The UNDP’s annual Human Development Report for 2006 focuses on water and advocates small-scale solutions and efficiency improvements to tackle the global water crisis
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in a report released on November 9, 2006, has said that lack of water is caused by lack of power, rather than by limited resources. “The scarcity at the heart of the global water crisis is rooted in power, poverty and equality, not in physical availability… There is more than enough water in the world for domestic purposes, for agriculture and for industry. The problem is that some people -- notably the poor -- are systematically excluded from access by their poverty, by their limited legal rights or by public policies.”
The UNDP’s annual Human Development Report for 2006, that focuses on water, advocates an approach to tackling the global water crisis that is radically different from that advocated by the likes of the World Bank and the Indian government’s water resources ministry. Storing water in large centralised reservoirs centralises political power. The benefits of big, capital-intensive water investments tend to be captured by the rich and powerful. “The danger is that the claims of the politically and commercially powerful will take precedence over the claims of the poor and the marginalised,” the UNDP warns.
Illustrating the argument with an example from India, the report says: “In water-stressed parts of India, irrigation pumps extract water from aquifers 24 hours a day for wealthy farmers, while neighbouring small holders depend on the vagaries of rain.”
Advocates small-scale solutions
The report, titled ‘Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis’, argues that decentralised, small-scale solutions and efficiency improvements are more likely to reach the poor than centralised reservoirs and canals. “For much of the past hundred years, water shortages in agriculture have been countered by dams and large-scale irrigation works. In the years ahead, the focus will shift decisively to demand management. Getting more crop per drop, rather than more water to the fields, is becoming the central concern in public policy debates.”
This should open the eyes of India’s water resources ministry that is dominated by the big dam lobby. The performance of India’s irrigation infrastructure, which is the largest in the world, is among the poorest, India’s Finance Minister P Chidambaram said in his budget speech last year.
There is huge scope for improvements in the performance of existing infrastructure, noted the mid-term appraisal of the Ninth Five-Year Plan. A 10% increase in irrigation efficiency (which would still not be the most efficient performance) could increase irrigated area by 14 million ha, an agenda of about 10 years at the current rate of growth in irrigated areas.
But there is little progress in that direction. On the contrary, due to siltation, about 1.95 billion cubic metres of reservoir capacity are getting silted up each year. This means that two-thirds of the nation’s storage capacity is being silted up annually, and nothing is being done about it.
Similarly, if the system of rice intensification (SRI), a new and efficient method of rice cultivation, is adopted in even half the irrigated rice area of around 24 million ha in India, it could help add at least 6 million ha of additional irrigation, at the same time increasing production by at least 50%. This is what the UNDP report advocates when it says more crop per drop should be the approach. Precious little is being done at the national level in India to adopt the SRI, except for paying lip service to it.
Large irrigation projects won’t alleviate poverty in an unequal society
Such efforts are also much more likely to help in poverty alleviation, says the UNDP report. Dispelling the myth that canal irrigation necessarily implies poverty alleviation, the report says this is true only where there is greater equity in landholdings. It gives the example of Pakistan (and India) where poverty levels have been found to be as high inside irrigation networks as they are outside them.
Illustrating with an example from India how the benefits of irrigation from large projects are cornered by the powerful, the report says: “In India, about 13% of the population has access to irrigation. Within this group, the richest one-third of farmers receives 73% of the subsidy.”
The more than 500 million small farming families are the world’s “epicentre of extreme poverty”. Most of these poor farmers work marginal, rain-fed lands. They are far more likely to benefit from modest investments in decentralised water storage and supply than from large dams and riverlinking projects, as advocated in India. The UNDP report says that with an initial investment of $ 7 billion, extending small dams to store water and recharge groundwater could increase the value of the country’s annual rain-fed crop from $ 36 billion to $ 180 billion. This approach would also help increase employment in rural areas, reducing migration from rural areas and cutting the pressure on urban infrastructure. It would also empower the rural poor and help them gain excess to water.
Climate change will impact water-stressed areas more
The report warns that global warming will transform patterns of water availability. The overwhelming weight of evidence can be summarised in a simple way: “Many of the world’s most water-stressed areas will get less water, and water flows will become less predictable and more subject to extreme events.” In South Asia, the report predicts that there will be disruptions in monsoon patterns, with potential for heavier rain but fewer rainy days, and more people affected by drought.
Access to water is a right, not an “optional extra”
The hard-hitting report argues that access to 20 litres per capita per day of safe, affordable and clean drinking water is a fundamental right, and governments cannot shirk from the responsibility of providing the same. “Human rights are not optional extras.” It estimates that 1.8 million children die each year from diarrhoea (due to lack of access to clean drinking water), and this death toll is six times more than that of armed conflicts. The report says: “No act of terrorism generates economic devastation on the scale of the crisis in water and sanitation.”
