Hanging on the edge- the death penalty in India

This news report, sums up what happened yesterday. Dhananjay Chatterjee who was supposed to have been hanged for the rape and murder of Hetal Parekh lives for another day. As I read that article a number of thoughts flashed through my mind. First, while we don't use it on the same scale as the United States, India does execute people now and then. The most famous case is that of the assassins of Indira Gandhi but as this article, which explains in detail the nuances of the issue (it IS however anti death penalty), it is meant to be used in the 'rarest of rare' cases. Now this for me raises two questions.

First, is Dhananjay's case one of the 'rarest of rare' cases. On first glance it would seem not. After all, horrible as it may sound, rape and murder of teenage girls is not that uncommon. The fear of rape after all is the single biggest fear, perennially unspoken that a woman carries with her. If you ask a roomful of women, what their greatest fear is, you'll probably hear banal answers like: flying, cockroaches or spiders! So while no one will ever articulate it, most will admit when pressed by other women (I tried this once...), that rape is their ultimate fear and the ultimate form of degradation. What Hetal Parekh suffered was agony of the worst kind and what her parents continue to suffer today must be unbearable. And even if this is not one of the 'rarest of rare' cases, it could be argued that instituting the death penalty for rapists might act as a deterrent.

But it won't. And here's the counter argument. First, the problem with rape cases in India is that women are afraid to come forward, that the judiciary and the police are insensitive and the laws are often skewed. Merely threatening to kill rapists will achieve very little. Since most rapists know they will go scot free, I don't think this will unduly bother them.

So that takes us to the next question, that of the concept of the death penalty itself. As one of the above articles that I've linked to points out, 114 countries have abolished the death penalty and India is one of the few last remaining countries. While I sympathise greatly with the Parekhs and I cannot even begin to comprehend the horror that Hetal went through, I must say that I don't support the death penalty. Not for the usual 'it won't bring the girl back' kind of logic, but because the death penalty achieves very little and is so open to misuse in this day and age of TADA and POTA. Further, as someone who believes that counter terrorism by the state is no answer to terrorism, I can't quite see how I can stand up for the death penalty. However, one other thought: Dhanajay Chatterjee through all of this is becoming quite a celebrity. Let's not make him into a martyr (and hanging him might just do that), he's a killer and rapist. Let him languish in prison forever. Let him spend the rest of the 30 or so years that he will live, regretting what he did. A rape is a not a 'mistake', it's a deliberate and diabolical act and let's not be moved by his family members claiming that 'he's suffered enough'. Rubbish.

There is also the act of death by hanging which our Supreme Court has declared is not derogatory, humiliating, aking to torture and so on. Again, I am not sure I agree. Death by hanging is both barbaric and anachronistic. I oppose the death penalty per se, and would prefer to have life sentences instead, but at least if you have to kill, do so humanely. On the other hand, in America, where they do kill humanely, they telecast the killing of people like Timothy McVeigh which people watch with some absurd kind of voyeuristic 'pleasure'. Let's not go down that road, please!