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On the demand for death penalty
There is an aggressive mood in the country when it comes to the death penalty and its implementation. Every mercy
petition rejected evokes a familiar set of reactions. There are those that are implacably opposed to the death penalty
itself, those that aggressively push for the swift implementation of the punishment and then there are those that argue
selectively, either on the specific merits of the case or based on a sense of affinity to the accused.The diverse reactions
to the death penalty, arguably civilisation’s most profoundly interventionist act reveal a lot about the concerns that
occupy the country today.

The argument against the death penalty is located in a civilisational belief that lies outside the domain of specific
argument. It is a foundational principle that a country needs to embrace and leave outside the scope of day-to-day
discussion, for it is a position that is difficult to arrive at through a process of negotiation that surrounds individual
cases.

That is not to say that there aren’t reasons beyond the abstract and lofty that are relevant in the case that is made
against the death penalty. Given the terminal finality of the sentence, the consequences of any miscarriage of justice
are horrific. And there have been more than enough instances of wrong people being put todeath in the name of
justice.

But even here, the underlying principle involved concerns not the arithmetic of fairness, but the calculus of morality. It is
when a civilisation puts the prospect of even one person getting wrongly executed over hundreds of other instances
where a person that deserves the death penalty according to the prevailing law is spared. The removal of the death
penalty is an act of both humanity and humility, but it needs to be rooted in a moral conviction about a society’s values.

In the current context of the times we live in, it seems highly unlikely that we are ready to take this larger view. If
anything, the current mood is pushing towards the opposite end of the spectrum; there is a great desire to flex muscles
and act in red-blooded rage. The disenchantment with the political establishment and with the current mechanisms of
delivering governance have helped created a climate where visible action of any kind is presumptively valued. The
need to stop talking and start doing things, whatever they might be, sometimes makes nuance a casualty, for nuance
has become seen to be synonymous with the ability to skilfully argue one’s way into deliberate inaction.The sense of
being under siege, which is graphically underlined by the manner in which media presents our own world back to us for
outraged consumption, leads to a desire to lash out with a sense of grinding finality.

And the current administrative machinery certainly tries hard to feed this anger. A key factor is the interminable nature
of the judicial process, and really after that length of time, and the distortions produced by the ability of the powerful to
subvert the process, the justice that is delivered often turns out to have only a passing resemblance to the real thing.
This breeds a deep sense of cynicism about the guilty getting due punishment. As aconsequence, in many cases, there
is relatively little interest in whether specific individuals accused of a crime are guilty or not; they coalesce into a larger
more amorphous group of people ‘who have got away for too long’either because of political

clout or because of communal or regional considerations and hence need to be punished. The herding of plausible
individuals into a larger, more faceless group of tormentors, makes the notion of punishment an exercise in
collectivevalidation, more than impartial justice. Indeed, there is little that is impartial or detached for the renewed
demand for visible justice- the need comes from a deeper desire to forcefully rid the system of the rot that seems to
have set in.

The demand for stricter punishment against rape is clearly located in this need. The unspeakable inhumanity of the
spate of recent rapes, the latest one involving a 5 year old begs for some concrete action. Death penalty for rape is a
surrogate for the revulsion felt against the impunity with which such actions are carried out. The belief is that the idea of
death penalty will deter potential rapists, and hence obviate the need for the system to deliver justice, which it is seen
to be incapable of doing. By making an example of the few people that happen to get caught because of media
attention, the hope is that a larger signal goes out. The low probability of a criminal gettingdue punishment is sought to
be offset by the dialling up the enormity of the punishment. The problem is that this desire ends up skirting the real
problem. Even in the latest instance, the real issue is systemic in nature- if thepolice refuse to entertain a case as
horrific as this, then all consequent ideas of justice become redundant. By focusing on the quantum of punishment
rather than the underlying systemic issues, we end up creating a false goal, and implicitly perpetuate the deeper
problem. Justice then becomes dependent on which victim the media and the larger public chooses to fight for, and
ends up making the system retreat into defensive self-protection, as was the attemptin this case.

Overall, the idea of justice as it exists today is tending towards being an instrument used for self-expression rather than
for the administration of order. It becomes a corrective mechanism that redresses perceived power imbalances and
creates an aura of strength and certainty at a time when both are seen to be at a premium. When the state vacillates
and signals its own desire to extract advantage from what needs to be seen as being above narrowconsiderations, it
triggers a larger anxiety that seeks refuge in overt signs of strength and order. The death penalty is shorthand for
clarity, and code for strength. Which is why we seem to need it so much today.

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One Comment

1. Ray Titus (http://www.buyerbehaviour.org)

Posted May 6, 2013 at 10:27 pm | Permalink (#comment-657)

“If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail
to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a
bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call.”

– John McAdams at Marquette University’s Department of Political Science.

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