But more water is getting polluted due to lack of effluent treatment from urban areas and industries. The UN report is particularly critical of Delhi in this regard. “Delhi has many of the trappings of a developed country sanitation model,” but “less than a fifth of the city’s waste is processed before it is dumped into the Yamuna river, transmitting risks downstream.”
Privatisation is not the “magic bullet”
The report says that recent examples of spectacular failures in privatisation show that it is no magic bullet: “From Argentina to Bolivia, and from the Philippines to the United States, the conviction that the private sector offers a “magic bullet” for unleashing the equity and efficiency needed to accelerate progress towards water for all has proved to be misplaced.”
Lack of sanitation kills five times more people than terrorism or wars
On sanitation to the poor, the report says: “Toilets may seem an unlikely catalyst for human progress -- but the evidence is overwhelming.” However, the UNDP’s advocacy of flush toilets for all might not be appropriate everywhere, as different solutions may be appropriate
depending on the conditions of the area.
There is a lot that Indian planners and policymakers can learn from this landmark report from a mainstream agency. Unfortunately, the Indian government is proceeding down a suicidal path in pushing for commercial and corporate agriculture. There are many indications of this: the increasing number of farmer suicides is one of the clearest. And if another were needed, the UNDP report provides it. “While many governments extol the virtues of small-holder farming, most concentrate scarce public investment on relatively large-scale, capital-intensive commercial farming areas. That approach may be bad for long-run growth and for poverty reduction.”
InfoChange News & Features, November 2006
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Killing ourselves slowly
With growing calls for the reintroduction of DDT to fight the resurgence of malaria worldwide, we must not forget the reasons why many countries have banned this toxic substance and other dangerous chemicals that cause cancers and other persistent diseases that impair health and possibly prove fatal
Chemicals are so ubiquitous that we often forget about them. They range from plastics to pigments for use in paint and dyes, to precursors for pharmaceuticals, computers, toys, perfume, T-shirts, shoes and products that we use every day. There are now a staggering 100,000 chemicals currently in commercial use. Indeed, with the proliferation of the IT industry, the spectre of “e-waste” or electronic waste is now hovering over poor societies.
We are all aware of the ubiquity of chemicals in our daily lives. Or are we? At a recent meeting of international environmental journalists, organised by the NGO Greenaccord in Rome, a WWF representative, Eva Alessi, emphasised how chemicals have permeated every nook and corner of human existence, often with disastrous consequences.
The WWF took blood samples of 13 families across Europe, across three generations. To drive the point home, these were not your average persons-on-the-street, the hoi polloi, but some of the most influential people in their societies. They included members of the European Parliament, 14 directors of newspapers and magazines, and other VIPs.
The findings were nothing short of shocking: all the samples were contaminated by a cocktail of hazardous chemicals. That is literally close to the bone.
As Alessi cited: “Blood samples were analysed for more than 100 persistent, bio-accumulative and/or endocrine-disrupting chemicals, many of which are found in everyday consumer products, like organochlorine pesticides (including DDT).” At a time when pesticide companies are renewing attempts to popularise DDT in India, also as a weapon against malaria, this new evidence from Europe, where DDT has been banned for several years, will fan the flames of the old controversy over whether DDT is beneficial or harmful to human life.
The WWF says: “The results of these surveys show that every person, from grandmothers to children to VIP to MEP, is contaminated by a cocktail of at least 20 different man-made chemicals. Some of the identified chemicals, such as PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and DDT, have been banned for decades but persist in the environment and continue to contaminate new generations.”
Some key findings are:
- Of the 107 chemicals analysed, a total of 73 were detected in the whole survey. Sixty-three were found in grandmothers, 49 in mothers, and 59 in children.
- Brominated flame retardants, organochlorine pesticides, PCBs, perfluorinated chemicals and artificial musks (fragrances) were found in the blood of every family member tested, including children as young as 12.
- The children’s generation had the highest median level of PBDE (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) flame retardants, PFCs (perfluorinated compounds) and artificial musks.
- Of the 31 different PBDEs analysed, 17 were found in children compared to 10 in grandmothers and 8 in mothers
Chemicals are so ubiquitous that we often forget about them. They exist in products that range from plastics to pigments for use in paint and dyes, to precursors for pharmaceuticals, computers, toys, perfume, T-shirts, shoes, items that we use every day. There are now a staggering 100,000 chemicals currently in commercial use. Indeed, with the proliferation of the IT industry, the spectre of “e-waste” or electronic waste is now hovering over poor societies. At last year’s Vatavaran environmental film festival in Delhi, for example, a film depicted how uninformed recyclers of e-waste in the capital were salvaging materials from computers that had been junked, at huge risk to their health.
If, as the WWF alleges, little is known about the impact of these chemicals in Europe, the situation in this country can well be imagined. There are 30,000 industrial chemicals in use in Europe, but the public is not informed about the consequences of using most of them. While some monitoring of chemicals was introduced after 1981, the persistent prevalence of chemicals introduced earlier -- as the WWF survey shows -- is seldom, if at all, addressed.
