Re: Afzal Guru hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail
"Collective Consciousness".
New term to use against any accused.
Re: Afzal Guru hanged in Delhi’s Tihar jail
India
My government decides to execute a man who was condemned to death some years ago. My government has a fuzzy impression that perhaps his family should be informed. So my government writes a letter to them—they live in a town in Kashmir—seals it and hands it to its own postal service to deliver. Wonder of wonders, it is delivered. Just over 48 hours after he is executed.
My newspaper carried comments, made the day the letter reached the family, from the Chief Postmaster General in Kashmir, one John Samuel, and they make eye-opening reading. The letter was dispatched from Delhi by “speed post”—in which you pay much more money for not much faster delivery times—and reached the main post office in Srinagar, capital of the state of Kashmir, the afternoon of February 9, which was already some hours after he was hanged that morning. Samuel is quoted: “The speed post for Srinagar is delivered that very day, but for other districts, it goes the next day. The next day was a Sunday and there was a curfew. But when we found out what the letter was, we made special arrangements to get it delivered”—right here, perhaps you think Samuel will say “the same day”?—“this [Monday] morning.”
A callous and utterly botched effort, but even if just a sidelight to this execution, it fits the execution like a favorite glove.
Afzal Guru, as he was popularly known, was the surviving principal accused in the audacious attack on India’s Parliament on December 13, 2001. But he wasn’t part of the actual attack. That day, five men drove a car into the Parliament complex and started firing. All were killed in the ensuing gun battle, along with a gardener and eight security staffers. Afzal was arrested just two days later and charged with conspiring in the attack. He was tried, found guilty in 2005, and sentenced to die.
In the years since, as he went through the process of appeals and reviews, he became a lightning rod for Indian wrangling over terrorism. One whole shade of opinion, opposed to the death penalty, argued that his sentence should be commuted to life. Many others pointed out that his trial itself was flawed in many respects. In suggesting all this, these folks went up against another whole shade of opinion that wanted Afzal executed right away, perhaps even in public. Every day he was alive, this shade believed, was more proof of the government’s weakness, its softness toward terrorism. The government, they shouted whenever and wherever possible, lacked the guts—the balls, why not?—to execute Afzal.
Predictably then, if oddly too, this man’s very existence had become a test of Indian virility.
Now I happen to believe India is soft on terrorism, but I’ll return to that. There are questions about Afzal and his trial that many people believe were never adequately answered. There was his status as a “surrendered militant,” therefore nurtured by paramilitary forces in Kashmir. There were discrepancies in accounts of his arrest. There were doubts about the extent of his involvement in the attack itself. There were concerns about the quality of his legal representation. Writers more knowledgeable about the case than I am have concluded that “a man was hanged who was not guilty beyond reasonable doubt”. (Though let’s note that other writers have addressed some of these concerns.
Still, there were enough questions that the Supreme Court judges who upheld Afzal’s death sentence themselves took note. For example: “All these lapses and violations of procedural safeguards,” they wrote, “impel us to hold that it is not safe to act on the alleged confessional statement of Afzal and place reliance on this item of evidence on which the prosecution places heavy reliance.”
Still, the judges upheld his death sentence anyway. One short passage (just 10 sentences) in their judgment spells out their reasoning for doing so. Smack in the middle of the passage, we find this: “[T]he collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if the capital punishment is awarded to the offender.”
Leave aside every other question. This one sentence, by itself, is deeply and profoundly troubling.
For one thing, who determines this collective conscience? Plenty of Indians want capital punishment taken off the books. Plenty more are not convinced that Afzal was guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Do their consciences figure in this supposed collective?
But more important, we hardly expect judges to decide cases based on the “collective conscience of the society.” The process of justice itself implies a careful, deliberate consideration of evidence and the law. Nothing more, nothing less. If we instead allow justice to pay attention to a society’s “conscience,” we might as well dispense with our courts and let mobs hand out instant, and thus intrinsically perverted, punishment.
We who were disturbed by this sentence found all manner of caveats flung at us. “It is an obiter dictum,” somebody said to me, apparently thinking that Latin would persuade me. “You have to read it in context”, somebody else said to me. All I can say is, I’ve read it in context—indeed, I’ve read the entire judgment—several times. No context makes that remark palatable.
