The Talk
At this Manthan Dr C Christine Fair gave an insight of her study on Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT, also known as Jamaat ud Dawa among other aliases) is the most competent, lethal and loyal proxy of the Pakistani state. LeT operates in India, Afghanistan and elsewhere in South Asia and beyond.
This presentation draws from a narrative analysis of a ten percent random sample of nearly 1,000 biographies of slain LeT fighters as a part of a larger study into the battlefield motivation of the fighters. These documents reveal a dark role of the families who derive various forms of social capital from male family member’s participation in so-called “jihad.”
Families draw maximum social capital when these young men die in combat and attain the coveted title of “shaheed.” Whereas previous studies of terrorist motivation have downplayed or even disregarded the roles of family, my work in Pakistan over nearly fifteen years continually points to the deep significance that families play in a young man’s decision to fight in Pakistani terrorist organizations.