Death Penalty: Who deserves to be hanged ?

Current News headlines, panel discussions and public opinion on capital punishment or death penalty are on spree and have become a buzz concept to confer. There are two schools of thought on the death penalty. One school of thought, who supports the death penalty, argues that capital punishment is an old and conservative method of punishment. The medieval society had taken this punishment as a state power. Why state should be bloodthirsty or become a murderer? There were three strong reasons behind this act which are supported by the then statesman. The first reason was that the value of human life and humane were least considerable and respected in medieval or primitive societies. There was no progressive thought for societal humanitarian values.  The political system was not democratic at that time. The second reason was to take payback. It means to revenge by killing the murderer. Third and the strongest reason was to exercise the power of the death penalty by the state as a social control mechanism.

Another school of thought rejects the notion of the death penalty. They argue that there is no place for capital punishment in modern “Nation-state”. The nation-state is the opposite of primitive or medieval society. It values human life, promote humanely and respect human as a resource. Death cannot be a punishment. Punishment is given to a living being to realize, remorse, repent and reform. But how does it happen after death?

One of the hypotheses can be drawn here if one convict is awarded the death penalty and is executed. Later on, if the fact reveals that the convict is innocent. What will happen then?  As per a survey, there are 1000 people have been executed by the judgmental errors by the judiciary system in Britain. 14 retired judges wrote to President of India to commute the death penalty of 13 convicts. They were trapped under the wrong decisions or victims of judgmental error. In Mississippi, a judge was in remorse and confessed her error .She declared her as a murderer. Dhanjanya Chatterjee was a victim of this type of error in India.   

In India, death penalty is driven by populist emotion and reflection of public outrage. If somebody wants to spare the accused of the death penalty, it will create an unpopular sentiment. Scholars who are speaking against the death penalty are being disparaged. There is an open-ended discussion on the death penalty.  Those criminals who are warranted severe and meaningful punishment are not in the frame of capital punishment. Rarest of rare cases are hard to define in the Indian Judiciary system. Another philosophical argument that favors the critics of the death penalty is that the individual does not surrender its life to the state when the social contract was made. The social contract is designed for nation and state-building. If we adhere to social contract then the state has no power to take any individual life. The death penalty is never a way out for crime. Some may consider it as a deterrent. Whitlock Cobb says that mercy will not work in the death penalty when the capital punishment system is bureaucratized. Mercy as a facet of compassion is battered by politics.

As per a report from National Law University Delhi, 76% of Indian inmates on the death row belong to marginalized castes or religions.  74% of prisoners sentenced to death were economically backward or poor and 63% were primary of sole bread earners. There is no state policy to give maintenance for the family of the victim who is executed.  So it depicts another side of the story. The death penalty is somehow bureaucratized and socio-politically motivated. Homicides and murder involving sexual violence occur every day and it is amplifying so the death penalty cannot be a deterrent.  The number of convicts for capital punishment has been increasing as far as a murder involving sexual violence is concerned. In 2019, 54 out of 102 convicts are falling in this category.  India currently has more than 400 people in death row. Rape with murder accused is the target convicts.

Justice Verma committee 2012(Nibhaya Case) stood against death penalty. Law Commission in India in its 262^nd Report clearly disapproved the death penalty in 2015. Sociologists believe that the death penalty is not a deterrent that can effectively reduce crime on women. It is just a planned way to divert our attention from structurally embedded misogyny that makes India precarious for women. In another aspect, the death penalty raises victims’ killings instead of lessening social problems like rape. The death penalty is a shortcut method to achieve social reform.

Still we think the death penalty is necessary to curb crimes.  There no need to foster a criminal in jail for a lifelong. These criminals are like tumors if we disregard them and ignore their crime, they will become cancerous for society. To conclude, I would like to say that the history of capital punishment in India is full of judicial fallacies and constant inconsistency. The death penalty is now becoming a political execution. In the future, the judicial system may reform its process. It is also in the debate that the method of execution will be changed from hanging to injecting poison.  104 nations in the UN are against the provision of the death penalty. They think it as a non -humanitarian act of punishment. In India, the Nirbhaya convicts death penalty has become a mockery, a celebration, and an open-ended argument.  A lawyer gives another day to live to the convicts and judiciary fixes some other day to execute. The cycle is becoming more interesting like drama.  Every human life has an absolute right to live and possesses the very potential to reform. Better to change the bungled judiciary system and bring reform to the legal system which favors only privileges.