The Death Penalty

Capital punishment in India is meant to be applicable in the 'rarest of rare' cases. In reality there have been only four hangings in India since 1995. Clearly the definition of 'rarest of rare' is very rare indeed. As it stands today, the death penalty can hardly be considered a deterrent. The likelihood of being hanged, no matter what you do, is so low that I doubt if any perpetrator of a heinous crime stops to think that he may be hanged if he is caught and found guilty.

Voices against the death penalty hinge on two arguments:

1. In the event that there has been a miscarriage of justice an innocent person would have lost his life due to a mistake.
2. The death penalty is inhuman and out of step with modern society.

Both these arguments are fallacious. The Indian penal system has enough checks and balances to ensure that a criminal who has been condemned to death has had enough opportunity for legal review including an appeal to the President for clemency. The chances of a genuine miscarriage of justice are quite low and cannot serve as a reason for doing away with capital punishment. It is said that the punishment should fit the crime. I not a believer in archaic and Biblical punishments like 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth' or stoning to death or cutting off a criminal's hands. On the other hand savage acts such as what happened in the December rape case in Delhi deserve punitive punishment. There is a need for stern and sure action including capital punishment.

By soft pedaling on implementation of the death penalty we have give free reign to a variety of malcontents. India has the dubious distinction to having the highest number of murders in the world. The figure for 2011 was 42,923.  For punishment to be effective, it has to be a deterrent. Apart from punishing the perpetrator of the crime it should set a frightening example of what can happen to someone else who wishes to break the law. It is here that the Indian state has failed to deliver. Even if we apply the 'rarest of rare' criteria to such a large figure one may argue that at least 1% of murders may fall into this category. By that logic the Indian state should have hanged 400 murderers in any given year. Certainly at that level the fear of being hanged for one's wrongdoings would have a significant deterrent value. As of today, there is no such thing.

Apart from the extent of capital punishment the other deterrent is the speed at which punishment is carried out. As of now if a criminal is found guilty of murder and awarded a death penalty by the lower court there is every chance that he will not be hanged for a very long time. Rajiv Gandhi's killers and Afzal Guru are a case in point. It would be useful to set a time limit for carrying out an execution after all appeals have been exhausted from the point of being found guilty initially. If the state is unable to operate within that period it would be fair to commute the sentence to life imprisonment.

The purpose of this post is not to make a case for a blood thirsty or arbitrary legal system. I am sure most of us would agree that the degree of lawlessness in India is increasing day by day and the spate of rapes and murders have shaken civic society. There is a need for stern, swift and uncompromising justice. Increasing the focus on the death penalty will go some way towards achieving that objective.



Check out my book - Journey to the Hills and other Stories. 
“Beautiful depiction of Hills & life in North India in the ‘60s” – Chandra Srivastava

“The story flow was as smooth as silk and the narration so vivid, real and engrossing that I couldn't put it down....I finished the book in one sitting” – KK Sridhar

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Honesty Indian Style

A few years ago I was returning to India on a flight from Amsterdam. The flight landed late at night in Delhi and I got into a cab for going home after picking up my bags. On the way I got a call from my house. Someone had called from the airport saying that they had found my portfolio in a luggage trolley. It contained my passport, traveler's cheques and a fair bit of cash. Apparently, I had dropped it while boarding the cab and it had been found by an airline employee. He had found my contact number from my passport and had called home. I called his mobile phone to thank him and to tell him that I would turn back and pick up the portfolio from him. He said that he had already left the airport to come to my house. Finally, he did just that. He came over home at 3 am and returned the portfolio with all its contents intact to me. I was overwhelmed by his honesty and tried to offer him a reward. He refused to accept anything and left me with a warm glow about the innate goodness of human nature.

This is not an isolated instance. Yesterday a similar incident occurred while we were on tour in Lucknow. My colleague lost his briefcase while we were working in the market. Again, a good Samaritan found the bag and returned it himself later in the evening.

I am sure that a lot of us have had similar experiences. What I wonder about is whether there is an underlying truth about such events. Are Indians fundamentally honest? It would certainly not appear so if we were to see the level of corruption, fraud and cheating that occurs in our country. Is it mere probability that we were lucky to have come across two examples of honest people in a sea of crooks? I doubt it. Do Indians behave differently when faced with individuals as opposed to an organisation, specifically the Government? Does their behaviour pattern change? Perhaps we can discern the germ of an explanation in that last thought.

Many Indians do not think twice about evading taxes. It's quite OK to cheat the government. In fact it almost feels like a pleasurable game and there is certainly no guilt attached to it. The 'government' is faceless and amorphous and somewhat hostile. Of course it's OK to avoid pernicious taxation! It's almost a duty! However, to cheat an individual is different. The same tax evader may feel morally uplifted if he returns a bag that he found on the street.

An interesting parallel could also be drawn with Indian attitudes towards hygiene  In most cases, Indian houses would be clean and well kept on the inside but the residents would have no concern about dumping their garbage right outside. After all that is not 'their' land. It is government property and the government has to figure out how to keep it clean!

So, all in all, the Indian public has an adversarial relationship with the Government. The government makes progressively more complex rules to govern an unruly public while the public comes up with increasingly inventive ways to beat the system. While all this is going on, at the individual level Indians are fairly honest and helpful to others. A strange cocktail indeed!


Check out my book - Journey to the Hills and other Stories. 

“Beautiful depiction of Hills & life in North India in the ‘60s” – Chandra Srivastava

“The story flow was as smooth as silk and the narration so vivid, real and engrossing that I couldn't put it down....I finished the book in one sitting” – KK Sridhar

Amazon   Pothi