And in a real sense, this is why I believe this is a country soft on terrorism. After all, the worst acts of terrorism we’ve seen in India have gone nearly unpunished. Three thousand Indians were slaughtered in Delhi in 1984, thousands more were slaughtered in Mumbai in 1992–93 and Gujarat in 2002. The great majority of those horrible crimes remain untouched by the law; arguably because plenty of Indians don’t want them so touched. Arguably because the same “collective conscience” doesn’t want these crimes punished.
It’s simple. When you pay attention to a “collective conscience” instead of focusing tightly on justice, you lose justice.
You may even lose that conscience. Softness, right there.
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Dilip D’Souza is the winner of the Newsweek/Daily Beast–Open Hands Prize for Commentary in South Asia and the author of, most recently, Roadrunner: An Indian Quest in America and The Curious Case of Binayak Sen.
Re: Afzal Guru hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail
^ Yes!
"When you pay attention to a "collective conscience" instead of focusing tightly on justice, you lose justice."
Re: Afzal Guru hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail
^ Yes!
"When you pay attention to a "collective conscience" instead of focusing tightly on justice, you lose justice."
I agree. In fact we are living among hypocrites, who would cry their heart out when some of their loved ones or from their own community is killed. But when the same is among killers than we will go all out to justify the killing. Poor Afzal was just a victim of this hypocrisy.
Permit me to inform U that there was a pervert and racist (Read Gandhi) among us who would have raised his voice against the injustice done. he would have told those frenzied crowd who were thirsty of Afzal's blood that an eye for an eye will make the world world blind. But unfortunately the blood thirsty masses of our nation would choose to dance and distribute sweets when a person is murdered like this. Gandhi and Gandhism is worth hating these days. Than what better can U expect from ppls who have this kind of mentality? In this part of world ppls are not judged by the quality they have, but by the religion they follow. And their religious belief is satisfied by only one word, KILL.
Re: Afzal Guru hanged in Delhi’s Tihar jail
India-controlled Kashmir seethes as curfew extends to seventh day - CSMonitor.com
Srinigar, Indian-administered Kashmir
Kashmir’s 6 million residents faced their seventh straight day of confinement and curfew today, the result of an order by New Delhi after the government’s secret hanging of Mohammad Afzal Guru, a local Muslim convicted for his role in a deadly attack on India’s parliament in 2001.
Mr. Guru’s execution, after a controversial trial and death sentence, and his burial inside the high-security Tihar jail in New Delhi on Feb. 9, have left the mostly Muslim residents in the Srinigar Valley region seething in anger. Nearly all local politicians, including chief minister Omar Abdullah, expressed dismay, with Mr. Abdullah saying “there was no case against him [Guru] in the [Jammu and Kashmir] state.”
Guru’s execution came as the region was experiencing a period of tentative calm after three consecutive summers of mass protests against Indian rule that left 180 people dead. Now, as political activists are detained and the curfew continues, talk is rising again of a renewed atmosphere of confrontation from years back.
RECOMMENDED: How well do you know India? Take the quiz.
The general opinion in the valley is that Guru did not receive a fair trial and that Indian political and judicial institutions “colluded” in his verdict. The hanging was also criticized amid a renewed debate about capital punishment.
“If circumstantial evidence is enough to send a man to the gallows, what about [Narinder] Modi, who supervised a pogrom against Muslims in [the Indian state of] Gujarat?” asked a local resident, peering through a window in Srinagar, the region’s summer capital. He declined to give his name.
Fearing further protest, the government has detained more than 100 political activists, including all those identified as separatist leaders. Three persons died during protests over the hanging, including a teenage boy killed when Indian security forces fired at protesters near Guru’s village.
Two leading Kashmiri separatists, Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, in New Delhi at the time of Guru’s hanging, were detained and their phones confiscated by authorities.
“The Indian state in Kashmir has dropped its mask. I am waiting for a call for a protest march and I am going to go out and join it,” said Siddiq Wahid, a historian and former vice-chancellor of the Islamic University of Science and Technology here. “I fear this can take the situation back to collective confrontation.”
Amid severe restrictions on the media – newspapers could not publish for four days – mobile Internet services were withdrawn without notice and cable TV pulled off indefinitely, prompting many Kashmiri people to feel pushed to the wall without avenues to express themselves. A Kashmiri lawmaker in the region was also detained after he tried to lead a protest demonstration against the hanging.
“No Kashmiri leader is able to do anything. I am helpless and personally want to quit this dirty [pro-India] politics,” the lawmaker, Abdul Rasheed, said over the phone from a police barracks where he is being kept under detention. “I will go to my supporters and explain myself as soon as I am released.”
