Mind of a terrorist
- Kavya Kamdar
- Dec 21, 2024
- 3 min read
The month of November highlights a lot of events. But the one event that strikes out the most to every Indian is the 26/11 terror attacks. These attacks had happened in Mumbai, the finance capital of India, in the year 2008. I was then merely a 4 year old kid. Much later I realised how gruesome these attacks were. This one question haunts me : What goes into the mind of a terrorist? How can one human being commit such acts against another human being?
First diving into the events that took place on 26th of November, 2008. A group of 10 armed militants from the Pakistan based terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba entered Mumbai via the sea route. It all started with a cab blast. This was meant to divert the attention of the police forces. Then they split into groups and started the attacks on Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, Leopold Cafe in Colaba, Oberoi Trident Hotel, CST Railway Station. They had held hostages in the two luxurious hotels, Taj and Oberoi for 3 days. Around 174 people were killed and more than 300 people were injured. Out of the 10 militants, 9 of them were killed in encounters and one of them, Ajmal Kasab was captured and hanged to death in 2012.
Now to answer the question : What goes into the mind of a terrorist? Every behaviour is driven by motivation. And what drives motivation can be explained with the help of drive theory, deviations from homeostasis create tensions or needs and to satisfy these unmet needs, people resort to a certain behaviour. For a terrorist these unmet needs are psychological drives such as a sense of belonging, recognition or purpose and revenge or justice. Feeling of isolation or marginalization creates a strong need to find a sense of belonging. Being a part of a terrorist group provides a community with shared goals. Engaging in terrorism may satisfy the drive to feel powerful and impactful. Perceived injustice and grievances - political, religious or personal- can create a powerful drive to engage in terrorist activities.
Apart from motivation we have emotions too which have a huge impact on the mind and behaviour. Extremist groups exploit fear by amplifying perceptions of danger, portraying the enemy as the threat. They also try to incorporate the feeling of hatred among militants by dehumanising the enemy thus making violence against them a justified cause.This is called selective empathy, by exhibiting the strong empathy for in-group but dehumanizing the out-group Terrorists reconcile their actions with their conscience by believing they are serving a high moral purpose. We see here that motivation and emotion both play an overlapping role in the mind- behaviour connection.
Ajmal Kasab’s confession is one of the many proofs justifying the terrorist nature through motivation and emotion theories. “Izzat bohot milta hai, gareebi dur ho jati hai (you earn a lot of respect and you don’t have to face poverty anymore if you do this work)”, Ajmal Kasab confessed this in his interview.
These were the promises given to him. The extremist group leaders tried to persuade him to take up terrorism as a resort to fill the psychological need of earning respect, achieving basic physiological needs such as food and proper shelter. They propagated the idea ‘kill before you get killed’. It is very important to nurture the minds of children in the right direction from childhood. In the case of Kasab his own father got his son into this organisation without knowing the consequences. No one is born a terrorist but falling prey to mind games is where the problem starts.
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