I'm not sure I'd call him a man-- he's not yet 21. I thought it was interesting that he ran away because his father wouldn't/couldn't give him new clothes for Eid and there he is, shooting innocents in his Versace T-shirt, and soon afterward asking for saline and pleading to live, although his orders were to shoot until he drops.

Shooting to kill and begging to live, that is.

I thought it was interesting that he ran away because his father wouldn't/couldn't give him new clothes for Eid and there he is, shooting innocents in his Versace T-shirt

Yes, I found that interesting too. It makes sense though right? The terrorists could provide him with the "bling" that he otherwise could not obtain.

i'm confused. the dawn piece seems to imply that the family last saw him four years ago, or am i misinterpreting it?

rediff has an article citing a GEO TV report saying this:

"Kasab, the lone gunman captured for the Mumbai terror attacks, told residents of his village in Pakistan's Punjab province during his last visit there that he was going away for Jehad.

Kasab visited Faridkot village in Okara district of Punjab about five months ago and asked his mother to bless him before he embarked on Jehad, local residents were quoted as saying..

"He came to the village about five or six months ago. He told his mother he was going away for Jehad. He asked her to bless him and to leave his fate in the hands of Allah," said an unnamed resident of Faridkot in what the channel described as secretly filmed footage.

The channel said most people of Faridkot and nearby Depalpur sub-district were reluctant to talk about Kasab on the record. However, in the secretly filmed footage, some residents were shown discussing his last visit to the village.

"A man from Faridkot said that on his last visit to the village, Kasab gathered a group of boys near a school and asked them to catch him. He demonstrated feats of wrestling to them. Then we heard that he had left home and joined a Jehadi group," a man said."

If the rediff rendition of GEO TV is correct, then did the family know he was going for jehad and couldn't do anything about it or did they not know anything about it, as the DAWN article implies?

Abhi, I am not sure why you deleted my earlier comment, but your title here 'The last victims' implies that Ajmal and the others involved in the Mumbai killings are not terrorists but victims. Grown men who make considered decisions should be held responsible for their actions and Ajmal's actions were terrorist in nature. It is inconsiderate of you to include them among the victims of the Mumbai massacre.

but your title here 'The last victims' implies that Ajmal and the others involved in the Mumbai killings are not terrorists but victims.

I am EXPLICIT in the post that I am talking about his parents. How you get from there to "others involved in the Mumbai killings..." is beyond comprehension.

And you know why I deleted your comment.

If the rediff rendition of GEO TV is correct, then did the family know he was going for jehad and couldn't do anything about it or did they not know anything about it, as the DAWN article implies?

Good questions WGiiA. There may be more to this story yet. Some newspapers like the Washington Post were led by the mayor to a different Kasab family altogether. The truth may be murkier still. Not allowing loss of face is such an integral part of the culture that what is truth and what is a lie is hard to separate once the family decides it has to protect itself.

The society that nurtured these folks is evil. The people who lead, support or condone LeT/JuD are evil. There must be plenty of internet jocks who have contributed to these social organizations. How do Pakistani textbooks characterize India and Hindu culture? A huge percentage of Pakistanis sympathize with these folks (and its not 0.01 percent). To characterize Ajmal Kasab as inherently evil is besides the point and vacuously false. His actions are evil. Too late for his parents, village, and the larger Pakistani society.

5 · Kassapu-Kadaikaran said

Abhi, I am not sure why you deleted my earlier comment, but your title here 'The last victims' implies that Ajmal and the others involved in the Mumbai killings are not terrorists but victims. Grown men who make considered decisions should be held responsible for their actions and Ajmal's actions were terrorist in nature. It is inconsiderate of you to include them among the victims of the Mumbai massacre.

Abhi is referring to the parents, not Ajmal, as the last victims. From comment #4 it is not clear if they knew if he was going to do something violent. No doubt VP & Ms. Roy will do a deep read of the "Eid dissapointment" being the fault of the rampant materialism caused by India's adoption of neoliberal reforms.

Verbatim statement of Kasab himself, as published in the Outlook Magazine

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20081210&fname=ajmal&sid=1

As per the statement published in the Outlook (cited in #10), Kasab himself mentions how he spent time at home in between different training sessions. So it is not as if the parents did not know what was going on.

As per Kasab, 3 trainees ran off during the final stage of training!! One funny moment in an anotherwise chilling narrative.

8 · sn said

The society that nurtured these folks is evil. The people who lead, support or condone LeT/JuD are evil. There must be plenty of internet jocks who have contributed to these social organizations. How do Pakistani textbooks characterize India and Hindu culture? A huge percentage of Pakistanis sympathize with these folks (and its not 0.01 percent). To characterize Ajmal Kasab as inherently evil is besides the point and vacuously false. His actions are evil. Too late for his parents, village, and the larger Pakistani society.

This is true, it is fact that the govt school textbooks promote hate. The Karachi set we interact with go to elite schools that prep them for Ox-Cam/Ivy schools and they can claim ignorance of this to the media. But this guy is a fourth standard dropout based on his interviews, I doubt he had much of an opinion at all about India. He wanted to establish himself in strongarm robbery and was rerouted to terrorism. I blame the Pakistani army officer corp & feudal lords that steal from the American taxpayer and keep the average Pakistani poor. V.Prashad should take a position at a Pak university and get these people to act in their class interest.

If such an organization is in the heart of Pakistan, it must enjoy tremendous support. It is hard to see how such institutions and their agenda of hate can be dismantled. Kids are taught to hate the "other" (India, Hindus) from the beginning. IEDs and AK-47s come much later.

-----
Without doubt, you are the enemy'

Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist who was captured alive in Mumbai, is supposed to have studied here, according to his interrogators, and it's time to ask some straight questions.

So did Kasab study here, in Muridke?
"Even if he did, we are not responsible for what any one of our students do after passing out."

Do you support the Lashkar-e-Taiyyebba?
"We used to."

You used to?
"Yes, we were like-minded but the group was banned after Indian propaganda following the attack on its Parliament which was done by the Jaish-e-Mohammad and not the LeT. We use to provide logistical help to the Lashkar, collect funds for them and look after their publicity."

Did you also provide them with arms?
"They must have bought weapons with the money we gave them. They were obviously not using the money to buy flowers for the Indian army."
-----

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/specials/letspecial/index.html

Victims? I just love how this "account" in Pakistani Govt's fav poodle pub who also happens to have the largest exposure to the West. Ties up all the loose ends after 2 weeks so we can all cue to the pity party.

Journalists visiting Faridkot since Dawn reporters were at the village say the family has moved from their home and some relatives now live in the house. Perhaps fearing a media invasion, nobody is willing to say where the family has gone.

What about the reports or the accounts in the other rags where locals said you had to be moron to not now the area was actively recruited down to daily loudspeaker calls for Jihad, LeT posters and or that the family dissapeared early that Saturday. How about in 6months, maybe the Dawn can miraculously find this family again before they seek *untrackble* relatives and we'll see how well their doing or maybe if they put up any Shaheed posters that sell so well there.

I do like how we had to play up pan-"desi" victims angle and go so far as to conflate it to the Columbine tragedy and some slate psychology. That's a SM twofer.

As per Kasab, 3 trainees ran off during the final stage of training!! One funny moment in an anotherwise chilling narrative.

This shows there is hope for humanity. They were probably told they were going to have to sit through a seminar in exchange for a free night in an Azad Kashmir timeshare when things got out of hand

I do like how we had to play up pan-"desi" victims angle and go so far as to conflate it to the Columbine tragedy and some slate psychology. That's a SM twofer.

If you want to read a "rags" type report why bother coming here at all? Would you rather I regurgitate a story that contains lots of fist waiving and hand ringing? I'm not going to play to the crowd. I am going to write about my views. Feel free to filter me out.

