The watchman..... By Soumyashree Chatterjee

The watchman

India is in the throes of election mania these days. The chaiwala of last season is fast changing into the chowkidar this one. While the opposition tries to brand him a chor his followers try to glorify him. It is in this context that I am reminded of a few lines by Miriam Vedder about a chowkidar r watchman:

The watchman walked the little streets

With slow and steady tread;

He slung his lantern as he went, —

" All's well! " the watchman said.

Behind close blinds, a woman sat

Who had no more to sell;

The watchman paused before her door, —

" All's well! " he cried, " All's well! "

An old man shivered in the dark

Who had no bread to eat;

Echoed the watchman's cry, " All's well! "

Along the empty street.

The watchman passed a silent house

Wherein a child had died;

A candle burned against the pane, —

" All's well! " the watchman cried.

And through the night the watchman passed

With slow and steady tread;

And ever to the little streets

" All's well! " the watchman said.

Aamir Khan aka Rancho aka Phunsuk Wangdoo of 3 idiots fame has immortalized the” All ij well” idiom into the minds of Indians. But is all really well under the watchful eyes of our chowkidar? Time and history will be the true judge of this question, we as observers of the current milieu can only try and set up a balance sheet to see if the ledger books have matched up favorably. It is for us to put the 5 years in perspective before we head for the ballot boxes again or in India the EVMs.

While I will not sit on a judgment or to analyze whether Chowkidar (Watchman) is chor(thief) or chappan inch wala (56” chest), I will definitely dwell on the words of Miriam from earlier. Is the watchman extolling all is well when people are suffering from hunger, when the family folks are silently mourning the death of their young, lamenting the loss of work, while there is only the loud echo of all being well by the watchman for there is no other voice to dissonant and only silence of the night to resonate and echo his cry.

India has unfortunately witnessed all this and more. Farmers have committed suicide out of debt and hunger. Their cries of plea have not been heeded. Demonetization came and went, the general public made long queues to withdraw their own monies and some suffered, some even died. Yes, India has seen its fair share of hunger.

The blood of our soldiers who have died in their prime, of students like Rohit Velmurra promising yet extinguished before they could bloom re testimony t the silent sobs o the family folk in our nation. The families of the victims of cow lynching, of unbridled nationalism that has led to death, of crony cultists that have gone unchecked under the watch of the chowkidar have all shed silent tears. Tears that ask questions to the chowkidar of whether all is well?

Employment and business opportunities is another area where we need to wonder if things are on track. Statistics are saying otherwise while the government is saying otherwise. While we must trust our government, but then as they say even Caesar's wife should be above suspicion so all claims made by the government should be such that there is no scope for people to question.

As election season comes and the bandwagon of promises by one party or the other will start flooding in, we need to focus on issues that affect us in our living. Issues of employment, issue of price rise, of health care, of livelihood, of homeland security. I m sure Ram temple and triple talaq will be used to build up a frenzy. Surgical strikes Balakot and nationalism will be bandied around. The opposition will cry itself hoarse on unemployment and Rafael, on the farmer suicides and on intolerance, on beef eating and on petrol prices. The rulers will talk about governance, about ujjwala, about Jan Dhan and mudra loans. But we the affected will need to separate the chaff and identify the actual issues that will affect us.

As we will walk to the polling booths I am sure our expectations will be of a secure future. For some, it could be the cloth of heaven spread beneath our feet in the form of a Ram temple or black money coming in from yonder land and into our accounts. But for the prudent majority we need to be the poor man who spreads his dreams at the feet of our Chowkidar, and in the words of William Butler Yeats, plea “I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams”. 

Our hopes lie on the chowkidar whether the current one or a new one that the cries of all well that he echoes down the roads is not an empty one

Liberator or terrorist By Soumyashree Chatterjee

History is a tale. Like every tale, the story of history often has a hero and a villain, who that is, is at the mercy of the storyteller. Similarly, the memory of the story is only strengthened and transcends from story to history by how many times its heard or retold, and that is determined by who the winner is. History is remembered more as the eulogization of the victor, an when the loser is remembered it is for ridicule or more often than not to further glorify the victor. The tale of a terrorist crossing over to being a liberator is thus this journey of crossing the line of defeat to victory.

Robert Bruce is famous for his tale of the spider and it’s spawning of the try, try and try again idiom. He is famous for the uprising of Scots but what if William Wallace had won; Bruce would have been guilty of treason. What if the English king Edward ii won, Bruce would no longer be the hero but the terrorist who would have been tortured and killed.

