Why The Educated Take To Terror

Terrorism is often explained through the language of deprivation: poverty, illiteracy and social marginality. Yet repeated cases across countries challenge this assumption. One of the more unsettling recent examples is the involvement of medically trained professionals linked to Al-Falah University in a terrorist conspiracy. The episode forces a politically neutral but unavoidable question: why do individuals equipped with advanced education and respected social roles sometimes embrace violence?

The answer lies not in ideology alone, nor in education itself, but in the interaction between expectations, identity, institutions and opportunity.

Education raises aspirations. Professional degrees—particularly in medicine—promise status, stability and social respect. When these expectations collide with limited career mobility, institutional dysfunction or personal setbacks, frustration can be sharper than among those who never expected much to begin with. Research on radicalisation consistently shows that perceived relative deprivation, rather than absolute poverty, plays a significant role. An educated individual who feels blocked is more likely to interpret disappointment as injustice.

Education also does not resolve the human search for belonging. Universities produce skills efficiently, but they are less adept at producing community or meaning. Young professionals working away from home or outside familiar social networks can experience isolation. In such contexts, tightly knit ideological groups—religious, political or otherwise—offer certainty, solidarity and purpose. They transform private unease into collective mission.

Crucially, education sharpens reasoning without necessarily cultivating restraint. The skills acquired through higher education—argumentation, abstraction and systems thinking—can be used to challenge violence or to justify it. Extremist movements thrive on coherent narratives that frame violence as necessary, defensive or redemptive. An educated recruit may be better equipped to internalise such logic, converting moral outrage into calculated action. This is not ignorance, but the disciplined misuse of intellect.

From an organisational perspective, educated professionals are valuable. Terrorist networks, like any complex enterprise, require logistics, finance, technical expertise and credibility. Doctors, engineers and academics provide all three. Their presence signals seriousness and competence, reassuring recruits and supporters alike. This pattern has been observed not only in South Asia, but also in Europe and the Middle East, where extremist groups have consistently sought out professionals.

Institutional oversight matters too. Universities and professional bodies are not security agencies, but weak governance, inadequate vetting and poor mentoring create blind spots. When educational institutions focus narrowly on credentials while neglecting ethics, civic responsibility and student wellbeing, early signs of radicalisation can go unnoticed. This is less a failure of intent than of design.

Political context completes the picture. Where individuals believe that lawful avenues for grievance redress, participation or reform are ineffective, some may conclude—wrongly—that extreme measures are the only remaining option. Education can intensify this perception by teaching how systems ought to function while simultaneously revealing how poorly they sometimes do.

The lesson from Al-Falah is not that education breeds terrorism. On the contrary, education remains one of the strongest long-term safeguards against violence. But education on its own is incomplete. Knowledge must be paired with ethical formation, professional mentoring and credible pathways for advancement. Universities that train doctors, engineers and administrators should see themselves not only as credentialing factories, but as civic institutions. Otherwise, societies risk producing individuals who are technically skilled, socially unmoored—and vulnerable to causes that promise meaning through destruction.

(The above content has been written by former DGP Haryana.)

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