The anger and hurt is so deep that many who had started veering toward a politics of reconciliation have begun to change course.
Raja Muzaffar Bhat, a young anticorruption activist who had joined the pro-India Peoples Democratic Party, resigned from the group, saying on Facebook, "…I feel that there is no space for working democratically within the Indian state.”
Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, former Interior minister of India, also criticized the hanging, saying he regretted that Delhi would not allow the family a last meeting, or possession of the body. Mr. Sayeed, at one point Indian Kashmir’s chief minister, said in a statement: “This reduces Mahatama Gandhi’s country, the world’s largest democracy and a genuine candidate for superpower status, to a banana republic.”
The latest unrest in Kashmir comes after renewed India-Pakistan bonhomie that withstood the recent flare-up along the heavily militarized line of control, or LoC, that divides the region between the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbors. The skirmishes, the worst since the two countries signed a cease-fire in 2003, led to the killing of three Pakistani and two Indian soldiers.
Separatist leader Abdul Gani Bhat, recently criticized here for advocating “reconciliation” and forging a common agenda with pro-India Kashmiri groups to find a solution to the Kashmir dispute, said New Delhi’s policy in Kashmir was eroding India’s “democratic institutions.”
“If India doesn’t recognize its mistakes in Kashmir soon and sincerely correct them, a process of Balkanization will ensue,” Professor Bhat said.
Re: Afzal Guru hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail
I agree. In fact we are living among hypocrites, who would cry their heart out when some of their loved ones or from their own community is killed. But when the same is among killers than we will go all out to justify the killing. Poor Afzal was just a victim of this hypocrisy.
Permit me to inform U that there was a pervert and racist (Read Gandhi) among us who would have raised his voice against the injustice done. he would have told those frenzied crowd who were thirsty of Afzal's blood that an eye for an eye will make the world world blind. But unfortunately the blood thirsty masses of our nation would choose to dance and distribute sweets when a person is murdered like this. Gandhi and Gandhism is worth hating these days. Than what better can U expect from ppls who have this kind of mentality? In this part of world ppls are not judged by the quality they have, but by the religion they follow. And their religious belief is satisfied by only one word, KILL.
What a post! Well said.
Re: Afzal Guru hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail
ah! self loathing is such a wonderful palliate for some who want to feel holier than thou!
India is not so great and perfect that every act, thought and word of every sipoy, constable, clerk and lawyer will be measured, delibrate, plastic and sterile. We are a poor country trying to survive amongst rampant corruption and abominable poverty. We are trying to overcome the effects of nearly a 1000 years of enslavement. And even though it has only been 65 years, we are beginning to make some progress. So don't expect perfection.
Now look at this case. Read the 2005 verdict text. See how clearly it lays out how and why Afsal Guru, Shaukat (his cousin) and Afsan nee Navjot (Shaukat's wife) were caught. See how they activatd cell phones few days before the attack, how these cell phones were in almost continuous contact witht the phone found on the terrorist killed on site, see how Geelani who officiated Shaukat's marriage was also in some level of contact right around the attack. See how the Rs 10 lakh was found.
See all the appeals and counter appeals that were made on both sides. See how the for over 11 years these traitors used and manipulated the inefficient system.
Those were 11 years that the families of the 9 killed victims (gardener and 8 security) awaited justice. Those were 11 years that their PARLIAMENT having been attacked, the nation awaited justice.
You fools! that is the collectice conscience. This is one thing India finally got right.
Re: Afzal Guru hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail
I agree. In fact we are living among hypocrites, who would cry their heart out when some of their loved ones or from their own community is killed. But when the same is among killers than we will go all out to justify the killing. Poor Afzal was just a victim of this hypocrisy.
Permit me to inform U that there was a pervert and racist (Read Gandhi) among us who would have raised his voice against the injustice done. he would have told those frenzied crowd who were thirsty of Afzal's blood that an eye for an eye will make the world world blind. But unfortunately the blood thirsty masses of our nation would choose to dance and distribute sweets when a person is murdered like this. Gandhi and Gandhism is worth hating these days. Than what better can U expect from ppls who have this kind of mentality? In this part of world ppls are not judged by the quality they have, but by the religion they follow. And their religious belief is satisfied by only one word, KILL.
The questions raised here are not why "death penalty" was given and if eye for an eye philosophy is wrong.
By all means if he had been shown beyond reasonable doubt a culprit then death penalty would have been justified and accepted by a lot of people.
Simply speaking, there are two kinds of criticisms on this case.
