And so the 20-something terrorist was hanged to death this week and the question remains. Does capital punishment resolve, solve anything? Does it bring real closure? And who are we to judge whether a criminal, no matter how hardened and beyond redemption deserves to live or die? Who are we also to judge people who have lost a child, a parent, a spouse, a sibling to a horrific crime and who want a terrorist, a murderer to meet his end? There is no one answer to the questions about crimes and retribution.
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I wasn’t there when Ajmal Kasab walked into Chatrapatti Shivaji Terminal and left behind a trail of blood and bullet riddled bodies. I wasn’t at the Cama Hospital where after gunning down two helpless security guards on duty — Baban Ughde and Bhau Narkar, he and his partner Abu Ismail hunted for patients and doctors to shoot at. I wasn’t near Girgaum Chowpatty either where Tukaram Omble, armed with just a baton and a radio , with several bullets in his body held on to Kasab and gave the terror of 26/11 a face.
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But we all saw the footage of Kasab, his eyes full of helpless terror, under a hospital blanket tracing the beginning of his career as a terrorist. “Woh bole, tere bhai behno ki shaadi ho jayega..paisa milega,” or something to the effect. It is then you saw what the pictures of the carnage had not revealed. That the people who do the unthinkable are people like you and me with the same compulsions, needs, desperation, triggers. But we do not know and will never know what an utterly impoverished, desperate for life boy can be brainwashed to do in the absence of the things we take for granted. New clothes, a house where there is always enough food, a career that brings in a pay cheque, credit cards,mobile phones, mall hopping, a car maybe and a life where basic needs are met..
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No wonder then that denied of a significant life, a young mind can be trained to think of a significant death as a more achievable and attractive option especially when it promises everything that was unattainable in a dead-end small village. And so Kasab arrived in India and in a way got what he wanted. Atleast part of it. He wrote himself indelibly across the mindscape of Mumbai forever.
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And just as the capture of Osama Bin Laden boosted America’s self-image as a world super power capable of capturing terror like a rat and burying it at sea, Kasab’s hanging was a master stroke in timing as it came before a new Parliament session and the anniversary of 26/11.
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In life, Kasab was a disposable, brainwashed kid feeling empowered by the gun in his hand, the grenades and the dry fruits in his backpack and the thrill of knowing that for a few hours, he could do whatever the hell he wanted, and what’s more his version of a God would endorse it.
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In death, he is a political statement hanging limply by a noose, being brandished with vulgar joy with a mainstream news channel even renaming him as the Butcher of Mumbai..this in a country where divisive political leaders have the blood of thousands on their hands and not just walk into the corridors of national and regional politics unthreatened by law but are also re-elected to positions of power and are accorded state funerals when they pass on.
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No one can tell those who lost their loved ones to react to Kasab’s death in a more ‘humane’ way. Those who died at his hands did not even have the chance to plead their case or fight for their life. Only people who suffered personal loss during that night have the right to use this death for whatever it brings to them, closure or the continuation of grief and the memory of loss in one way or another but a hanging, just because it is stamped with state approval does not make it any less barbaric than the public hangings by the Taliban in the street squares of Afghanistan. Especially when used to score political brownies.
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Kasab’s life before he gambled it away for an afterlife and also the lives of all those who were in the line of fire in the Chabad house and Leopold Cafe and in hotel lobbies and in burning rooms and on the streets of Mumbai on 26/11 should have been worth more.
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26/11 may happen again or not but one thing is for sure. Only those whose lives do not count or amount to much will do the killing and the dying.
Reema Moudgil has been writing on art, theatre, cinema, music, gender issues, architecture and more in leading newspapers and magazines since 1994. Her first novel Perfect Eight ((http://www.flipkart.com/perfect-eight-9380032870/p/itmdf87fpkhszfkb?pid=9789380032870&_l=A0vO9n9FWsBsMJKAKw47rw–&_r=dyRavyz2qKxOF7Yuc )won her an award from the Public Relations Council of India in association with Bangalore University. She also edited Chicken Soup for Indian Woman’s Soul and runs unboxedwriters.com. She writes art catalogues and has scripted a commissioned documentary or two. She has exhibited her paintings in Bangalore and New York, taught media studies to post graduates and hosts a daily ghazal show Andaz-e-Bayan on Radio Falak.
Too good!
yes i agree that capital punishment may not solve or resolve anything.
But don’t u think it’s dangerous for our country, had it been anything less than capital punishment, which cd have passed our image as a soft state and indirectly amount to encouraging terrorists.