Address at the Indo-us Workshop on S&t to Counter Terrorism

Terrorism and its multi-dimensions Can we nearly eliminate terrorism?

I am indeed delighted to participate in the Indo-US workshop on "Science and Technology to counter terrorism" organized by the National Institute of Advanced Studies and the US National Academy of Sciences. I greet the organizers, delegates and distinguished dignitaries participating in this workshop. Terrorism has been a phenomena faced by a number of countries in the world. We have to find a solution. But, we require an everlasting solution to eradicate this problem for achieving the objective of global peace and prosperity. Hence I have chosen the theme of my talk as "Terrorism and its multi-dimensions". I will also discuss with you, can we nearly eliminate terrorism from our planet?

Causes of terrorism

Terrorism results from various factors like differences in ideologies, religious fanaticism, discrimination, unemployment among educated youth, poverty in the society and enmity between organizations and nations. Among the population of any nation, behaviour of a small percentage of people makes the society some times unstable. Population studies indicate three abnormal types of behavioral phenomena among human beings. These are Psychopathic, Hyper aroused and Intelligent but suggestible. Certain percentage among the entire population could be psychopathic who do not have any anxiety and they are moral moron. These personalities initially start breaking the social rules and goals, later they become criminals and finally take to terrorism. They have a death instinct inbuilt in them. They need minimum provocation. Hyper aroused personalities constitute another small percentage of the population. They are generally guided by their emotions rather than the intellect. They can easily get aroused through simple frustration and could resort to terrorism if he or she has been triggered by divisive forces. Intelligent but suggestible personalities are prevalent more in collectivistic societies and they tend to follow a leader who makes the destructive suggestions at times.

Psycho-social model of alienation

How a person is initiated towards the tendencies of the terrorism? I discussed with a friend of mine who is a famous psychologist. He gave me a long lecture. I have taken a few points for our discussion. Constant deprivation among these personalities leads to frustration, frustration on provocation leads to alienation. Alienation can manifest itself in two forms - passivism and activism. Activism can manifest itself in constructive or destructive modes. Constructive mode leads to development; destructive mode leads to terrorism, violence and aggression. We need to collectively address these sources of disturbance for global peace..

Routes to terrorism

There are four routes to terrorism.

(1) Within the country

(2) Cross border terrorism

(3) International terrorism

(4) Combination of all the three.

Terrorism within the country arises out of political differences leading to taking vengeance by individuals, leaders and followers. It also results out of large societal gaps between groups and caste, religion and region based differentiation. The cross border terrorism generally arises out of defeats in conventional war and religious fanaticism. International terrorism arises out of the large wealth and wealth generation capability gap between countries and poverty level coupled with religious fanaticism. Sometimes, due to parental vow this type of terrorism can lead to war. In addition, terrorism arises out of the combination of all these phenomena in some parts of the world. Now, let me discuss on the subject of this Indo-US workshop.

Technologies against terrorism

In view of the developments in nuclear, biological and chemical warfare agents and possible access to these technologies to the terrorists a new threat scenario emerges at global level. The science and technology research and development endeavours need to strive to achieve an edge over these operations in terms of intelligence gathering, surveillance, protection and intervention. Some of these technologies may include satellite based surveillance, sensor technology for NBC threat assessment, personal protective ensembles, collective protection shelters, technologies for disaster management, signal and communication intelligence, technologies to counter information warfare, cryptography and security algorithms, cyber security, design and establishment of vital installations with survivable systems, and non-lethal weapons. We may need to develop sophisticated technologies for interrogation of terrorists and to access, analyze and unearth the network and overall strategies behind the scene. Both India and USA can work together to bring synergy in these endeavours among the scientists and technologists and evolve specific programmes. I am sure you are working together on this subject.

Terrorism and Societies

I would like to make a statement for this Workshop to deliberate. The so called 'terrorism' starts in developing countries. The war is waged against terrorism by the developed world in partnership with developing countries. There are many possibilities in this context. The developed world ensures that there is adequate economic security with minimum unemployment problem. However, there is certain violence in society, particularly children related due to intensive media capturing the young minds.

