Category: Current Affairs

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Commentary Current Affairs

Khalil-Ur-Rehman, Crimes, Hypocrisy and Sadism in Pakistan

In July, 2024, a kidnapping made headlines across Pakistani media. According to the victim, the famous screenwriter Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar, he was lured at night to a place by a woman named ‘Aamna Urooj’ where his phone, cash and wallet were snatched from him. The snatchers then made Qamar transfer about Rs 250,000 to their account and blindfolded him, leaving him at an unknown location.

On paper, this appears to be a harrowing account of ‘honey trap’ kidnapping. However, a significant portion of the digital Pakistani audiences found it anything but serious. A few hours after the incident, the memes were already pooling in.

The memes were generally about the fact that Qamar had said he chose nighttime to be the right hour to go to the woman’s place because his physician told him he could not go out in the sun.

In more recent days, a video was also leaked in which Qamar can be seen being intimate with Aamna Urooj. Qamar says that he was held at gunpoint, to perform those acts. However, once again, the internet responded viciously to Qamar’s apparent plight.

In this brief analysis, I will attempt to reason how it could be that such an incident would receive widespread ridicule rather than condemnation.

Hypocrisy

It is public news that Khalil-ur-Rehman is apparently against ‘obscene’ acts of ‘intimacy’ among members of the opposite sex. He has publicly spoken out against co-education and also lambasted Aurat March for its bold posters.

However, inconsistencies between these beliefs and Qamar’s own actions are very obvious. For example, while being a critic of environments employing and/or providing education to both sexes, his own dramas feature both sexes. This is a very basic inconsistency that has yet to be explored meaningfully in any interview that the screenwriter has given.

Furthermore, there is a clear inconsistency in Qamar’s beliefs that women should be allowed to choose who they want for marriage, but are automatically invalidated if they engage in intimate actions.

This is seemingly even more incompatible with Qamar’s decision to visit Urooj at late night.

There are many auto-immune conditions that could be grounds for not going out in the sun. However, the sun sets before dusk. There is plenty of time to schedule the meeting at a much less suspicious time.

These apparent instances of inconsistencies are the main drivers of the memes online.

Seriousness of the Kidnapping

If one had only the memes and the online discourse as a source, what happened to Khalil-ur-Rehman appears comical.

Many detractors of the seriousness of this incident claim that Qamar got what he deserved.

However, here is a question:

Does a person with double standards deserve to be put through a potentially deadly crime?

According to Qamar, his valuables were snatched from him in a place where he was expecting to meet alone with a person. There was consent involved for Qamar to come to this place. To then be robbed and kidnapped vindicates Qamar of his supposed hypocrisy – simply because he was not forcing anyone here to do anything.

Moreover, firearms were also involved, which could have potentially escalated the incident into a more heinous crime.

Even if we consider the fact that no physical harm was done, Qamar was under gunpoint and blindfolded and driven off to an unknown place. This is disorienting and resembles a near-death experience. Victims of kidnapping can develop major psychiatric problems including major depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and Stockholm’s Syndrome.

All of these conditions are serious mental issues.

So, why would anyone joke about kidnapping?

Sadism in Pakistan

Sadism, in its essence, is finding pleasure in the misery of others.

Unfortunately, as can be seen in the online discourse of major figures in Pakistan, sadism has become common. Sadism can be found in people making jokes on cricketing star Haris Rauf’s reaction to a fan hassling him in public. Sadism can also be found in people trolling the death of former Prime Minister Nawaz Shareef’s mother and his own poor health.

I do understand that I would probably be very unfair in discounting the context for this trolling. After all, all of these figures have been involved in major upsets for the public of Pakistan.

However, making fun of one’s experience of being kidnapped is an act of sadism which has become too common. Even political commentators with clout, like Muzammil Shah can be seen making light of this violent crime.

But what is the problem with making fun of the kidnapping?

The problem lies in laughing at the victim. It normalizes a pathological behavior of deriving pleasure out of violence inflicted on others. This is indicative of psychopathic tendencies and to see how prevalent it is at the current moment should be cause for alarm.

Why?