"Ms. Roy will do a deep read of the "Eid dissapointment" being the fault of the rampant materialism caused by India's adoption of neoliberal reforms."

she has a surprisingly belated, but predictable piece The Guardian. amongst other things (some reasonable to me, some not) she says this: (Side A being Hindu extremists and Side B being Muslim extremists)

"On one side (let's call it Side A) are those who see terrorism, especially "Islamist" terrorism, as a hateful, insane scourge that spins on its own axis, in its own orbit and has nothing to do with the world around it, nothing to do with history, geography or economics. Therefore, Side A says, to try and place it in a political context, or even try to understand it, amounts to justifying it and is a crime in itself.

Side B believes that though nothing can ever excuse or justify terrorism, it exists in a particular time, place and political context, and to refuse to see that will only aggravate the problem and put more and more people in harm's way. Which is a crime in itself."

- How does she know that all Muslim extremists subscribe to the view that nothing can ever excuse or justify terrorism? has she interviewed all members of LeT to see if this is what they think?

After giving a rundown of the various ugly neuroses of both a Muslim and a Hindu extremist (being rather more pithy about the failings of the Muslim extremist, although she throws in this charitable concession: " If that's not enough to complicate our picture of secular democracy, we should place on record that there are plenty of Muslim organisations within India preaching their own narrow bigotry.):

she comes to this conclusion: "So, on balance, if I had to choose between Side A and Side B, I'd pick Side B. We need context. Always."

Good for her. she's picked which set of extremists she prefers. but she surely cannot expect anyone to take her shrill, hysterical unbalanced (in being disingenous and not a fair, equal-opportunity critic) analyses seriously?

she also quotes suketu mehta out of context to make a self-righteous point. i didn't wholly agree with his piece, but she's done him a disservice. sometimes i think these indian "leading lights" of English-language literature see getting their self-important thoughts into the foreign press more important for their ego/bragging rights/credibility than because they actually care. perhaps she's miffed that he beat her to the punch in getting into a prestigious publication this time.

sorry this is long and off-topic, but i've tried to give this woman a chance because i always thought she was at least well-meaning and had some courage to speak out for everyone. but she now seems to be a bit of a nitwit who the stupid booker committee unwittingly gave voice to when they named her mediocre novel the best of that year. they ought to be punished for that:)

abhi, i think parents - whether columbine or kasab's or anyone else' - often fool themselves into thinking they can control their children's obvious problems or that it will just go away or fool themselves into thinking that they knew nothing about their children's activities. and it's no surprise that parents' first instinct is to protect their own family.

I agree that the parents become victims in such cases.
Thats why i think, its not the fault of the parents, but the fault of an eco-system that lets religious extremism flourish. A small minority is vocally against the extremism but majority of society is either in denial about the extremism or condones it on foolish religious grounds.
In that respect it is not quite like Klebold and Harris, because the American society does not condone gratuitous violence and there is enough vocal opposition towards it.

Dissappointed young men abound in the world...but the conditions necessary to make Jihadis of them only exist in some places...we do need to blame the culture and/or religion involved if we see a clear and repetetive pattern. As for the parents being victims, it really depends on how much they (and the surrounding village, because as they say it takes a village to raise a child) aided and abetted by providing some sort of tacit religious or cultural support to the Jihadi mentality. I understand that he was probably an irreligious lout turned criminal turned (later) Jihadi, but there is a systemic problem that lead to the choices he made. Similar young men in other situations merely remain louts turned criminals.

16 · Abhi said

I do like how we had to play up pan-"desi" victims angle and go so far as to conflate it to the Columbine tragedy and some slate psychology. That's a SM twofer.

If you want to read a "rags" type report why bother coming here at all? Would you rather I regurgitate a story that contains lots of fist waiving and hand ringing? I'm not going to play to the crowd. I am going to write about my views. Feel free to filter me out.

Abhi assuming that the parents did know that Ajmal was about to do something violent, based on his recounting, what culpability would you assign to the parents?

Thanks Abhi for posting this piece. It's really unfortunate that young men like Ajmal Kasab become indoctrinated and join terrorist groups often because of poverty and lack of any other options. If the Pakistani government had been accountable to the people and had focused more on education and human development, rather than spending inordinate amounts of money on the military, maybe we wouldn't be in the state we are in today. There was an article in the NYT a while back about young men joining militant groups because they pay more than joining the police. I agree with other posters that the school textbooks are biased and preach hate, and that religion is used to justify acts of terror, but I think it's a lot easier to indoctrinate/brainwash people when their lives are so miserable that they don't have much to lose by becoming suicide bombers. This is why we see most terrorists coming from impovrished backgrounds (although of course the 9/11 terrorists were mainly middle-class and educated).

personally, i found the story of the cop who sacrificed his life to make the capture of kasab possible compelling. kasab rolled out of the car onto the ground and tried to play dead, but started shooting when the cops came close. one of the cops, who was armed only with a lathi, held on to the barrel of the ak-47 to prevent him from shooting the other cops, and continued to do so, even as he was racked by bullets, till the other cops managed to beat kasab up with their lathis till he fainted. I believe the cop's name is tambe. without his sacrifice of his life, even kasab would likely not have been captured alive.

the story was on rediff. the cops set up a double roadblock in girgaum and boldly confronted these two terrorists in the skoda even though many of them only had lathis, i think the few armed with guns had revolvers.

In interviews, residents variously claimed Kasab does not exist or is the son of a potter, a brick factory worker, a street vendor

To people who may not realise, this is very interesting code for caste status...which still matters in rural Pakistan.

21 · Kabir Altaf said

Thanks Abhi for posting this piece. It's really unfortunate that young men like Ajmal Kasab become indoctrinated and join terrorist groups often because of poverty and lack of any other options.

Yeah! So easy for young men to get indoctrinated na! They just have no options available to them. I wonder what rest of poor young men around the world are waiting for, why don’t they pick up a gun and start killing innocent people

I can guess what motivated poor dear Mansoor Miyan , it must be the angst due to having a great job, lot of money and living in a country/city that provided all the opportunities. You know what, it could be the technology that he was made to work on, may be he was given no option but to do .Net while he was totally into Java. What a colossal tragedy for poor Mansoor and his poor parents. Parents who are defending him sitting on a couch in an apartment that Mansoor Bhai paid for. Sooo much tragedy going around these days. Tsk Tsk.

That is why I believe it is absolutely necessary to crush Hidutvawadi fundamentalists. Saala they all should be killed.

If this had been a group of 20 year White skin heads from impoverished West Virginia or Arkansas who attacked a group of Sikhs or Muslims would we be having such a nuanced discussion about why they weren't really evil racists but rather misguided youths who had no opportunity to choose a better life. If anything people would be saying how they grew up hating because that is what their parents and family taught them. But here we have this carefully analyzed psychological profile of a vile killer like Kasab who guns down a child for crying.

Sulabh,

I never implied that all people who become terrorists do so because of poverty/lack of other options. In Mansoor's case what motivated him was something else, perhaps religious ideology. However, it is true that low levels of education and development and high levels of poverty make it much easier to brainwash people under the cover of religion than better material conditions. It's really a classic economic argument. And I don't know where you got anything in my post that led you to make that remark about "crushing Hindutvawadis"... I think that link is in your head rather than in anything I wrote.

Abhi,

regarding the "clinical definition" of sociopath--isn't it simply a matter of rationale behind the murderous act? That Kasab thought only about the likelihood and severity of the punishment associated with his crime and not about the terrible human cost of mass murder, i.e. that he didn't think his actions were immoral (and was incapable of doing so) but did think his night likely to end with him dying in a firefight with commandos?

believe the cop's name is tambe.

1 · Amrita said

I disagree with using the term “evil” to describe men like Ajmal Kasab

Maybe, "Idiot" is more of an appropriate term?

Just got these two links.. anybody here who can translate it ?

http://express.com.pk/epaper/PoPupwindow.aspx?newsID=1100533603&Issue=NP_LHE&Date=20081203

http://express.com.pk/epaper/PoPupwindow.aspx?newsID=1100533604&Issue=NP_LHE&Date=20081203

From the article...

