Jobs in the times of terrorism

42 is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything – according to the book Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy. I could well argue the answer is economics. I could mount a very successful case that every single thing we do in life has an economic angle to it; if we pay close attention we will see it. In this article I wish to address the scourge of terrorism through the prism of economics. I do understand and appreciate that the word terrorism invokes strong emotions and responses. I would like to state upfront that the purpose of this article to give a perspective and not to belittle the many sacrifices made by our armed soldiers to keep us safe from terrorism every single day. So, here goes.

Ajmal Kasab, the 26/11 attacker captured by India in Mumbai was facing a trial in India for waging a war against the country, a crime for which he was executed in 2012. I was reading up on the trial arguments, with intension to understand what goes in the mind of a terrorist that he/she takes up a task to kill people in cold blood even at the personal risk of being captured and punished or getting killed. If we could identify and remedy the motivation, maybe we can have a shot at addressing this ever growing menace. I will list down a few points I took away from the deposition of Ajmal Kasab and make my case for economic solutions to the problem. I am very aware that there can be more than one motivation for individuals to take up arms and I am not trying to trivialize the issue to mere economic one. I am making the limited case that in absence of economic strife, it would become difficult to radicalize masses easily.

During the course of his deposition, Ajmal Kasab mentioned a lot of things; for the purpose of this article I am listing the relevant ones. Kasab came from a poor household in Faridkot, Pakistan and was always bickering with his family as they did not have the money to buy him clothes or other stuff. On one such instance, when his father could not buy him clothes for Eid, he had an argument with his parents and left home. He got involved in petty theft to satisfy his immediate needs and was identified by “scouts” of Pakistani terrorist organizations as suitable target for indoctrination and to be employed as a weapon against India. Kasab gave a lot of details about how he was trained for using arms and was indoctrinated by his handlers who used to show him videos of atrocities on Muslims by India and convince him how he was a “jihadi” fighting the good fight on behalf of Islam. At this point, it is obvious to wonder if Kasab would have been as easily targeted by the scouts if he were from a well to do family. Would it have been easy to indoctrinate Kasab if he or his parents had good job prospects – something to look forward to in their life? Human psyche is difficult to fathom. If you take away the hope people behave in erratic ways.

I know I am at the risk of trivializing the issue but I can prove with facts that it is not as easy to sway a well fed, nicely clothed, well-educated boy as it is to indoctrinate a poor child who is ignorant due to lack of education.  Around the world, we have come to understand that the terrorist handlers are wealthy people who are motivated by hate / xenophobia / racism or other psychological infirmities to wreak havoc of terrorism on the world.  Some handlers have wealthy benefactors who have a wrested interest in destabilizing the economy via terrorism so they could make undue profits. In either case, these handlers do not have the courage to carry out terrorist attacks; they employ foot soldiers, at a nominal cost and promise to pay lots of money to their family in case he/she dies while performing the task. Often times, there is a societal push received by these foot soldiers in form of riots / crimes against family members or a general sense of victimhood.  Now we have a potential breeding ground for terrorist foot soldiers. It is not my case that each person who undergoes economic strife or societal indifference gets indoctrinated; I am saying that most terrorists who are apprehended by the authorities have this story to narrate. Obviously, this rule is not a gold standard but it is observed that if we take away the economic side of the equation, the potential of young children getting ensnared in this mess can be greatly reduced. Every local authority stores information on vulnerable sections of society, with adequate and targeted support via good jobs / micro finance  and counselling, the Government can prevent our vulnerable children from being way led into the world of terror and destruction. If terrorist handlers can employ scouts to identify targets, surely a Government with all the agencies at its disposal can do a better job of targeting economic help, provide job opportunities to vulnerable families and use its schemes to keep their children in schools where they can receive good education and be counselled to make them good citizens. It is not an easy task but if it is possible for terrorists to identify them, we should be doing a better job.

Finally, my heart goes out to all those who have lost their loved ones to mindless violence / terrorism and I cannot imagine what it is to be a survivor of such incidents. I am doing my bit to help by attempting  to analyze the psyche of a terrorist and suggest possible solution to stop mass indoctrination of children by terrorist handlers.

