by a very powerful car bomb that went
off just next to the Prime Minister’s
office eight people were killed
immediately and hundreds were injured
panic struck Norwegians trying to figure
out why they have been attacked why
they’ve been added to the long list of
cities that have been attacked by
Islamic jihadists they searched and they
discovered many reasons they found that
Norway has been contributing troops to
the NATO war effort they found that the
Muslim community of Norway had not been
properly integrated into the society
they also found that just a week before
a Muslim preacher had been indicted for
incitement and while the country was
still trying to make sense of this fog
of war there was another attack a
simultaneous attack that happened a
couple of hours later in a school summer
camp where more than sixty nine people
were shot dead including personal
friends of the prime minister and some
of the members of the royal family and
of course names started popping up this
was had to be a jihadist attack
responsibility some al-qaeda the names
started popping up but ironically it was
none of that
this entire terror attacks were the
handiwork of one man whose name was
Anders Berbick and he was a Norwegian
and he hated Muslims and he was actually
protesting against the multiculturalist
policies of the Norwegian government my
second story is about this man he goes
by the name of Salim Durrani he has many
names he operated in the valley for
about ten years he used to move in and
out the fences and the boundaries were
never a problem for him he has a price
on his head when he was operating in the
valley and he’s been known to be
personally responsible for the deaths of
close to three to four dozen young men
he’s also a devout Muslim prays five
times a day
he has his ak-47 next to him like a true
warrior
each time he prays wherever he sleeps
never sleeps in the same place twice not
for two nights in a row
Salim Durrani is Mike
Smit from the indian army this is a
picture of him when he was a major
serving in the valley between him his
father and his grandfather three
generations they have contributed eight
uniformed services officers into the
Indian Armed Forces and between them
they hold six gallantry awards and two
commendation cuts the young lad that you
see sitting on the left is Salim son who
is now planning to join the Indian
military academy and continue the family
tradition for the fourth generation of
service to this country now when I told
you these two stories your mind
instantly left to a conclusion that was
wrong you thought of Salim Durrani when
I began as a terrorist a k47
Valley and your mind jumped to a
conclusion which was wrong we do that
very often we take information that is
coming to a brains and we stereotype it
and why do we do that do we do it
because we have parochial people we have
petty people we are bad people
turns out we do it because we’re just
people and our brains are still evolving
over millions of years of evolution and
it’s incapable of dealing with all these
inputs that comes to us hundreds of
inputs that come to us every second so
our mind filters them out into some sort
of patterns and absorbs those patterns
and jumps to a judgment let me give that
to you with a few examples for instance
until I say this sentence to you you
were unaware of the feeling of your
touch of your thighs on your seat or the
touch of your arm on your armrest or the
faint hum of the air conditioner in this
auditorium but the moment I said these
sentences those pieces of information
which were out there in your brain
jumped into your mind and you could
actually sense it but until then those
sensations were coming into your brain
they were being filtered out and that’s
the way our mind works at times it just
takes two three pieces of data and
quickly jumps to a conclusion let’s show
that to you with a another simple
example try and solve this math puzzle
suppose there is a racket on a ball
which together cost 110 rupees a racket
on a ball together cost hundred and ten
rupees the racket costs 100 rupees more
than the ball the rackets cost is 100
is more than the ball what is the price
of the ball now all of us who got it as
ten just witnessed a way in which our
brain takes information and jumps to the
wrong conclusion the answer is five the
price of the ball is five the price of
the racket is hundred and five that is
why the racket is 100 rupees more than
the ball but you heard hundred and ten
hundred and you jumped to a wrong
conclusion that the price of the ball
was probably tip now the second feature
of our way of stereotypical thinking is
we will usually think of the worst case
scenario that is why Salim Durrani is a
terrorist and not amongst the thousands
of Muslim officers and soldiers who
serve in the Indian Armed Forces and why
do we do that why do we always gravitate
towards the worst case scenario now the
answer for that is also a human
evolution of the brain now suppose we
