Capital Punishment

Capital Punishment Dilemma

After one of the fastest trials in the history of the Indian legal system, the lone surviving perpetrator of the Mumbai 26/11 terrorist carnage of 2008 has been sentenced to death on a few counts and sentenced to life imprisonment on a few other counts. Therein lays the irony and the dilemma.

To put this in perspective, there are over 50 convicts on death row in the country. Mercy petitions have been pending for years. The latest will join the queue at the end. When will his turn come? After 20 years? 30 years? No one can tell. More often than not, the decision has distinct political overtones. Thus, while the sentencing is on expected lines, the implementation has uncertainty written all over it.

Let us assume for a moment that the terrorist survives for forty years (he is just twenty now) and then dies – either a natural death or on the gallows. Who pays for his maintenance for forty years? Already, over 400 million rupees have been spent on him in just a year and a half. It is reasonable to assume that at least ten times that amount will be spent over a lifetime. Is this the price that society has to pay for keeping alive someone who killed scores of people in cold blood? On the other hand, the victims of the attack have not received even a fraction of the amount as compensation or assistance to rebuild their shattered lives. Where is the concept of fairness in all of this?

To be sure, both sides have strong arguments. Those who say he must be hanged cite the examples of USA, China, and Indonesia, and the cold statistic that 60% of the world’s population still favors capital punishment in the rarest of rare cases, to support their logic. Also, the possibility that keeping him in prison has the potential for more attacks and a hostage situation is also driven home. This is precisely what happened when an Indian Airlines civilian aircraft was hijacked to Afghanistan and the country had to witness the ignominy of the then foreign minister accompanying a dreaded terrorist in exchange for the hostages. The said terrorist continues to mastermind attacks on this country from across the border.

Those who argue against capital punishment place their faith on philosophical, moral, and humanitarian considerations. As Mahatma Gandhi once said, an eye for an eye would leave the whole world blind. Civil society has no right to take a life. Why not try to reform the criminal? Life imprisonment is worse than death. Many countries have abolished the death penalty.

It should not be forgotten that it is civil society (the government) that decides when to wage war. Soldiers have no say in the matter. If it is justifiable to kill people in a war, is it not equally justified to take the life of someone who has waged war against a nation? Hypothetically, what would have happened if the person had been shot soon after being captured?

Is there no solution at all to the dilemma? Amidst all the din and noise, we overlook the roots of the problem – unacceptable asymmetry in development. Four billion people on this planet are reported to be living on less than $2 per day. Magazines never publish this stark reality. They are happy projecting the few multi-billionaires. As long as these social inequities are not addressed, the problem will not go away. The roots of crime and terror can often be traced to poverty, deprivation and an inferiority complex fuelled by the rich and profligate countries.

It is time for humankind to wake up to this reality and address the problem before the next catastrophe strikes anywhere in the world. Do we have the wisdom?