The media's sense of perspective

The Mohammad Afzal saga makes me sick. The man has been found guilty of planning the December 13, 2001 attacks on the Indian Parliament, yet the media finds it necessary to report on every bleeding-heart story in favour of his clemency. Here's the latest piece of drivel, in the finest tradition of gut-wrenching soap opera rhetoric that our mainstream media has become famous for:

Afzal Guru, the man who faces capital punishment in the Parliament attack case, had a special petitioner who knocked on the President’s door to save his life. His seven-year-old son Ghalib accompanied Guru’s wife Tabassum to Rashtrapati Bhawan, requesting clemency for him.

Ghalib told the President that his dream was to become a doctor and for that he needed his father around. “I cannot fulfil my dream if you hang my father,” he reportedly told APJ Abdul Kalam in the 20-minute-long meeting.

A student of class I, Ghalib even tried to hang himself after his schoolmates informed him that his father faced capital punishment. Lawyer Nandita Haksar who accompanied the Guru family told DNA, “Ghalib knows that injustice is being done to him and his father. He wanted to hang himself to know what his father would have to go through if the death sentence were to be carried out.

Cute. It's hard not to feel sorry for the kid - he's only seven years old and doesn't know any better, and maybe he's onto something. Perhaps the children of the security guards and policemen killed during the Parliament attacks should shoot themselves, just to know what their fathers went through when Afzal and his men made their little political statement.

The child, of course, is merely being used as a pawn by his family and the media - a blatant attempt at tugging at the public's heartstrings in order to release a convicted terrorist. I don't doubt that he is truly distressed at the prospect of losing his father, but surely the legal system cannot be subverted by the testimony of a seven year old, much as the media would love it to happen (compromised national security pales in comparison to a good human interest story).

As is only natural and proper, Arundhati Roy and Medha Pathkar have spoken out against Afzal's sentence (when have they ever agreed with the Indian government?). While the Lion King defence (kid watches his father get killed, grows up to take revenge via a hilarious segment featuring a meerkat and a retarded warthog) is the most popular argument against his execution, it is by no means the most bizarre - that distinction has to go to JKLF chief Yassen Malik, with this observation:

There is a serious engagement going on between India and Pakistan now. The execution of Afzal will derail the two-year-old peace process and may create an atmosphere where in Kashmiri youths will take the path of violence

The man has been found guilty of crimes against the Indian Union. Technically, the 'peace process' will be derailed by having his kind roaming free and perpetrating more attacks against common civilians. Then again, coming from the leader of the JKLF, one wonders whether that statement was framed as a mere warning or a more sinister mafioso threat.

The real surprise is that no one (apart from Gandhians, and who listens to them?) has questioned the ethical implications of the death penalty itself. Rather, they have moved to appeal for clemency in just one case. Personally, I feel there is a chance that Afzal may attain martyrdom through execution, thus spurring on more youths to take up arms. A lifetime of solitary confinement in brutal conditions would be a more apt sentence, but there is then a chance that he would become a Mandela-esque figurehead from his prison cell, which could be even more damaging. Moreover, he could become a major bargaining chip for terrorists in case of a hostage situation such as the IC-814 hijack in 1999.

The moral issue of a death sentence in general is another issue altogether. Taking the life of someone doesn't provide closure to anyone, and it could be argued that it has proven an ineffective tactic against curbing terrorism. It should probably not be abolished, but only used in extreme cases, where the individual's survival directly threatens others' well-being. One must also look at the mode of execution currently in practice in India. Isn't death by gallows an essentially outdated and inhumane practice? Surely death by injection would be a more humane method.

It doesn't appear as if the media controversy over Afzal's execution will die down any time soon. If the Dhananjay Chatterjee case is anything to go by, the circus will follow him all the way to the noose, scheduled for October 20. Perhaps then we can all rest in peace, Afzal included.

Update: The execution has been put on hold.

Cross-posted on Random Thoughts of a Demented Mind and India Uncut