Why Kasab will never get Justice in India!

Let me begin by congratulating the Supreme Court of India for pronouncing the verdict rather quickly (if the time taken in other serious cases is anything to go by!). The talk of the town is that Ajmal Kasab - much to the expectation of millions of Indians - finds his plea challenging the death sentence by the Bombay High Court rejected. Kasab's lawyer had contested saying he had not received fair trial in Mumbai. But the apex court observed, 'We are left with no choice, but to uphold the sentence.' This means that Kasab has been handed the capital punishment by the top court in the country too!

Three cheers to the not so popular Indian judiciary for providing all legal assistance to Kasab by appointing an amicus curiae to defend Kasab's arguments despite all the proofs the world has seen countless times. 

But I am far from being happy.

Supreme Court has delivered. Our judiciary has done its job. Now is the time for execution. But hey, wait, it is not all over for Kasab yet. He still has the million dollar constitutional weapon in his arsenal which has been extremely effective in ensuring nobody actually goes to the gallows. The fancy name we have given this is president's clemency. The only surviving butcher of the 2008 Mumbai attacks could still knock at the door of the President of India for clemency. History knows there are a menacing number of clemency petitions pending with the president's office. The President however is not legally obligated by time to pronounce a 'verdict'. This translates to saying that Kasab shall continue to consume tonnes of mutton biryanis in the years to come! Well, who cares then that it is you and I who will be paying for his hunger.

My worry-list does not end there; it just starts here! India has already spent millions and millions of rupees just to keep him 'protected' inside the high profile Arthur Road jail. He has been living the kind of life all his global fanatic accomplices put together could never 'earn' for themselves. He is a bigger hero in this respect than many of our freedom fighters! If this is not rubbish, what is?

Has the State ensured us enough safety to guarantee that the next flight I am going to board will not be hijacked by some lunatic religious fundamentalists and Kasab's heroic release from the jail is demanded as ransom? Haven't we seen this happen earlier? Sure, all his brothers and cousins have deserted him for obviously understandable reasons. That does not however mean one of them will never spring up to secure his release! For as long as he is kept alive.

The world has seen what Kasab did. The courts have stood the test of truth. It is now for the government to implement the court order. In all its fairness, Kasab must be hanged; and hanged before it gets too late!

The optimist in me however struggles to be convinced that he will ever be executed. And he will get justice only when he is hanged. That's why I think Kasab will never get justice in India!

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Ayodhya Verdict: Faith vs Fact

(10 Oct 2010)

The Allahabad High Court verdict on the Ayodhya dispute came out at a time when India has begun peeping out of the third-world-country window. India is suddenly very uncomfortable with some of the age-old dogma that has been plaguing its heart and soul. The aftermath of the verdict - contrary to what most intellectuals had predicted - was one of surprise; India did not react in the popular fashion. Instead, the way people handled the verdict was pretty commendable!

The question of the hour however is: does this mean that India has come of age, or was it a compromising clever verdict? The High Court has been quite smart in coming out with a populist verdict - something that you don't see very often. While the rationale behind some of the 'admission' by the court may be debated at length, one doesn't doubt that the court has behaved in a rather 'political' manner. I - and I am sure I'm not alone there - failed to understand the facts leading to the court ordering three slices of the disputed land. One wonders why the court needed over six decades if they had to finally come up with an illogical irrational and appeasing verdict. For one, the court observed that a vast majority of Hindus believed that their deity Ram was born in Ayodhya; this prompted the court to conclude that Ram indeed was born in the ground zero. The Archiological Survey of India (ASI) was completely sidelined and what triumphed was faith. I ask: do we have a judicious judicial future at all, if our courts follow this example of upholding community sentiments and faiths, rather than deciding on the basis of the facts and figures produced in the courtroom?

As kids, we used to read stories of an ailing father, who decided to give equal share of his property to all his sons and daughters, before he died. He was driven by a fear of a prospective resentment amongst his offsprings if their share was unequal. So he played smart - he decided to make each of them equally happy. An ailing father cannot however be equated to a high court.

I'm of the view that we need to wait and watch before commenting that India has changed much in the positive direction.

The other day, I received a text message on my cellphone that read, "While India is debating where Ram was born, Australia is wondering why Laxman (the cricketer) was born!"

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