Two things caught my attention last night and I just had to write about them. Yes, I am busy and I shouldn’t be writing now, but I can’t help it.
Ajmal Kasab being sentenced to death was perhaps the most atrocious piece of political statement I have seen in some years. Mumbaikars are relieved, their vengeful appetites being quenched. The majority of the ones I asked said it was the best thing to be done. I doubt. But my doubt is of no concern here. What I want to ponder over are three things.
First capital punishment. What gives law the right to deprive human beings of life? Whatever heinous crime has been committed, a civilized society can hardly have last word when it comes to ending a person’s period in this world. It is of utmost importance that deterrent should not work as a butcher’s knife. Now, you may ask me what good comes out of keeping a person as Kasab alive. It is not what the person has done or who has suffered. I will not say that only god can take a life. But in my view, socially endorsing a legal termination of any man’s life is equivalent of violating nature’s order by murder.
Second of all, what end does it serve? I mean hanging him. Does it in any way have an effect to the hundreds of Mujahideens all prepped up and ready to get into a jihad against Indians right at this moment? Does it eradicate terrorism? Definitely not. What this sentence simply does is to maneuver the Govt from a position of guilt and responsibility to that of legal victors. It is pathetic actually. The lack of proper security machinery, the inadequate training and the lax surveillance all are bygones in the emotional moments which have captured this nation as a whole by a single verdict.
Thirdly, the whole question of terrorism being countered by force is in itself illogical, which we will elaborate further as we go along. But let me just say that terrorism is a byproduct of deprivation. As long as that deprivation persists, nothing is going to change. Now, more attacks will occur as more and more insurgents are being pushed into Pakistan through the Afghan border by the US and NATO forces. So how is this deterrent (as they call it) effective? Are we going to capture and kill all of them?
The second incident is a quagmire. So I will write about it only briefly. Something has been bothering me for a while now. I take up a newspaper and I see huge ads by the Home Ministry about the violence perpetrated by the Maoists and how we must all abstain from violence. Since the most prone to Maoists ideology are tribals and they don’t know how to read and write, it tickles my funny bone. Strange, targeting the middle and upper classes through these messages. And it hits me. It is a statement. The Govt is saying, yes, they are the killers, look at those brick buildings, the lives they have destroyed; you can’t be sympathetic to killers. So ultimately, we end up feeling like the Maoists are evil. Mind it; I am not endorsing violence, rather just circumventing the logic of the mainstream. Most people don’t ask one pertinent question… why should tribals have brick buildings in a forest? Wouldn’t bamboo or something natural be enough?
If you look deeper, two more questions arise. One, how did the Maoist movement get so big? Two, why has there been a resurgence of Maoist/Naxalite movements even though they are squashed again and again? I told you it is a quagmire. Well, I can only say one thing… ‘development’ vs habitat. While the Govt is planning big brick schools and telling Vedanta to build cancer hospitals as part of their ‘corporate social responsibility’, they manage to ignore the basic sentiments of the tribals. The middle officers exploit them. The Forest Act constrains them, making the forest no more their own. Here is where the Maoists win. They find a wound which is emotional and survival anxiety based through which they could enter.
So after Dantewada, our Home Minister has been scurrying around like Elmer Fudd after Bugs Bunny. He doesn’t pause to accept the reality that it is him with his arrogant ‘do this right now’ and ‘buck on the table’ lines that prompted this. Blaming improper modus operandi hardly puts him ahead of that fact. However, if you his latest announcement, it takes the entire issue to a whole new level.
The UAPA, 1967 has often been hacked by several State Govts to harass many civil activists. Right from the famous case of Dr Binayak Sen to Avinash Kulkarni, an adivasi activist from Gujarat. Now, threatening NGOs and citizens with a ten year imprisonment term if Maoist ideologies are propagated by them, the Minister has given the nation and its intelligentsia a rude shock. We have been plainly told that we cannot choose what we should believe in but rather believe what has been chosen for us. Where is this nation going? This is ideological extremism in its bud. To be nipped out and stomped on. Not far from now, the corporate media conglomerate will be enticing us with pre-determined political messages, leaving us as zombies incapable of thinking. Well, like it is happening in Britain, BBC reducing its stations to give SKY more air time due to the political and economic pressures it has been put under to comply. It is sickening to think that in a diverse and anarchistically democratic nation like India, this could happen.
Anyway, a little thought has become too much of my time. To sum up, like dear old Abraham Lincoln said and of course distorting the context to fit into the present scenario, ‘Whenever there is a conflict between human rights and property rights, human rights must prevail’. If we remember that, well, it would be much better.
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