Is group interest above individual Justice ?

Maisnam Bomcha *

Supreme Court : Highest seat of justice in India :: Pix - TSE

Do our leaders forget that Shaheed Bhagat Singh was a terrorist in the eyes of the British Imperialists when he was charged for throwing bombs and leaflets in the Legislative Assembly in Lahore? Perhaps not, they are shrewd enough to read such things.

Loud cries of protests against the way Afzal Guru, the prime Parliament attack convict was hanged still continue to be heard. On the day of the hanging as well as subsequent days, the news, as expected made headlines in both the electronic and the print media but the debates on the manner it was done, were carried out in different tones. A clear divide in opinions on the actions of the Government or lack of it, is vivid from the initial views expressed on the TV channels and what the print media is all agog now.

Two leading weeklies carried stories on the hanging which cried foul against the inconsistencies in the judgement and also the denial of Constitutional rights to the condemned man. An article in the New York Times even questioned the capabilities of the Indian judicial system.

I have strong opinions against the act of sending Afzal Guru to the gallows. Other than the ground of the ‘collective conscience’ and ‘satisfaction’ on which the man was ‘judicially’ condemned; expressed in nearly romantic officialese in the judgement and lack of direct evidence, the question of: why did the President of our Republic so sharply veered away from our well known way of sitting on files and so quickly acted on file after another in denying his powers of clemency, one of the most solemn of his duties still rankles.

And the haste and secret manner the order was carried out by the Home Ministry? The mandarins indicate a fear of fallouts in Kashmir as a reason. But the hanging was not to be carried out in Kashmir and in any case, news was to reach there and adequate precautions were taken. So, what was it that they feared most which might come in the way of a decision calculated so obviously to garner political gains?

Did the Government fear that a likely nation-wide outcry against the hanging, in the event the decision is made public, in advance, may force it to stall the act? And it is here that I see, if not a bias, a certain fire fighting attitude in the mainstream Indian media. In the wake of the hanging of Ajmal Kasab and with the general elections due next year and most of all, given the nature of Indian politics; the certainty of the impending hanging was all written on the wall. India knew.

But other than intermittent cries of baying for more blood, more hangings, the media were silent on all these matters of what it now perceived as inconsistencies and an unfair trial. Not an audible murmur to stop the expected was heard. The primary role of the media is to report. But given the stringency and the near unanimity of the protest now; wasn’t some proactive action, at least, a semblance of it, expected of the media? If you care and lament so much of an injustice; something to prevent that should have been done. A strange sense of a limited concern of our media; limited only to a competition to report best when the horse has already bolted is difficult to dismiss.

What should be talked now is not sympathy towards the wife and son of Afzal Guru who were so callously denied the opportunity to meet the most loved and important man in their lives for the last time or care for another human being; what I feel most strongly isthe most common item on the social fare of ours: larger interest of groups prevailing over individual justice. None of the players in this sordid play of calculations and moral dereliction has an individual grudge against Afzal Guru. Much less perhaps, they do not want that anyone die in this manner.Yet they were instrumental in that possibly avoidable death of a person and agony to a family.

The important issue is, all these cries will die, the episode forgotten. In the absence of personal interest, when an individual is wronged by the system collectively, it’s forgotten fast. Humans by nature do not pursue targets which are clearly not identifiable or powerful. Babri Masjid or the Godra aftermath is now ignored, if not forgotten.

And now, the important question is: is justice to an individual guaranteed, in our system of dispensation of judiciary, inside of the society we live in, when deliverance of justice is sometimes weighed against a larger social interest? Or when political interest interfere and sheer weight of a public thirst, even when an anathema in a given circumstance; outweighs justice itself? Do the checks and balances given in our law books and sanctity of a life enshrined in our constitution ensure absolute justice to its citizens? More than what many have predicted as fallouts in Kashmir and elsewhere; acceptance of what happened to Afzal Guru will set a dangerous precedence.

As I write this, there is news in the Times of India about Justice K T Thomas who headed the three judge Supreme Court bench, which sentenced the three convicts of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case to death, saying that hanging the condemned killers would be wrong constitutionally. He cites a later Supreme Court judgement, which will render the death sentence pronounced then; as unconstitutional now. Afzal Guru was hanged after the judgement quoted by Justice K T Thomas.

As expected, despite precautions, limited grumblings are already visible in Kashmir but a strongly palpable distrust in the psyche of the Kashmiris has been created anew. The hanging has created a martyr perhaps to the glee of the secessionists. Do our leaders forget that Shaheed Bhagat Singh was a terrorist in the eyes of the British Imperialists when he was charged for throwing bombs and leaflets in the Legislative Assembly in Lahore? Perhaps not, they are shrewd enough to read such things. But selfish and power hungry as they are, they are more than happy if some immediate short term gains are visualised.

Writing for a weekly, Arundhati Roy said that the anger this time in Kashmir over the hanging is ‘cold and corrosive’. She also predicted that the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 will be won by either the Congress or the BJP with their allies. I wish she’s wrong in her first analysis, but I more than hope that she’s wrong all the way in the later. If not for anything, it’s time that the Indian electorate reject the parties which are, in more than indirect ways, responsible for killing of thousands of minorities.