Give Them Death ... Or Life?

Two recent cases in Kolkata have in different ways raised the issue of "exemplary" punishment -punishment that sets an example by its harshness, which seeks to punish the criminal in order to ward offfuture offenders with a fear of similar retribution in the event that they commit crimes of the same heinousnature. Something about the respective cases would be in order first.

Dhananjay Chattopadhyay has been convicted for murdering and then perpetrating rape upon a youngfourteen-year old girl, Hetal Parekh. Descriptions of Dhananjay's act is enough to shock, disgust, terrify,and sadden readers - the doorman to the building Hetal lived in, he chased the young girl into her emptyapartment, choked her with a chain, broke her windpipe, and as she bled to death raped her.

The court had ruled that Dhananjay be hanged to death and the hanging itself was scheduled to happen onJune 25th. On June 24th however, the Union Home Ministry instructed the state home department to hold theorder in abeyance. In the mean time recent news reports strongly suggest that the death sentence will probablybe revoked owing to pressure from the EU, which opposes death penalty on humanitarian grounds. Many othershave opposed Dhananjay's death sentence most notably the ex-chief minister Jyoti Basu and writer MahaswetaDevi.

The decision of the second case was announced at the Alipore court yesterday. On December 31, 2002 a policesergeant of the Kolkata police was beaten to death by five constables also of the Kolkata police departmentwhen he tried to stop them from teasing a woman riding pillion on a motor-cycle. All the men were off duty atthe time. The police have been unable to trace the woman in question. She remains unknown despite (or probablybecause of) the furor generated by the case.

But, there were enough eyewitness reports to convince the judge Basudeb Majumdar to convict the accusedaccording to sections 302 and 354 of the Indian Penal Code. This implies that, pending further appeal by theaccused, a minimum sentence of life imprisonment or a maximum of death penalty. 

Interestingly, in both cases those who believe that death penalty is the only punishment befitting thehateful nature of the crimes have made statements about making retribution "exemplary". In a publicspeech Mira Bhattachajee, wife of the chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, evoked the gritty details ofHetal's murder and rape and urged the public to campaign in favor of Dhananjay's hanging.

While she spoke as "a woman, and a mother of a young girl", the hangman Nata Mullick argued thatsomeone like Dhananjay should be "flung into the cage of a hungry tiger, or burnt alive." Manyothers have similarly stated that Dhananjay has no right to life and that even death is too little punishmentfor his crime. His hanging, it is argued, will be proof of the rule of law in our land, of the impartiality ofjustice. 

In a similar vein, after the sentence was pronounced in the Bapi Sen case, many argued that the fiveaccused should be punished in a manner that would remain "exemplary". True it won't bring Bapi backbut, it should set an example before such pathological killers is a statement that recurs in the citynewspapers. Friends, relatives, officials of the police department and many others have reportedly remarkedthat given the horrific nature of the crime, the punishment too should be such that no other person or familyis made to suffer in the same way.

There isn't a shred of doubt in my mind about the dreadful and ghastly nature of bothcrimes. In both cases, one also feels grateful to the Kolkata police for nabbing the criminals and forsuccessfully presenting them before the court of law. I should also say that it was with utter contempt that Iread reports of hunger strikes conducted by Dhananjay's family to revoke his sentence, their denial of hiscrime despite the overwhelming evidence against him.

In a similar vein descriptions of postures of defiance assumed by some of the constables convicted in theBapi Sen murder makes one desperately angry. Having said this however, what gives me pause is something else.It is the rhetoric that surround both these cases, in particular the specter of exemplary punishment thatexercises such a powerful sway over the public's imagination.

Note the descriptive qualifiers set out by those in favor of the death penalty. For the respectivecriminals it has been said that: Phanshi (hanging) is not enough, they should be severely beaten up andthen hanged, or a tiger should maul the convicted. Without in any way belittling the anger and pain that evokesuch strong reactions in people, or without getting into important issues such as criminal reform, we need toconsider the following questions: Is retributive justice in the form of death penalty the best form thatjustice can take? Is the answer to a heinous crime an equally severe form of punishment? Don't we all, if weare swayed by these sentiments, end up participating in a project that renders death redundant orinconsequential?

I admit that the news about pressure from the EU influencing the union home ministry's decision to revokeDhananjay's death sentence struck me as irresponsible. The social conditions prevailing in the EU and those inKolkata are really by no means comparable. Yet, the basis upon which that request was made - on grounds of"humanitarianism" - alludes to a concept of the universal human that I value deeply as an ideal.

To say that we oppose the death penalty, whether we say it from India or Ireland or Denmark, appeals tothis abstract notion of the human that we probably don't see in the terrible crimes that happen around useveryday in Kolkata or elsewhere in India. It is impossible to deny, however, that this abstract ideal of thehuman ever leaves us. Why else do most Indians react strongly to the pictures of prison guards torturing Iraqiprisoners, or to hapless American civilians being beheaded by militants? Isn't the human body eventuallynothing but that, an intricate, organic agglomerate of blood, muscles, and nerves?

Setting aside the particulars of both cases, I am trying to remind myself of this utterly secular andvastly empowering concept of the universal human without which we could never imagine the ultimateperfectibility of man, without which our claims to being "modern" remain articles of bad faith. Fordoesn't the concept have some rich, albeit delayed yields? 

Rochona Majumdar is Harper Fellow and Collegiate Assistant Professor, University of Chicago