indefinitely.

But not in the case of

Executing Kasab Ajmal Kasab.
Kasab's speedy hanging raises three
A New Beginning or the Beginning questions about India's death penalty.
First, what was so special about this
of the End of India's Death Penalty? crime and this defendant that produced
such a speedy and severe response? Sec-
ond, is Kasab's execution a signal that
FRANKLIN E ZIMRING, DAVID T JOHNSON India's quiet progress towards quitting
capital punishment could be in jeop-
With the pressure to
ardy? And third, might the aftermath of e
Kasab on 21 November 2012, was Kasab's execution be a good time for
Ajmal Kasab now past,
The Kasab an hanging important
an important on 21in oftheNovember Mohammed milestone 2012, in Ajmal was the
milestone India to move towards a formal suspen-
India can proceed
sion of executions? with
saga of the Mumbai siege of November
towards
2008, but it is also a significant episode ending
What about the execut
Mumbai case jump-
every in the modern history of the death
democracy in
started a rush to the gallows? Two pos- Eu
sible answers - its terrorist motivation
penalty in India. The Mumbai invasion done.
already A forma
by a 10 -person contingent of Pakistani and the magnitude of the death toll - do
moratorium on executi
terrorists killed 166 persons, caused ex- not separate this case from a number of
a tentative
tensive injury and huge material dam- first step
other murders that did not overturn the a
used extensively
age, and profoundly embarrassed India's by
legal system's standard operating proce- ot
police and security services, who were dures. To be sure, the attack in 2008 was
jurisdictions in their j
held at bay for two days while millions terrorism in a pure form, but so were the
towards abolition.
watched on television and the internet.
Iron
massacre of Sikhs in 1984 after Indira
then, Kasab's
Kasab hanging
was the only survivor of the 10 Gandhi's assassination, the mass killing
have attackers, and he was arrested and of Muslimsthe
removed in Gujarat in 2002, andcoun
the
tried for his role in the larger conspiracy. attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001
best argument for ret
This foot soldier was neither a leader - among several other cases. Moreover,
capital punishment.
the human toll in 2008 was great -
of the terrorist attack nor a sophisti-
cated enemy of the Indian state, but
166 persons were murdered - but much
smaller than the thousands killed in
he was the only available target for
1984 or the 1,000 or so who were killed
victims' resentment and retribution, for
in Gujarat. Indeed, the death toll in 2008
frightened citizens, and for an outraged
Indian government. was smaller than two earlier terrorist

Kasab's swift trial, expeditious ap-attacks in Mumbai, where 251 were

killed in 1993 and 209 died in a 2006
peals, and execution - all of which fin-
ished within four years of his awful
bombing that led to two death sentences
crimes - were almost unprecedented but
in no fast-track executions.
the labyrinthine legal system that hasIn large part what distinguishes the
2008 attacks from previous acts of ter-
grown up around India's death penalty.
Kasab's execution was only the second rorism is that this atrocity was seen not
judicial killing in India in the past 15 as an expression of domestic discord but
years (the other occurred in Kolkata rather as a surprise attack by Pakistan.
in 2004, 13 years after the defendant Two justices of India's Supreme Court
had been convicted). By contrast, the were explicit about this linkage when
People's Republic of China carries out they identified two critical aspects of
several thousand executions each year. Kasab's guilt: "the gravity of his crime
Franklin E Zimring (fzimring@
What keeps India from conducting any and the fact that he participated in
edu ) teaches law at the Univers
executions in most years is not a waging war against the country". For
at Berkeley and David T John
shortage of death
hawaii.edu) sentences - there are Indian citizens
teaches
who demanded and
sociology a
of currently
Hawaii. more than 400 convicts
They areon celebrated his hanging, Kasab was a
co-authors
deathNational
Frontier: row - but rather an executive stand-in for the whole Lãshkar-e-Taiba
Development
Change, and the Death
clemency system which uses terrorist organisationPenalty
delay - and perhaps for
University Press, 2009).
Pakistan as well.
and indecision to postpone executions