It is a problem when we open up the risk of dehumanizing victims with genuine concerns. We open our mainstream discourse to ridicule others publicly.

We risk hurting those who have gone through traumatic experiences.

Even when we ridicule a certain public figure, this could change our attitude as a society towards crimes like kidnapping and robbery.

Conclusion

It is nigh impossible to stop the trolling culture in Pakistani digital spheres. This is because technology has been disseminated to every wrung of society. Almost everyone is on social media. Almost everyone has an opinion.

And many of these opinions are very egocentric.

Another equally impossible problem is of our own sadistic tendencies. No matter who the victim is, a violent crime is a violent crime. It has no legal justification – otherwise it would not be a crime.

Whatever Khalil-ur-Rehman’s beliefs are. However nonsensical and intellectually deficient they might be, it does not take away from the violent nature of the crime.

It is truly unfortunate that crime in Pakistan is now being justified based on the victim’s borderline benign beliefs.

Categories
Current Affairs Psychology in Pakistan

Tax Kum Karo: Analyzing the Relationship Between Income, Taxes and Mental Health in Pakistan

Written by Abdullah Qureshi

“If money is the bond binding me to human life, binding society to me, connecting me with nature and man, is not money the bond of all bonds? Can it not dissolve and bind all ties? Is it not, therefore, also the universal agent of separation?”

Karl Marx

Pakistan has entered its 5th unofficial year of economic turmoil. While the steep decline seems to have become lesser so, the decline still continues.

An Introduction to Pakistan’s Economic Woes

The National Accounts Committee (NAC) said that the average income per person went up a little from $1,551 in fiscal year 2023 to $1,680 in 2024. For reference, it was $1,766 in 2022 and $1,677 in fiscal year 2021.

On top of that, the Pakistani government is planning to raise direct taxes by 48% and secondary taxes by 35%.

This indicates an overall level of decline in the per capita income and a stark increase in taxes. To top it off, this decline is also in the midst of economic and political turmoil.

As a response to the proposed budget, many salaried people have resorted to protests. Banners are held high of #taxkumkaro (lower the taxes). These protests are still not as rage-filled as the table talk in Pakistani households.

What brews at the domestic and psychological level is far more debilitating than one can imagine.

These are the bare figures of the problem.

In this essay, I will attempt to assess how income and taxes impact mental health. I will also discuss what this means in the context of Pakistan.

Income and Mental Health

‘Tax Kum Karo’ is not just about taxes.

It is also about the shockingly low income of the salaried class that has to now pay additional taxes.

Low-income populations usually live under stressful situations. These chronic stressors ratchet up the risk of worsening mental health problems. Economic turmoil has long been linked to dissatisfaction with life. Poverty is associated with greater risk of common mental disorders (Adler et al., 2016).

According to the World Bank, 40% of Pakistanis are already living below the poverty line, with another 10 million hovering just above it.

This is a colossal figure. I argue here that it is far more pernicious than just a matter of sustenance.

It is a matter of psychological and philosophical devastation of an entire nation.

First, let us do a bit of groundwork and understand how the economy interacts with psychology.

How does Income Affect Mental Health?

Shields-Zeeman (2021) conducted a study on the linkage between income and mental health. They found that income is associated with reduced psychological distress and improved health.

So, combing this research with the fact that poverty exacerbates psychological issues, this presents us with an ugly cocktail.

How does Mental Health Affect Income?

A decline in mental health has a significant cost in the productivity of a country.

A decline in physical health also has a substantial cost on the economy.

In fact, Poverty is thought to lower people’s ‘cognitive bandwidth,’ which can change how they make decisions and lead to dangerous health behaviors (Schilbach et al., 2016). Knapp and Wong (2020) wrote an entire essay detailing where economics and mental health meet. They cited productivity costs and the cost of illness (COI) as coming through both direct and indirect means.

Moreover, Marcotte & Wilcox-Gök (2001) conclude that 5–6 million workers in the US between the ages of 16 and 54 lose their jobs, don’t look for work, or can’t find work every year because of mental illness. Researchers think that people with mental illness make between $3,500 and $6,000 less a year compared to those who don’t have mental illness.