went back into history as we were
evolving and there were these two tribes
they were striped one and tribe – and
tribe one consisted of brave fearless
warriors and they would see a mammoth
and they’d say I would take on this
mammoth by myself they’d come to a chasm
and they’d say I’d run and jump across
the chasm and flap my wings and get
across they would see a bright red fruit
and said bite into it forget the
consequences and tribe – said when they
saw mammoths I can’t take on this
mammoth by my son need to go and get
some more people or they came to a chasm
they decided to walk all the way down
come up the other way build a bridge or
whatever and they saw this bright fruit
but say you know what I’ll stick to my
boring bananas whose descendants do you
think we are try one or tribe to drive
to try one didn’t have descendants they
died
so two elements we jump to judgments
though judgments are usually worse case
scenarios and the third problem is with
this wrong judgment worst case scenarios
we also change physiologically our mind
changes the way v-b behave biologically
changes let me show that to you with
another example how many of you seen the
movie black it was a sad movie how many
of you cried during the movie why did
you cry Amitabh Bachan is making tons of
money rani mukerji is not blind this is
all happening in a screen none of it is
true
but we still cried because her pillion
brain didn’t realize the difference
between fact and fiction and started
physiologically feeling sad
physiologically taking decisions in an
emotional state of mind now for those of
you who didn’t see the movie black or
were too much or not to cry during the
movie I want you to visualize one more
example I want you to visualize that I’m
asking you to open your mouth don’t open
your mouth just visualize then I’m
asking you to open your mouth and stick
out your tongue now your son has stuck
out your mouth is open I’ve got a lemon
in my hand and I’m squeezing that lemon
at the tip of your tongues and that
juice is going down your why you
salivating there is no lemon in my hand
there is nothing in my hand but again
your reptilian brain doesn’t know that
when you hear these words lemon lime
going you can’t stop salivating nothing
because physiologically our body changes
the way we perform we behave we take
decisions based on wrong information
now salivating on an imaginary lemon may
be harmless fun but stereotypes can be
very very dangerous people get lynched
by mobs because they believe that
they’ve eaten the wrong kind of meat
communal riots break out based on false
whatsapp messages photoshopped images
countries go to war because they believe
that another country has got weapons of
mass destruction countries leave
alliances that they have been part of
for decades because they believe that
immigrants are coming and stealing their
jobs which is incorrect information we
start looking at every stranger with
suspicion and we think that anything
that is different from us has to be
dangerous we start believing that anyone
who is not with us is by definition
against us
one of the founding principles of our
country is the core value of tolerance
and tolerance like wisdom is the ability
to hold to contrary an ideas within the
same mind and evaluate each one on merit
before coming to a conclusive judgment
before this talk I was researching on
the working of the brain on stereotyping
and I found many books and matter of
fact some of the anecdotes I told you
were from those books but I was
hard-pressed to find a book that would
tell me how do we deal with this problem
what is the framework that will help us
recognize this threat of parochialism
and and divisiveness because if we start
believing that anyone who is not with us
is against us then we will start
creating a society in a world where
everything is connected to each other
which is extremely divisive
and finally I found a book from which I
want to read out a passage for you the
fundamental duties of the citizens of
India article 51 a it shall be the duty
of every citizen to promote harmony and
spirit of brotherhood amongst all people
of India transcending religion
linguistic regional or sectional
diversity now this book as many of you
may have guessed is the Constitution of
India it’s that book which is holier
than every holy book it’s that book on
every soldier every politician every
bureaucrat every citizen of India swears
his allegiance we’ve been taught to
stand up in attention whenever the
national flag is unfurled we teach that
to our kids we’ve been taught to stand
up and be in attention whenever the
national anthem is played and we teach
that to our kids I think it’s also time
for us to sit down and start studying
the fundamentals which are being
represented by that flag and by national
anthem because as the saying goes when
you are struggling to look for a new
idea sometimes it’s a good idea to read
an old book thank you very much vision thank you