Developing nation is more susceptible to the problem of terrorism in view of the dynamics of the society with increased population, unemployment among the youth, uneven economic growth and ethnic disparities. Hence, the solution has to be multi-dimensional with short term and long term measures.

Divisive forces use terrorism as a tool in the name of ethnic groupism, religious fundamentalism and sometimes political ambitions as a rationale for terrorism leading to conflicts among the nations. People are used as tools in the low intensity conflicts. Within the next two decades, with the depletion of natural resources we will encounter a totally new situation of acute shortage of water, energy and minerals. No single nation will be able to handle the situation by itself. Humanity will require mega missions for harnessing solar energy, drinking water from sea water through desalination process and bringing minerals from other planets. In such a situation, the present reasons for conflict will become insignificant and unwarranted, when the development efforts are of high magnitude.

Multi-dimensional solution

Since the problem of terrorism has a multi factorial genesis, the solution has to be comprehensive and multi-dimensional one. We need a world organization to establish a society free from terrorism. This forum need to emphasize three areas, which are interconnected to each other. They are, education with value system, transforming religion into spiritual force and economic development.

1. Education with value system

The best part for a person is his or her childhood and the learning period in school. The prime learning environment is five to sixteen years' of age. Of course, at home, love and affection are imparted. But again most of the time in a day is spent in preparing school's homework and study, eat, play and sleep. Hence the school hours for children are the best time for learning and need the best of environment and mission oriented learning with value system. During this stage, they need value based education in school and at home for them to become good citizens. This reminds me the echo from Bestolozzy, a great teacher's saying, "give me a child for seven years. Afterwards, let the God or devil take the child. They cannot change the child." For parents and teachers, school campus and home have to have an integrated mission, that is education with value system. They must inculcate moral leadership amongst children which involves two aspects. First it requires the ability to have compelling and powerful dreams or visions of human betterment. A state of things in which human beings could be better off in the future than they are now. Secondly, moral leadership requires a disposition to do the right thing and influence others also to do the right thing. If the child misses the value based education in the school, no government or society can establish a transparent society or a society with integrity.

2. Religion Transforming Into Spirituality: Universal Mind

I would like to recall an incident which happened four decades ago. As you all know, Prof Vikram Sarabhai is the visionary of space programme in the country. He is well known for his cosmic ray research area that led to evolving the space research programme for the nation. Both Dr Homi Bhabha and Prof Vikram Sarabhai were looking for a site to establish space research station in the equatorial region. These two great scientists visited a number of places. Thumba in Kerala was selected by the scientific community for space research as it was near the equatorial region and was ideally suited for ionospheric research in upper atmosphere apart from study of atmospheric structure. When Prof Vikram Sarabhai visited Thumba, the locality had series of villages and thousands of fishermen folk were living in that area. It also had a beautiful ancient church, St Mary Magdalene Church, Pallithura and a Bishop's House. Prof Vikram Sarabhai met many politicians and bureaucrats to get the place for the work of space science research. It did not move further because the nature of the place. He was asked to see the Bishop of Trivandrum, at that time in 1962, His Excellency Rct Rev Dr Peter Bernard Pereira. It was a Saturday when Prof Vikram Sarabhai met the Bishop. The Bishop smiled and asked him to meet him the next day, ie Sunday. In the morning Service, the Bishop told the congregation, "my children, I have a famous scientist with me who wants our church and the place I live for the work of space science research. Dear children, science seeks truth by reasoning. In one way, science and spiritualism seek the same divine blessings for doing good for the people. My children, can we give the God's abode for a scientific mission?" There was a chorus of 'Amen' from the congregation and the whole church reverberated. Subsequently, the big event took place in 1962. His Excellency Rct Rev Dr Peter Bernard Pereira, the Bishop of Trivandrum, took the noble decision to dedicate the church in recognition of the national goal for the establishment of the Indian Space Research Organisation at Pallithura, Thumba. That was the church where we had our design centre, started rocket assembly, design of filament winding machine for FRP product and the Bishop's house was our scientists' place. Later, the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) led to the establishment of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) and multiple space centres throughout the country.