However, this relationship is even more complex when both directions are considered.

The Complexity

A review by Shields-Zeeman and Smit (2022) found that increases in income were associated with a small improvement in mental health. However, a drop in income had a larger negative influence on psychological well-being.

These findings suggest that the effect of income loss is more detrimental to mental health than an increase in income is for improving mental health.

This has important implications for those living just above or below the poverty line.

Why?

Because a very short drop in income can present these people a substantial risk to income security and mental health.

In Pakistan’s context, these findings have serious implications. This is because a significant amount of people were pushed to a lower socioeconomic class in the last 5 years (Ali, 2022). In fact, many of these crises featured political turmoil and polarization.

Link to Suicide

Another crucial bit of information is that domestic and financial problems are the two most significant reasons for suicide (Naveed et al., 2023). This, in some ways, solidifies a link between financial problems and severe psychological issues.

In fact, it is even more illuminating as the political polarization effects family leadership (Rashid & Rashid, 2024). This in turn could cause many domestic issues. Thus, the economic crisis and the political polarization have both a direct and indirect effect on mental health in Pakistan.

Taxation and Mental Health

Rawls’ (1971/1999) theory of justice says that countries with more progressive taxation had higher ratings of well-being. Meanwhile, countries with less progressive taxation had more negative daily experiences.

This was corroborated by a study conducted by Oishi et al. (2012).

However, in Pakistan, the current taxation is not progressive. This is because, according to the proposed budget, the people who fall inside the ‘middle class’ are also slapped with very similar tax bracket of the more affluent class.

Moreover, many of the taxes actually target the classes which are underprivileged.

The Pakistani Finance Bill was recently changed to raise taxes on business dairy farms and fuel. Builders and investors’ earnings are also taxed at a rate of 10% to 12%. Besides that, there is now a 10% sales tax on office supplies such as notebooks, pencils, pens, ink, staplers, and more.

MNAs’ trip allowances, on the other hand, has gone up from Rs10/km to Rs25/km.

There are also some seemingly ‘soft’ attempts to recover money from those who d o not pay their taxes.

These policies can be seen as pernicious for the people who they do not benefit.

The problem is that the people who do not benefit from this are also the people who no longer possess financial stability.

Another very important finding indicated by Oishi et al. (2012) was that in low income countries, even progressive taxation does not improve well-being.

Trust

It is no secret, however, that these tax demands are not the government’s own policy.

Most of the tax demands arise from the International Monetary Fund’s camp.

The IMF’s key demands include an increase in the tax revenue target, withdrawal of subsidies, taxes on the agriculture sector, increase in levy and taxes on power, gas and oil sectors, privatisation of sick government organisations and units and improving administration, a ministry official was quoted as saying.

The problem here is that this reduces the utility of government action. Once the utility is lowered, so is the level of trust in the population.

Nations are built on philosophical principles. A nation-state that cannot protect its citizens fails to justify its utility.

This can have an even more grievous impact on the national perception of the government. Rothstein and Uslaner (2005) argue that the social trust of a government is in itself a different dimension.

If social trust is lower, many people in the population reject even the better policies. Thus, if the current party in power has any interest in continuing its service in this fragile democracy, their way of handling the economic crisis is failing.

Conclusion

It appears as if the government of Pakistan has yet to understand basic principles of building trust. This trust is not built by documentation on social media about the work trips of chief ministers. Rather, trust is built based on policies which positively affect the people. One could argue that higher taxation is the way to go.

However, when allowances of government officials are increased at the same time, one can question:

Who is the state protecting?

So far, the tentative budget favors the people who are privileged. It allows room for tax evaders. But unfortunately, it strangles those who are already living below reasonable means.

 But the protests of ‘tax kum karo’ rage on. One can only hope that at some point, the middle class could find a way into the power corridors of Pakistan. Perhaps, the people who are suffering the most deserve a chance at ruling.