It by no means qualifies as Punjab’s backwaters, which makes the young Ajmal’s graduation to an international ‘fearmonger’ even more difficult to understand.

The area can do with cleaner streets and a better sewage system but the brick houses towards the side of the Kasur-Deepalpur road have a more organised look to them than is the case with most Pakistani villages.

Was really hoping for more.

What is the reputation of Dawn inside Pakistan for fairness?

"Dawn" is one of Pakistan's leading English language newspapers. It's sort of "The New York Times" of Pakistan.

why ask why?

these men were vermin and i do not have any need to understand what they do, why they do it, etc. and have no moral ambiguity on this matter.

if the only purpose to be served by this deep analysis is to find a way to separate this guy from the rest of the wahhabi fundies who mouth off in mosques in the rest of the world ... rest assured - there is no difference. they're cut from the same cloth and destruction of india, israel, uk and the usa is what they want. these guys are planning for jannat by shooting down babies. you can sit down and chart out the fine points. it's too much trouble for me.

it's not up to the masses or the special forces to police the nutters - it's for the neighbors and relatives and co-religionists to close down the madrasas and the masjids if they preach destruction of the non-muslim society.

"Dawn" is one of Pakistan's leading English language newspapers. It's sort of "The New York Times" of Pakistan.

Kabir,
That i know. But, playing devil's advocate for a moment, what if the article is part of Zardari's PR? The first sentence sounds very sceptical of Indian media - and then i thought the article would go on to poke holes in the Indian media's story. All they claim is to have confirmed the Indian media's story. Its almost as if they want to potray the whole Mumbai attack as the failings of a young man when we all know these young men do not act alone.

Finally! Something that shows some human elemant, not reducing things down to "islamofascism." Great post.

15 · louiecypher on December 13, 2008 12:15 PM

As per Kasab, 3 trainees ran off during the final stage of training!! One funny moment in an anotherwise chilling narrative.

Let me understand this right. You mean they were probably told they have to sit through a seminar in exchange for a free night stay in Taj India? And the other three ran off!

The early news reports did'nt get the terrorist's name right. That is what led to the denials that he was from Pakistan. His real name is Mohammad Ajmal Amir.

22 · liberal said

personally, i found the story of the cop who sacrificed his life to make the capture of kasab possible compelling.

Ditto for me. I wish they caught a few more of the terrorists live like that.

30 · 3rdEye* said

Just got these two links.. anybody here who can translate it ?

http://express.com.pk/epaper/PoPupwindow.aspx?newsID=1100533603&Issue=NP_LHE&Date=20081203

http://express.com.pk/epaper/PoPupwindow.aspx?newsID=1100533604&Issue=NP_LHE&Date=20081203

Let me guess since it stamped 2012, that's the JuD or your garden variety "Pakistani Charity" glorious 5 year plan to conquer the Gujarati's and Marathi's? I kinda feel left out.

Well, atleast we know they're still behind on Photoshop. Someone ask Steve Jobs to open a Apple store in Peshawar. :p

A youth disillusion by poverty in India would probably join a criminal gang, whereas in Pakistan they get sucked into a bigger and more organized terror establishment that operates across border. It is what is available around that makes the difference. Also, role models such as bollywood or cricket stars, to seeing direct benefits of education can also channel energy in different direction: e.g. in UK, Indians are more geared towards education than Pakistanis.

Disclaimer: I haven't read any other comments yet.

No one is born a terrorist; terrorists however are born in to a culture which encourages terrorism via financial, moral and spiritual support. Though Kasab's immediate family may not be at fault, the environment around them which supports organizations like Lashkar are at fault. The rest of the world does not have to deal with the parents; they have to deal with Lashkar and the terrorists they nurture. The focus should be on that, not in some impotent family deep in the malaise which is also suffering. By trying to humanize the parent's pain, you are diluting the message of hate and murder which these organizations send; you never know how his family would have acted if Kasab had come back alive would you?

35 · noname said

Finally! Something that shows some human elemant, not reducing things down to "islamofascism." Great post.

If you understand Urdu, check this out . It's the softer side of islamofascism that you're trying to cuddle up against. At 1:45 the guy positively brims over in glee that 10 people wreaked such havoc in india. imagine what 11 thousand such mujahideen would do. people such as this feed on pawns like kasab. they alternate positions of victimhood with that of jehad depending on whether they have someone's front or back to them.

28 · khoofia said

Some respect please. His name is Tukaram Omble.

easy, easy. i said "i believe" precisely because i wasn't sure of his name, and if it isn't amply clear from the rest of the post, i greatly admire his bravery.

This is a cancer on Islam. The Islamic world was up in arms over a few cartoons, but nothing but denials and obfuscation when 10 good muslim boys wreak havok in Mumbai. Not sure who the writer was, but imagine if 10 Hindus had done the same thing in Karachi or Mecca.

From the Outlook link above: "While we were in search of fire-arms we saw some LeT stalls at Raja bazaar, Rawalpindi, on the day of Bakri-id. We thought that, even if we procured fire-arms, we could not operate them. Therefore, we decided to join LeT for weapon training."

They openly recruit such vermin? Is it that easy to locate the LeT or trainers?

To call them “evil” or “insane” (without clinical proof of insanity) in my opinion gives society an undeserved excuse. It allows us to isolate them as others, as subhumans. It allows us to feel superior in thinking that we were born good whereas these men were born bad. Their “affliction” is seen as having zero probability of transmission to good people like us.

Vikram Chandra basically says the same thing in this recent interview with Outlook India, in which he reflects on the Mumbai attacks.

I just finished watching Slumdog Millionaire. I know, I know. It is just a fictionalized drama. A few plot elements are very plausible though, especially the development of Salim as the movie progresses. Characters in the movies City of God and Syriana also follow similar trajectories. Bad choices and the bitterness of broken dreams lead to sociopathic tendencies.

I swear I'm not a Vikram Chandra groupie, but he keeps being relevant, so I'd just like to add Sacred Games to the list of artwork dealing with the making of terrorists. There aren't any specifically Muslim terrorists in the book, but the inset about Adil, the brilliant but impoverished and low caste Bihari boy who later becomes a Naxal, is a good illustration of how great potential is tapped by the wrong forces when the right forces don't give it a proper chance.

Also, Manish makes some compelling inferences from Sudhir Venkatesh's Gang Leader for a Day on how rogue organizations like the Taliban and LeT are formed and sustained.

44 · vikram said

This is a cancer on Islam. The Islamic world was up in arms over a few cartoons, but nothing but denials and obfuscation

there has been nothing but unequivocal condemnation from muslims from various classes of society in india, afaik.

kasab seems to be a classic story of an amoral, weaselly lowlife who's always taken the seemingly easy road at every turn - whether it be criminality, terrorism, or right down to the end, trying to roll out and play dead to escape being shot to death by cops (unlike the driver of the car, who was quick-thinking/premeditated enough to turn on the windshield wipers and fluid to prevent the cops from seeing into the car at the roadblock), and then singing like an insistent busker in the parisian subways now that he has been caught. (this is not to minimize both the radical madrassa culture that has significantly burgeoned in pakistan in the last decade, or the poisonous role of the pakistani army and isi in enabling and encouraging terrorism).

I feel a certain level of sympathy for boys like this...only because I see child soldiers from the DRC, or wealthy corporation-like terrorist organizations feeding on the frustrations and misplaced ambitions of youth...if they are impoverished youth than the brainwashing is even more despicable to me...

I am utterly furious when I see bloodied photos of VT station, but I also get equally angry when I see kids who are ok with blowing themselves up because they've never been taught to think for themselves. Maybe this guys IS a victim, in a sense...

Btw, does anyone know about wahhabi influence in South Asia?

nothing but denials and obfuscation when 10 good muslim boys wreak havok in Mumbai.

>>His own mother is often a terrorist’s last victim.

Aawww..That's too bad.

