A spurious debate
Dasu Krishnamoorty
In all civilized countries, conscientious citizens are fighting for abolition of death penalty. In India, capital punishment has been on the statute book for 160 years and pleading for its repeal solely because a terrorist is facing the noose raises inconvenient questions. The print media featured editorials, articles and scores of letters as part of a debate on Mohammed Afzal’s death sentence in connection with the attack on Parliament House in 2001 December, killing nine of our security men.
The debate started off on an untenable note. Some human and civil rights activists shifted the guilt from Afzal to those who are asking for death for a person the courts have declared a terrorist. They imported everything extraneous to the debate except national security. What is one to make of high voltage protests pleading for Afzal’s life on grounds other than mercy? I and countless people in this country are against the death penalty because it kills a person before death lays its icy hands on the victim. That a plea for its abolition should originate in an act of terrorism shows how freedom of expression can be devalued by its misuse.
Nandita Haksar fired the first salvo in defence of Afzal in an article in the Indian Express that is poorly argued, a belated critique of the sentence after the Supreme Court had already said the last word in the case. Of course, the idea is to cling to the last straw of hope: appeal to the President. Appealing to the President for mercy is unassailable. Afzal’s family also did it. But one must know why doubts about the manner of trial have not been raised in the last five years of the hearing of the case.
Why did civil rights activists like Ms. Haksar set up defence committees only for the benefit of S.A.R.Geelani, lecturer/professor at Delhi University who abused freedom of expression to rail at the judiciary which acquitted him? I remember Anjali Mody writing a series of articles in the Hindu in his defence. Either they were convinced that all except Geelani were guilty or they did not know that Afzal had no counsel to defend himself. Are we to assume that what they had failed to achieve through lawyers they now want to get through Jantar Mantar protests featuring Arundhati Roy and Medha Patkar?
Why did the Society for the Protection of Detainees` and Prisoners` Rights or the defence committee that defended Geelani overlook Afzal? Ms. Roy rightly called for abolition of death penalty without explaining why she did not remember it when Dara Singh faced the gallows. In the Indian Express, Soli Sorabjee asks the same question, "Will the voices asking for pardon for Mohammad Afzal also plead passionately for grant of pardon to the perpetrators of the Gujarat carnage? Or will there be double standards in the matter? Again on this argument, Dara Singh, who has been convicted of the brutal murder of Reverend Staines and his two sons, should be spared because according to some he is "the symbol of our nationhood" and his execution will lead to turmoil and make him a martyr. Acceptance of such pleas would send wrong signals."
Ms. Roy also transfers the constitutional jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to Parliament which was the target of the attack. Medha Patkar calls it terrorism by the establishment. Ms. Patkar has done what every defender of secularism does: communalize the judgment. "The minorities should be made to feel secure," she said. Should those who have spread insecurity throughout the country be spared? What logic! Every one at the Jantar Mantar roadshow had said that there was no direct evidence. They should have said it during the trial, not after the verdict has been passed. I want Arundhati Roy and Patkar to answer this question of a Hindu reader: "When Medha Patkar and Arundhati Roy have no problem in accepting the verdict with respect to S.A.R. Geelani, what prevents them from accepting the same in Afzal`s case?" I have not seen a single letter condemning the Supreme Court judgment.
The Hindustan Times is against a death sentence, one, because it does not fit into the rarest of rare category and Afzal was neither the main planner of the attack nor its perpetrator. Second, "we need to pay heed to the near-unanimous view in Kashmir Valley that Afzal should not be executed." Okay, how about heeding the near unanimous voice of people in Jammu and the former deputy chief minister? Sorabjee warns, "Public opinion and especially its local expression are fleeting and fluctuating and can be manipulated and aroused by injecting into them strong doses of emotional and political elements. Furthermore, there can be equally strong contrary public opinion. Grant of pardon solely on the ground that a certain region of India will go up in flames if the convict is executed smacks of pressure and is almost tantamount to blackmail."
How are apolitical publics to protest the execution of seven security men in Srinagar at the same time as the Jantar Mantar show was in progress or the massacre of 11 civilians in North Cachar district by militants on Friday? In her piece in the Indian Express, Ms Haksar says the question was not whether Afzal was or was not a part of the conspiracy. "The question is on the sentence. We have not even had a chance to hear Afzal’s story," she says. Who are we? A suprajudicial body? Anil Dharkar among others pointed out on a TV discussion panel that even commutation of the sentence is dangerous because if the convict is alive some terrorist body will hijack a plane to demand his release.
Revenge is not justice, say film maker Anand Patwardhan and Jagmohan Singh, a nephew of Bhagat Singh, writing in Hindustan Times. "Civil society should not descend to the status of murderers by preferring revenge over far better forms of justice." The two should ask themselves as to why civil society should bear revenge against Afzal alone and not Geelani. They say that commutation will send a positive signal to the world. No judicial system is based on the principle of sending positive signals to the world. Patwardhan and Singh recall how peace in Kashmir was shattered after the execution of Maqbool Butt in 1984.
On the other hand, the Pioneer says that all the wrong signals will go out - to jehadis and their masters in Pakistan. There is nothing wrong in asking for mercy but as DNA says in an editorial, "These arguments are ridiculous to say the least. The rule of law does not work in conformity with the Indo-Pak peace process or the alienation of any section of society." The Pioneer is very impatient in its editorial. It says, "To even waste time and effort on considering the merits of the appeal would be tantamount to heaping insult on the memory of those who sacrificed their lives defending the very symbol of democracy in India."
It is heartening that no newspaper found fault with the judgment. The Tribune edit said, "The Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister has been apparently swayed by street protests and political compulsions in taking the highly unusual step of advocating mercy for terrorist Mohamad Afzal Guru, but the President of India will have to follow a totally objective and sagacious approach if a mercy petition comes up before him. Perhaps clemency at this stage may even give credence to the belief in the separatist circles that India is a "soft" state. In any case, the punishment has nothing to do with the peace process, because no country in its right mind can justify or condone such a diabolic act as attack on Parliament."
Critics of the judiciary are only creating a sense of grievance and siege among the Muslim minority to alienate them from the mainstream and drive them into little boxes of separatist identity.