References

  • Adler, N. E., Glymour, M. M., & Fielding, J. (2016). Addressing social determinants of health and health inequalities. Jama, 316(16), 1641-1642.
  • Knapp, M., & Wong, G. (2020). Economics and mental health: the current scenario. World Psychiatry, 19(1), 3-14.
  • Marcotte, D. E., & Wilcox-Gök, V. (2001). Estimating the employment and earnings costs of mental illness: recent developments in the United States. Social Science & Medicine, 53(1), 21-27.
  • Naveed, S., Tahir, S. M., Imran, N., Rafiq, B., Ayub, M., Haider, I. I., & Khan, M. M. (2023). Sociodemographic characteristics and patterns of suicide in Pakistan: an analysis of current trends. Community mental health journal, 59(6), 1064-1070
  • Oishi, Shigehiro & Schimmack, Ulrich & Diener, Ed. (2011). Progressive Taxation and the Subjective Well-Being of Nations. Psychological science. 23. 86-92. 10.1177/0956797611420882.
  • Rashid, Z., & Rashid, S. (2024). Political Instability Causes & Affects. Pakistan Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 12(1), 294-303.
  • Rawls, J. (1999). A theory of justice (Rev. ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Original work published 1971)
  • Rothstein, B., & Uslaner, E. M. (2005). All for All: Equality, Corruption, and Social Trust. World Politics, 58(1), 41–72. doi:10.1353/wp.2006.0022
  • Schilbach, F., Schofield, H., & Mullainathan, S. (2016). The psychological lives of the poor. American Economic Review, 106(5), 435-440.
  • Shields-Zeeman, L., Collin, D. F., Batra, A., & Hamad, R. (2021). How does income affect mental health and health behaviours? A quasi-experimental study of the earned income tax credit. Journal of epidemiology and community health, 75(10), 929–935. https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2020-214841
  • Shields-Zeeman, L., & Smit, F. (2022). The impact of income on mental health. The Lancet Public Health, 7(6), e486-e487.
Categories
Current Affairs

The Establishment: A Pakistani Archetype

Written by Abdullah Qureshi

“The power of a popular delusion lies in its ability to tap into the deepest fears, desires, and insecurities of a society, offering a false sense of security or hope in the face of uncertainty.”

Charles Mackay (1832)

Over the course of Pakistan’s history, many institutions have been critiqued. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto laid much of the blame on bureaucratic corruption. As soon as Bhutto took power, he fired 1,300 civil servants without a hearing. This is testament to his disdain for the CSP cadre (Ansari & Bajwa, 2019).

Then, the Shareef brothers have at multiple times put the blame on impartial judicial processes. More recently, Imran Khan (and much of the military presidents) blamed politicians for Pakistan’s dire economic straits.

Many of these critiques are fair.

However, there is one institution, universally lambasted since the beginning of this country.

The establishment.

The Evergreen Villain

The establishment is considered to be the ultimate boogieman. It is an organization which topples powerful governments, controls politics from the barracks and eats up all the resources. Politicians seem to fear the establishment. Those who seem to go against their plans are ousted from office on bogus charges. Worse, they are often exiled and some are killed.

Here are some questions for people who prop up this image of ‘the establishment’:

Do the cases against politicians hold merit?

If the person you oppose was charged with a similar crime, would it still be as unbelievable?

Do you believe the establishment should be neutral?

Has your ‘political favorite’ committed acts that undermine the security of your country?

Is the government machinery free of corruption, in general?

If you genuinely take the time to answer these questions you will realize one very important thing.

Human beings are biased. According to Lawrence Kohlberg (1963), a renowned developmental psychologist, humans start adhering to a moral view of the world, fairly early in their lives. By the early adolescence, they start developing the conventional morality. They subscribe to societal norms because they allow them to function. This social teaching predisposes us to have certain biases.

It is very easy to stay at the conventional stage. It is very easy to label things as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. In fact, doing so would allow you to stall cognitive dissonance for a long time.

Until, you are forced to encounter reality.

The reason why the ‘establishment’ is the villain, is because it is easy to consider them so.

If we accept that the establishment is to blame for everything, we allow ourselves freedom to not think.

Why would anyone want to think about their own sins? Sins that they can be held accountable for.