>>what if the article is part of Zardari's PR?

You think?

M. Nam

If the rediff rendition of GEO TV is correct, then did the family know he was going for jehad and couldn't do anything about it or did they not know anything about it, as the DAWN article implies?

In the version of the story that I read, the parents knew that he had joined a jihadi outfit and he said that for the first time he felt proud in front of his family. It's like he had landed a prestigious job. Anyway, I agree that the lack of opportunity drives people to join these organizations. As for suggesting that the parents aided and abetted, I don't think it is a fair charge to assert against parents. Parents in the US for example put up with kids who are heroin addicts, abusive, or criminal in various ways. Parents are stuck with their kids in a way and under the particular circumstances, in an area where the LeT is practically legit, it may not even have struck the parents as anything other than that their son is now finally able to take care of himself, and perhaps them too.

While we were in search of fire-arms we saw some LeT stalls at Raja bazaar, Rawalpindi, on the day of Bakri-id.

a friend of mine who lives in karachi says that even continuous-shot rifles are very easily available, and he knows at least one friend of his who has an ak-47 at his home (he comes from a wealthy family and some of his extended family and friends are prominent enough in the art and culture scene that they have attracted attention from the nwfp based islamic radicals who want to talibanize pakistan). granted, this is one anecdote, but i guess $10 billion dollars+ from america (counting only the last 8 years, not the 80s of reagan-zia buddiness) when channeled to weaponry both for the pak army/isi and their nutcase tribal/terrorism buddies is bound to leak out uncontrolled on to the streets. add in crazy mullahs in radical madrassas, extreme poverty thanks to the govts corruption, and stir to explode, i guess.

anyone know of any good books that try and cast a light on the societal/religious/cultural factors that are in play in the al-qaeda inspired terrorist movements that have taken hold in the last 20 years?

does anyone know about wahhabi influence in South Asia?

not wahhabi, but my understanding that the primary radical school in india/pakistan has roots in the deobandi movement.

i have seen the dawn tilt both ways when it comes to india-pakistan. in the past, many of the articles have been sympathetic to pakistan, if i recall correctly, but after the recent attack, the dawn was the one newspaper that i saw that had an op-ed calling for the pakistan govt to act strongly and decisively against the jud and stating the impossibility of the state structure not knowing about the presence of these terrorist groups.

sorry to include a secondary source, but this is what i could find.

44 · vikram said

The Islamic world was up in arms over a few cartoons, but nothing but denials and obfuscation when 10 good muslim boys wreak havok in Mumbai.

good, vikram? good? don't you, in your infinite awareness, at least think they are shrewish?

>>His own mother is often a terrorist’s last victim.

Aawww..That's too bad.

>>what if the article is part of Zardari's PR?

You think?

M. Nam

Moornam, if they research some more an prove this story is a ruse then rest assured I will do a follow-up post indicating such.

54 · liberal said

i have seen the dawn tilt both ways when it comes to india-pakistan. in the past, many of the articles have been sympathetic to pakistan, if i recall correctly, but after the recent attack, the dawn was the one newspaper that i saw that had an op-ed calling for the pakistan govt to act strongly and decisively against the jud and stating the impossibility of the state structure not knowing about the presence of these terrorist groups.

Exactly, its regarded as their print media's face to the rest of the world and has been linked to the PPP in the past by the PML. As the BBC indicates, it's disconcerting seeing the disconnect in their Urdu press.

As far this blog post goes, seems like author thinks its "great investigative piece" because other outlets who were there at the same time or earlier "failed" because you know its Pakistan....bastion of free press and intellectuals. Set aside this is a "special report" with no citations and heavy editorialising.

Isn't it possible, even if this was true that this family might have been debriefed. They never once invoke the word terror/terrorist and go as far coining "international fearmongerer" and sanitising the LeT into amorphous 'enemies'. Nothing to wonder about folks, no agenda...

The Guardian got the real story which was that the Indian reports were true. They might have hidden them away but those voter rolls cannot lie. This piece of "reporting" a week or so after just confirms our "lying eyes" with a lot more heart tugging anecdotes.

57 · Aparna said

because you know its Pakistan....bastion of free press.

i get your sarcasm, but one (of the very few) good things that did happen to pakistan civil society under musharraf, was the liberalization and independence of the media in his early years - the time when he also took steps towards liberalizing the economy, and was popular among the people too, and that's not a genie you can easily put back in the bottle (as musharraf himself realized in his last months). of course, with that profusion comes a lot of populism. i don't have a sense of how the popularity of different channels breaks down etc., but there is certainly far more diversity of opinion now than before musharraf.

can anybody give an informed opinion/analysis of the degree of control that the pakistani government and army have in practice on azad/pakistan occupied kashmir? (i assume it is not as much of a wild west as, well, the wild west of pakistan)

Times of India is reporting that he was there 3 months ago. Too early to Dr.Phil this story IMO.

The latest information comes from Pakistan's news channel, Geo TV, which visited Kasab's village. The report states that Kasab visited the village only three months ago. During his stay in the village in Okara district of Pakistan, the report said, he also sought his mother's blessings saying that he was about to participate in a jehad. A resident of the village was quoted as saying that Ajmal Kasab told his mother that his fate was now in the hands of Allah.
He, according to the residents of his native Faridkot village spoken to by Geo TV, told some other villagers too that he was about to leave for jehad.
The report is another lethal blow to Pakistan's frenetic attempt to deny that the arrested terrorist came from Pakistan. The account of Faridkot residents tallies with Kasab's statement to ATS and boosts the veracity of India's case that the brutal assault was carried out by a group of Pakistani jehadis.

57 · Aparna said

Isn't it possible, even if this was true that this family might have been debriefed

Well the confusion before and henceforth, with the veracity of the story will precisely be because of this -

Revealed: home of Mumbai's gunman in Pakistan village

By yesterday, Pakistani intelligence officials had descended in force on Faridkot. Locals, speaking by telephone, said a Pakistani TV crew and an American journalist had been roughed up and run out of town. It appeared that the backlash had begun.

My 2 cents:

Evil is as evil does. A 21 year old who guns down innocent people does not deserve any sympathy. Parents are not to blame for the actions of their evil children. Society may have done its bit, maybe there were unfortunate circumstances that led to these people taking up the path of violence, but they are going to hell for sure.

Nothing anyone does to you can ever be sufficient grounds to kill another person. In this case, many of them.

1 · Amrita said

I disagree with using the term “evil” to describe men like Ajmal Kasab

Maybe, "Idiot" is more of an appropriate term?

Hey Kashtum @ 29, I never said that!!!! Are you a troll?

Here is another article in the Dawn.

21 year old who guns down innocent people does not deserve any sympathy

I don't think anyone is attempting to sympathize with or justify the bloke's actions. Mostly, it is an attempt to understand it so that it can be stopped.

Which, almost certainly, is a wrong track to follow.

If you are faced with an outbreak of malaria, you don't go about understanding what causes mosquitoes to bite innocent people. You stock up on penicillin, use plenty of repellent, clean up the swamps and improve general hygiene. The Arundhati Roys of the world would argue rather eloquently that it is your fault that you have blood coursing through your veins. A short stint for them near the swamps can fix that.

It allows us to isolate them as others, as subhumans. It allows us to feel superior in thinking that we were born good whereas these men were born bad. Their "affliction" is seen as having zero probability of transmission to good people like us.

Abhi, they do need to be isolated and treated as subhumans. That would be the first step in ensuring that their "affliction" doesn't get transmitted to you or me or any of the billions of people who have been frustrated at some point in our lives. Rare is a 16 year old who hasn't had fantasies of getting even with 'them'. 'Them' being parents or teachers or other kids or the elderly uncle next door who admonished him for something. There will be rebellious kids for as long as there is mankind. What you don't want is an organized infrastructure to pick up these kids, teach them to use guns and provide them with a 'mission' in life.

