saap ko palogey to tumhey hi kaatega

Came across this article on nytimes.com:


Frustrated Strivers in Pakistan Turn to Jihad

The article describes a very well established scenario, describing why and how, certain youth from Pakistan's lower-middle class adopt such a violent way of life.

Coming back to the subject, from the article:

"Like Mr. Kundi, many came of age in the 1990s, when jihad was state policy — aimed at challenging Indian control in Kashmir — and jihadi groups recruited openly in universities. Under the influence of Al Qaeda, their energies have been redirected and turned inward, against Pakistan’s own government and people.

That shift has fractured long-established militant networks, which were once supported by the state, producing a patchwork of new associations that are fluid and defy easy categorization."

It is crystal-clear from above, that it was their State's policy, to an extent that it was made a part of teaching in schools, all in order to instigate violence against India on the pretext of the Kashmir issue. And now the policy has backfired and its working against the same State, and they are clueless. Once long-established militant network has fractured and given rise to fluid individuals: who are easily swayed by a certain oppression - in this case, the failure to succeed in this world, even after putting in tireless efforts.

I couldn't come up with an idiom in English that would mean the same. But its close to this one: "as you sow, you shall reap." This is referring to the topic.

Quotes from the Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

"Moreover among the many rules that govern the bazaars of Lahore is this: if a woman is harassed by a man, she has the right to appeal to the brotherly instinct of the mob, and the mob is known to beat men who annoy their sisters."

"Indeed, in our poetry and folk songs intoxication occupies a recurring role as a facilitator of love and spiritual enlightment."

"Its remarkable, I must say, how being in Pakistan heightens one sensitivity to the sight of a woman's body. It's the effect of scarcity: one's rules of propriety makes one 'thirst' for the improper."

"Its like I'm an oyster. I've had this sharp speck inside me for a long time and, I've been trying to make it more comfortable. So slowly, I've turned it into a pearl."

"Lahore was the last major city in a contiguous swath of Muslim lands stretching as far west as Morocco and had therefore that quality of understated bravado characterstic of frontier towns."