Note before starting – as with my ‘crash course on preventive detention in India,’ this post wasn’t originally written for the blog. Rather, it was a series of messages I sent over Discord when monologuing late at night three months back and nobody was responding, allowing me to start entering a great rambling flow state. I’ve pasted my Discord rambling over here with almost zero editing because a) editing would take a lot of effort b) it’s readable and interesting as is. Also, for this kind of writing, I like the current format more than a structured essay style, since I’m not presenting a cohesive argument and am instead creating a list of questions and leaving the reader to mull over the answers. Hopefully some of these questions will seem to you as interesting as I found them.
Also, disclaimer, posing a question about a form of protest does not constitute an endorsement of it – this is purely philosophical (read: not glorifying or endorsing self-harm as a form of protest). I wish this disclaimer wasn’t necessary, but nowadays you have to be very careful when talking about mental health-related topics or else you’ll get crucified online…
Now on with the actual post.
Odd question
what do you guys think of self-harm as a form of political protest?
at the moment I am against in all but the most extreme cases It’s a horrible thing for political activism to take lives in such brutal ways, but at the same time, one can’t deny its success; and in cases where the self-harm is in protest of something taking even more lives, I can’t help but wonder if there’s net good being done
Also, are such acts a sign of mental illness?
The self-immolations protesting Mandal Commission implementation strike me as having been excessive, as do the suicides in protest of attempts at imposing Hindi in southern India. But self-immolations of Tibetans protesting Chinese rule, or the famous Cambodian buddhist self-immolation that actually ended up influencing JFK’s decision to stop backing Ngo Dinh Diem – in cases of such desperation, with so many lives at stake, did these suicides make sense?
It’s an interesting question
Self-immolation has played a large part in shaping our world today and will likely continue to stay relevant
I suppose this is also related to the larger debate about the right to die
possibly one of those questions we’ll never have a satisfactory answer to
self-immolation is such a tragic thing, I feel really depressed thinking about how common it has been as a form of protest
why did the world have to be so dark that people felt driven towards it?
the people who survive self-immolation attempts lead a shell of a life afterwards
sorry
this was likely too dark of a question
the whole topic is interesting though – what constitutes an effective, moral (does such a thing exist?) act of protest
The gherao in India is especially controversial because it blurs the line between constructive civil disobedience and just harassment & coercion
and then the whole ‘self-harm as protest’ is a disturbingly common thing in India
Gandhi literally helped create the nation with it – hunger strikes are self-harm, even though many Indians don’t like thinking in those terms
then there’s the industrialists’ strikes in 1970s Chile – this is interesting because
you might disagree with their reason for striking (opposition to Allende govt), but in a democratic society, they have the right to strike, just as much as any worker
but there’s also an argument that it shouldn’t have been allowed, considering the damage this did to the economy and the destabilization of Allende’s government +the potential catastrophe (thankfully averted) resulting from halting the distribution of food, medicine, etc
Strikes, in general, raise a lot of questions about morality imo
The 1970s Chilean strikes are doubly interesting because of the additional question of “does the right to strike apply to employers as well as employees, if employers somehow end up feeling like the wronged party?”
the 1970s Chilean strikes trigger an instinctive reaction of disgust since they undermined a democratically elected regime and aided the eventual military coup, but speaking in terms of ‘right to strike,’ it’s an interesting conundrum
Then there’s the question of whether it’s justified to force a state assembly to dissolve using mass protest – this was done in Gujarat during the Navnirman Andolan and then attempted in Bihar during the JP movement
They were fighting corruption and misrule, but even with noble intentions, is it okay to bypass democratic processes and coerce democratically elected representatives into resigning?
Then there’s the issue of “how much disruption of day-to-day life is too much?” – blocking roads puts pressure on corrupt and/or authoritarian governments but also disrupts day-to-day life, the economy, and essential services like ambulances and fire trucks
then there’s the issue of ‘what level of corruption of democracy is enough to justify armed rebellion?’ – many people agree that armed rebellion is acceptable against a dictatorship without elections, but if there’s a democracy in name but that doesn’t really function bc of voter coercion and arresting opposition leaders, is armed rebellion justified?
This ‘armed rebellion in a deeply flawed democracy’ route was pursued by JKLF in J&K after 1987 rigged state assembly elections – JKLF and the Kashmir militancy turned into a senseless slaughter of civilians after the whole thing turned into another war of jihad, but in an alternate history where Kashmiris opted for resistance targeting military sites instead of civilians and focused on democratic reform rather than jihad, would that alternate approach have been justified?
I am inclined to say “no, it isnt justified” to this one, primarily because a “yes” would imply that it’d be fine for around half the world to erupt into civil war 💀
but what degree of electoral malpractice and suppression of dissent is enough to justify armed rebellion?
the US gave up on peaceful resistance pretty quickly – Indians were willing to take more bullets when fighting the British, without abandoning non-violence. Would India have been justified in picking up guns against the British, given the violence employed against Indian civilians?
Far less people died in America as a result of British suppression of dissent than did in India, which makes this an even more interesting question
anyway
mull those over if you want ig
i love how nowadays we’re somehow stuck debating stuff that i wish we could all agree on; somehow we disagree on “should we vaccinate our kids against deadly diseases” and “should we impose 200% tariffs on other countries b/c of trade deficits,” and we have to debate that instead of turning to topics with just a tad bit more complexity 💀
also in the realm of protests – we’re somehow divided over the question ‘should we vandalize paintings with soup to protest climate change?’ as if this is somehow a meaningful or constructive way of changing the status quo
if we can’t reach a sensible conclusion on these issues that are, in my opinion, pretty black-and-white, i wonder if we’ll ever get to debating these more grey-area issues 💀
also, does anyone else find it bizarre that in 12 years of education we’re never asked to consider these ^ questions?
ah well
time to sleep