The Establishment vs the Innocents

Often in Pakistan, when someone talks about the establishment, they refer to the military. They think back to the 3 decades of military regimes in Pakistan’s history. There is no question that such breaks in democracy do make governance difficult.

However, is it not true that political actors have played a fair share in impulsive decision-making? Is it not true that counterproductive policies, like the creation of the Federal Security Force in the 1970s, did more harm than good?

A sitting prime minister decided to head to the streets because a new army chief was being instated. If this is the regular behavior of a prime minister, many political idiocies can be justified.

One also has to wonder whether prime ministers are afforded license to kill. If not, then how can anyone justify a Prime Minister’s orders to stop a plane in mid air, carrying the chief of the army?

While the prime minister is the top official, he is not allowed to have someone killed. Just letting you know, in case we have forgotten basic values at this point.

Philosophical Suicide of the Intellectuals

More educated and aware journalists and academics also talk about the role of the judiciary and/or the bureaucracy. However, in some ways, they commit philosophical suicide when they still use the word ‘the establishment’.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis argues that the language we speak determines our experience (Sapir, 1836). There is also the psychological concept of self-fulfilling prophecies. If you keep repeating to yourself that something will happen, that something eventually does happen.

‘The establishment’, has unfortunately become a part of our language. We have accepted the complete dominance of one institution. The establishment has been the boogieman for too long a time.

Reality Check

To find a solution to the political instability in Pakistan, it is important to break the archetype of the establishment. Are we sure that civilian governments have delivered what was required of them? Are we sure that the red tape in the bureaucracy is justified? Are we sure that the judiciary is impartial?

Statistics point towards one single answer: no.

In 2023, Transparency International Pakistan (TIP) conducted a National Corruption Perception Survey (NCPS). The results are very telling.

According to the National Corruption Perception Survey 2023, the police are still the most corrupt department (30%). Tendering and Contracting came in at number two (16%), and the judiciary came in at number three (13%).

None of these sectors consider themselves part of the establishment. 

Yet, they are infringing upon the boundaries of their professions which are specifically meant for justice.

Has the establishment pointed a gun to their heads and made them glutton down resources?

It Wasn’t Me, It Was Them!

The establishment is the altar where we wash our sins as a nation. It does not exist.

Political power does. The prime minister does, and so do the other two heads of the three arms of the state. Military influence on governance is undeniable. As undeniable as the forfeiture of responsibility demonstrated by officials involved in corruption.

By assigning the establishment the responsibility of corruption, poor governance, we allow many people to be free of accountability. For they too blame the establishment on one hand, and slacken their own responsibilities with the other. Sadly, the very beneficiaries of the status quo lambast those who they consider more powerful than them.

The Way Forward

Politicians and officials cannot remain within conventional morality. They might blame others for the debacles we are in, but they did choose to be in this position. Hence, we cannot blame the establishment.

We can only blame ourselves.

However, I am not optimistic about the people of Pakistan relinquishing their archetype of the establishment. As a practicing clinical psychologist, I believe we as people can improve. Warped beliefs are difficult to treat.

References

  • Ansari, S. H., & Bajwa, F. (2019). HIGHER BUREAUCRACY IN PAKISTAN: AN HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF PRAISE AND BLAME. ISSRA Papers, 11(I), 73-96
  • Kohlberg, L. (1963). Moral development and identification.
  • Mackay, C. (1932). Extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds. Noonday Press. 
  • Sapir, E. (1836). Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis.
Categories
Current Affairs

Psychosocial Analysis of Mob-Lynching in Pakistan

By Abdullah Qureshi

Recently, a 40 year old male tourist was lynched by a mob after allegations of blasphemy. According to reports, the hotel management had discovered a few burnt pages of the Quran from the victim’s room. Following this, the subject was detained by the police for investigation. During the ordeal, announcers of some mosques disclosed the information of where the subject was held. A mob gathered and demanded the police entry into the police station. When it was refused, the mob broke in, found the subject in the servants’ quarters and subsequently killed him.

Lynchings are regrettably becoming more common in Pakistan. In May (2024) a Christian man was lynched in Sargodha. The failure of the state to provide some protection to these victims is striking. However, I argue in this article that mob lynching is a product of many psychosocial issues.

