He had to die. Die, because a nation wanted him to,
or so were we told by the Supreme Court of the nation. He had to die to
satisfy the collective conscience of the nation, it has added for a good
measure. So, he did die, nay, hanged till death. His body was left hanging for
a full thirty minutes after the levers were pulled, we were told by a media
that was less reporting on the incident and more speculating.
The media had turned this sombre occasion of a death
into cannibalistic carnival reminiscent of a 20-20 cricket match on the anvil. They
told us everything about the last moments of the one condemned to death. Most
of it was later found to be completely false. They told us how uneasy the
convict on the death row was on the eve of his hanging only to be rebuffed by
the jail officials next morning who told us how calm and composed he, in fact,
was.
Whether the collective conscience of the nation was
satisfied or not was the only question they did not bother to answers.
They paraded the family members of the victims of the attack the death-convict
had allegedly masterminded. They interviewed political leaders asserting
that India would not take an attack on its very heart lying down. They looked
around for visuals of those celebrating the hanging, almost all of them clad in
saffron scarves while waving the Indian tricolour and inflicted the same on the
nation that has started to express itself through the likes of Arnab Goswamis
screaming on the television sets.
They did, still, not try to find out where, and in
whom, the conscience of the nation resides, forget making efforts to know if
it was finally satisfied or not. They did not need to bother to, for they had
delivered their judgement far ahead of the courts and were now merely getting
disgusted with delay in hanging the convict. The delay, for them, was
symptomatic of all that was wrong with India, their India to be precise. They
had been questioning the delay incessantly. There ‘nation’ wanted to know when
the convict would be hanged.
The convict, by the way, had a name. His name was
Afzal Guru. He was a citizen of India. Yes, in case we forgot, as the mainstream
media wanted us to, he was a citizen of India. He was entitled to all the
rights a citizen, any citizen of India has. None of his rights, including the
right to life with dignity unless taken out by due process of law, were
respected by the nation. He was denied a fair trial as many of the legal
stalwarts of the country believe.
Now, he was robbed of his dignity even in death. He
was hanged in utter secrecy, a secrecy that baffled even the Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh. Let’s make no mistakes though. Mr. Singh was not upset at “the
hanging” but at the “circumvention of basic human parameters”. Basic human
parameters, for the uninitiated, mean nothing more than the fact that his
family was not informed about his hanging and was not given a chance to meet
him ‘one last time’.
The fact that Manmohan Singh is known for being
upset after the illegalities have been committed and the benefits reaped by
those under his immediate supervision is beside the point. Remember his stand
on stone pelting in Kashmir, the very same state Afzal came from. He was upset
then too and demanded maximum restraint from the security forces who showered
bullets on those who pelted stones. He talked of humane policing. He told all
and sundry how much he valued the lives of Indian citizens, even the Kashmiris.
P Chidambaram, his subordinate who was directly in command of the security
forces, ordered maximum crackdown on the protesters meanwhile without upsetting
the Prime Minister anymore. He had already exhausted his quota of being upset
about the issue.
Afzal Guru’s case, however, was a different one. Here
was a man hanged not for absolute legal reasons but to satisfy the ‘collective
conscience of the nation’. The evidence against him was circumstantial at best,
not enough for hanging someone with an absolute belief in capital punishment
forget those like us who oppose the death sentence as a residual barbarity in
modern times. He was given death sentence nonetheless.
The conscience of the nation was not satisfied. It
did not want him just to be given a death sentence. It wanted the death warrant
signed and executed as soon as possible. Afzal Guru, the man, had been
converted into an issue, an emotive one on top of that. The nation, read Bharatiya
Janata Party was baying for his blood. They had too for everything about the
wretched fellow served the BJP’s purpose. He was a Muslim and a Kashmiri. He
was accused of being involved in the conspiracy ( we cannot write conspiring as
there is no concrete evidence for that till date) to attack Indian parliament.
What better stick could they, and tens of other amoebic heads the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh clan has, to beat Congress and
its politics of ‘minority appeasement.’ Afzal was no more a person languishing
in jail for a crime he has committed as per the
political doctrine of collective conscience if not legally as per his
own assertion. BJP has converted him into a devil whose dead body would be the
hinge on which would turn the discourse of national security.
It was not about national security though, not for
the BJP at least. After all it remains the same party which had sent the then
Union Minister Jaswant Singh to Kandahar as an escort to the known terrorist
Hafiz Saeed in return for the passengers of ill fated Air India flight IC 814. It
was also the same party which had unceremoniously returned the army after
keeping it in a forward attack position for almost two years without achieving
a single stated objective of the misadventure. The cost of the catastrophic
buildup on the borders was astronomical. BJP led NDA had successfully managed
to get more than 1500 Indian soldiers killed without fighting a war.
Neither had it anything to do either with minority
appeasement or BJP’s newly found love about democratic institutions. It has kept
its mouth tightly shut on the case of Balwant Singh Rajoana, convicted for the
assassination of Beant Singh, the then Chief Minister of Punjab. Rajoana,
unlike Afzal Guru, has neither sought any clemency nor shown any remorse for
the notorious killing even while admitting his role in the same.
