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Capital Question Hangs
The lynch mob in India is growing by the hour. But they can’t see
what stares them in the face: That death is the new attraction. In
the age of fidayeen attacks, death penalty is pretty attractive
.jpg) One
can understand the likely American reaction to Saddam Hussein’s
hanging, and the reasons as to why it also brings about a Sunni-Shia
split. But we are here concerned not with Saddam or the likely
implications if he ever hangs. We are here concerned with the
“hanging”. What is hanging? What is capital punishment? Irrespective
of whether you kill execution style — gun to the head — or hang from
the gallows, the fact remains that the capital punishment is a
ritual murder by the society wherein implicit is Godly superiority
and judgement over the condemned human being.
This superiority has been repeatedly proven to be a false one. Later
events have often showed that the men who were committing this
ritual murder were themselves in the wrong, or guilty of
misjudgement. Remember those who ordered the crucifixion of a soul
as pure, as lofty, as Godly, as beautiful, as peace loving, as
forgiving as Jesus of Nazareth.
Due process of
available law was followed before condemning great freedom fighters
to the gallows. And, for argument’s sake, due process of law has
been followed for every single death row convict in India and
elsewhere. The Indian system can justifiably say that the legal
avenues were fully exhausted by Prof Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar as
he now awaits the fate of the plea pending before Indian President
APJ Abdul Kalam.
True that
President Kalam himself has expressed his view clearly against the
death penalty. And what is the great plea of those arguing for the
death sentence, among them India’s supra-nationalists
like L K Advani and his ilk, who want Afzal to be hanged before the
sun rises again? That the death penalty will send a message to those
engaged in attacks against the nation.
Come on, don’t
fool yourself. If you watch hypernationalistic Indian TV channels,
read letters to the editor, and listen to intellectuals of the
calibre of Maninderjit Singh Bitta or Advani (Is there a
difference?), the lynch mob in India is growing by the hour. Left to
themselves, they wouldn’t allow Afzal to be hanged; they’ll burn him
at the stake. But they can’t see what stares them in the face: That
death is the new attraction. In the age of fidayeen attacks and
suicide bombers, capital punishment is pretty attractive.
The European Union
has outlawed capital punishment. Amnesty International is against
it. At the dawn of the 21st century, the death penalty is considered
by most civilized nations as a cruel and inhuman punishment. It has
been abolished de jure or de facto by 106 nations, 30 countries have
abolished it since 1990. However, the death penalty continues to be
commonly applied in other nations.China, the Democratic Republic of
Congo, the United States and Iran are the most prolific executioners
in the world.
In India, we have
the lynch mob carrying out SMS polls on should people even have the
right to ask the President to commute Afzal’s death sentence into
life imprisonment. Obviously, anyone voting in favour of commutation
is also ipso facto guilty of the highest form of treason.
The world has
repeatedly seen the failures of the systems that administer capital
punishment via examples including the execution of innocent people,
discrimination and unfair trials. The Sikhs are well aware of how
Balbir Singh was sought to be hanged along with Satwant Singh and
Kehar Singhin the Indira Gandhi assassination case.
India has just
witnessed how a completely innocent S A R Geelani was ordered to the
gallows by the Indian court before he was found to be innocent.
There will be the Advanis and the Bittas who will argue, because
they can’t demand hanging of such judges who find the condemned as
innocent, that it shows the resilience and the objectivity of the
legal system. But if you know how legal systems work in countries
like India (and we are not even talking so far of the tin pot
democracies of Africa), the judicial objectivity beast is very shy
and often hides in the labyrinth of the legal system. It takes teams
and teams of motivated, activist, selfless lawyers and back breaking
backroom work to coax it into the judicial eye. It is a Herculean
task. Sometimes, as in the case of SAR Geelani (Nandita Haksar) and
Balbir Singh (P N Lekhi and Ram Jethmalani), the Hercules were
there. At other times, as in the case of Prof Davinder Pal Singh
Bhullar and Mohd Afzal Guru, the Hercules were not available, or
were not allowed, or the judges refused to let anyone coax shy
beasts out of the crevices of the Indian judicialsystem.
Will Saddam
Hussein be helped by any Hercules is a moot question, particularly
when the system is so designed that you can change the judge if you
get the whiff of an adverse verdict.
But to save many Bhullars and Afzals, nay, to save the very lawful
society, it is necessary to not just appeal to the President to
grant clemency, but for every one of us, for even the President of
India, to demand that the death penalty be scrapped off the
statutes.
Remember, that Shaheed Bhagat Singh was hanged to death in the
rarest of the rare cases. It was called asking for freedom. Today we
all must ask for freedom. It is not the rarest of the rare demands.
8 November 2006
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