Oh well...

Saw an episode of Boston Legal today. Pretty intense. Phenomenal performance by James Spader once again. Wish I could be home early from work atleast on Wednesday evenings so that I get to be a regular viewer of this serial. Well, leaving wishful thinking aside for now, the case in question this time, was to do with capital punishment. All the dramatic speeches, all the pleadings, swearing, bribing could not save the man and he finally had to pay for what he did. He regretted what he did, he wanted a chance to reform, but somehow the jury had no time to consider that. They needed to close the case, find and punish the criminal- be done with it. It was heart wrenching to see him running away from his death, him furiously flapping his hands and legs helplessly while police officers strapped him on the "death-bed". A blank look in Spader’s eyes while he witnessed this scene with an eerie nonchalance. Suddenly, the credits started rolling and I was brought back to reality instantly– with a thud.

Weird coincidence. The editorials in India are passionately discussing the very same topic for quite sometime now – death penalty. While some say "Why damn debate about this? Be done with the fucker. He deserves nothing less", some say "Not fair, he deserves a second chance". The man in question is Mohammad Afzal. The whole ongoing debate reminds me of an article in Outlook which I read almost a year back, which attempted to explore the psyche of these terrorists. It explained the abstruse angle that is associated with this entire terror network. What drives these people to commit such heinous crimes without as much as batting an eyelid and later on, die a silent death feeling like a martyr, while in actuality, they are perceived to be a bloody animal that deserves to be killed – nothing more, nothing less.

How many of these "terrorists" are responsible for their opinions and views? According to the author of that article, most of these terrorists are simple, "normal" people, who believe or are led to believe that their countries have been wronged in more ways than one, in the name of money, religion, faith by the so-called "well-to-do" countries. They are led to believe that they are pursuing a noble cause. The mass killing is the will of God.

Taking a myopic view, the terrorists in Pakistan are made to believe that India is a country which has wronged Pakistan at every step since Independence - India is a country wherein the Muslims are ill-treated everyday for, well, being a Muslim - India is a country which does not deserve anything less than the worst form of terrorism. While in India to execute an operation, it is made sure that these "terrorists" do not stay in India for too long, else they would soon realize that India is not an extremist nation as they made it out to be. It is a living, thriving democracy – a potpourri of contrasting ideas, views – yet capable of maintaining the essence of harmony amidst all this. Having said that, I would also like to add that it would be a wrong notion to believe that Islam is associated with extremism. Kar Seva in 1992 led by a Hindu nationalist party, the mass pogrom carried out in Gujarat in 2002 are "glittering" examples that showcase the "non-existing" limits of lunacy of Hindu extremism. Well, the religious aspect of it – that makes subject for an entirely different post (will write about it some other time, not right away, not here).

Moving on. at a global level, these terrorists are made to believe that America and EU are out with a single mission of ruling the entire world (well, aren’t they doing that already?) Well, according to me, America and EU sure are super powers and have things their own way most of the times, but I would like to believe that they do make space for other nation’s viewpoints as well. There is a reason that there are 5 nations in the UNSC with a veto power. As Thomas Friedman put it, the world is divided into the "world of order" and "world of disorder" as of today. The world of order- the super powers and the emerging economies with their steadily increasing per capita incomes and steadily decreasing poverty levels. The world of disorder – the failed nations who blame the super powers for their status quo (which is true to a large extent) and not seeing any way out of their seemingly perpetual bad fate, thereby adopting this sadist attitude of spreading the ill will around. This classification precisely sums up the existing polarity in our world today.

Coming back to our case in point, whether Afzal will be hanged or not, I really don’t think I can foretell that because the arguments and points raised by both sides seem sensible to me. Catch 22 sorts. While one side argues that a strong message needs to be sent across to these terrorists and hanging him would do just that, the other side argues that death penalty is not in congruence with the fair and humane image of India. While one side argues that abolishing death penalty would amount to sustaining these criminals for their lifetime at the expense of the tax payer’s money, the other side argues that atleast one chance to reform is a pre-requisite when we call ourselves an understanding and open minded democracy. Well, I don’t want to add any more to the already existing debate.

Rwanda is making plans to abolish death penalty as we speak, as many as 69 countries have already abolished it, a sizeable number of countries continue to practise it, China even executes people aged below 18 depending on the intensity of crime - well, leaving all the statistics on capital punishment aside, I just like to remember one thing – criminals (terrorists) are not born – they are made. I guess it’s a romantic notion to pursue in these times of trouble, confusion and terror. But, those words give me a hope that everything is not wrong still –that room still remains for corrective action.

What happens to Afzal – I am sure that we really don’t care – because we all know that he is after all a miniscule link in an encompassing terror network. Does his presence (or absence) make any difference to the status quo? I am guessing the answer to that question is a no… but the debate continues.