The Hanging President

There are judges in the US who are nicknamed “The Hanging Judge” for their proclivity to offer no leniency – it is no less than death for a capital crime, no extenuating circumstances recognized, no procedural lapses on the part of prosecution or the state acknowledged etc. – while pronouncing the punishment. Now, the first item of news I read in the newspaper this morning went under the heading “Pranab clears way for first-ever hanging of a woman” [1]. So, no leniency for the reason of the criminal being a woman. An ignoble non-discrimination on the basis of sex, my first thought.

But, Pranab Mukherjee is not a judge; the moniker has to be appropriately tweaked, and hence “The Hanging President”. Pranab has done more to justify this epithet. He hanged Kasab and Guru. No, he did not pull the handle, but did all he could to ensure that trap door will swing open to hang the condemned. O.K., these acts by themselves may not be sufficient for the name tag.

But, I will give you a much longer list, all from the cited newspaper article, besides Sanjeev, husband of the condemned woman Sonia, “daughter of Relu Ram Punia, former Haryana MLA”:

1.    Gurmeet Singh

2.    Jafar Ali

3.    Suresh

4.    Ramji

5.    Dharampal

Four of the above will hang for killing their relatives and the other for raping a woman and killing “five members of the (rape) victim’s family”. As far as I can see, none of them fit the easy description/definition, a terrorist, though for the victims they indeed were. Yes, I will allow the argument that none of them deserve our sympathy. Yet, it is hard for me to believe that any of us has the right to condemn any of them to death.

But here I am discussing about the President of India. Now, to think that Pranab has not been on the job for too long. He is in a tearing hurry. Is it because he thinks that if he delayed further the Supreme Court may start to feel sympathetically towards the convicts because of the “excessive delay” in carrying out the punishment? Or, is it because every day of delay imposes a financial burden on the country? Or, maybe it is because he wants to mark himself off as starkly different from his successor who seems to have refused to act on the matter. It could be any or all of these. But, to my mind, it appears that Pranab wanted to create a niche for himself in the Rashtrapati Bhavan. If he were ever to ask me what to name this niche, I will immediately and unhesitatingly offer the following:

“The Hanging President”.

I am sure Pranab will be happy.

It will be better if a heavy and shining gold nameplate pronouncing the title and leaving the identity unmistakable – Shri Pranab Mukherjee, The Hanging President - is done at the earliest, just so other death row convicts may be spared. This is to hoping that blood thirst can be satiated.

Raghuram Ekambaram

References

1.    Pranab clears way for first-ever hanging of a woman, Sandeep Joshi, The Hindu, April 6, 2013