1- If justice was even done in this case?
2- Should death penalty even be given to criminals who are found guilty by using law?
Most people are asking question #1.
i.e. "Collective consciousness of the society" versus justice by law.
Re: Afzal Guru hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail
I do not see the reason of bringing Gandhi in to this discussion but can easily say he would not have been able to do much... just like during the partition of India.
Anyhow, he is not here anymore and no telling what he had done if he were to be alive.
Re: Afzal Guru hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail
what most people are asking? how do you know that? haave you read the verdict? the collective conscience is about the parliament of a the country attacked - and therefore the reference to their (country = people) collective conscience.
this was not a simple murder of a gardener or a security guard. This was an attack on the people of India. All Indians were the victims. Hence ot is their collective conscience.
And why do you assume that is in contradiction to justice? The text of the verdict recounts in a lot of detail the evidence and how the verdict was arrived at. A lot of people just make assumptions about the verdict based on snippets and start criticizing.
Is that so difficult to comprehend?
Re: Afzal Guru hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail
see how Geelani who officiated Shaukat's marriage was also in some level of contact right around the attack. S
If Geelani was in contact around the attack, why was he released?
Re: Afzal Guru hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail
^To show that justice was being done to Afzal.
Re: Afzal Guru hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail
I do not see the reason of bringing Gandhi in to this discussion but can easily say he would not have been able to do much... just like during the partition of India.
U may not see the reason, but it may be possible that U may not always be right coz U are a mortal too just like all of us. But U are always entitled to ur views.
Let me again inform U that he would surely have raised his voice effectively and loudly. Rest is always in hands of ALLAH. Be it known to U if U dont know this fact.
The problem of our nation is that poor Gandhi has become a center of choicest abuses and insults of pious guys from all section of society. The list is long, they include Modis, Praveen Togadias, Thackreys, Ashok Singhals, Vinay Katiyars, ........and it goes on untill it reaches the other side of the border. U should be happy to learn this. U are ham-khayaal to such great personalities from our nation. Plz remember me as ur friend when Modi will become Prime Minister of India, I may approach U for my SIFARISH. Just kidding. May I?
Regarding partition of India, let me come out of my selective amnesia and remember what Gandhi did for Pakistan, when he sat on fast, right after the partition. But who can respect and remember a pervert and racist?
For those who can see this thread straying from path, we are very much on right track. The whole problem has arisen out of a mentality, "if U are not on our side, U are definitely against Us." I again say, what better U can expect from pious guys who find Gandhi worth maligning and abusing? U can ask anyone who has some genuine knowledge about him. Which side he would have been? The answer may prompt U to switch ur side. Keep guessing why.
Re: Afzal Guru hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail
If Geelani was in contact around the attack, why was he released?
I don't know because I haven't yet read those documents yet. At this point I am guessing it is because while there was enough evidence to arrest him, not enough to connect him. Remember he was a professor in a college and his friends there did not think he was that kind (I don't know but it is possible).
Re: Afzal Guru hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail
U may not see the reason, but it may be possible that U may not always be right coz U are a mortal too just like all of us. But U are always entitled to ur views.
Let me again inform U that he would surely have raised his voice effectively and loudly. Rest is always in hands of ALLAH. Be it known to U if U dont know this fact.
The problem of our nation is that poor Gandhi has become a center of choicest abuses and insults of pious guys from all section of society. The list is long, they include Modis, Praveen Togadias, Thackreys, Ashok Singhals, Vinay Katiyars, ........and it goes on untill it reaches the other side of the border. U should be happy to learn this. U are ham-khayaal to such great personalities from our nation. Plz remember me as ur friend when Modi will become Prime Minister of India, I may approach U for my SIFARISH. Just kidding. May I?
Regarding partition of India, let me come out of my selective amnesia and remember what Gandhi did for Pakistan, when he sat on fast, right after the partition. But who can respect and remember a pervert and racist?
For those who can see this thread straying from path, we are very much on right track. The whole problem has arisen out of a mentality, "if U are not on our side, U are definitely against Us." I again say, what better U can expect from pious guys who find Gandhi worth maligning and abusing? U can ask anyone who has some genuine knowledge about him. Which side he would have been? The answer may prompt U to switch ur side. Keep guessing why.
My respects to you for this post
Re: Afzal Guru hanged in Delhi’s Tihar jail
So when there was a discussion about Gandhi, you insisted on asking about others, and when the discussion is about Afzal Guru sentence, you find it a place to talk about Gandhi who is not even here. 