Basically mom and dad are only ashamed because he didn't come back a hero. Had the public opinion had gone the other way, she would have been a proud mama not one who shrinks beneath her chador.
That's how moms are. And this being a Pakistani mom, where jihad is part of the everyday vocabulary, she would have been proud of her jihadi son.

41 · V S said

you never know how his family would have acted if Kasab had come back alive would you?

Give him a ticker tape parade, I would guess.

Basically mom and dad are only ashamed because he didn't come back a hero. Had the public opinion had gone the other way, she would have been a proud mama not one who shrinks beneath her chador. That's how moms are. And this being a Pakistani mom, where jihad is part of the everyday vocabulary, she would have been proud of her jihadi son.

wtf?

and.

Abhi, good of you to post this, I agree with the premise.

There definitely is a vacuum in Pakistan for that kind of ideology to find root...Not every Pakistani kid is willing to give his life for such a mission.

Give the impoverished youth a reason to live, and this sort of ideology wont latch on.

No one is born a terrorist; terrorists however are born in to a culture which encourages terrorism via financial, moral and spiritual support. Though Kasab's immediate family may not be at fault, the environment around them which supports organizations like Lashkar are at fault. The rest of the world does not have to deal with the parents; they have to deal with Lashkar and the terrorists they nurture. The focus should be on that, not in some impotent family deep in the malaise which is also suffering.

Agree that the environment rules in this instance, and believe it directed many of the parents' moves as well as the son's.

By trying to humanize the parent's pain, you are diluting the message of hate and murder which these organizations send; you never know how his family would have acted if Kasab had come back alive would you?

Disagree. That message can't be diluted, and we can probably hazard a somewhat educated guess that if they came back alive (and what were the chances of that happening?), the parents might have been thrilled but for sure we'd never hear about it. As it is, we can't really tell what their pain or shame is about. We just know their son is world famous, and suspecr thqt they were debriefed.

Basically mom and dad are only ashamed because he didn't come back a hero. Had the public opinion had gone the other way, she would have been a proud mama not one who shrinks beneath her chador. That's how moms are. And this being a Pakistani mom, where jihad is part of the everyday vocabulary, she would have been proud of her jihadi son.

my_dog_jagat hit it.

65 · Hari said21 year old who guns down innocent people does not deserve any sympathy

If you are faced with an outbreak of malaria, you don't go about understanding what causes mosquitoes to bite innocent people. You stock up on penicillin, use plenty of repellent, clean up the swamps and improve general hygiene.

Mosquito behavior most definitely studied--that is par for the course to eradicate any disease. Stocking up on penicillin is only a way to treat a disease, but understanding the etiology of a disease is most definitely crucial to understanding how to prevent it in the first place. To carry your analogy further--one understands how to clean a swamp by studying what about the swamp breeds mosquitoes. Everything about a situation should be studied.

So, it is absolutely essential to understand where these boys came from, what gave them motivation, and to recognize that regardless of how others see it, these boys believe that they are fighting injustice in their own way. Trying to learn about something does not legitimize that thing--it simply allows one to make an educated approach to curing a problem.

I think the knee jerk reaction to dismiss these boys as being evil or crazy is shortsighted and ultimately counterproductive.

70 · Ne said

I think the knee jerk reaction to dismiss these boys as being evil or crazy is shortsighted and ultimately counterproductive.

Brilliantly said. And lets not forget the pond that they come from is the same one most of come from we are one SOUTH ASIAN family.

thank you Ne @ 70 for eloquently saying what I was just about to write!

I'll add this too - hasty responses to disease epidemics may take care of the problem for a short while, but the effects don't last long and often come back to bite us in the ass. If you pesticide the heck out of an area to rid it of bugs (analogous to say, bombing a village in Pak), people will be effected by the harsh chemicals. Another example, using medicines to treat the problem after the fact rather than taking into account the history and cause of the problem (analogous to prolonged wars on terror maybe?) may work as a temporary fix but in the long run you build drug-resistance. the killers get more savvy, more dangerous. you waste all your time on quick fixes and you end up with a bigger problem than you started with.

people who try to understand terrorists are not simply sympathizers. i look at it this way - i dont want these guys around either, but you're way ("otherism", denial of the problem, etc) isn't working. i'd like to find another way.

33 · khoofia said

they're cut from the same cloth and destruction of india, israel, uk and the usa is what they want.

to fight our fight, we need to figure out who the pawn is, and who the queen is. yes, these guys all want destruction, but so do a lot of generals in the pakistani army. how come their sons become bankers in wall st, become your friends and mine, usually come to the elite non-practicing/ritually observant moderate position, but kasab becomes a killing machine??
yes, not all poor people become terrorists; but most front-line terrorists are poor people or disenchanted kids.
the disenchanted kids i am not really sympathetic to, because they have they a variety of information and options at hand, and they provide informed consent to terror. i've worked on the issue of informed consent broadly, and you know, most people like kasab etc would have provided what most ppl in the biz call 'invalid' consent.

52 · liberal said

a friend of mine who lives in karachi says that even continuous-shot rifles are very easily available, and he knows at least one friend of his who has an ak-47 at his home (he comes from a wealthy family and some of his extended family and friends are prominent enough in the art and culture scene that they have attracted attention from the nwfp based islamic radicals who want to talibanize pakistan). granted, this is one anecdote

i doubt that we know the same individual. i'll admit that all the rich kids i know from pakistan claim to have weapons in their city/ancestral home in the village. the gents also tell me that they have spent time learning to use some automatic weapon or another.

53 · liberal said

but my understanding that the primary radical school in india/pakistan has roots in the deobandi movement.

nope, Let/JuD is wahaabi oriented. it seems to me the reason why you see so much use of te i-word even in the subcontiental context. f-ing wahabbis with their oodles of money, their brand of jehadi terrorism and interpretation of islam, coming soon to a city near you.
there are influential deobandi madrassas too though.

68 · AQ said Give the impoverished youth a reason to live, and this sort of ideology wont latch on.

There is a difference between a willingness to give your life (and take life if necessary) and a willingness to engage in terrorism, which is to say willfully engaging in acts of violence against innocent civilians in order to make a political statement or demand.
Poverty might make people more vulnerable to indoctrination, but in order for the indoctrination to work there needs to be some undercurrent of approval, or at the very least a lack of disapproval, that makes people feel comfortable shedding their moral qualms.

These ten fellows -- or was it twelve? -- being clearly at the bottom of the food chain or chain of command, since they were sent out to die and all, there must be more sophisticated thinkers as you go up the ranks, all the way up to party-going ladz with armaments and powders to snort in the basement. Something tells me Kasab was not the only one stylin' his way-- he learned it from someone who had the look to start with and was watching the action live on cable with cronies at a very safe distance. You just never know these days, what with academics telling Time magazine that Pakistan actually owns India.

I guess the point of the post is that this situation (and other similar events) is just horribly tragic for everyone on every side. No one benefits from these unfortunate situations. It sounds like his parents must be hurting as much as the victims, but I don't know for sure. Maybe everyone has a different way of dealing with extreme stress. Some stressed out people get physically sick, psychosomatic illnesses, depression, etc, or some become mass murderers like Atta and Timothy McVeigh and Dahmer. Some people will try to get creative and get stronger to help themselves and help society. I think it boils down to how an individual's brain is wired & their life experiences, environment & so forth.

One Kenyan friend of mine ( who is very spiritual and is a Buddhist) mentioned this attack on Mumbai is a difficult test from the Creator to test the Indian peoples' faiths, practice for forgiving, etc. Psychologists might say the shooters were sociopaths, or, bipolar, or easily brainwashed,uneducated,or hardened by poverty, or whatever. A religious self righteous, moral majority type is probably thinking the devil or antiChrist is working through these criminals to bring about armegeddon or total destruction. A political researcher could say these are happening because of shoddy security and this is a justification for martial law and will lead to a further erosion of peoples' rights, less international business, and so on. Astrologers probably say that the planets and stars weren't aligned properly on those dreadful days during the attack. Some Jews and Hindus must be thinking this is a an attack on their faiths & their people and will lead to a forced conversion. Maybe a statistician will prove this is just some rare, random bad luck. Who knows - maybe even Joe the Plumber has an explanation.

airdrop ipods, in the millions.

shanti.