Unlike Afzal Guru, further, Rajoana was not hanged
even after death warrant being signed as the jail officials returned the same
under, allegedly, instructions of Akali Dal-BJP government ruling the state.
Parkash Singh Badal, the Chief Minister of Punjab, had himself approached the
home ministry asking for putting the decision on hold. The reasons he gave for
the demand were simple. He wanted the ministry to respect the sentiments of the
people; the sentiments that reflected in Akal Takht, supreme religious body of
the Sikhs, declaring Rajoana as ‘Zinda Shaheed’.
The case of Afzal Guru was no different. There were
a lot of sentiments attached to him. The Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir,
as in Rajoana’s case, had warned the central government about the law and order
problems that would have ensued following his hanging. The center did take
notice of all that as it was evidenced from the secret hanging and the
immediate clampdown on Kashmiri’s right to protest. The state was put under
unrelenting curfew. All channels of communication, including social media were
stopped.
No, I am not asking for Rajoana’s hanging. No one
with a firm belief in humanity can ask for anyone’s killing, that is a foray of
the thousands of murderous Bajarangis of the BJP stable. It is not about
Rajoana at all in fact.
It is about the very future of the nation and
Congress in it, as well. Congress might succeed, for a while, in puncturing
BJP’s Hindutva balloon and emerge victorious in 2014. It is going to lose the
battle nonetheless. It is not the first time it is flirting with soft Hindutva
politics. It has done that in 1989 by allowing the juggernaut of rathyatras and
Shilanyas. It did never come back anywhere close to power in most of north
India ever again. It did the same in Gujarat while trying to fight Modi’s
Hindutva with Shankarsingh Baghela’s Hindutva. The results are for everyone to
see.
If only Congress knew that people prefer originals
over photocopies, even when it is all about banality of evil.
I did not know Afzal Guru personally. Neither did I
know his wife and son. Today I know them all and my heart goes out to them.
With ample help from the BJP, the Indian state has successfully made a hero out
of a surrendered militant. With the new vacant grave it has dug in Kashmir for
him, it has ensured immortality befitting a martyr on Afzal Guru.
None of it can offer any solace to the bereaved
family whose only crime was to be related to Afzal Guru. Nor can it offer any
solace to the democracy that has been demeaned by the act. I think of all those
Pakistani friends telling me how lucky we are to be a democracy. I had never
missed that half-jealous and half-desirous tone of those comments. I don’t know
if I would believe them anymore.
What a stupid post. Your anti-Hindu attitude can be seen pretty clearly in this article. Calling a terrorist martyr is a very stupid thing to do. Is Osama bin laden also a "hero" to you muslims? I don't know why you muslims have such a huge victim complex, as if Hindus run around with swords and guns killing every muslim on the way. I suggest you look at the real conditions of muslims in Gujrat before whining about the "victims". Gujrat is growing much faster and has much better services than your "secular" congress that has left states like UP-Bihar "bhooka-nanga" for generations. The meaning of secularism is to keep everyone in equal view, not to give power to minority while suppressing the majority, that's precisely what is happening under congress govt. I wonder why the pro-congress "secular" media and the congress and it's secular brigade constantly avoids the Kashmir massacre of Hindu Pandits? What about Hindus of North east and Bengal? Where are those Hindus? How many muslims have come forward to bring these atrocities to light committed by their own religious brethren? Or is meaning of minority is only to justify islamic terrorism and label every accused terrorist as a "hero" and a "martyr" ?
ReplyDelete"Hindutva" - Please learn what it is before blabbering like an idiot. If you really have a knack for human rights then, protect humans not muslims/islamic terrorists/bin ladens or anti-nationalists like afzal guru. They don't have a right to bomb our cities or our parliament, stupid comments from seculars like you only gives power to these anti-Indian morons.
Lastly, why are you hiding in Hong Kong? What do you really have to do with Human Rights in India? Are you a terrorist yourself? Do answer these questions if you have some sense left in you and your kind. Whoever attacks our country/kils our people must die, whether it be a "innocent" muslim terrorist or some anti-national lunatic. This is a country not a dharmshala where every cartoon can do whatever he/she wants. And if you want to live under islamic rule, there always is Pakistan for you, that's the main purpose for which it was created. I don't see why Indian muslims are living in India when Pakistan was created for them, don't like the "cruel" people here? immigrate to pakistan.
Regards.
The comment of An Anonymous on this article is clearly showing that the critic is suffering with lack of knowledge.Writer belongs to a Brahmin Hindu Family but he himself is an Atheist.He is not an anti Indian or anti religion whether it is Hinduism or Islam or any other religion..He simply criticizes Anti Dalit and minorities policies of the government.As well as he is a strong critic of those anti social elements who makes their efforts to create divisions among different communities..His article about this topic is really comprehensive and plausible.and I think for you Mr.Anonymous have to read the article with cool mind not being a Hindu or Muslim and I am sure you will find this article the excellent one on the topic.....
ReplyDeletewith Regards
Brilliant article with insight in to the political stage in different states ripping the political hypocrisy of Indian politicians and Political parties.
ReplyDelete