Hate speeches have a bearing on acts of terror

A US study on the ‘Psychology of terrorism’ revealed that terrorists appeared to be relatively normal individuals who indulged in terrorism due to provocation triggered by certain factors which they considered worth challenging in a way they thought appropriate, not necessarily because of their religious belief.

VITAL: Mitigate hate speech victims’ loss through advocacy and access to justice. PTI

Vappala Balachandran

Ex-Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat

ON July 1, a senior RSS functionary disagreed with the Supreme Court’s June 30 observation that Nupur Sharma was “single-handedly responsible for what is happening in the country”. Referring to the brutal murder of Udaipur-based tailor Kanhaiya Lal Teli, the functionary said “this Taliban incident is not a reaction to some provocation” but because of a “mindset and a belief system”.

Would the leader say the same thing about a Talibanic/Islamic State (IS)-style murder of a 48-year-old minority community labourer in 2017 in the same state? On December 8, 2017, at Rajsamand in Rajasthan, one Shambu Lal Regar hacked a migrant worker to death and burnt his body. It was later revealed that the victim, an unskilled labourer and father of three girls, was living in Rajasthan for the past 12 years. He had planned to return to West Bengal to organise the wedding of one of his daughters.

Like the dreaded Islamic State, Regar made a ghoulish video of the brutal murder with the help of his minor nephew and uploaded it on social media where he was seen accusing the victim of indulging in “love jihad” while the labourer was “begging for his life”.

Media also said that Regar circulated two more videos with hate speeches from the Jodhpur Central Jail, asking “Hindus to unite against jihadis”. Could anybody say that this murder was also because of any “belief system”?

As a student of terrorism for 46 years, I can say that there is empirical evidence that hate speeches have a direct bearing on acts of terrorism. In 2006, US journalist James Kitfield published an article titled “Al-Qaeda’s Pandemic” in the National Journal quoting Mario Mancuso, a senior Pentagon official, saying: “Global insurgency reacts to Osama bin Laden’s radical ideology almost like distant and seemingly disconnected light particles respond in unison to an unseen wave.” Later, most of the terrorist incidents took place with Laden’s hate speeches as “triggers”.

How did Osama bin Laden transform himself from a school lad, wearing English-style prep school uniform at the “relatively secular Al Thager” — the most prestigious school in Jeddah with foreign teachers — and morph into a “terrorist preacher”, as described by Steve Coll, who had catalogued his destructive activities all over the world? Research into terrorism has revealed that terrorists are not insane or irrational people with symptoms of psychopathology.

In 2004, the University of South Florida commissioned a mammoth study on the “Psychology of terrorism” engaging nine experts from various disciplines from different countries. They based their conclusions on a huge data base, including books, research papers and FBI findings, which ran into 324 items. The result culled out by them revealed that there was no common personality profile that characterises most terrorists.

Rather, terrorists appeared to be relatively normal individuals who indulged in terrorism due to provocation triggered by certain factors which they considered worth challenging in a way they thought appropriate, not necessarily because of their religious belief.

An interesting theory which emerged was that terrorism was a form of “political communication”, not necessarily to capture power. This was found true of several cases of terrorism later. Even the chief Egyptian 9/11 terrorist, Mohammad Atta, who studied at Hamburg University of Technology, had started his transformation into a terrorist by first showing dislike of western-style high-rise buildings in Cairo. He wanted traditional Arab-style buildings.

Two more cases could be quoted where the Al-Qaeda did not recruit them. They offered themselves to do a “Do it yourself” pattern to convey a “message”. It had nothing to do with their religion or belief.

On Christmas Eve in December 2009, 23-year-old Nigerian boy Umar Abdul Mutallab attempted to ignite an “Underwear Bomb” on a Northwest 253 flight, flying from Amsterdam to Detroit. His father was a very rich Nigerian banker. Umar had studied in the prestigious University College, London. He gravitated into violence, influenced by Anwar al-Awlaki, a hate preacher, as a protest against the US war on terrorism.

Similarly, Faizal Shahzad, a naturalised US citizen of Pakistani origin, attempted to plant a bomb at the Times Square, New York, on May 1, 2010. Faizal is the son of Air Vice-Marshal Baharul Haq (retd). Sources in Pakistan denied any extremist links with Faisal or his family. On October 9, 2010, The Guardian (UK) said that Faizal was very resentful of the continued US bombing of Pakistan’s tribal areas which had killed 411 people in Waziristan in 2009 through 47 drone attacks.

Detailed studies even on Islamic State violence have revealed that it is their attractive propaganda rather than religion which was the basis of their easy recruitment. In 2020, the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE) published their debriefing done on 220 IS “returnees”, defectors, and prisoners in different countries in the Journal of Strategic Security. This study of 41 ethnic groups between 2015 and 2019 indicated that the motives for joining the IS were high levels of unemployment at home, previous criminality, substance abuse, disturbed family conditions, parental neglect, discrimination and neglect of migrants in the western society. All such persons fell for the Islamic State’s insidious propaganda.

It is because of this that the UN had formulated a strategy and plan of action on “Hate” speech in May 2019. The Secretary-General had said that the world was seeing a “groundswell of xenophobia, racism and intolerance — including rising anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim hatred and persecution of Christians.” The paper said international law prohibited incitement to discrimination, hostility and violence. Also, hate speech is a very dangerous form of speech because it explicitly and deliberately “aims at triggering discrimination, hostility and violence, which may also lead to or include terrorism or atrocity crimes.”

The UN action plan involves 13 points on which the UN and member states are advised to act. This includes mitigating the impact of hate speech through advocacy and access to justice for the victims. In this respect, a thought arises: Why was the Delhi Police hesitating to take action against Sharma’s hate speech even after the government had disowned it?

Views are personal