Give Him Gallows

You know, what is our problem? I mean our problem as intellectuals. We tend to intellectualize anything and everything to be politically correct. When we are politically correct, we escape from the responsibility of having a strong opinion. We can enter into the zones of intellectual ambiguities and distract the core issue towards fringes.

Yesterday, the whole of India, perhaps was waiting for one verdict. What would be the court decision on the fate of Ajmal Kasab, the Pakistani terrorist who gunned down so many people on the fateful day of 26/11 in Mumbai? We have clinching in camera evidences against him. Pretty much like a Hollywood FBI movie villain, this trained, calculative and ruthless criminal was moving around in the CST and was indiscriminately firing at people.

Lucky we are. We still can hold faith in our judiciary. It has found Kasab guilty of 80 out of 86 charges against him (as per HT report). Now what we need is the sentence. In a democracy like India, the majority of people have already given the verdict; he should be given capital punishment. I don’t have any problem in saying that I am one among them.

But the problem is this; the moment we come to know that he is sentenced to death, our political correctness masquerading as intellectual rigor would raise its Hydra-heads. We will start our debate whether it is right to give him capital punishment or not.

The indications are already there. One of my artist friends posted in her blog that we should be looking into the working of Kasab’s mind. The reason for her saying so is simple; Kasab, ever since he is taken captive, he has been cooperating with the police in investigation, showing good behavior, learning languages etc. She suggests that had things gone good for him, he could have become a gold medal winning shooter for Pakistan in Olympics. Or he could have even become a translator. Lucky we, she did not say that he could have become a translator working in Pakistan Embassy in India.

My artist friend is justified the way several of her intellectual ilk are justified. They would say, ‘Give Kasab a Chance’. For what? ‘For him to repent, reform and become a good human being again.’ Let there be fair trial, they would say. They see him as Raskolnikoff in Dostoevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment’.

We are not against Pakistanis. They are people like us, suffering from the same ill political maneuverings. Those people who have traveled in Pakistan even after 26/11 say that Pakistanis are not particularly against India. And it is a time when cross-boundary marriages are happening more than before. Kasab is a criminal created out of the terror dens of Pakistan.

Pakistan has not owned up Kasab. It has its own reasons to do so. But the political realities in Pakistan are such that in their home grounds they cannot openly disown the criminals that work against India. That does not mean that we need to be lenient to the disruptive elements that come to our land and kill our people.

It is high time that we send a message across the world that we are not a country, which spends endless hours in discussing the ethics of capital punishment. Kill Kasab and tell the world that India is not going to put up with the terrorists who think that India is a soft target.

Our intellectuals who want to peep into the mind of Kasab do not understand one thing; he and his team killed 166 people. Out of them many could have become intellectuals, businessmen, gold medal winning Olympians, good farmers, good security professionals and good human beings. The criminals did not give them a chance.

So why should we give the criminals a chance?

When I demand capital punishment for Kasab, I sound almost like a right wing politician because they are the only people who demanded the same. Congress and the ruling coalition are very cautious in making public statements. They say that the law of the land would prevail. Let it be so.

But if we let Kasab to live in Indian jails, the same intellectuals will debate for his release. Our intellectual film makers will make films on him. Novelists will write novels. As Kasab has already shown interest in Bollywood, he would even be invited to make guest appearance in popular films.

This is how we brainwash a populace. We make icons out of criminals because we, the intellectuals believe that the criminals do (the disruptive acts) what we ourselves fail to perform in our theoretical wrangling.

Why don’t we simply do away with Kasab? Just kill him. So many individuals are ‘encountered’ because Indian legal systems do not want to face certain issues. Here we have the daring to face an issue because we have strong evidences against him.

Just finish him off because we don’t want the Indian tax payer to pay for his security and well being.

Just finish him off and tell the world that we not only do psychic babblings but also act when it is needed.