Let us look home. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj is famous as a hero in India. His exploits in the guerilla warfare tactics against the Mughals led by Aurangzeb is legendary, and his heroics is probably the cornerstone of the Maratha regime that spanned till the end of the rule of the Peshwas. But what if Shivaji Maharaj had been captured in one of his guerilla raids, wouldn't the lore of this illustrious leader be assigned to that of a footnote use to glorify the rulers who subjugated him. Rana Pratap and his warrior horse Chetak are revered by the Rajputs. But isn't his valor a footnote that is often used to glorify the winner of the battle Zille-ilahi Jalaluddin Akbar.

A more contemporary hero and the subject of Guerrillero Heroico, often acclaimed as the most famous photograph in the world, is the Argentine Marxist Revolutionary Che Guevera. Che is revered as a revolutionary and not an anarchist in all probability as he came out on the right side of the revolution that overthrew the rule of Batista. If Che had met his maker in Cuba while leading the guerrilla war against the US-backed Batista instead of in Bolivia, the romanticism that is today a halo on him like his iconic green beret might not be so visible.

Every drop of blood that has paved India to her Tryst with Destiny whether that be of Bhagat Singh or Chandrasekhar Azad, of Kshudiram Bose or Mohammed Ashfaqullah or the legions of the INA led by Netaji, naught would have been celebrated for their contribution if the yoke of British rule had not been unharnessed and the tricolor was flying high. India lauds her heroes and compels the world to acknowledge her brave sons today as heroes. Make no mistake every one of them were once branded an anarchist or a terrorist.

So will we one day come to call Osama Bin Laden as a revolutionary? Will Maulana Massod Azhar someday be lauded as the hero on his blood was built Azad Kashmir. Well, time will be the judge of that I am sure. But what we can deduce from the strings of the above path is that the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter is often perception. Essentially both of them are rebels, the outcome of their rebellion is usually the differentiator between which moniker they pick for themselves. However, the summary and very wistful differentiator of a terrorist and a freedom fighter is the long term output of the actions of both groups. A freedom fighter may use violence as a means but the greater end for him is liberation. For a terrorist, however, there is no end and the be all and end all for him is destruction. True they probably garb themselves under some fabric of justification, whether that be religion, or opposing repression.

The good book Bible lists out 7 sins as do the scriptures of our lands. Two of them are greed and envy. The psychological roots differentiating a terrorist and a freedom fighter could probably 2 different sins. A freedom fighter covets something that he doesn't have, liberty or equal rights or the ability to practice one's faith. He may thus pursue this excessively and might include violences a means of that pursuit. However, once that goal is fulfilled his thirst ends and so does the associated violence. For a terrorist however the root sin is envy, an intense desire to possess something that someone else possesses. The moot point is that for greed it is about something you don't have and for envy, it is about something that another possesses. The hunger for violence doesn't get satiated for a terrorist once the supposed goal is fulfilled, for the goal then mutates into something el end the violence continues. 

The 9/11 mayhem was ostensibly in support of the Palestinian cause, but would the mayhem have stopped if there were no crises. The goal would then have shifted to probably establishing an Islamic caliphate as the IS is today espousing, the violence would continue unabated. This is the way of an Osama a terrorist, and not the way of a Shivaji Maharaj, who led down an administration to take care of his subject once he gained his goal of liberty. 

The call of a liberator and that off a terrorist may sound similar or may have been delivered from the same place. The words hidden between the words cried out are the true indicator of whats to follow once the goal is achieved, liberation and regeneration or violence and more violence. A terrorist and Freedom fighter might seem to be of same coin but it is the use of the coin that decides whether we have a Netaji asking us to shed blood for freedom or an Osama leading a slaughter. 

Terrorism: Is it good economics? By Soumyashree Chatterjee

With every act of terror, with every loss of life, we are faced with a tremendous loss that the bereaved face. There is no recompense for the aggrieved. Often nations seem to be halted into paralysis by the magnitude of the act. And then…… then mankind endures, mankind survives. The single most noteworthy trait of mankind is its ability to endure and survive. Just as man has endured and survived famine, ravishment of disease and war so do they endure and survive the act of terror. Christopher Nolan in his iconic work the Dark Knight Rises depicts a classic anarchist-Bane.  Bane talks of Gotham thus- 

“We take Gotham from the corrupt! The rich! The oppressors of generations who have kept you down with myths of opportunity, and we give it back to you... the people. …The powerful will be ripped from their decadent nests, and cast out into the cold world that we know and endure. …. Spoils will be enjoyed. Blood will be shed. … This great city... it will endure. Gotham will survive!”.

 Substitute Gotham with mankind, with any city that has been the victim of an attack, the statement still stands. The terrorist envisages ripping the rich from their castles and sharing of the spoils. They envisage a new order being established. But then when everything has settled down the basic tenet is that mankind has endured, mankind has survived. It is the aftermath of the act of terror, the journey of endurance and survival, that needs to be scrutinized to discover the true effect of terror. 