Yes, as I also said that you are free to love him and I have different views than yours.
I really do not care what anyone including Modi thinks of him. The history is for all to review and his acts can be questioned by anyone.
Whatever allegedly Gandhi did for Pakistan is neither substantiated nor it means that he did something good overall to all/any parties in the division of subcontinent.
He is not off the hook from being at least partly/indirectly responsible for the division.
Please get off the high horses and stop the sarcasm of calling people pious when no one has claimed that.
Keep living in Gandhi’s bubble. You have all the right to, but lets talk about the verdict. Shall we?
Re: Afzal Guru hanged in Delhi’s Tihar jail
I m really sorry that U have to hit urself hard owing to my not-so-good comments. So plz relax and I promise not to bring the topic again but last time just to respond U. The point I m trying to make is simple. That is that its due to majority of ur hum-khayaals that these kind of terrorism is happening in our nation.
Yes I remember U called him a pervert and racist. Still I love him and pious guys like Modis, and co.(across the border) hate him. But I respect their right to have different views.
I like ur attitude. And I m really happy that ideology of Modi and co. is gaining popularity in Pakistan too. I see this as a good opportunity to bring the two nations together, even at the cost of abusing Gandhi. But lets end this unfortunate DUSHMANI once and for all.
WOW, now U are improving ur skills to be a perfect associate of Modi and co. Keep it on and keep giving us hopes of peaceful co-existence.
The moment U call others and ppls like Mahatma (The great soul as the world knows him) perverts, U automatically become pious according to my Gandhian understanding. So plz dont deprive me of pleasure to call U pious. Pious guys like U are modest too according to my Gandhian understanding, but plz try to digest it. U need not claim anything, we already know ur virtues, thanks to the ocean of great thoughts that oozes out of ur thousand odd posts.
We shall, but plz let me continue it in my way, will U?
Re: Afzal Guru hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail
I m really sorry that U have to .......... will U?
You are getting funnier by the posts....Thanks for a great job in amusing. :D
Sorry no respect for the pervert and disliking a pervert does not mean being pious..its just common ethical, social and moral sense...which some people unfortunately lack.
Re: Afzal Guru hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail
I m really sorry that U have to hit urself hard owing to my not-so-good comments. So plz relax and I promise not to bring the topic again but last time just to respond U. The point I m trying to make is simple. That is that its due to majority of ur hum-khayaals that these kind of terrorism is happening in our nation.
Yes I remember U called him a pervert and racist. Still I love him and pious guys like Modis, and co.(across the border) hate him. But I respect their right to have different views.
I like ur attitude. And I m really happy that ideology of Modi and co. is gaining popularity in Pakistan too. I see this as a good opportunity to bring the two nations together, even at the cost of abusing Gandhi. But lets end this unfortunate DUSHMANI once and for all.
WOW, now U are improving ur skills to be a perfect associate of Modi and co. Keep it on and keep giving us hopes of peaceful co-existence.
The moment U call others and ppls like Mahatma (The great soul as the world knows him) perverts, U automatically become pious according to my Gandhian understanding. So plz dont deprive me of pleasure to call U pious. Pious guys like U are modest too according to my Gandhian understanding, but plz try to digest it. U need not claim anything, we already know ur virtues, thanks to the ocean of great thoughts that oozes out of ur thousand odd posts.
We shall, but plz let me continue it in my way, will U?
Nice post. Funny and intelligent. Certainly not pious.
Re: Afzal Guru hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail
You are getting funnier by the posts....Thanks for a great job in amusing. :D
U are more than welcome. Amusing pious guys is great service according to Gandhism. I feel honored to do this job for U. U will not be disappointed by me on this count in days to come.
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Sorry no respect for the pervert and disliking a pervert does not mean being pious..its just common ethical, social and moral sense...which some people unfortunately lack.
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I again congratulate U for using same language that Modi and co. use frequently. Keep it on and keep getting pats from me. Thanks for giving me lessons on ethical, social and moral sense. And U are right, Gandhists really lack these senses while Modi and co. are fortunate enough to be champions of same. So calling pious guys like Modis, and urself, pious nothing strange for unfortunates like Us.
Thanks.
[QUOTE]
Nice post. Funny and intelligent. Certainly not pious.
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Mere Bhai, I m unfortunate not to be in league of greats like Modis and his associates across the border. Therefore pious is something which I cant dream of being, I m okay with perverts, unfortunately though.