SINCE the reasons behind the rise of militancy are multifarious, an analysis utilising any single variable would be misleading. Poverty levels tend to decrease in inverse proportion to land holdings. Poverty virtually disappears with holdings of 55 acres and above, indicating that poverty and landlessness are directly related in Pakistan's rural areas.

In 2001-02, the upper-income brackets registered a gain in income share to the richest 20 per cent at the expense of the poorest 20 per cent and middle 60 per cent, which increased poverty levels in the lower and middle brackets. This projection shows that the richest one per cent who got 10 per cent of the total income in 1984-85 in Pakistan were getting almost 20 per cent in 2001-02. The trend continues till 2011. The Jihadi Mindset

There have only been a few indigenous studies investigating links between extremism and poverty. Sohail Abbas has utilised his experience as a psychologist in his treatise . The Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies has also documented a similar study. Abbas's sample consists of 517 men interred in Haripur and Peshawar jails in Pakistan after they had attempted to re-enter Pakistan following the Taliban's 2001 overthrow in Afghanistan.

He compares them with a 'control' group of individuals of similar socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds who had not joined the jihad. The study limits itself, however, to men inclined to join the jihad. It does not attempt to correlate the drivers of violent terrorist behaviour; there is no indication given in the book that the sample population attempted any terrorist acts. The study is nevertheless an insight into how prone segments of the population are to join jihadi organisations.

Abbas tends to conclude that the jihadis were drawn largely from mainstream Pakistani society, and hailed from marginalised tribal societies only to an insignificant extent. The majority were not educated in madressahs but in public schools in Pakistan. Surprisingly, their mean literacy level as a group was higher than the Pakistani average for education. The Peshawar group had an almost nil unemployment rate. Most had worked as tenant farmers, the next set comprised labourers, while skilled labour and students were equally represented. Those operating businesses were at a very low level. This study negated the popular notions of Pakistani jihadis as being illiterate, unemployed youth.

Based on Abbas's study, the PIPS document also attempted to factor poverty into the research variables by trying to ascertain the average income level pattern of the jihadis. The Haripur sample reported a huge 35.7 per cent of the respondents with no income of their own. The Peshawar sample yielded comparable results, though respondents without any income stood at around 26.3 per cent.

This puts the majority of the respondents at the lowest income percentiles in Pakistan in terms of their individual earnings. However, the majority was employed in one form or the other, though the dividends of their occupation appear meagre.

The study does not address the issue that many individuals in Pakistan draw support from the joint family system in which income is distributed amongst the less gainfully employed by other family member/s. Similarly, the average income of the jihadis' families was not factored into the calculation. Global Crime

One of the latest scholarly studies to focus on links between poverty and extremism in Pakistan has been published in an international journal, , by a joint group of British researchers. This was a supply-side study designed to document the increased incidence of radicalised ideas amongst Pakistan's impoverished; it cannot be seen to correlate poverty with extremism. Global Crime

The plethora of literature on studies on militant labour in Pakistan have provided vague empirical assessments of the proposed links between education, poverty and other aspects of socioeconomic status and popular support for terrorism, which are only hypothetical indicators. The study in was a link in this chain in an attempt to contextualise the support for radical ideas amongst the less privileged classes in Pakistan.

The data was collected between October 2008 and March 2009 and drew upon a World Food Programme study. Four of the poorest districts in each province were chosen as samples along with the richest four districts in the same province. It is worth mentioning that 60 per cent of the districts which ranked amongst the top one-third more affluent percentiles were from Punjab and 19 per cent were from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Similarly, amongst the bottom one-third percentiles 47 per cent were from Balochistan and 34 per cent from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Not a single district from Punjab lay in the poorest percentiles. The poor districts' samples in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan tended to display a more radical worldview than their more affluent Punjabi and Sindhi counterparts. The study does not contend that poverty alone is to blame; there are a number of factors which interact on the individual within the ambit of society to produce a radical outlook.

However, the results of the survey do suggest that poverty by itself cannot be dismissively shrugged off as a minor determinant variable of radicalisation in Pakistani society. As other research has shown, there are different trajectories for variables of terrorism in different theatres.

Even employed persons may be facing crippling poverty in some areas of Pakistan, particularly the tribal areas. It seems that a majority of young men from rural backgrounds can find only menial jobs. The private sector's already constrained capacity to accommodate the youth is shrinking even more. This demands a fresh look at contextualising how poverty operates to radicalise the poor in Pakistan; macro-level sociological overviews will not do.

The writer is a security analyst.