To understand an act of terrorism and the economics involved in it let us take a hypothetical terror act, dissect the components and all the economic activities around the act of terror both preceding and succeeding it. Let us assume that a terror group from across the border of India in say Afghanistan infiltrates a team of 3 terrorists of varied origin say a Saudi, a Brit and Chechen through Myanmar. This team will make its way into Mumbai and there, will commit a fidayeen attack in front of the Reserve bank of India, grossly damaging the building and causing the death of many people though not sufficiently affecting the servers of the building to affect the economy.

Now, these 3 individuals would need to be indoctrinated into the belief that the act of terror that they are perpetrating is just and a true jihad. The process of indoctrination would include identification, recruitment and then handling them. For every jihadi so chosen, there would be at least a pipeline of 100 more, who would be screened from another funnel of 10000 more individuals. So ideally a sample size of 30000 would hypothetically need to be identified screened and then shortlisted through the funnel to reach the act of terror. As the funnel size shrinks there is further cost in terms of further radicalizing and motivating the individual to one or multiple roles. There would also be requirements of training both locally at the country of origin of the individual and then finally at a base the terrorist outfit is operating out. This would thus entail travel cost, which may or may not include costs of preparing the documentation so that the individuals may reach the base of operation of the group unhindered an undetected. So we have identified a major cost in propaganda to recruit, recruit and then finally progress the recruits towards the final act of terror.

Now that the individuals have been identified and brought to the base of operation, we need to appreciate that this base of operation in itself would have a substantial cost. There would be infrastructure cost to establish the set up to house not only the recruits but also the trainers which would include both non-military training including religion and military training including the operational and other training in deception and survival required to infiltrate into an alien territory, survive and deliver on such a mission. These would, therefore, require extensive resources in terms of an armory, in terms of intelligence assimilation and dissimilation, arenas for role-playing and such. This amounts to a huge infrastructural cost to get the individuals ready for the act of terror that they are being primed for.

The actors now being ready for the act will now need to be infiltrated into the hostile territory and the act of terror needs to be made. In the hypothesis that we have set these individuals will now need to be given proper identities and alibis to be able to infiltrate through Myanmar into India either through a valid or invalid channel. Either of these involves a substantial cost which is adding up on the cumulative cost we have been adding up till now. This act will also not be possible without local supporters who have to be themselves recruited, indoctrinated and trained. Some of them might need financial compensation for their act of sedition. Further costs of logistics, safe houses and locally acquiring various components of the act will also need to be factored in.

Once the act of terror has been fulfilled there will be two sets of reactions that are clearly discernible. The first will be the aftermath of the act where we have a few detrimental effects on the system. There is the obvious loss of life which is never ever replaceable. There would be a further loss in terms of the building and property on the RBI premises where the act of terror was perpetrated including collateral damage. There would also be impact psychologically and of course on the economy as fall out of this act. All these, with the exception of the loss of life are primarily short term acts of disruption, akin to market corrections that the market is so prone to. Subsequently, there will be rebuilding of the milieu and that will infuse into the system work, capital and investment. Just as a phoenix rises from ashes, there will be rebuilding, into something better and bigger. There will be allied investments into various factors like upgrading for security, investments into counter-terrorism, investment into intelligence gathering both at the human and electronic intelligence level. In summation, the economy will look beyond the blip that the act of terror caused, beyond those individuals who lost beyond repair.

Yes, some industries like tourism and airline get affected beyond others as there is a higher vulnerability for them from acts of terrorism. Yes, if a particular geography is being affected majorly and frequently by such acts there might be a more far-reaching effect. But for most, life moves on beyond the candle light vigils and memoriam to the business of rebuilding, enduring and above all surviving. Therefore that one act of terror has a multibillion or maybe even a multi-trillion dollar industry running to ensure that it gets enacted, and an even bigger one to ensure that life endures beyond the act of it. So the pertinent question that we have today this business of global terrorism, however horrific and heinous has a sound business sense for someone who has the vision, resources to invest in every aspect of it and the cold heart to be able to execute it to actually profit from it. Fiction is galore with such characters who sold on both sides to profit from war. And they say truth is often stranger than fiction. So do we have people investing in the economics of terror?

Terror: In the name of…. By Soumyashree Chatterjee

nigahein thii rah par 

rah khunse dhul gaya 

nanhee pariyaan the who, khuda me sama gaye
ai khun ke saudagar apna daman bhi toh tu bhigo gaya

 kya pak kya hind sab ko dubo lechala gaya

eyes were set on yon road

the roads were awash with blood

they were but lil angels you made one with Him

oh merchants of blood tis your hands that bear this innocent red 

beyond the walls of pak and hind has your apocalypse come

Some thoughts I came across in December 2014, just after the Tehrik-e-Taliban engineered massacre at the Army public school Peshawar, leaving a head count of 132 children, some as young as 8. Words that have rung true across countries across boundaries of race color and creed. Words that have been the core, whether the proponent has been motivated by religion patriotism or any other false belief.