Mob lynching has three major facets. The first is cognitive dissonance, wherein an event in the external world clashes with a personal, widely held belief (Festinger, 1962). Secondly, there is group action, unified by certain characteristics or beliefs. The third is use of violence, a product of aggression and the circumstances the group has or is in.

In the following sections, a social model of mob-lynching compiled by Baig and Ahmad (2020) would be used to understand this recent incident. I will look at this model through the psychosocial facets described earlier.

The Psycho-social Model of Mob-Lynching in Pakistan

Baig and Ahmed (2020) argue that there are 4 levels of analysis of mob-lynching. These are:

  • Individual
  • Process
  • Society
  • State

Individual Level

The tourist was lynched by human beings. They were of the locality of Madyan. They had human motifs. Plus, they lynched at an individual level. So, the first level of analysis has to be at the individual level. Baig and Ahmed (2020) discuss that human actions have two categories:

  • Reflective
  • Reflexive

Reflective Actions

The reflective actions are where the character knows ahead of time what he wants to achieve. It could be a means to an end (instrumental). Or it could be an end in itself (value).

Reflexive Actions

The acts that are reflexive do not involve the person thinking ahead of time. Emotional actions are rapid bursts of certain behaviors, like when someone is angry or excited. Another thing is that the character does some things automatically, without giving them much thought.

Psychological Aspect

Swat is inhabited by many people. Religious extremism, while found across the country, is more weaponized in some areas. Since Swat has been a focal point of major security issues, this weaponization is obvious.

Beliefs. When popular beliefs are challenged the result is often emotional distress in many individuals. Groupthink by the members of the mob allows the mob to be cohesive in beliefs.

Circumstances. The staff of the police station refused entry to the mob. However, the mob disregarded this refusal and forcefully entered the establishment. If the culture of the area is permissive of popular beliefs, this allows the group more moral freedom to act. At an individual level, the circumstances allow more autonomy to a mob rather than the actions to one single person.

Violence. After breaking in, the mob forcefully found out the accused blasphemer and murdered him. The community at large did not rally to punish this mob. So, it could be seen that the circumstances were favorable to lynching. Extreme actions thrive in communities with extreme beliefs.

The Process Level

Randal Collins (2012) broke down the process of a mob killing into 4 steps:

  • Find a weak target, preferably one who is emotionally controlled.
  • Aim for an audience that supports a small group of violent artists.
  • Stay far away so that weapons can be fired without having to face the enemy
  • A secret motif that acts like there is no conflict until the very end;

Psychological Aspect

Collins’ model, while insightful, cannot be perfectly mapped to the Madyan lynching. For example, there was no attempt by the mob to mask their intentions of violence. They broke in to the police station and lynched the person fairly quickly.  Thus, the process could be better understood using a psychological framework.

The beliefs of the group along with the precipitating incident dictate the possibility of violence. On the other hand, the circumstances – including the culture, strength of law enforcement and cohesion of a group – affect the intensity of the violence. So, the causal event, beliefs of the mob, and circumstances allow violence. As a result, both the possibility and intensity of the violence increase

The Society Level

Max Weber came to some very interesting conclusions about modernity (Weber 1979; as cited in Baig & Ahmed, 2020). Weber says that modernity is made up of three main currents: rationalization, disillusionment, and bureaucratization.
In effect, after detention, the police send justice problems to the courts, where they are settled based on “merit.”

Traditional justice, on the other hand, did not have fixed officials to understand and implement it. Most of the time, it happened quickly. When deciding what was fair, people usually looked at the masses of the time. In this way, it was a group effort based on agreement. In these kinds of structures, everyone felt like they had to take part in the process of sentencing and justice.

According to this view, the lynching at Madyan could be viewed as an expression of justice by a traditional society. A traditional society is not simply a conservative society. A traditional society is a pre-modern society that does not follow the rational and bureaucratic model of authority.

So, one could conclude that lynching occurs more when at a societal level, bureaucratic processes are not followed.

