Repression, rights and liberty: What's common between Jihadi John and LeT's Talib Ahmad?

What’s common between ‘Jihadi John’ (or Mohammed Emwazi) of the Islamic State(IS) and Talib Ahmad – a Lashkar-e-Taiba militant – killed in an encounter with forces at Pulwama, Kashmir yesterday? Mohammed Emwazi – a Kuwaiti born British – citizen acquired notoriety after it was believed that he was the executioner of Westerners held hostage by the IS. Emwazi is in the news again for allegedly having deserted the IS, fearing for his own life. Talib, the Kashmiri militant was a post graduate – lower middle class family who had joined militant ranks since a year or so. Despite being worlds apart, Emwazi’s and Talib’s worlds and life trajectories intersect; there are commonalities. This may seem like an outlandish statement but probe a little, the similarities emerge.[caption id=“attachment_2384412” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Jihadi John. Image courtesy ibnlive.com[/caption] According to The Guardian newspaper, which profiled Emwazi, the young man had been a shy, introverted teen, awkward and gangly, who was bullied and had anger issues. Defined by a typical teenage angst, and insalubrious experiences at school, Emwazi, sought solace, belonging and a sense of identity elsewhere. This brought him into the notice of British intelligence agencies, especially the MI5. The MI5 stalked Emwazi and probably made life difficult for him. (In the West, given that the framework of the rule of law and its implementation is vigorous, intelligence agencies, or even the police, can follow the law in letter but abrogate it in spirit. Psychological techniques can be employed that make a suspect’s life difficult or even paranoid but given there’s no ‘hard proof’ or evidence of this psychological approach, a suspect has no real recourse to legal remedy. This is made all the more poignant if the suspect is an immigrant or has an immigrant back ground). This is what may have happened to Emwazi. Apparently, the man had stated he was stalked by the MI5 and that they were watching every move of his so much so that the man that Emwazi had sold his laptop to was believed by Emwazi to be an MI5 agent. Now consider Talib Ahmad – the slain LeT militant from Kashmir. Talib’s mother has claimed that the young man had participated vigorously in the 2010 protests that engulfed Kashmir. This brought him to the notice of the police . The police then, according to Talib’s mother, made life difficult for him so much so that the young man picked up the gun and died in an encounter yesterday. In both cases, the suspects were in the crosshairs of the state and ‘state harassment’ of both made the men seek what they may have believed to be revenge; the ideology of Jihad then provided and accorded the necessary justifications and rationales to read just their mental and emotional frameworks. Lo and Presto, a killing machine was created in the instance of Emrazy and a militant in the case of Talib. The aim and the premise here is not to indict the state and hold it entirely responsible for the trajectory of these two men. It is in the nature of a cautionary tale as to what happens when the state and its security agencies become overzealous. Security is one feature of the state but the question, is it security for the state or people constituting the state? Prudence suggests that it should be both with primacy accorded to security of the people. But this begets another question: what is the state to do when presented with ‘potential threats’ to either the state or citizens? This is a difficult question to answer. However, what can be stated with certitude is that repressive measures – be it the subtle or in your face variety – may be a non-starter and even counterproductive as the cases of Emwazy and Talib demonstrate. From a broader and larger perspective, the most prudent approach may be to balance the demands of security and liberty. This means ensuring security while at the same time not infringing on the liberty of the people. I know this is a vague prescription and is difficult to establish and maintain in practice. But what is the alternative? A Kafkaesque approach merely makes young suspects cross boundaries and morph from ‘potential threats’ to actual threats. Last but not the least, settling conflicts in a prudent manner would also help. The intelligence community and the police, in either Western or other contexts, need to and must have a sense of proportion and a healthy respect for the law and liberty of people. This approach may, in the long term, be more prudent than singling out and then making suspects’ lives difficult to breaking point.