When I think of this event, I can see how enlightened spiritual and scientific leaders, all converge towards giving reverence to the human life. New church and new schools were established in record time. Of course the birth of TERLS and then VSSC gave the country the capability of design, development and produce world class huge rocket system and subsequently, India has the capability of launching geo-synchronous, sun-synchronous and meteorology spacecraft, communication satellite, remote sensing satellite thereby provided fast communication, weather forecasting and also locate water resources for the country. Today, among us, Prof Vikram Sarabhai is not there, Rev Dr Peter Bernard Pereira is not there, but those who are responsible for creation and make the flower and blossom will themselves be a different kind of a flower as described in the Bhagwat Gita: "See the flower, how generously it distributes perfume and honey. It gives to all, gives freely of its love. When its work is done, it falls away quietly. Try to be like the flower, unassuming despite all its qualities". What a beautiful message for all generation of this nation, on integration of minds and universal mind.

3. Economic development : Transforming India into a developed nation

We have a population of over one billion people of which 260 million are still living below the poverty line. They need education, they need habitat, they need health care, and creation of employment potential. To meet their needs we have the second vision of transforming India into a developed nation by the year 2020. We have identified five areas where India has a core competence for integrated action: (1) Agriculture and food processing (2) Reliable and quality electric power and surface transport for all parts of the country. (3) Education and Healthcare (4) Information and Communication Technology (5) Strategic sectors. These five areas are closely inter-related and if well done would lead to national, food, economic and security. A strong partnership among the R&D, academy, industry and the community as a whole with the Government departments will be essential to accomplish the vision for a developed India. Indian GDP is growing at an average rate of 5% p.a. whereas the economists suggest that to remove the poverty of 260 million people we have to grow at the rate of 10% p.a. consistently for over a decade.

Integrated Mission

As you are aware a task team has been formed for one of the largest projects of the country for the feasibility study of interlinking of rivers to combat flood and drought. This will be the largest project of the nation. Also, we have a road map for implementing 5000 PURAs (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas) out of 25,000 PURA Complexes. Orissa will have the unique honour of having the first fully government initiated PURA. This has kindled many private agencies and NGOs to direct their efforts towards creating more PURAs which are economically viable and technologically sustainable. The official 10th plan document released recently aims at 8% GDP growth in the plan period.

Economic Connectivity for PURA

Providing Urban facilities in Rural Areas (PURA) consisting of four connectivities: physical, electronic, knowledge and thereby leading to economic connectivity to enhance the prosperity of clusters of villages in the rural areas. The economic connectivity will generate a market and the production establishments for servicing the market. The PURA has all the dimensions to become a business enterprise. The PURA entrepreneur has to have the skill for evolving a business plan with banks and also create infrastructural support such as educational institutions, health centres and small scale industries, transportation services, tele-education, tele-medicine, e-governance services in the region integrating with the governmental rural development schemes such as road, communication and transport.

Employment generation

Even a compulsory short military training scheme could be introduced wherein all able bodied youth can lead a regimental life for the period of 3 years. The first year could be devoted to inculcate discipline and physical/personality development. The second year could focus on vocational and entrepreneurship training. The third year the trained and ignited youth could be deployed for the national development programmes such as interlinking of rivers, PURA, Power mission, water mission, second green revolution, infrastructural development and critical technology areas. After this, organized training the youth may be provided with necessary financial support from the banks to put into practice the training which has been imparted by creating enterprises which can generate employment for many.

Conclusion

I am happy to note that the two large democracies in the world have come together to synergise their effort towards countering global terrorism leading to global peace. One of the strong reasons for terrorism is economic disparity. Hence, I consider that the developed countries have a major role to play in assisting the developing countries to transform themselves into a developed nation in a speedy manner. Towards this end, they should be empowered with technological, financial and social support. This will be probably the long term solution for eliminate the terrorism in this planet within the next two decades. In our national context, the vision of developed India by 2020, will lead to the eradication of poverty, illiteracy, unemployment and provide opportunities for self actualization. This will be the greatest contribution for promoting a peaceful, prosperous and safe world.