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Individual vs. Group Disobedience

Individual disobedience is fully committing to fight for a cause you believe in. As Henry David Thoreau states, it is casting "your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence." On the other hand, group disobedience requires the commitment of multiple individuals - the more the better. So can individual disobedience be effective? 







In some cases, probably not. If I decided it was unjust for me to write this post, I could follow in the footsteps of Thoreau and refuse to do it. However, that would simply result in a zero, and likely no change would be made. If I continued this behavior for the year, I would fail the class, and still, no change would be made. In this case, individual disobedience is ineffective.

However, in other cases, such as the one of Jaswant Singh Khalra, individual disobedience was greatly impactful. Jaswant Singh Khalra was a human rights activist from Punjab, India, who devoted his life to uncovering the truth behind the thousands of people who went missing during the government’s long-standing conflict with the Sikhs in the 1980s and 1990s. He became aware of the disappearances of thousands of Sikhs when he noticed a sudden drop in the Sikh population in his home district of Tarn Taran. He began to investigate the issue and soon discovered that the Indian government was carrying out a covert operation called "Operation Woodrose" in which thousands of Sikhs were illegally detained, tortured, and murdered by the police and security forces. Khalra tirelessly worked against the government to expose these atrocities and traveled across India to collect evidence and testimonies from the families of the missing people. Through his efforts, he singlehandedly uncovered over 25,000 killings, suggesting that individual disobedience can be effective in some situations. 









Therefore, I think that disobedience can have an impact either at the group level or individual level. However, if the argument against a policy or action is not well-founded or based on ethical principles, it can be highly ineffective. Nonetheless, if you are passionate about something, put your all into it "for it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever."

Comments

  1. Divya DwarakanathSeptember 24, 2023 at 3:37 PM

    I find it really cool how you connected this extremely important piece of history which can be considered almost unknown and tied it to a bigger picture. I thought it made your point even more effective!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousSeptember 25, 2023 at 6:21 AM

    I like how you connected the civil disobedience piece to a human rights activist in India

    ReplyDelete

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