Not to nit-pic, and in general appreciating the analogy, Penicillin is not the treatment for Malaria. Depending on the location and the sensitivity of the parasite, I would go for Chloroquine or Quinine sulphate.

There is a difference between a willingness to give your life (and take life if necessary) and a willingness to engage in terrorism, which is to say willfully engaging in acts of violence against innocent civilians in order to make a political statement or demand.

But they were brainwashed. They ended up believing that what they were doing was a *good* thing. Think of the number of people on this planet who go around believing that God exists and is responsible for things that happen. We indulge them all the time, in fact we go out of our way to respect, tolerate, and enable this type of fantasy. It is not that hard to get a bunch of people to believe in any rubbish. Even our values tend to be the same as the community around us. If jehad is considered a source of pride in some little village somewhere, we can hardly point to the shrivelled old couple in the hut to blame.

Mumbai attacks: How Indian-born Islamic militants are trained in Pakistan
An underground network of Islamic extremists has recruited a new generation of Indian-born terrorists by exploiting sectarian tensions in the fault-line city of Hyderabad.

By Damien McElroy in Hyderabad
Last Updated: 11:11PM GMT 13 Dec 2008

Muslim residents go through a police security check in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, which is known for its religious tensions Photo: REUTERS
Indian authorities have denied that there is a homegrown terrorist threat to the country, instead blaming Pakistan for allowing Islamist attacks including the atrocities in Mumbai to be launched across its borders.

But The Sunday Telegraph has learned that scores of young Muslim men have disappeared from the central Indian city of Hyderabad, suspected of leaving for Pakistan to be trained by the country's Islamist terror groups.

As many as 40 potential recruits are reported to have left the city - which has a large Muslim minority - under extremist guidance, while many other young men cannot be traced.

Police efforts to track the youths have floundered in the wake of the Mumbai attacks last month. A wall of community silence has protected the activities of teachers and other shadowy figures working inside fundamentalist Islamic schools and mosques.

"We have tried to establish where the city's youth has gone but we don't know," said Hyderabad's police commissioner, Prasada Rao. "We know they have gone to other places, either Indian states or abroad. We are checking but the parents or the others will not let us into what's going on."

Two Islamic movements based in Hyderabad, Darsgah Jihad-o-Shahadath (DJS) and Tahreek Tahfooz Shaer-e-Islam (TTSI), have been accused by local police of allegedly acting as "feeder" groups for militants seeking to recruit armed fighters. They have denied the allegations.

Members of a third local group, the Students Islamic Movement of India - which has been banned by the government - carried out a gun attack on police just days after the Mumbai attacks.

Police in Mumbai blamed 10 Pakistanis and their leaders back home for the carnage that killed 171 people last month. But Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the banned Pakistan-based group India accuses of planning the attack, has deep ties to Hyderabad. When an initial claim of responsibility for the Mumbai attacks was made in the name of "Deccan Mujahideen" - a previously unknown group - the perpetrators revived a historic Islamic claim on the Deccan Plateau, the territory which stretches between Mumbai and Hyderabad.

Extensive surveillance operations and intelligence investigations have failed to penetrate the inner workings of Hyderabad's radicals, officials admitted. "These kind of elements that are linked to violence even allow us to observe their gatherings," said Commissioner Rao. "But they know we are there and so do nothing to trigger suspicion."

Officials at the DJS madrassahs - religious schools - in Hyderabad were not willing to discuss the disappearance of the city's young men.

While there is no suggestion that the organisation orchestrates terrorist acts, the DJS carries a message on its website that is explicit about the right of Muslims to resort to violence.

"The DJS has trained and are training thousands of Muslim youths to defend themselves and to help, protect and defend the other Muslims," it states, before adding that once trained in "self defence" members can leave to join any other Muslim group.

It continues that "the long term goal of the DJS remains to achieve the supremacy and prevalence of Islam in practice in its entirety".

Hyderabad, like war-torn Kashmir, has been disputed since Indian partition when its princely rulers chose India over the Muslim homeland. Even though the city was the venue for a recent gathering of conservative Muslim clerics, who issued a fatwa against terrorism following the Mumbai attacks, riots and terrorist activity have risen steadily in the city since the emergence of radical Islam across south Asia.

The atmosphere in Hyderabad's alleys and markets leading from its Raj-era square is marked by mutual loathing and suspicion between Muslim and Hindu sects.

"The young people are totally insecure," said Omar Farook Sidique, a madrassah owner. "Everything for them is highly impossible here - the situation is all manipulated for political reasons. Every killing and every beating is given labels to put down legitimate activities."

But Ram Mohan Reddy, a prominent Hindu lawyer, claimed: "Hyderabad is the epicentre of all this terrorism in the world.

"Every house is a cell and everyday those people in Pakistan are on the phone and internet with people here drawing strength from Hyderabad. Terrorism has become such a big problem because of government laxity."

Violence has marred Hyderabad's recent drive to develop a high-tech reputation by adopting a second name: Cyberabad.

Deprivation in the predominantly Muslim old city is palpable. A lake of raw sewage, populated with pleasure boats, sits not far from the construction site of an elevated highway.

"The circumstances for Muslims have changed for the worse in the 60 years of India's independence," said Judge E. Ismail of the provincial Human Rights Commission. "Muslims have fallen down in education, health and are not properly represented in the police or the administration. They feel they are not part of the mainstream.

"It's not as if terrorism started for these reasons but some people misguide the youth that because of this they are entitled to heaven."

Hindu activists maintain a vigilant outcry against supposed government concessions that they condemn as nurturing extremism.

The predicament of India's Muslim minority plays only a small role in the indoctrination of the youth, according to Commissioner Rao. "This new generation has much broader grievances," he said. "They are motivated by extreme views on the American presence in Iraq, Middle East frictions and Muslim torment worldwide."

ENDS
--------------
There is also a newsarticle that indicates that some months before the terror attacks Kasab went back to his village to ask the blessings from his mother as he was going out on a jihad mission(he TOLD his mother that he was going of to wage jihad). His family and some villagers KNEW that he was involved with a jehadi islamic group and that he was going out on a jihad mission. So they can't pull of the "we are innocent, we did not know that he was going to do this" crap.
India is pointing now to pakistan and saying there is absolutely no indian muslim inolvement YET most of the intelligence experts (that appeared on mainstream media like CNN/BBC etc) agree that these attacks could not have taken place without the support and help of locals. Seems like the Congress government is trying to protect parts of their votebank by ONLY blaming outside forces like Pakistan for these terror attacks.
India needs to realize that they have a large fifth brigade inside their territory.The above article is just 1 very small example of that.

In 1948, the Nizam had 200,000 razakars
Out of a total muslim population of 2 million

In short 90% of the able bodied men were in razakars murdering hindus

The MIM is a direct descendant of the Razakars

In Nizam rule, Telegu was banned in schools and Urdu was compulsory

The greedy secular congress has let this poison remain
in Hyderabad

Incidentally there is no islamic terrorism in Indian punjab
and we all know what the sikhs will repeat 1947
if there is any islamic terrorism

65 · Hari said

Mostly, [this post] is an attempt to understand it so that it can be stopped. Which, almost certainly, is a wrong track to follow.

Understanding terrorism to stop it is the wrong track to follow!!! Lack of understanding is a hallmark of bigots.

The Arundhati Roys of the world would argue rather eloquently that it is your fault that you have blood coursing through your veins.

I have never read her argue any such thing, but always found her eloquent. What rankles you and the others who have brought her into this debate is that she can make her point with an eloquence that her detractors can not muster.

Thoughtful post, Abhi.

