The long dark tea time of the soul

“Ami nirdosh, aamake ora mere phelche (I am innocent, they are killing me)”, this was one of the last sentences, and possibly the dying declaration of the first Indian to be sent to the gallows in 21st century. Amid widespread public debate, hysterical frenzy, Dhananjoy Chatterjee, 44, rapist and murderer, was hanged nearly two years back in August 14 2004. At a time, when the nation is arguing whether Md. Afzal Guru should be hanged, and at a time when the TADA court in Mumbai is on the verge of announcing the sentence of nearly 60 people(till now) who were found guilty of 1993 Mumbai blast, I remember each and every argument propounded by the proponents of his hanging. Those included, much of the urban youth, the victims friends and teachers, political leaders and their wives. This article describes everything that went wrong during those months, leading to his excution. The most relevant question they ask is, ”Had Dhananjoy Chatterjee been a neighbour?s son, or an engineering student, would his fate have been different?“. I ask the same question to my friends.

Two years later, I want to tear each and every argument that led to his killing, in a situation that is not very different from notorious public execution in Saudi Arabia and Iran. Even in our country it is practised in notorious witch hunts in Jharkhand. The primary arguments propounded by people who killed him were:

• Death sentence as a Deterrence: Dhananjoy, a watchman, was accussed of raping and murdering a 14 year old girl. Let me ask this simple question. Do we have less number of rapes in 2005 or 2006 than we had in 2004? I don’t think anybody is naive enough to believe that. A simple comparision of crime statistics from 2004 and 2005, shows that the number of rapes in India has actually gone up in one year after the hanging. I believe that those who are saying that capital punishment acts as a deterrence, even they know that this is not the case. Please , please, please show me one man who was convinced that he should not commit rape, just because Dhananjoy is not living anymore.
• He is harmful for our society: How exactly? If he was not hanged on that day, he would have been serving a life sentence in Aligarh jail now. He would have been cut off from rest of the world, his freedom curtailed. There are thousands of rapists in Indian jails even now. Living. Let me assure the readers that, living in jail, not one of them is a danger to them or their near and dear ones. Rape or murder is not a philosophy that is practised by some kind of people, influenced by some other kind of people. It is not an ideology, that will die down on its own if we hang one of the perpetrators?
• He never expressed remorse for his crime: Read the first line of this post. Dhananjoy Chatterjee never confessed to his crime. he was resolute in his innocence till his death. Why should he express remorse for something, that he believed he had not committed at all?
• The victim’s soul will not rest in peace as long as the perpetrators is alive: That’s a self-contradictory argument. Soul, or Atma, is something that is very pure and divine. The negative emotions of hatred, anxiety or revenge cannot entrap a soul. It is completely wrong to say that if you don’t kill him, the victim will not rest in its afterlife. Can a theologian of any language corroborate this argument? Find me one man or woman of God who can claim that the soul, even in its abstract concept, indeed yearns for revenge.
• Dhananjoy Chatterjee has not sufferred enough in jail: For 13 long years, Dhananjoy was in solitary confinement. His family sufferred worse than him. They had to sell their land to meet the legal expenses. His old parents nearly committed suicide. Their grief was broadcasted live on our INSENSITIVE national media. For ten long years he was sending his mercy petitions to everybody, in the knowledge that he might be killed anytime by the state and the people of this country.

After his death, I remember people saying that ‘rapists will now think twice’, ‘it is a victory of good over evil’ and things to that effect. As I mentioned earlier, just show me one rapist who thought twice before committing the crime. What happenned to his family? Does anybody know? They, whose private grief was turned into a public spectacle, they who were pushed to penury by the state, how are they now? Let’s ask these questions. Have not condemned the entire family bu murdering Dhananjoy. More often than not, death sentence is a punishment for the family of the accussed that the guilty himself/herself. When will the people of this country understand this simple logic?

The case for his mercy petition to be accepted was pretty strong. Still we killed him, to satify a mysterious urge within us. As this article mentions, “no one could have deserved mercy better than Dhananjoy. He was poor. His conviction was based largely on circumstantial evidence that could well have been fabricated by someone else who committed the offence, but was powerful and rich. He had no previous record of crime. He did not have the services of good, expensive lawyers. His behaviour in the jail gave no indication that he was a hardened criminal. He had languished in jails for almost fourteen years under fear of death. His family (including his wife) remained convinced that he was innocent. Generally speaking, in case of a rapist, his wife refuses to support him. His wife, after his death would have would have to spend the rest of her life as a destitute widow.” Inspite of all that, we killed him.

The blunt question is, each one of us who asked for his death, each one of us who made up this public opinion to murder him, what have we achieved? We might have got our momentary satisfaction of being a part of this collective murder of a social animal. But beyond that, what? What has Ms. Malini Bhattacharya, wife of Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, why is she happier now than she was in 2004? Why is Ms. Gillian Rosemary D’Costa Hart, principal of victims school why is she leading a more satisfactory life after bringing grief to his family? Dhananjoy was murdered on the eve of the independence day, that also happenned to be his. How brutal can a state or its people be? Two years later, it is time we ask these questions and try to find answers to them. We did a terrible mistake on August 14, 2004. Let’s avoid it in future. Let’s not allow our collective conscience to be so dumbed down, that we need to participate in public executions to boost our sagging morales. Assuming for a moment, if Dhananjoy was indeed ‘nirdosh‘, can we ever be able to forgive ourselves? Two years later, we should all hang our heads in shame. His last words were, “ami aparadhi na, Ishwar apnader bhalo koruk (I am innocent, I am not a criminal. May the Lord bless you).” That’s enough to send a shiver.