India's "Trump"

   Demagogue: a political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather  than by using rational argument.

      

        Racist: a person who believes that a particular race is superior to another

        Dog whistle: political messaging employing coded language that appears to mean one                             thing to the general population but has an additional, different or more                                   specific resonance for a targeted subgroup. 

On September 20^th 2001, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, President George W Bush addressed the joint session of the Congress where he spoke the words, which became a legend for demagogues all over the world “If you are not with us, you are against us!” . I do not imagine POTUS would have seen the utility beyond making a forceful argument to clamp down on personal freedoms for the security of the nation, but leaders around the world found many a racist utility for these magical words. There are several instances where these words were repeated – mostly during election stumps to vilify a community / race which are co-incidentally a minority and by a person who is co-incidentally from a majority community/ race. Not long, before this became a code to browbeat minorities into submission to the will of the majority.  Today, when Donald Trump wants to “Make America Great Again” by deporting Mexican immigrants and banning Muslims, we hear the underlying spirit as – “If you are not with us, you are against us”.

In India, we are not foreign to demagogues. In the past, we used to hear political leaders speak in euphemisms which were a dog whistle. Today, in Modi-fied India, all pretenses are dropped and there is open call to target individuals from minority communities – esp. Muslims and Dalits. Demagogue racism is the new flavor in India. Hindus in India have long been wary of Muslims because foreign Muslim leaders plundered India for long and more recently becasue Pakistan was formed on the theory that Muslims didn’t wish to live in Hindu-India. Today, leaders like Modi openly fan these hidden –yet deep seated fears and make a case that voting a Hindu strongman is an effective way to thwart Muslim designs to take over India again. Modi has won 2 terms as a Chief Minister (head of Government at State level) of Gujarat (western state of India) and one term (thus far) as the Prime Minister of India. India has seen the worst racist demagoguery over the past 2 years, sadly there has been only a little governance.

“Make America Great Again” is very similar to “Secularism means India first” as used by Modi in 2014. Its classic demagoguery because nobody would openly challenge these polemic statements, however, it is a dog whistle to supporters to brand people / races / communities who can be termed as trying to stop the nation from being great by their mere existence. So then, the self-style moral police are let loose to curb sale and consumption of beef (a source of sustenance for many poor Dailt and Muslim families) by randomly equating cow as sacred animal to the nation. Dalit scholars pursuing PhD on fellowships are targeted as anti-nationals because now Government is the nation state and anyone critical of it are anti-nationals. Fake cases are foisted on individuals / organizations (Teesta Setalvad / Ford foundation) to make them run from pillar to post defending themselves so that they have little time left to do their jobs effectively. NGOs get banned for receiving foreign funds while political parties do it openly and stay functional.

In India, development has become a code word for targeting communities and spreading communal discord with a single notion – Hindu supremacy. The fact that Donald Trump and Narendra Modi use the same playbook with so many similar plays would have been horrifying had people been listening. The other thing about demagogues is that they have a knack to be fork tongued. They always speak what you like to hear and when elected, pursue their own agenda because they know for sure you have been lulled into a coma of feeling safe in the hands of a strong leader. One last play, tarnish the opposition to you as corrupt and dangerous and more importantly as someone who does not have the nation’s best interests in the mind. This is a heady cocktail which lulls you into inaction and euphoria but has a serious hangover once you sober up. So the choice for America is simple, do you want to make the choice India made  2 years ago? If yes, soon your media will be like ours and North Korea’s – paying glowing tributes to the supreme leader and hanging on to his every word. If not, you would have dodged a bullet for now, but demagogues don’t go away, they just find a different dog whistle the next time around.

The solution is simple, be alert all the time. An age old adage said “If something is too good to be true, it probably isn’t “. Demagoguery has a rule – it is always good to hear. Beware!     

So long…..