Wow! Damien McElroy? The supply of deluded western origin hacks and dorks never ends. Why don't the editors of these papers simply open a website to record statements and use Dargon and xcribe the statements and publish them? Do you really need a correspondent when you the desk lets by so many errors? The Nizam State [Hyderabad] has not been disputed since Indian partition and its princely rulers did not chose India over the Muslim homeland. It was reclaimed and integrated with the Union by force thanks to Sardar Patel and Ambedkar. Thus ended Jinnah's fantasy of an enclave on the Bay of Bengal. It is true every part of India, including unlikely places like the enclaves of Malappuram in Kerala (carved out as a Muslim majority district by the secular and progressive paragon EMS Namboodiripad in an effort to build up a Muslim votebank) Keezhakkarai in Tamil Nadu, Assam, Murshidabad and Malda, Junagadh, Raigad, and several others, are disputed by the jihadis, who would like nothing better than a return to the mythical Mughal past and thence the Caliphate. It is amusing to see the Western press and its readers discussing whether India-directed jihadism is still generated from Pakistan and the Pakistani Military-State-complex. This is like the much trumpeted revelation of AQ Khan's nuclear bazaar which the Indian press wrote about 15 years ago, that the Western press claimed credit for revealing 3 years ago! Delusional!! But of course terrorism by definition is only a Western thing, and in India terrorism is even more narrowly defined.

72 · ensure said

people who try to understand terrorists are not simply sympathizers. i look at it this way - i dont want these guys around either, but you're way ("otherism", denial of the problem, etc) isn't working. i'd like to find another way

I understand the point that those who try to understand the terrorists are not simply sympathizers. That's the first point I acknowledged. "Otherism" is not working because it is not framed strongly enough. It is often hijacked by various groups and is framed incorrectly. The line of division is not class, wealth, religion or nationality. It is about who works within the framework of law and who doesn't. Whenever I'm induced to commit a crime, I should see is a clear line drawn. If I cross the line, I'll be one of the "others", and be starved of societal approval. This holds good not just for terror, but also several other ills that South Asia is plagued by - such as corruption and discrimination.

PS. At the risk of carrying the analogy too far, I would say that much of the effort towards understanding them is akin to trying to tame the mosquitoes and persuading them from not biting.

85 · jyotsana said

But of course terrorism by definition is only a Western thing, and in India terrorism is even more narrowly defined

This is subject matter of intellectual debate; I attended a seminar where the speaker ( some kind of academician who studies terrorism) was actually tracing/connecting historical Asian connections of suicide bombings to British India's freedom fighters Bhagat Singh and Chandrasekhar Azad's voilent struggle against colonial rule. In fact the Pak journalist - Ahmed Rashid is doing the same with Al-Q as in this discussion
and I am sure many in the Pak establishment are doing the same with Kashmir's struggle and maybe the same arguments were raised during Soviet occupation of Afghan. Terrorism as viewed through the lens of colonial struggles, cold-war and now post-coldwar struggles.

86 · Hari said

PS. At the risk of carrying the analogy too far, I would say that much of the effort towards understanding them is akin to trying to tame the mosquitoes and persuading them from not biting

you probaby fall in the category of those critical of efficacy of HTS contrary to the views of Mr. Gates and money spent by Pentagon on the same

84 · bunty said

Understanding terrorism to stop it is the wrong track to follow!!! Lack of understanding is a hallmark of bigots

If refusing to accept, condone or justify terrorism - whatever the root causes maybe - is bigotry, then I plead guilty.

Arundhati Roy's eloquent rant is precisely what I've argued against in my previous comment.

The only way to contain (it would be naïve to say end) terrorism is to look at the monster in the mirror. We're standing at a fork in the road. One sign says Justice, the other Civil War. There's no third sign and there's no going back. Choose

There is no side A or side B on the terror question. There is no fork. There is no imminent Civil War. There are only terrorists and victims. And there are 'intellectuals' happily toeing the terrorist line that unless 'justice' is served, they'll cause trouble. Of course justice should be served. The guilty in all riots should be identified and punished. That would certainly reduce the pool of recruits the terror outfits draw from. But to attribute direct causality and implicitly justify the attack somehow seems a gross act of disrespect to the people who died in Mumbai on the 26th.

88 · Priya said

you probaby fall in the category of those critical of efficacy of HTS contrary to the views of Mr. Gates and money spent by Pentagon on the same

Interesting concept. If I were Mr. Gates, feeling my way through unfamiliar terrain and culture, I would certainly find it promising. If I were Mr. Headman of the village Kasav hails from, I would just draw the line and dare the kids to step over it. But I'm neither, so I just restrict myself to trying and influencing opinion on things that matter to me. Hopefully, Mr. Gates would continue using this new program, and Mr. Headman would somehow read my post and draw the line.

Are you sure about that? I would be willing to take up arms in defense of my country and my religion if need be as well. I will fight in a war if my country calls on me and I have plenty to live for.

wrong example. see, when there's a declaration of war...everything you live for is at stake...and, like yourself, I would pick up arms too.

but, to ask someone like myself to pull off a SUICIDE mission to help some larger cause, when no unjust has been done to me..it simply wouldnt happen...why?

Apart from other reasons:

1) I have an education, a job, and a wonderful family whose happiness I still I want to be a part of.
2) Nobody can "use" Islam to indoctrinate me with their agenda..because I have the ability to think critically, thanks to that education.

Anyway, I believe these training camps, organizations must be shut down ... however, that's only a tiny band-aid for the wound. The problems have become much more systemic than some maulana azhars and lakhvis. The solutions are glaring right at us, and yet we choose to ignore them.

oh, and the absurdity that is the "war on terror" only prolongs the status quo.

87 · Priya said

This is subject matter of intellectual debate;

Not intellectual debate, but intellectual...

There's no

struggle in Kashmir

There was a Krystallnacht in the Kashmir Valley in September 1989 when calls for violence against the Kashmiri Hindu Pandits were broadcast from the minarets of the mosques of the Valley, following which jihadist thugs went about butchering Kashmiri Hindus and drove out whatever remained from the Valley. The Indian government responded, gradually stepping up the use of force to quell the wholesale thuggery, till now the Valley and its jihadist elements have been brought to heel. Intellectuals, dishonest or otherwise, don't matter.

89 · Hari said

Lack of understanding is a hallmark of bigots
If refusing to accept, condone or justify terrorism - whatever the root causes maybe - is bigotry, then I plead guilty.

I say understanding, you change it to acceptance (!), condoning (!!) and justification (!!!) of terrorism. Reflect on why you need such obfuscation to make your point.

89 · Hari said

Arundhati Roy's eloquent rant

Eloquence and ranting are antonyms, I think, cant be sure though.

89 · Hari said

There is no side A or side B on the terror question... There are only terrorists and victims.

You first claim there are no sides, and then later break the world up into sides. I wouldnt point out more inconsistencies in your arguments, there are too many. I want to thank you instead for the link. She is brilliant as always. She eloquently points out that hindu extremism is no better, or even worse than the Islamic variety. You have missed her point completely. She is refers to the two sides only to point out that they are one on the side of bigotry. It is clear to me that she faces anger in the blogosphere only because she is so persuasively secular.

"She eloquently points out that hindu extremism is no better, or even worse than the Islamic variety. "

it certainly is no better but in what way is it worse?

"She is refers to the two sides only to point out that they are one on the side of bigotry. It is clear to me that she faces anger in the blogosphere only because she is so persuasively secular."

yet she clearly states that given a choice between the two bigotries, she would pick one - how is that "secular"? and do you honestly think that if the situation had been reversed - if 10 hindu youth with links to hindu extremist groups to anyone in india had gone a murderous rampage in pakistan (giving as their justification past attacks by pakistan-backed or based groups) - she would still be appealing for people to understand the "context"? do you not think that under those circumstances she would most likely state she was on the side of A (attributing it to some sort of ideology not rooted in a specific context or place and not linked to any grievance or provocation)? do you honestly think she would be as sympathetic as she appears to be? don't you think everyone should be given the courtesy of "context" (including suketu mehta by the way).

