When the first CCTV shot of Mohammed Ajmal Kasab was shown to the world, viewers and readers stared in disbelief not probably so much at the terrorist who with his counterparts rocked the city of Mumbai and the world, but at the fact that the twenty one year old was branded so, at his age.
Once the initial shock set in, reporters wasted no time in dramatically pointing out what they thought looked like a sadistic smile in a garbled image. The lone captured terrorist in the 26/11 attack on Mumbai city, it was not long before Kasab’s supposed past in Pakistan was raked out by investigative journalists and his stereotype whereabouts laid bare before the world.
If one was to believe the authenticity of the details unearthed, then Ajmal’s story once again is that of a typical adolescent gone awry in the company of the wrong kind of people, in this case, the notorious Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT).And assuming that his statements thereafter were not under pressure, Ajmal’s pleas sounded a far cry from someone who had any kind of fanatical beliefs.
Some media sources state Kasab’s interrogation reports as a hapless story of a village lad having a lack of ambition and an illusionary vision of making it big in life as the reason to join an outfit notorious for ‘catching them young’. Other reports speak of a young man who spoke flawless English, knew his mission well and who came from a prosperous middle class family background, all in the inimitable LeT style of ‘catching them affluent and educated.’
While the suppositions are yet to be clarified, devoid of Kasab’s advanced combat and specialised navigation training and baseless scriptural ’ rote reading’ practices, what remains is his age. Irrespective of his background or nationality, Kasab deserves no sympathy of any sorts for his action but it is imperative for us to realise that even while his interrogation is going on, the next batch of youngsters are being trained for an even more disastrous series of attacks. And not for their beliefs but for their age, which is probably the biggest global take-home message in this attack.
How can a young man just out of adolescence, be guided and trained to senselessly and remorselessly kill hundreds of innocent people capable of no harm? And how is it that these youngsters are convinced that their brutal actions are for a greater good?
A popular assumption is that of the young mind who is influenced by his situational and social circumstances, say, for example, he witnesses the death of his loved ones, pointing him ultimately to the highway for his own treacherous actions years later. It is easy to seduce such a mind into the role of an ‘avenger’ and thereby be ensnared into the falsified and ‘pseudo heroic’ responsibility frame of obtaining justice.
But what about others like Kasab who come from no such trauma stricken background and whose association with crime was once upon a time supposedly only in the form of small time misdemeanours or petty street robberies?
Derision could have been one technique as was used among young Palestinian suicide bombers during the Palestinian-Israel conflicts. Not volunteering for a suicide bomb attack made the children an object of ridicule among their friends in the background of a falsified urgency for the need of martyrs for a cause. Of curse, martyrdom, in itself has become a cult.
Anne Speckhard, adjunct associate Professor of Psychiatry, Georgetown University Medical Centre and Professor of Psychology, Vesalius College, Free University of Brussels, writes:
From a very young age children are socialised into a group consciousness that honours "martyrs", including human bombers who have given their lives for the fight against what is perceived by Palestinians to be the unjust occupation of their lands. Young children are told stories of 'martyrs'. Many young people wear necklaces venerating particular 'martyrs', posters decorate the walls of towns and rock and music videos extolling the virtues of bombers. Despite the very deep and real grief of the family and friends left behind, the funerals of 'martyrs' are generally accompanied with much fanfare by community and terror organisations.
The famous’ Baby suicide bomber’ photograph of a young toddler in Hamas outfits that found its way in many an inbox shocked the world and many assumed it to be false. Yet people in Palestine claim this to be a norm and ever since many pictures have made it to the media, of young boys and girls toting around with guns and magazines.
Kasab apparently is a school drop out. The young children in Palestine would in all probability have not had a chance to be in one. So it would not be fair to point fingers at the lack of impact an educational system can make on these minds. Though the effect of education today is limited to only influencing a person’s thinking in the background of logic and reasoning, one is tempted to wonder on whether these children would ever have been targets to such acts had they been educated?
Another strong point for the psychological basis behind human aggressiveness and violent behaviour is that ‘When we feel bad we are more likely to act bad,’ (Berkowitz, 1993). The start of this behaviour need not necessarily be anger. Aversive situations regardless of whether they are frustration, depression or anger make violent actions more likely.
This would also probably bring out yet another situational factor where the child terrorists are taught it ‘fair’ to hurt the ones near and dear to the oppressors that the terrorists are fighting against. This thought is indirectly routed in the minds of these child terrorists as the provocation to justify and make the killing of innocents, a rewarding experience. Of course, if each of us were to look back at our own adolescent experiments and experiences, the realisation would dawn on us on the kind of imprints people left on our minds and the quality of the decisions that we took at that age. Evidently, one can grow terrorists without even trying.
Last year, The Telegraph ran a report on a Pakistan army claim to have overrun a camp in a territory where the notorious Pakistani Taliban commander, Baitullah Mehsud, operated. Militants had transformed a government-run school near the village of Spinkai in South Waziristan into what one officer described as a “nursery for preparing suicide bombers”.
In another location, military investigators found film footage on a DVD that they believed depicted children at the school being taught suicide training. The footage, which was shown to journalists, contained images of a masked teacher instructing rows of schoolchildren who wore white headbands inscribed with Quranic verses. The teacher pointed at the blackboard while an armed guard stood alongside and discussed what to carry in a suicide attack.