10 DECEMBER 29, 2012 vol XLVii no 52 EGE3 Economic & Political WEEKLY

This content downloaded from 192.190.180.53 on Wed, 28 Nov 2018 02:56:46 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 If these are features of the Mumbai McVeigh was also a much more culpablefirst suspended in 1965 before being per-
case that make it so singular, what docriminal than Kasab because he was the manently abandoned in 1969.
they suggest about the future of capitalmastermind of the scheme as well as its Leadership from the front in death
punishment in India? Will the first exe-triggerman. His execution in 2001 was penalty policy often provokes public
cution in almost a decade be the "ice- the first carried out under the authorityopposition - and it certainly would do
of America's national government after aso in India. But there is really only one
breaker" that leads to a steady stream of
executions across India, or will it stand
new federal death penalty was passed risk of a suspended death penalty that
as an exception as the nation continuesin 1988. Both the us President at the would generate fear from most Indian
to drift towards the permanent retire-
time (George W Bush) and the attorneycitizens: the possibility of another terrorist
ment of its executioners? general (John Ashcroft) hoped thatinvasion, another Mumbai massacre.
The argument that more executions
McVeigh's death would produce a steadyAnd here the history of death penalty
will follow in the wake of Kasab's stream of federal executions - but that didreform suggests a plausible method for
hanging is that citizens who called
notfor
happen. One more federal offenderaccommodating this fear. Many nations
Kasab's execution will now demand more.
was executed eight days after McVeigh,first suspend capital punishment for
But such contagion seems unlikely, and a third was executed in March
not "ordinary crimes" while at the same
least because the judicial emphasis on But then, and despite Al Qaida's
2003. time retaining a special provision that
attacks
this offender's waging war against the in September 2001 and allows
the for capital sanctions in times of
Indian nation appears designed toall-out
set war and for acts of war. This kind of
"war on terror" that followed,
his crimes apart from other capitalthere
caseshave been no federal executions compromise would provide Indians
rather than to invite a general policy
for more than nine years. with security against that which they
If there was no increase in executions
shift. In Kasab's case, public fear and most fear while putting an end to the
in a pro-death penalty environment like extravagant contradictions of Indian
fury were focused mainly on Pakistani
war-making. By contrast, the Afzalthe
Guruus under a president and attorney capital punishment.
death sentence, which is the closest
general who strongly supported capital
pending case to Kasab's, involves punishment,
a do- then the odds against India's
mestic defendant, which simultaneously
hangmen working overtime in 2013 seem
Survey
September 8, 2012
reduces the pressure to execute and in-long. Indeed, the swift execution of
rather
creases the danger that a hangingKasab
will may have created an atmosphere Revisiting Communalism and
provoke domestic discord. in which India can make further progress Fundamentalism in India
What makes Kasab's case singular
towards ending the death penalty. Had by

Surya Prakash Upadhyay, Rowena Robinson

his of
thus sets it apart from the hundreds execution been delayed for several
murders that make for business-as-usual years more, his case would have remained This comprehensive review of the literature on
in Indian capital punishment. And as an active irritant, and it would also communalism - and its virulent offshoot,
the Kasab case stands apart from the have been a powerful argument against fundamentalism - in India considers the various

rest of India's crime and punishment, it ending capital punishment. Ironically, perspectives from which the issue has sought
to be understood, from precolonial and colonial
is also likely to stand alone, separated Kasab's hanging removes the country's
times to the post-Independence period. The
in perception and jurisprudence even best argument for retaining capital punish-
writings indicate that communalism is an outcome
from the attack on India's Parliament in ment. Perhaps now the nation can pro-
of the competitive aspirations of domination
2001 and the assassination of former
ceed with caution towards ending exe-
and counter-domination that began in colonial
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi 10 years
cutions, as every democracy in Europe times. Cynical distortions of the democratic
has already done.
earlier. With no other capital defendant process and the politicisation of religion in the
likely to measure up to the Mumbai case early decades of Independence intensified it. In
for the fear and fury it produced, noFrom De facto to De jure? recentyears, economic liberalisation, the growth

Whatever its practical virtues, India's

other case presents as compelling a case of opportunities and a multiplying middle class

for execution. The special horrorde

offacto regime of endless delay has have further aggravated it. More alarmingly,
since the 1980s, Hindu communalism has
been a fundamentally lawless method
Mumbai may even raise the bar for acts
morphed into fundamentalism, with the Sangh
that demand execution. of keeping the hangman at bay. With
parivar and its cultural politics of Hindutva
The experience of the United States
the pressure to execute Kasab now past,
playing ominous roles.
the time may be ripe for implementing a
(us) federal system in the aftermath of its
execution of Timothy McVeigh is instruc-formal moratorium on executions. This For copies write to:
Circulation Manager,
tentative first step has been used exten-
tive in this respect. McVeigh's bombing of
Economic and Political Weekly,
sively by other jurisdictions in their
the us federal building in Oklahoma City
320-321, A to Z Industrial Estate,
in 1995 was the American equivalent of
journeys towards abolition, most recently
Ganpatrao Kadam Marg, Lower Parel,
in the American state of Illinois and in the
Mumbai in 2008. McVeigh considered his Mumbai 400 013.
bombing an attack on the us government,Asian nation of South Korea. In the United email: circulation@epw.in
and his act killed 168 non-combatants. Kingdom, as well, the death penalty was

Economic & Political weekly EH3S3 December 29, 2012 vol xlvii no 52 11

This content downloaded from 192.190.180.53 on Wed, 28 Nov 2018 02:56:46 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms