The events leading up to the execution of Yakub Memon, one of the conspirators in the Mumbai bomb blasts of March 1993, on his birthday on July 30, have resulted in yet another debate on capital punishment, as has been the case with every execution in the near past. There was of course the added layer of intense discussions on social media and TV; albeit whether these debates brought more light than sound and fury is doubtful. There are certain core questions that require finality and the death of capital punishment in jurisprudence is one among them. There are legal and philosophical ways of addressing this question. Sometimes, popular culture is a powerful medium that helps distil these viewpoints and enables one to take informed views on the subject.
Srinivasan Ramani Finding ‘closure’
At the outset, I would like to apologise to readers who do not like film plot “spoilers”. When one thinks of “capital punishment”, a film that readily comes to mind is the Oscar winning Argentinian film, El secreto de sus ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes). Essayed brilliantly by the veteran thespian, Ricardo Darin, the lead character is an investigator who is obsessed with bringing to book a rapist and murderer who brutalises and kills a young woman.
The woman’s husband is equally keen on securing justice for his loss, but insists that the culprit should not face the death penalty, as he believes that it is too quick a punishment that will not allow the culprit to understand and rue the consequences of his actions. The culprit is caught but escapes punishment because of a change in political circumstances in Argentina and disappears from view.
For more than two decades, the investigator cannot find personal “closure” — moving on from the tragedy. But when he finds out that the culprit has been kidnapped and held hostage just like any other life-term prisoner (in near solitary confinement by the victim’s husband for all those years in a furnished cell in his backyard), he is shocked. He also notices the aged culprit begging him to ask the husband to speak to him and is overwhelmed by the change in the culprit’s demeanour. He finally gets his “closure”, finds peace and sets out to reclaim his undeclared love from the past.
The lack of closure
The film could as well be a metaphor for all of us. Yakub, was, by all accounts, involved in the conspiracy — although not as much as his brother ‘Tiger’ Memon who is still at large — in the Mumbai blasts which killed hundreds. He escaped justice by fleeing with his family to Pakistan, but an element of rue over his actions brought him — and later his family — back to the country to face the judicial system. After years in prison, it does seem that he felt enough regret for his actions and wanted to avoid the death penalty, but unlike the culprit in the Argentinian film, he was put to death by our institutions as punishment. Also, unlike Darin’s character in the film, I would argue that some of us who are obsessed with justice for the victims, can’t find “closure” as Yakub’s death was merely retribution for the deaths of our fellow citizens then.
After all, the main culprits, ‘Tiger’ and the “underworld” kingpin, Dawood Ibrahim, are still beyond the pale of justice, hiding in Karachi — facts which are only open secrets now. Even if ‘Tiger’ and Dawood are brought to justice, it would still not be “complete”, I would argue. For, these blasts weren’t the only ones that shook the city and plunged it into riots and mayhem.
There was another element — the role of chauvinist, right-wing groups like the Shiv Sena and others who went on a wanton spree against Muslims in the form of riots in the city in late 1992 and early 1993, which acted as a precursor to the blasts in 1993. Unlike ‘Tiger’ and Dawood, many of those involved in these crimes are still at large in the city, some enjoying political power and brazenly avoiding any culpability. The Justice Srikrishna Commission that investigated the riots indicted many individuals including the late Sena chief Bal Thackeray. Just like the culprit in the Argentinian film, political circumstances have helped the culprits of the riots avoid the long arm of the law as the Maharashtra governments of that day and since then have refused to act upon the recommendations of the Commission.
Imbalanced justice
Political circumstances have perhaps intervened even in cases that have involved justice being delivered in thoroughness and rigour. Justice Jyotsna Yagnik’s judgment, in 2012, in the trial court hearing of the Naroda Patiya riots case was a milestone. The judge established the culpability of the former Gujarat Minister, Maya Kodnani, Bajrang Dal activist Babu Bajrangi and others in the Naroda Patiya pogroms of 2002 in a thoroughgoing and meticulous manner. The judge sentenced them and others to long years of life imprisonment without remand. She argued against the death penalty by not basing her reasoning that it wasn’t warranted in these circumstances (whether or not these were “rarest of the rare”) but because the judge felt that the death penalty will not do justice for the crimes committed.
Exactly a year ago, on July 30, 2014, Ms. Kodnani was released on bail on health grounds by the Gujarat High Court, which also raised questions about witness statements in the case. Since then, Ms. Kodnani is not back in custody. The victims of the pogroms and bystanders like us had almost reached a sense of “closure” after the judgment, but the developments since last year have denied that.
The deterrent argument
People argue for the continuation of capital punishment either on the need for retributive justice to be part of an Indian jurisprudence or for the reason that it would act as a deterrent. The second argument has been proven empirically wrong all over the world. The UN General Assembly has repeatedly pointed — even in a non-binding moratorium on death penalty — to how capital punishment was not a deterrent to violent crimes.
But we can again seek to rely upon popular culture to answer the first argument. The Hollywood film, The Shawshank Redemption, based on a novella by Stephen King, is as much the story of a prisoner wrongly sentenced to life for a crime not committed as it is about the narrator, Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding enacted by Morgan Freeman. “Red” makes a name for himself in prison as someone who gets things for inmates, including the protagonist, and is a calming and mentor-like influence with a moral code, in a prison where it is a rare commodity.
It takes him four decades to realise the futility of the crime he committed in his youth and to make peace with his punishment. The message from the film is that life imprisonment not only punishes and institutionalises criminals, but also offers them an opportunity to feel genuine remorse and make use of their human selves within prison. This is an option that is ruled out when one is handed capital punishment for the sake of retribution. Besides, incarceration for life (especially without remand or remission) is also a tough punishment, something that critics do not generally realise.
Of course, the examples quoted to make an argument against the death penalty are from popular culture and fiction. But this was to make an illustrative argument and to mirror reality. There are many examples from real life across the world as to how even those who committed the most heinous of crimes and had served life terms, used that punishment as a means of rectification and made themselves useful in prison and outside after remission in some cases.
Everyone — even the most hardened of criminals who have committed the most heinous of crimes — deserves a chance; even those who will never get to be free for their actions. Abolishing capital punishment can give us a chance to make our imperfect republic less so and to improve our civilisation even more in the 21st century.
srinivasan.vr@thehindu.co.in
