How does a Nation fight the Enemy Within, and is it essential to know the specific identities of the Enemy Within, or is it enough to understand the strategies of the Enemy Within and take steps to counter those Nation destroying strategies?
I’ve seen the world, as is often said about seafarers, from the a—h— upwards. With our eyes open and mouths shut. This is based on that experience, as well as the simple fact that we also read books, and we also understand “follow the money” better than most.
The context and processes of how to handle the enemy within is best experienced when living, working, travelling and observing dictatorships or similar regimes, which we as seafarers probably have and had the best world-view on. Our job was to simply carry goods belonging to mostly we-did-not-know-who, to consignees who mostly also we-did-not-know-who, and often on ships that belonged to also we-did-not-know-who.
It was a very bindaas kind of arrangement, as long as we got paid, mostly in tax-free hard currencies. Who were we to comment or opine on how anybody lived in their own country? As far as we could make out, all coastlines all over the world were uniquely pretty, especially if we had spent a long time at sea without seeing land. Sometimes that could be 2 to 3 weeks in the Pacific, or similar if we were doing long and slow diagonal voyages across the Indian or Atlantic Oceans.
But this much we learnt – handling the enemy within, making an example of a perceived enemy within, without bothering too much about whether the person whose head was going to be at the end of a rope or meeting a sharp and cold knife or getting shot was an enemy or not was the main modus operandi to ensure that the rest of the people in that country at that time in history fell in line.
Of course, often the rulers and despots fell afoul of their own rules too, becoming the “new improved” Enemy Within version, (just like a brand of soap that changes its packaging and re-invents itself as “new, improved”), and found themselves at the wrong end of a rope or rifle. Two examples I can recall from my own lifetime at sea were the Ceaucescu husband and wife team in Romania and Samuel Doe of Liberia.
.(Romania was a regular port of call for Indian ships, and the Liberian flag was the largest Flag of Convenience for the Merchant Navy, and is even now the flag State with the highest tonnage of oil tankers globally. Indians pretty much rule the tanker fleets onboard globally. Join ship, take over, keep the ship in good shape, load, discharge, keep things safe, return home leaving the ship in better condition than when you joined. And don’t ask too many questions. Which in turn means that nobody really knows who owns the ship, or the cargo onboard.)
As seafarers, we observed, in some cases we reported back to our Flag and Country, and we never formed an opinion – which probably also explains the habit of slow, quiet and steady drinking that some of us would prefer. Every which way, the observations on “Enemy Within” were broadly along these lines, in context with the “how to handle the Enemy Within”.
Because. And this is the Truth as observed, democracies also have similar ways of handling the Enemy Within. It is just that they have to handle the Enemy Within with a lot more finesse.
And these are the methods I have seen globally.
- The Enemy Within can easily be made to use its energy to fight within itself. The importance of understanding the various faultlines and sub-divisions requires great study. And experience. Never homogenise the Enemy Within because that is simply not true.
- Economic deprivation. For example, if the Enemy Within is largely dependent on funds from abroad, slice that route. If the enemy within depends on street cash income, kill that too. NGO = FCRA. Money Laundry = GST. Money abroad = PMLA. And more, similar.
- Social boycotts. Overt and covert both. One of the best methods is to make fun of their festivals. Look down on their culture. Ridicule their language and dress sense. Throw their books away. Stare at them on the streets. I’ve seen this all over the world. Which is also why India must be the amongst the last countries to still wear ill-fitting Western Clothes.
- Hit the monopolies set up by the Enemy Within. Bottom up, there is no way a particular trade or commodity should have a reverse 80:20 in favour of the Enemy Within. If 80% of any particular economic activity, legit or not, is with 20% of any particular group of people, then the chains have to be broken. By every means possible.
- Re-education of the Enemy Within. This is so important in our Indian context where our very own history has been messed up to the point where we are made to feel that those who invaded us and made us slaves were not just of superior intellect and strength, but also are owed gratitude forever. There has been no invasion of any country in the world as terrible, bloody and violent as the Mughal invasion.
These are just some observations. Do write back and let us know if you can think of more ways to stop the anti-National processes of the Enemy Within in India?
As mentioned before, the Enemy Within could be anyone, from any community, so it is the process of stopping the puppet masters from destroying India that matters, not identifying the foot soldiers.
Good luck to us.
( Veeresh Malik was a seafarer. And a lot more besides. A decade in facial biometrics, which took him into the world of finance, gaming, preventive defence and money laundering before the subliminal mind management technology blew his brains out. His romance with the media endures since 1994, duly responded by Outlook, among others.)
