Guest Column

The New Sunday Express

October 22, 2006

Death becomes us

Under normal circumstances the death sentence of ordinary persons in India would have gone unnoticed. But the death sentence of Jaish-e-Mohammad militant Mohammad Afzal, the man behind the Parliament attack, has made all the difference. That Afzal’s hanging did not take place on October 20, 2006, because of a clemency petition and that his sentence was politicised by the mainstream parties, Congress and BJP, are important issues indeed.

But equally relevant is the debate on death penalty, which President APJ Abdul Kalam initiated about a year ago. As with many other vital social issues, the debate was short-lived and inconclusive. Let me provide a recap by using my own reactions. In response to a write-up ‘‘Death Row mercy pleas: Kalam for pardon to most’’ on October 18, 2006, The Indian Express published my following views under the title ‘‘Presidential Pardon’’.

President Kalam’s call for granting clemency and commutation of death penalties, and for reform raises the following issues: (a) Can death penalty not be a fraud perpetrated on society when the judiciary grinds like god’s mill and when a person is pushed to many “gallows” — police custody, jails, judiciary, social ostracism, and guilt — between the time he is arrested and convicted of the crime he might have committed; (b) what is the rate of crimes ending in conviction and of killers going scot free (as in the 1984 riots); (c) is the Presidential pardon a colonial hangover, as it amounts to placing him above the judiciary in its collective wisdom? (d) shouldn’t society have well-founded institutional systems to minimise criminal tendencies and to reform and rehabilitate those with such tendencies? (e) shouldn’t people be educated on valuing and respecting each other’s life and dignity, which is lacking in India?

Kalam has raised an important issue that has been raised earlier as well. Pardoning or not pardoning those whose lives are at his mercy should not be the end of this issue.

In response to a write-up by Fali S Nariman: ‘‘Same old question: Shall we abolish death penalty?’’ that looks into the sociological angle as opposed to the legal, The Indian Express published my following views under the title ‘‘The Sociology of Death Penalty?’’

It is important to note Nariman’s observations that (a) in the world of today there are fewer men condemned to death for murder, and more and more executed for political views; (b) as long as death remains a permissible instrument of Government, those in power will always justify its use; (c) murder will never cease to be an instrument of politics until the execution even of proved murderers is regarded as immoral and wrong; and (d) the hangman’s noose ends the search for truth — what if the judge is wrong, the question plagues our conscience. Judgments of Courts can always be recalled and reviewed; execution of sentences of death, never.

Nariman’s question as to whether hanging is really necessary in order to convince society that killing people is wrong, is the crux of the matter. So, whether Kalam returns the bundle of mercy petitions or not, we are stuck with a stunning, stifling sociological problem. The second issue, apart from being a sociological problem, is also in the realm of the politics of terror. At the individual level it is possible for the state to hang Afzal, who is part of a terrorist network. But will his hanging make any difference to the causes, contexts, contents and contours of terror in Kashmir or elsewhere? In my view, it will only exacerbate terrorism through martyrdom of persons like Afzal.

If terrorist-strikes are reason enough for retaliatory killings of the trapped terrorists, the ‘terrorists’ in the form of American Presidents and their entourage should have been killed several times for invading, destabilising, and disintegrating countries like Iraq and their cultures and societies. Without countering the terrorism of the big bullies that alone can put an end to terrorism worldwide, it is meaningless to seek solution to terrorism by giving a name to one Afzal here and one Afzal there, and then hanging them.

All said and done, if suicide, that is self-killing, is the greatest of all crimes, as philosopher Dr S Radhakrishnan cautioned the nation in a moving and erudite speech in the Constituent Assembly of India, the killing by society of its members in the name of abstract justice and retribution should be an even more heinous crime.

Afzal’s case should give us an opportunity to revive the debate initiated by Kalam in a structured, focused and purposeful manner, particularly by the media, academia, judiciary and civil society, without any of them politicising the issue and striking an aggressive stance. Till the completion of such a well-informed debate, all death sentences should be put on hold.

(C) Author