Challenge to my idea of a nation

"What is a nation?" ; "Am I a part of this nation or is it only represented by the land and the symbols?" asked two students from Jawaharlal Nehru University on a late night talk show. I had never thought I would say this, but it shook my 32 year old belief of what "respect to nation" constitutes. "Whom does the armed forces of India protect? Is it the land mass or the way of life professed by our liberal Constitution?". This guy was questioning the basis of my entire equation with my nation and bringing a question mark over my understanding of what a citizen is how does she/he relate to the nation and its symbols. At first, I laughed at the questions raised as possible diversion sought by these "kids" in order to get away from answering on the substantive points raised on "nationalism" or lack of it as depicted on the University campus in the days leading up this talk show.  

That night, I took a second pass at the aforementioned questions and it still did not make sense to me. I somehow could to shake off the feeling that there was some issue I was not understanding. There is some aspect of this debate that I am unaware of which if known would help me contextualize this entire episode with a fresh perspective. I went online and spent a few hours reading up on literature written by authors who were self professed Marxists. As a capitalist who believes in a welfare state to some extent, I have always scoffed at the ideological left as "ideas of the past" and never has the time or inclination to read any left leaning authors. Free market economy is all I ever believed in. Upon reading several articles by very famed authors, it began to dawn upon me that the assumptions that I have always had regarding a nation and its citizen is open to alternative interpretations. I took a third pass at the statements I had heard the student raise earlier and then it slowly began to sink in. 

It is an accepted notion that the flag / emblem / national anthem / Government represent the nation and it is expected that every citizen shown his respect towards the nation by respecting these symbols. It is a commonly heard that the "armed forces fight for our flag" and it somehow is assumed that our citizenry is evaluated by how respectfully we treat these symbols that are revered by our armed forces. Well, until now. Today, I ask this question. Our constitution says "We the people of India are the sovereign" and it means that the group of people as a collective make what we call a nation. It also brings into focus the point that student wanted to make- " harming your fellow citizen amounts to harming the nation" for each one of us are contributing as a part of it. This was a very novel way, an alternative way of thought process that helps understand the left ideology of investing in people as a means of nation building. I must say it helps me understand and put a fresh perspective to a lot of noise around the University. 

If only, we could let these students fight each other using alternative ideas which will help build the future nation. Instead of clamping down upon ideas and calling those opposing your views as "anti national", it would be useful to understand the alternative point of view and then debate it with your point of view. The act of sedition comes into picture when it is my nation versus them. Modern democracies must do away with such archaic colonial laws that make no sense in today's world except to act as a tool in hands of Governments to impede the flow of free ideas - revolutionary ideas. 

I want to sign off with couple of points: 

1. The United States allows its citizens free speech as a constitutional right  with no limits. They can burn their flag, desecrate any holy book or even the constitution and yet no Government could ever jail them.

2. The United states allows its citizen to bear arms and attempt to overthrow its Government in an armed struggle and it would not constitute as a crime under law.

Look how far away we stand in terms of being liberal and being a democracy.

Signing off.

The Alien

“Do not let the student within you die”, said the Prime Minister of India at the convocation ceremony of Banaras Hindu University (BHU) (coinciding with the centenary celebration of the University). Sage words from the honorable Prime Minister to a large gathering of students. “Your convocation should mean the end of your course and not your education, which must be continuous” he said. Again, unexceptionable words by the PM while addressing these bright young minds.  I asked myself, does he really understand who a student is? The surrounding noise seemed to suggest that he is rather unaware of what a student is and is delivering polemics that suits the occasion. A student is not a conformist, he /she is a rebel standing for all causes - small and large, a person questioning the faith, beliefs and traditions and someone who will never accept any sentence that ends with “because, I said so”. Does this Government (or any other) have the wherewithal to deal with such “ignited minds”?