Major General Athar Abbas, the army’s chief spokesman, said that the school and a hospital had been taken over by militants “to prepare children for suicide attacks and for making IEDS [improvised explosive devices]”.
Despite human organisations like Amnesty International strongly condemning indoctrination of children for military, commando or suicidal operations, a serious effort in this regard would have lessened or done away with one of the cruelest forms of warfare.
In the interim, somewhere in this world, a packed room of children intently listen to a fanatical religious leader spew out inanities in the name of fighting a ‘holy war’ and’ martyrdom’, while their more decisive friends train outside in combat warfare, hell bent on laying their lives for the same absurd cause.
Packing my bags for a night flight to Mumbai, a cheap brochure on Asia’s largest laundry alley in Mumbai catch my attention sticking out at an odd angle from one of my rucksack’s many pockets. “Don’t forget the Dhobi Ghat. Not exactly on your way but you might learn something there,” sneers my roommate eyeing the piece of paper in my hand which she had rudely shoved in minutes before, as a not- so- subtle hint to my supposedly OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) ways.
A day later, I was to hear the name again. Squinting at the angry afternoon sunlight on Mahalaxmi Bridge in Mumbai, I was on the lookout for a young thirty something lady who was assigned by the Tourism Board to accompany me in my tour of the city. If you are a South Indian and on your first visit to India’s commercial capital, you would have arrived into the city with countless warnings about pick pocketeers, eve teasers and rapists echoing through your head. As I waited on the crowded bridge, thoughts flashed across my head and I almost yelped when I felt a small but sturdy poke on my back.
I turn just in time to hear a chirpy. “Manik Walame, Official Tourist Guide from India Tourism Board, at your service madam.” I grinned. It was not very often that you get to instantly like the guide you are assigned to on your travels. Most just nose through tour itineraries.
“Let’s just get out from this mad rush of people and bullocks Manik.I can barely hear myself think.”I shout to the 4’ lady who return my suggestion with a frown.
“But this is our first tourist spot-Dhobi Ghat,” she shouts back her eyebrows narrowed to strongly accompany her response.
“Dhobi what?” I think aloud the familiarity hitting me like a ton of bricks.
“The Dhobi Ghat is a unique feature of Mumbai city and one that has lately been of great interest among tourists from different parts of the world. Their literal translation meaning ‘Laundry Rows ‘, these portions of the city have been a part of Mumbai for over 120 years, the most famous of the lot being the one in….”
“Where the hell did you learn to speak like that, Manik?”
“….Saat Rasta near Mahalaxmi Station”
“Maha…station. Isn’t that nearby,” I shout amidst the din of the crowd as a train chugs into view.
“Its just behind you,” she replies in a mock weary tone.
“Wha…” I turn to look behind me and at what I thought all along was one of Mumbai’s slum pockets. What I actually now notice is a whole new scene of colour and noise with lines of pristine and well starched clothes and beneath them row upon row of concrete washpens, each fitted with its own flogging stone and on which bare chested men beat what look like long slings of clothes.
I remember with a shudder my own college days when laundry was an expensive option on our meagre pocket money and the cloth stone was the only way to cleaner clothes. Washing jeans or bed sheets were the worst of the tasks as the drenched clothes almost often threatened to take our puny bodies along with them at every sling.
“Come, let’s talk to one of them,” I grab my camera and run down the stairs and into the alley with Manik. Frenzied tourists are a common sight in any part of India as the culture and tradition often offers a heady thrill, so I did not stand out with my curious looks.
One would easily be forgiven to think that all the men who were thrashing the clothes were following some invisible rhythm as they took aim, raised the cloth and pounded at the stone, almost at the same time.
Shiva Kumar stood thrashing a bedsheet a bit away from the sudsy small troughs that ran in a criss cross fashion across the area. He stops for a minute to give us a ‘what-the-hell-are- you-staring-at’ look.
Manik walks along to him and warbles in Marathi at an amazing speed and his unfriendly stare is immediately replaced by a warm grin.
He looks at his fellow men proudly at work and then speaks to Manik in a combination of English and Marathi. I tiptoe over to them to get a few answers.
Manik translates, “He says the clothes are soaked in soapy water, thrashed on the flogging stones, then tossed into huge vats of boiling starch and hung out to dry. Next they are ironed and piled into neat bundles. Each dhobi marks a unique symbol or character on garments belonging to a particular household. This is marked in black indelible ink to prevent it from being washed off. Since the dhobi charges are much lower than dry cleaners, they are popular with most households.”
“And why are there only men?”I ask.
Manik puts the question across to Shiva who in reply puffs up his chest and answers in a deep baritone voice and I understand his reply even before the translation.
“It is a man’s job, “says Manik anyway.
My eyebrows narrow for a debate but decide against it noticing his bulging biceps and his throbbing veins as they expand and contract to keep pace with his cloth thrashing. I have always had a deep sense of respect for physical prowess.
“The British made this area for the washermen years ago to wash and starch their clothes and now the people of this area do the washing for the entire city. Today almost 200 dhobis and their families work together in what has always been a hereditary occupation” continues Manik.
Shiva puts a hand across his chest and beams again when he looks squarely at me and says, “We no study but no mistake till today,”
I return the beaming smile.
Quite weary of quintessential indianness being touted to delight the average European tourist, I would have left the continent’s largest laundry alley as just that but my first contact with the city taught me all I needed to know about Mumbai: Everybody survives here and in good measure.
