Punishment and remorse

Death sentences don?t necessarily deter jihadi terrorists

The popular reaction of relief and celebration to the verdict of a special court in Mumbai sentencing Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, the Pakistani national involved in the dastardly terror attack in Mumbai on 26th November 2008, to death is understandable. The people of India have felt helpless in the face of such terrorist attacks and they see in the death penalty justice being done. The 26/11 terror attacks were particularly traumatic for India, and more so for the people of Mumbai, not just because of the continuous real time television coverage but also because of the nature of the attack. The images of Ajmal Kasab walking stealthily yet confidently with gun in hand killing innocent people remain etched in our mind. This was no bomb explosion, no sudden death. This was premeditated murder on a metropolitan scale. So the desire to seek revenge in the minds of so many Mumbaikars and Indians should not be underestimated or ridiculed.

While empathising with this reaction, we hasten to add that a death penalty is no real punishment for a jihadi terrorist. When these misguided men and women enrolled themselves for training as terrorists and set out on their mission to kill and be killed, they saw death as the supreme sacrifice for their cause. Every jihadi terrorist sees himself as a martyr. Death does them proud. What Ajmal Kasab needs is a lifetime of remorse. He and people like him require to be humanised, since they have been manufactured into inhuman machines of death through relentless ideological indoctrination and organised military training. Even if Ajmal Kasab is finally hanged to death, he should be put through a school of religious teaching where priests and scholars can make him realise that what he did was not something that would make him a martyr in the eyes of his own religion. The real punishment for Ajmal Kasab would be to ensure that he understands before he dies that what he did does not make him a hero, much less a martyr, even from the viewpoint of his own religion.

The death penalty verdict has naturally reopened the debate in India on capital punishment. This would be a wrong time to take that debate forward, given the highly charged and emotional response to the Kasab verdict. However, as a liberal democracy India should revisit the issue of capital punishment, joining other modern societies in revoking it. First of all, as we have said already, the death penalty is not a deterrent to crime, much less for terrorists. If it was, there would have been very little crime and much less terrorism. Secondly, the process for condoning the death penalty has become completely politicised, so that even after the judiciary does its job, the executive is unable to do its job, due to political pressure. This explains the large numbers still waiting on death row. Finally, and in the specific case of religiously inspired terrorism, India must show those who hate it that this great nation, which is home to one of the most liberal civilisations of all time, lives by other rules. As Gandhiji said, an eye for an eye leaves us all blind. India's response to this war of hate should be very different. In the long run India will overcome and India will prevail, because of the enduring power of the idea of India based on that ancient and wise concept of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ — the whole world is one family. Let those who come to India to kill learn to love.