In the movie P.K. – there is an alien who lands on this earth – in India and is forced to interact with the locals. It is a hilarious interplay of situations/events that are part of daily life seen through the eyes of someone who has no knowledge of these whatsoever. I guess through the innocence of a person alien to our culture, the film makers wanted us to question everything around us and to not accept anything as a given tradition. Using religious faith as a subject, the story makes a very compelling case for revisiting many of our traditions and superstitions. In many ways, being a student is like being an alien. Innocence to cultural practice is utmost importance and equally importance is the zest to learn and question everything. Debates, discussions on any and all topics should be part of student life. Unless you question and debate, you will never know anything completely. Questioning old traditions help create newer ones and debates lead to solutions that were not thought of thus far.

“You shall respect your elders” / “you shall pray to God daily”/ “you shall follow this faith”/ “you shall obey these rules”. It is always – you shall. A student should hate these words and oppose anything that follows- as a rule of thumb. The moment we accept a ‘You shall’, the scope for debate is over and a tradition sets in. That’s how our previous generations did it and the ones before. Accepting things at face value is the anathema for education and growth. Can you imagine if Sir Isaac Newton had “accepted” the fact that an apple falls to the ground and never asked “WHY?” Can you imagine if scientists accepted the notion “An atom cannot be split” and not asked “Why not”? A true student must question everything and not accept anything until they are convinced of the case presented by the promoter of the idea. A student should be like a child, willing to learn everything from scratch without any previous hang-ups or preconceived notions or prejudices.  Try any and all ideals – often radical and untraveled territories, for you have the benefits of being an alien to this civilization and it should be OUR JOB to convince you of our way of life and traditions. 

So long...

Reparation

"Why should those f**king people of lower caste get reservation in higher education and people like me suffer because I am part of General category", I bemoaned after looking at my average marks and the realization sunk in that I would not make the cut off for the school I intended to join. I must have ranted for a couple of days because a girl whose marks were much lesser than I got the seat (which was meant for me) owing to her caste reservation. I hated this act of reservation which effectively meant that certain scheduled caste / tribe students got preferential seats over us students of the general merit.


"Its enough, stop you complaining. You could still have got admission if you had tried harder and got in the top 5 percentile" said my father, clearly tired of my constant cribbing. He also told me that I was more depressed that I did not get in the school I wanted, and my complain should not be about who got in. "You knew the rules before the exam. So don't complain now. Don't be a sore loser" he said. Was that true? In some measures probably, but I still felt strongly that caste based reservation was a bad idea that was encouraging mediocrity in what should have been meritocracy. Us students used to secretly hate these "special category" students and few of us used to be vocal about it to their face. I am sure we didn't mean to, but we did end up making the caste barrier more visible during the school days.


Few years ago, I saw a speech made by my favorite politician Mr. Shashi Tharoor on youtube, where he was making very cogent arguments in favor of reparation owed to us by Britain - our colonial master for over 2 centuries that came to an end in 1947. Mr. Tharoor pointed out that the colonial rule was not meant for emancipation of Indians but rather for the colonial masters to make wealth off its colonies, often at the cost of lives, here in India and across other colonies. It got me thinking, wow! I would not have imagined that even after 60 years of independence we could feel so strongly about the tragedies of the colonial rule and could make a case for reparations owed to us.


Then it got me thinking about another book I had read about the life of Dr Ambedkar (a founding father of India) and the hardships he faced in his life because he belonged to a lower caste. I realize how empty the phrase sounds - "Lower caste", I am only using it for emphasis. Dr Ambedkar goes into details of how certain communities in India have been ill treated for centuries now because of our rigid caste structures and prevalent medieval mindsets. Today, after the Constitution declares us all as equal citizen of India, there are still vast segments which are governed by medieval mindsets. Emancipation of these lower castes is still not complete. Today, if my fellow citizen looks up to me and says, "I know you don't like me getting benefits of reservation policy, but don't you owe me any reparation for centuries worth of deprivation faced by my ancestors at the hands of yours".


Honestly, I feel we got off the hook easy. If we actually calculate the reparation we owe to dalits for almost 2000 years worth of deprivation of their rightful place /share, we would never be able to pay it off. The next time we feel "why reservation", remember you are just trying to make right for 2000 years worth of wrongs committed by your forefathers. While I agree, its not your fault, but you do owe the society this much due.

So long......