Only He Takes It, Who Gives It!

"I do regard death sentence as contrary to Ahimsa. Only he takes it, who gives it"

          After the unprecedented performance of Team Anna, New Delhi was back to 'normalcy' with yet another bomb blast in the High Court premises and an Earthquake on the same day. The rejection of the mercy petition by the President and subsequent heinous act has once again pushed up the issue of capital punishment to the forefront. Cyrilnomics, this time is interested in analyzing, that why India is still under the clutches of the medieval values.

There are broadly three types of punishment;

1. Retributive theory of Punishment- This finds itself rooted in the medieval values and figuratively being expressed as an 'Eye for an Eye' and finds its higher order manifestation mainly in the middle-east countries.
2. Theory of Deterrence- This is all about creating a psychic fear in the mind of an offender
3. Reformative theory of Punishment - Unlike the above two versions, this gives the criminal, time for self-introspection and the isolation provided will make him understand about the unworthy deal he carried out.

          Section 302 of IPC prescribes death penalty as an 'alternative punishment' for murder. Supreme court in Jagmohan Singh V sof U.P, 1973 case held that if the entire procedure for criminal trial under the CrPC for arriving at a sentence of death is valid, then the imposition of death sentence in accordance with the procedure established by law cannot be said as unconstitutional. Further awarding death penalty is not violative of Art. 21 (Rt. to Life) because Art. 21 recognizes the right of the state to deprive a person of his life or personal liberty in accordance with the procedure established by law. Again Art. 72 & Art. 161 also refer to death sentence where the executive may pardon or commute the same. But the wider interpretations of the apex court brings out the doctrine of the rarest of rare cases, when the murder is committed in an extremely brutal and dastardly manner, without any sense of remorse exhibited by the accused. But, does these provisions ultimately give the power to take away a human life?

          Death penalty is inhuman and a cruel form of punishment, which takes us back in timeline towards Retributive system. One of the major grounds on which it is supported is that it acts as a deterrence in society. But, quest for empirical evidence suggests something drastically different, for eg. In 1945 capital punishment was abolished in Travancore under the leadership of C.P Ramaswamy. Later, it joined Indian union in 1950 and IPC was adopted in the territory. Interestingly, 967 murders were reported in Travancore during 1950-55 viz. only 962 cases were reported during 1945-50. Moreover, its mostly the lower strata of the society, the bottom of the pyramid; who cannot effectively defend themselves in a court of law are the ones who get punished by the same, suggesting its class discriminative dimension. Further, if the innocence of a person is established after his hanging, no amount of justice can be done to him.

This inhuman practice yet again throws light into the Cognitive biases the country carries, which are namely:

• Anchoring: The common tendency to rely too heavily or anchor on one value or approach while making decisions. The middle path psyche of the countries policies is putting on greater gravity on the inertia and is reluctant to take up any procedural reforms.
• Bandwagon Effect: The tendency to do or believe in rules and values because many other countries do so or believe the same, is killing our aspiration for making a individual mark on the map of the world.
• Texas Sharp shooter fallacy: Many a times, it is observed that our policies lack the humanitarian considerations and have a negative effect on the people, creating dissonance in their everyday life. This fallacy is all about adjusting the outcomes after the data is collected. An external manifestation of the same can be observed even in case of gamblers fallacy.

          It shows the level of the the escalation of commitment and politicization of issues like that of Capital punishment, which has taken us to a level from where there is no exit and day by day we are getting drowned in the vicious cycle accentuated by the lack of political will and desire to be a society where the lives of its citizens gets primacy. The isolation itself is the biggest punishment and the verdict after more than two decades of detention is more barbaric than perhaps the death sentence itself. Therefore, its high time for reforms; at least we won't have unnecessary 'situations' created by different states on this particular issue or it will be a great relief if we can plug the possibility of any further bomblasts on its account because as Gandhiji said, only he has the right to take it, who actually gives it!