I am Malala: The Girl who stood up for education and was shot by the Taliban

This book should be a compulsory read in schools. Schools are the training centres for future citizens and we have a duty to our children to educate them about the interconnectedness and well being of individuals across the world. If we are aware of this interconnectedness of our existence, we understand the futility of war and invasions.

Viktor Frankl's "Man's search for meaning" exhorts us to find meaning in tragedy and use it to propel ourselves to achieve our potential. I am Malala's message is equally profound.

Malala presents an eloquent account of the dangers of a state that fails to fulfil its mission to its people and how non-state actors step into this gap and hijack a country's future. She warns world citizens, this process is so gradual that we don't realise until its too late.

People in Swat valley initially accepted the Taliban leader (Fazlullah) because they

"liked his talk of bringing back Islamic law, as everyone was frustrated with the Pakistani justice system...(P. 113)."

They saw the Taliban leader as a kind of Robin Hood (P. 115).The Taliban exploited the ignorance of the people and their illiteracy:

"Mullahs often misinterpret the Quran and the Hadith when they teach them in our country, as few people understand the original Arabic (P. 113)."

The Taliban, Malala observes, first took over the music, then their Buddhas, then their history and culture.

"They destroyed everything old and didn't bring anything new (P.123)

At several places as I was reading the book, I felt this story is not about Malala; it is about countries with real international interests and how weak states fall prey to the machinations of the strong. Quoting Rahmat Shah Sayel an Afghan poet, Malala observes what was happening in Afghanistan was a:

"war between two elephants" - the US and the Soviet Union - not our war, and Pashtuns (in Swat, Pakistan) were "like grass crushed by the hooves of two fierce beasts (P.35)".

It is impossible to read the book and miss the agony of millions of people, displaced or refugees, whose sentiments Malala echoes:

"(But) when you are exiled from your homeland, where your father and forefathers were born and where you have centuries of history, it's very painful. You can no longer touch the soil or hear the sweet sound of the rivers. Fancy hotels and meetings in palaces cannot replace the sense of home (P. xvii)."

Every student of history or politics, no, every citizen of the world should read this book to understand how seemingly distant politics has grave repercussions for local life. National boundaries no longer limit political tremors. The interconnectedness of our existence means that we as world citizens need to step beyond our limited cultural comprehensions and seek to know and understand and educate ourselves. We baulk from doing this to our own detriment.

Malala observes:

"It (9/11) might have changed the whole world, but we were living right in the epicentre of everything...In Pakistan we were still under a dictatorship, but America needed our help, just as it had in the 1980s to fight the Russians in Afghanistan....There was a major problem however. Our (Pakistan's) own intelligence service ISI had virtually created the Taliban (pp. 85-86)."

Stuck between a state that ignores the welfare its own citizens (Pakistan) and the Taliban that takes advantage of the state's inefficiency,

the only remedy lies in education. "Ignorance allowed politicians to fool people and bad administrators to be re-elected (P. 41)".

I feel immensely privileged to have leaders that laid foundations for a strong democratic tradition in India. Malala's memoir is a caveat not to take the institutions of democracy and tolerance for granted. The state is for the people and the people work it. To sit in complacency is an irreparable mistake. Martin Niemoller's poem serves as a reminder.

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak out because I was not a Catholic.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me (P. 140).

This book can be received in various ways:
as a memoir of Malala's life;
as a nostalgic account about her homeland marred by international realism;
as a snap shot view of two decades preceding Malala's shooting by the Taliban in 2012 : to understand that national politics is driven by long term historical causal sequences and the variables keep on adding with the passage of time, crystallising as a Gordian knot political gridlock;
OR
most importantly as a warning to the world about the dangers of acting out of narrow self-interests.