Psychological Aspect

The lynching of the 40 year old tourist could be facilitated by the societal traditions. Swat has a conservative culture and the valley is situated in an area which has a tribal history. Located in the province sharing a volatile border with Afghanistan, the place also has had security issues. Indeed, in an earlier historic account, Stein (1942) admitted that the area was deeply tribal.

Unfortunately, these security issues, along with poor socio-economic prowess mean that trust in the state is low.

So, one common assumption that could be inferred is that authorities are not trustworthy. This allows the tribal system of justice to override the legal system. I would argue that mobs gather to build the strength of force to challenge the legal system. The reason, I argue is the erosion of trust in the legal system.

The State Level

Thomas Hobbes (1985, quoted in Baig & Ahmed, 2020) says that the main reason people want peace is because they are afraid of dying. In order to stop this deadly possibility, people make states, which are a single power hub where people can’t use their own. The only valid group that can use violence against people is the state. That’s why Hobbes called the state “a monopolizer of violence in a territory.” This description is at the heart of modern nation-states, and it’s now a part of almost every meaning of politics (Weber, 1979).

Hobbes said that if a state doesn’t take control of violence, people’s lives will become “short, nasty, and brutish.” If there is no government, other people and groups will use violence for their own reasons, which will lead to a society where everyone works together.

Psychological Aspect

For the lynchers at Madyan, the ego ideal seems to be in clash with the state’s procedures. The ego ideal is a complex of ideals that one has (Rosenfeld, 1962). For example, one could say that personal responsibility is the ego-ideal that trumps ideal of state responsibility. It could also be the case that the mob’s ideals were specifically different in the area of religion.

Whatever the case might be, it appears that the ego-ideals of a mob are not in alignment with the state’s ideals. The mob wanted the accused to be dealt with regardless of the legal process. The state, on the other hand, desires to be held responsible for dealing with the accused.

This appears to be a major psychological conflict of the collective mob with the state.

Solving the Issue of Mob Lynching

Mob lynching is a tricky phenomenon. There are multiple people in a mob. Plus, this group of people has an aggressive stance. It is very easy to see examples of how even the writ of the state does not contain collective anger.

So, to deal with the issue of these mass demonstrations of violence, one has to tackle multiple levels. As offered by this essay, corrective action and awareness has to occur at all the levels of analyses:

  • The Individual Level
  • Process Level
  • Society Level
  • State level

I propose that the individual and process levels could be targeted through better engagement between the residents of the area, and the state. If this is done, the locals could trust the authorities more to conduct due process.

To target the society and state levels, opinion-makers could be addressed. They could be briefed about how to behave in a particular situation. The Imams of the mosques could be educated by like-minded religious scholars about due process. Furthermore, they would have to be assured that the state is there to help.

To target the state level is the job of the policy makers and implementers. This would involve maintaining a healthy socioeconomic status and literacy rate so that these incidents could be prevented from the get go.

Conclusion

What happened at Madyan was condemned by many people. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) took almost instantaneous notice of this tragedy. Furthermore, Pakistan Ulema Council (PUC) also condemned this attack. This shows that religious and human rights leaders in contact with the state oppose what has happened.

However, I argue that the issue is much deeper. If the socioeconomic and psychosocial conditions of various areas of Pakistan are not improved, distrust of the state will continue to prevail.

References

  • Baig, K. A. S. T., & Ahmad, M. A. (2020). Mob lynching in Pakistan: an integrated conceptual model. Pakistan Social Sciences Review, 4(1).
  • Collins, R. (2012). Entering and leaving the tunnel of violence: Micro-sociological dynamics of emotional entrainment in violent interactions. Current Sociology, 61(2) , pp.132–151.
  • Festinger, L. (1962). Cognitive dissonance. Scientific American, 207(4), 93-106.
  • Hobbes, T. (1985.) Leviathan, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books
  • Stein, A. (1942). From Swat to the Gorges of the Indus. The Geographical Journal, 100(2), 49-56.
  • Rosenfeld, H. (1962). The superego and the ego-ideal. The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 43, 258.
  • Weber, M. (1978). Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. London: Univeresity of California Press.