Yakub Memon’s Execution: Don’t Mix Up Terror with Religion

After Yakub, government should now focus on pending terror trials with the same tenor, writes Vappala Balachandran.

Politicising Death Penalty

• BJP asks for an explanation from the Congress after some party leaders air opinions against the execution of Yakub Memon
• How about the BJP asking for an explanation from its party members like Sakshi Maharaj who made anti-minority remarks?
• Difference of opinion within the BJP evident, as its MP Shatrughan Sinha lends support for an appeal, requesting the President not to execute Yakub

Was it necessary for BJP’s senior ministers to vent their spleen on Shashi Tharoor and Digvijaya Singh on July 30 over their personal views on Yakub Memon’s hanging?

While Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Communications Minister Ravishankar Prasad used strong epithets like “irresponsible”, “shameful” and “anti-national”, other BJP leaders chose to condemn them for their “grave crime in trivialising the killing of 257 in the 1993 Bombay blasts”.

Was it necessary for them to call for an explanation from the Congress Party President over her party colleagues’ private views? Did they seek similar explanations from the BJP President on whether the opinions mouthed by Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Giriraj Singh or Sakshi Maharaj had represented the party’s views on Gandhiji’s murder, minorities or political opponents?

Traditionally, the BJP does not like any criticism of their official views. They usually dub such opinions as anti-national, claiming a monopoly of patriotism.

In January 1999 the then-NDA defence minister had organised a stealth operation of air lifting Admiral Sushil Kumar from Kochi to replace the then-naval chief Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat who was to be dismissed. Kumar was brought to Delhi not by an IAF plane but by a secret aircraft which was not meant to be a VIP taxi. This was lent by the chief of a secret agency although he did not work under the Defence Minister. Bhagwat came to know about his sacking only fifteen minutes before his successor walked into his office. This provoked senior journalist Kuldip Nayar to ask the government on January 9, 1999 how Admiral Kumar could have left his headquarters without his chief’s permission. But the then-BJP government dubbed all such criticism as “anti-national”.

Politics Over Death Penalty

Both Jaitley and Prasad are senior lawyers who should have known that the death penalty is the most contentious subject in criminal jurisprudence anywhere in the world. This became so especially after the 1972 US Supreme Court decision in Furman v. Georgia which saw the stellar contribution of the venerable legal icon, Justice Thurgood Marshall. His intervention resulted in a de facto ban on capital punishment until it was modified in 1976 in Greg v. Georgia.

In any country, this difference of opinion cuts across political alignments. Otherwise, BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha would not have joined a bipartisan group of eminent jurists, members of parliament, political leaders and film stars asking the President not to execute Yakub Memon.

Jaitley’s statement that Sinha, by signing the petition, had gone against the party line would indirectly prove Digvijaya Singh’s charge that the government and the judiciary had shown “exemplary urgency and commitment” in punishing Yakub Memon, who is among the many facing terror charges in the country.

What is wrong if Singh expressed hope that similar commitment would be shown in all cases of terror “irrespective of their caste, creed and religion”? Isn’t it the responsibility of a government to show the same eagerness to pursue all cases of terror including those who brought down the Babri Masjid which had set in motion severe communal riots resulting in 2,026 deaths?

Don’t Mix Terror with Religion

In February 1990, the US Congressional General Accounting Office (GAO) conducted a study on the correlation between death penalty and races in USA. They found that in 82 percent of the cases, the race of the victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving death penalty. Those who murdered whites were more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks.

Similarly, a prominent Indian national daily published a report on July 21, 2015 after studying the cases of 373 death row convicts that “three-fourths of those given the death penalty belonged to backward classes, religious minorities and 75% were from economically weaker sections”. The daily also said that the Law panel chairman Justice A P Shah, “himself a strong proponent of abolition of death penalty, is to submit a final report to the Supreme Court by next month”. Why should Arun Jaitley and Ravishankar Prasad squirm if Shashi Tharoor and Digvijaya Singh express similar views?

Home Minister Rajnath Singh said on July 31 that the UPA, by coining the expression “Hindu Terrorism” had weakened the drive against terrorism. This is difficult to understand. He said: “As a consequence, Hafiz Saeed (LeT) of Pakistan had congratulated the then-Home Minister. Our government will never allow such a shameful situation again.” As far as I know, the words “Saffron Terror” were first used by Praveen Swami in 2002. Does it mean that the BJP government would not recognise such cases which are pending trial?

(The writer is a former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, and also member of the High Level Committee which enquired into the police performance during 26/11 Mumbai attacks)