.

Gandhi most famously led a march to the sea shore to challenge the British government's salt law and gladly went to prison for long periods.

His protest methods - of taking a moral high ground and shaming the opponent - have found favour globally and his name continues to be invoked by world leaders and politicians.

Decades after his death, his philosophy remains relevant - it was adopted by Nelson Mandela in South Africa while resisting apartheid, and very recently, it was also followed by Indian anti-corruption campaigner Anna Hazare.

---

The tree huggers

Image copyrightAFP

In the 1970s, protesters in many parts of India were seen hugging trees in an attempt to prevent them from being cut down.

The resistance, which came to be known as the Chipko (embrace) movement, began in the hills of north India where people depended on forests for their livelihoods.

Activists and villagers, including a large number of women, formed circles around trees, telling contractors that they would have to go through them first.

The movement, which was led by Gandhian activists Chandi Prasad Bhatt and Sunderlal Bahuguna among others, succeeded in achieving its aim in 1980, when then prime minister Indira Gandhi banned tree felling in the Himalayan regions for 15 years.

The Chipko movement of the 1970s was inspired by similar protests in the early 18C by the Bishnoi community of the northern state of Rajasthan, who campaigned relentlessly to protect their forests.

This unusual method of protecting forests has been replicated in many parts of the world, including in Nepal last year, when 2,001 schoolchildren hugged trees to set a world record.

---

Pink underwear and Kiss of Love

Image copyrightOther

Fed up of "moral policing" by Hindu hardliners who were ranting against pub-going women and attacking courting couples on Valentines Day, the Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women launched the Pink Chaddhi Campaign (Pink Underwear Campaign) in 2009.

The group began collecting pink knickers to send to Pramod Muthalik, chief of right-wing vigilante group Sri Ram Sena (Army of Lord Ram), in a bid to shame him with the provocative gift on Valentine's Day. The Sri Ram Sena had then made headlines for raiding a pub in the southern city of Mangalore and beating up women patrons.

Thousands joined the campaign and about 2,000 pink chaddhis were couriered to Mr Muthalik's office in Mangalore.

And last year, a mass public kissing event was organised in the southern state of Kerala after a group of Hindu hardliners vandalised a cafe where a young couple was photographed kissing.

Any public display of affection is taboo in India, but thousands turned up to kiss - or simply watch - and several people were briefly detained by the police.

The protest soon spread to Kolkata (Calcutta) where about 100 university students took out a march demanding the "right to love" and the capital Delhi, where "Kiss of Love" activists stole kisses and blocked traffic near a metro station.

---

Holy snakes!

Image copyrightOther

It's never a good idea to annoy a snake charmer, as some government officialslearnt the hard way in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

Angry with the officials who had failed to act on his petition for a plot of land to "conserve" his snakes, charmer Hakkul dumped dozens of snakes in a government office as nearly 100 officials looked on in disbelief.

Many managed to run out of the room, but many other panicked officials were seen climbing tables and chairs to escape the snakes, including some deadly cobras.

---

Poop protest

Image copyrightAbhay Flavian Xaxa

Angry with the government's controversial land acquisition bill, a group of tribes people from the eastern state of Jharkhand sat on a public poop protest.

The men, members of the National Campaign on Adivasi Rights, printed copies of the government's land bill, bared their bums and squatted by the roadside to defecate on the pristine white paper.

---

Crocodiles and anacondas

Image copyrightPushparaj

Frustrated with the authorities' failure to fix broken roads, an artist in Bangalore created a 20kg (44lb) life-size fake crocodile in a huge waterlogged pothole on one of the main city streets.

Visual artist Baadal Nanjundaswamy's stunt in June had some scared city residents running for cover, but it also appeared to jolt the slow uncaring bureaucracy into action - only a day later, a group of contractors turned up to repair the damaged road.

Taking inspiration from the protest, last month the Namma Bengaluru Foundation, a non-governmental organisation, filled a large pothole with a huge replica of an anaconda.