"yet she clearly states that given a choice between the two bigotries, she would pick one - how is that "secular"?"

not to mention that she gives the benefit of the doubt to one bigotry and claims that they all think that "while there is no justification for terrorism.." really? they all think that? she can claim, with absolute certainty, that no one from side B thinks that terrorism is justified under any circumstances they deem suitable?

94 · Whose God is it anyways? said

yet she clearly states that given a choice between the two bigotries, she would pick one - how is that "secular"?

You have evidently not read her superb essay. The two sides I alluded to are both placed by Roy into side A - that of bigotry. The word bigotry is mine in this context. For her, side B is the one that tries to understand what gives rise to terrorism. She chooses that side, so do I.

The rest of your rant lacks coherence.

How much effort would A. Roy expend on understanding Advani? Is he a born a-hole or a religious minority from Karachi whose family was uprooted in '47?

Side A being Hindu extremists and Side B being Muslim extremists

@WGIIA,
I think you slightly misread her. She is not dividing the extremists into two sides. She is talking about two imaginary sides engaged in current discourse about terrorism. Side A looks at terrorism without any geographical, historical and economic context. Side B does not. There are several problems with this framing. Taking religion out of the list of contextual dimensions, and implying mutual exclusivity between the two sides, are two major ones.
According to the IB dossier recently released, outfits raising funds for ISI include Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Tayiba, the Benevolence International Organisation, Bin Laden Front, Al Fuzaira, Khairul Ansar Al Khairia, Daulatatul Kuwait, Revival of Islamic Heritage Society and Doulatatul Bahrain. [link]. These fronts do not share geography, history, or economics.
Ignoring religion as a dimension also leads her to question her own dubious framing as she thinks side-A analysts will have a hard time explaining Hindu extremism, which is surely not the case. The argument is more about degree/scale and expansion vs. defense nature, which admittedly is a very fuzzy line, than about the religious context of motivation.

"You have evidently not read her superb essay. The two sides I alluded to are both placed by Roy into side A - that of bigotry. The word bigotry is mine in this context. For her, side B is the one that tries to understand what gives rise to terrorism. She chooses that side, so do I.

The rest of your rant lacks coherence."

well, i never claimed to be as eloquent as miss roy:) i read her essay- i can do that much at least. on second reading perhaps i didn't take her literally enough and read between the lines of what she meant by side a and side b based on what she says later in the article. in my opinion only - and please bear with my incoherence and ranting -- i can't take her side a vs. side b argument seriously unless i see her apply it equitably, no matter who the perpetrators of mass murder are. that is, given a choice between side a or side b, she applies side b (as she chose) to all players. i feel she fails to live up to her own standards in this very same article when she brings up comparisons and incidents. she's very certain of certain people's guilt/culpability in this article and doesn't call for any context or speak of any context and asks us not to rush to judgement when it comes to other groups/countries/suspects and look at context. given a choice in her own article, she appears to, to my ignorant mind, to not apply the same standards.

i don't deny miss roy her space in a paper, and i even said i agree with some of what she says, but i am tired of seeing the same people being offered the chance to act as the "voice of india" everytime there are problems in india. just as south asian americans don't want certain groups in the u.s. representing them all the time, i would like to see a diversity of voices - both those with whom i disagree and those with whom i agree or both -- in the guardian, nyt etc. many papers have opposing viewpoints on the same page when it comes to israel, domestic problems etc. i'd like to see that with india, because while miss roy etc. are being offered the chance to put forward their viewpoint they also are being given the chance to put forward the viewpoint of those of whom they disapprove. so any opposing viewpoint is seen through them and their biases and not independently. there are other reasonable secular people in india - from both the "right" and "left" -- who can surely be given a voice.

It is clear to me that she faces anger in the blogosphere only because she is so persuasively secular.

93 · bunty said

It is clear to me that she faces anger in the blogosphere only because she is so persuasively secular.

i think you are using secular in the rob and ponniyin sense of the word.

Where are all the Rumi fans?

108 · suraj said

someone up there wont even call him a man since hes not 21 (as if that's some magic manly number)

it is due to the britneyization of our culture.

104 · Jef Costello said

I thought being Punjabi was about looking at the good in life and enjoying life.

Forgetting Khalistan and the associated Khali-Satan, are we?

PS: I forget to mention ex cricketteer and international heart-throb, Imran Khan, who has appearantly formed his own political party or movement, speaking about the whole Red Mosque affair saying that it's ridiculous to think that a group of a few hundred women could hold the entire country hostage for days and that this was a conspiracy cooked up by Mussharaf to divert the public's attention away from his failures or whatever.

What????

What is it with these wealthy, westernized "lefties"? I think it's because they know they have the money and international fame to flee Pakistan and India in a second should anyone try and force Islam on them and so they do not have to worry about their countries becoming an Islamic state. But the common citizen does not have this alternative and therefore it is the ordinary daal-bhaat Pakistani or Indian who can't sleep secure at night in fear of these armed and dangerous radical religious nut-jobs. For the famous lefties though, all is hunky dory in their jet-set world. Yep, globalization truly IS the enemy here.

110 · NaraVara said

They're thought from a very young age to look down on us.

i have watched an india-pakistan cricket match (in the 2003 world cup) with an all-india crowd and the gleeful vitriol against pakistan and pakistanis was no less. this is not to deny that the rivalry with india dominates pakistan's consciousness to an unwholesome extent, and there is a lot of propaganda, but i don't think this disgusting behavior is one-sided in the least.

i also used to play cricket fairly regularly with a mixed pakistani-indian crowd (different indian crowd than above) and things were always wonderful, but i do know that at least some of the indians thought that the pakistani players could inherently not be trusted to be fair. just another instance of this kind of distrustful/hateful behavior going in the other direction.

I didn't read all the comments, so if someone already said this, sorry.

I was just reading some of the comments that argue that in Pakistan people are taught to hate the 'other' (i.e. Indian, Hindu, etc). I just wanted to point out that the same is very often done in India. I can recall very distinct cases of racism against Muslims voiced very openly in front of me in India. In one case, I was teaching an English class an a international institute in Delhi to a group of businessmen. We were discussing culture and traditions and they started asking me about cultural norms in the U.S. I was explaining that in the U.S. there are people from all over the world and of many religions, so there are lots of different traditions.. I mentioned that Muslims lived in the U.S. and suddenly my students started going on a tirade against Muslims.. they were called cheaters, and one guy said they should all be removed and sent to Pakistan. And everyone (who all happened to be Hindu) in the room agreed (except one guy who kept silent) and began slandering Muslims as a group until I put a stop to it. I was really shocked, not just at their views, but how comfortable they felt opening expressing these views in a classroom.

This is just one of the many experiences I had on this issue.. but I think that this acceptance of hatred and labeling people as 'other' is rampant not just in Pakistan.

Yep, globalization truly IS the enemy here.

Globalization is definitely at fault. Imagine you are an upper middle class Pakistani and you are spending your WoT bonus. You go to some high end Swedish import house and you are shown a footstool called an "Ottoman". A glorious civilization reduced to a support for someone's dirty feet. Would it not make your blood boil Sir/Madam ?!

105 · Amol said

Her "eloquent" essay reads like a hack writer from NRO parodying left.

The usual punishment for a bad author is to not read her. That A Roy faces anger suggests that it is not her writing but something else that rankles. Maybe it is not only secularism as I previously thought, but also her habit of holding up a mirror to the mob.

116 · bunty said

Maybe it is not only secularism as I previously thought, but also her habit of holding up a mirror to the mob.

yes, those who hate a roy love lynching muslims. no wonder you are a fan.

114 · LinZi said

I was really shocked, not just at their views, but how comfortable they felt opening expressing these views in a classroom

Yes, the level of bigotry openly aired in India is shocking, to me at least.