The Oxford English dictionary uses the word terrorism to mean ”The unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims”. If we try to trace the use of this word it can be probably traced to the word terroriste coined by François-Noël Babeuf of the French revolution period. The tactic however may be traced back to the 1^st-century Jewish zealots who used it against Romans in Palestine. These in turn probably found root in the practices fo the Order of Assasins maintained by the Persians. Primarily acts of terror are found to be synonymous to anarchy rather than being government sponsored. Although in today’s scenario we tend to see governments acting as sponsors of acts of terror in other territories to further their own narrow political ambitions.

Terrorism thus is mostly an expression against the military might of a government but while being directed to the government, more often than not are so done against innocent civilians. Terror became a currency of power in the modern age for many during the Israel Arab standoff. A look at the origins of Badar Meinhoff and its spin-off the Red Army Faction establishes that it is often disgruntled youth who are easily seduced to the ways of bloodshed. And this is across the band whether it be 70s Germany or today's Kashmir, the Hezbollah of Afghanistan or IS fighters of today. Gullible passionate youth have been made to shed blood to the call of the Quran or the motherland, have been indoctrinated on the altar of blood of near ones or that of religion. 

Today there are 143 recognized groups which have been marked as terrorist groups spread across the globe which have their roots in Islam. Thus all these people who are affiliated to these groups believe they are fighting a holy war to establish the order of Islam and to subdue infidels. Yet there is a huge debate that rages within Islam itself whether, in holy war children and old, women and sufferers may be sacrificed. Allah is seen as a benevolent father and hence how can He the father of even infidels condone on their slaughter and harm. A true musalman is charged to a holy war if need be, as is he charged to do each act with piety and in the name of God the most gracious and most compassionate. That is why a musalman oft start every act with the words of grace “Bismillah ir Rahaman ir Rahim”.

As we traverse the latitude and longitude of the globe and come across one act of butchery after another, we often see that the name on which the killing is done often changes but the tapestry is often similar the victims always similar; people who have naught to do with the theme of the killers or the principles on which the killing is done. Whether it be in Chechnya or in middle east, in the hills of Afghanistan or the verdant Bali, a paradise like Kashmir or the forests of Africa, aborigine new Zealand or fast-paced London, it is children, women, elderly or people who have nothing to do with Islam, people who would probably feed or clothe a needy person not caring his religion, these are the ones who pay with their own blood or the blood of their dear ones.

If we look at the people who have joined the ranks of the IS we often see a whole lot of Europeans chase a false sense of romanticism in their tryst with IS. For some, this is often cleansed by the realities of murder that they perpetrate once they are in the folds of the zealots and the initial brainwashing is washed away the blood of innocent. More often than not it is cleansed by their own blood that they shed even as they are trapped in disillusionment. Unemployment could be one of the reasons for the unrest that spurs on the youth to embrace the smooth-talking recruits who spew venom for the system that the youth are disgruntled by and in the same breadth promise a paradise in this life or beyond that rallies the vulnerable to this new order. Thus is the first seed sowed and carefully nurtured through systematic indoctrination till the first stone is picked and thrown against the system. The journey from a stone to a gun is not that arduous presumably for these recruiters with their followers. It is the same in the pristine streets of Kashmir or the bustling ones of London.

When the Tehrik-e-Taliban snuffed the lives of the children in the school, I wonder which higher purpose of God was served beyond filling His garden with their innocent souls. They claimed that this was vengeance against the army for atrocities in Waziristan. I wonder which child in that school had permeated any atrocity. If it is the sins of the father that those children paid, then mercy be.

The state today also often indulges in sponsoring terror against its enemy state, but Karma seems to bring back things a full circle. It is oft said that Osama Bin Laden was a  product of US indulgence in its proxy war in Afghanistan. Osama came back to haunt them until they had to close off the circle at Abbottabad. This will be the case for every situation for terrorism is today a hydra that seeks to devour its own creator if it stands in its way.

As the flight winged its way towards the world trade centre I am sure Mohammed Atta invoked Allah the gracious benevolent and compassionate. I wonder if Allah was being benevolent or compassionate to all the victims or if truth be told on the day of reckoning would Atta stand in the ranks receiving benevolence from the most merciful One, or begging for mercy for his acts against the children of the most gracious One. In the name of The Most Merciful One, whether he be Allah, God, Jehovah Krishna or of any other name let there be love and not a tear for one that is lost out of turn.