A supporter of Donlad Trump set himself on fire across the courthouse where Donald Trump is on trial.
Actually, the practice of self-immolation was started in India many centuries ago thru sati. This was a practice in which a widow sacrifices herself by sitting atop her deceased husband's funeral pyre. This practice was stopped by Lord William Bentinck in 1829. He was the first Governor General of British-ruled India.
In modern history, the first self-immolation was conducted by Thich Quang Duc during the Vietnam War. The Vietnamese monk set himself on fire in Saigon in 1963 in protest of the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government. A few others in USA self-immolated as a means protest during the Vietnam War.
Many Tibetans set themselves on fire in protest of Chinese rule in Tibet.
Self-immolation was not just to protest war. During the 1960s several people in Tamil Nadu self-immolated in protest of the implementation of Hindi as a national language.
Some psychologists call self-immolation is a form of suicide and due to mental illness.
Do these people achieve their goal by doing self-immolation. I know, at least in one instant, they did not. And here are the details.
Vaiko was an upcoming leader in the DMK party. Karunanidhi thought Vaiko may become a competition for his son Stalin. So Vaiko was thrown out of the DMK party. He formed his own new party called MDMK. Many people who followed Vaiko came out of DMK and joined Vaiko’s new party. 5 followers of Vaiko who could not bear him being thrown out of DMK self-immolated and died.
Vaiko kept the photos of these 5 guys in the living room of his home. But what is happening today! The same Vaiko begged Stalin for a single seat for his son during the recent Lok Sabha election. Those 5 guys would be spinning in their graves.
