The Myth of Silent Majority And A Suffering Pakistan

For Pakistan watchers, last month presented a perplexing contrast. A poll showed that a majority of the country’s youth prefers Sharia and Military over democracy and secularism. This, when Pakistan saw first successful completion of the term of democratically elected government in its history, and might see a peaceful transition as well next month.

If the poll is true, some questions arise. What do we mean when we say that in Pakistan a silent majority is essentially secular, progressive, and opposed to any form of extremism? Where does that silent majority reside? Why did it not make itself heard in an understandably anonymous poll? And if at all, how acquiescing is it? A just released study throws some light on these questions, and coupled with the opinion poll, provides depressing results particularly for the Pakistan optimists in our country.

Carried by five US and Pak based researchers, the study is a profile of over 900 Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militants.* Marshalling local resources it draws a picture of each militant’s social background, education, families, and region they came from. In doing so it gives a sketch of Pakistani society that answers the questions on silent majority.

Before I connect the dots some quick facts as they emerge from the study:

1. Mean age at the time of entry for a LeT militant is 16.95 years. At the time of death it is 21. Thus average life span of a terrorist’s activity is about 5 years.
2. Of every 100 LeT militants recruited, 40 come through family and friends, only 17 through Mosques and Madrassas, and a mere 12 through LeT’s direct propaganda.
3. A majority of militants have longer duration spent on secular education than religious education.
4. Over 90 per cent of LeT militants come from Pak Punjab and from the same set of districts that supply the bulk of Pakistan Army.

Now, what picture emerges in your mind? One, that families (and friends) are directly connected with a youth’s diversion to LeT. Two, that the same social network supplies human resources to both LeT and Army. And three, that lack of education is not driving young men to gun.

In fact as the study shows the average secular education of a militant is matriculation against less than three years spent on religious courses. This is more than the average literacy levels of a normal Pakistani male, meaning some of the most educated Pakistanis are turning extremists. And to be fair, if not all religious education amounts to indoctrination, it becomes clear that source of rabidity is not mosque and madrassa but some other element in Pak society.

The motivation to become a militant is not financial either, for, upto 20 per cent militants had a skills set that could sustain a respectable livelihood for them. It is moral. The review of biographies reveals that many recruits had to lobby to get deployed to a theatre of war despite training which indicates that supply is more than demand. Such is the state of affairs that the LeT trains far more people than it will ever deploy on any fighting missions in India and other theatres of war. What happens of them? Obviously, they melt into the Pakistani society and carry on spreading their mindset.

That’s where the answer to my poser on silent majority comes in. If we agree with the findings of this study then, coupled with the opinion poll’s results, we have to come to the conclusion that a suffering silent majority is a figment and that a majority of Pakistan’s society is in fact playing an acquiescing role in militant Islamism.

In my last post I wrote of how officers of a secular institution like the Election Commission of Pakistan are carrying out a patently sectarian interview of candidates before accepting their nominations for the National Assembly polls under law. That is why perhaps the opinion poll reflected true mood of the nation’s youth, and conclusively busts the myth of a suffering Pakistan equally affected by terror.

* Titled ‘Fighters of LeT: Recruitment, Training, Deployment, and Death’ the study was carried at the Combating Terrorism Centre, West Point, and funded by the US Department of Defence. Authors are Arif Jamal, Nadia Shoeb, Anirban Ghosh, C. Christine Fair, and Don Rassler.