A growing number of industrial chemicals are known to contaminate people. Some recent examples:
- Brominated flame retardants: Contaminates people and wildlife across the world. Two were phased out in Europe (penta and octa). Deca is increasingly being used, despite contaminating polar bears, birds of prey and people.
- Perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs): Used in Scotchguard, teflon-manufacture. Action to phase out such chemicals has been slow and ineffective.
How should we tackle this problem? A sustainable chemical regulatory system requires substantial improvements in current systems, to first ensure availability of safety data on all chemicals. Secondly, there is a need to create effective methods of restricting and phasing out problem chemicals. Thirdly, downstream users need to be educated in safe use (and disposal) of chemicals. Chemical manufacturers should take more responsibility for what they produce, and safer products or substitutes must be promoted.
The WWF’s initial concern began when it discovered chemicals like DDT and PCBs in the bodies of wildlife in the 1990s. It didn’t take rocket science to conclude that if polar bears and the like were being affected, humans could not escape this fate. This, among other things, is what led much earlier to the furore over DDT. While proponents of its use pointed out that it killed pests that would otherwise deplete foodgrain stocks and cause starvation, critics alleged that it would, in the long run, cause cancers and other persistent diseases that would impair health and possibly prove fatal. It was once cited how Indians had more DDT in their bodies than any other nationals in the world. One has only to recall the WHO poster a few decades ago, which showed a bare breast with the caption: “Milk in these containers is unfit for human consumption.”
Perhaps the most startling finding by the WWF (and Greenpeace) is the emergence of endocrine-disrupters. Because these toxic chemicals hit humans -- more particularly macho males! -- where it hurts most (below the belt!) by lowering fertility or even causing changes in sex, they have caused worldwide alarm. The WWF and Greenpeace have been accused by the chemicals industry of spreading unnecessary alarm about these chemicals, but their consequences cannot be simply dismissed as scare-mongering. It is now common knowledge that the sperm count of males worldwide is declining.
Alessi observed: “These chemicals, which have recently attracted great public and scientific attention, are a structurally diverse group of compounds that may adversely affect the health of humans and wildlife and/or their progeny, by interacting with the endocrine system, and particularly influencing reproductive function. They can mimic endogenous hormones, disrupt reproductive functions and cause developmental abnormalities (such as intersexes) in wild animal populations. They include chemicals heavily used in the past, in industry and agriculture, such as polychlorinated biphenyls and organochlorine pesticides, and chemicals currently used as plasticisers and surfactants.” Sources of these chemicals include farming, livestock, forestry, industrial chemicals, waste incineration, consumer products, food, pharmaceuticals and sewage discharge.
In Stockholm, at the recent annual congress of the International Federation of Environmental Journalists, participants were taken to a marine research station some distance away from the city where researchers provided a graphic example of such processes at work. Since Sweden is largely composed of islands, and the people there are sea-loving, they tend to go boating a great deal. When the Swedes found that their boats were getting encrusted with shellfish and other marine life, which impeded speed, a special paint was devised which deterred these creatures from attaching themselves to the vessels. However, when the researchers began examining life in the shallow Baltic Sea, they found that the paint had begun to lead to sex changes in snails and other marine life. This led to a ban on such paints in Europe.
One of the little known facts about DDT is that it is also an endocrine-disrupter, according to research carried out only last year. It was developed in the 1940s and used as an insecticide against a very wide range of pests, particularly malarial mosquitoes, and as an agricultural insecticide. It is a long-lasting toxic chemical that builds up in the tissue of living organisms like plants and in the fatty tissue of animals and humans. According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer, it may cause cancer in humans. The US Environment Protection Agency too states that DDT probably causes human carcinogens. DDT sticks to soil, can travel long distances and causes widespread global dispersion. It has been banned in many countries, including the EU, since 1970 (regulated by international treaty as a “POP” or persistent organic pollutant). It is still used in some developing countries.
The dilemma of whether to ban toxics like DDT or restrict and control their use has been compounded by climate change. At the Rome meet, Dr Andrew Githeko of the Kenya Medical Institute listed how the 1990s was the hottest decade in the world’s recorded meteorological history (and 1998 the hottest year since 1861). We are witnessing the resurgence not only of malaria, but also dengue, chikungunya and even the dreaded yellow fever. North America is experiencing cases of Lyme disease and West Nile fever due to very warm summers; malaria has raised its head in eastern Europe. All this has revived demands for the use of DDT and similar chemicals -- very much a Faustian bargain.
Without sounding alarmist, the WWF points to the need to take proper measures. As Alessi said: “A new principle for guiding human activities, to prevent harm to the environment and to human health, has been emerging during the past 10 years. It is called the ‘principle of precautionary action’, or the ‘precautionary principle’. In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation (as endorsed at the Wingspread conference in Wisconsin in the US in 1998). In view of the magnitude of the potential risks associated with endocrine-disrupters, scientific uncertainty should not delay precautionary action on reducing the exposure to and from the risks.”
Needless to say, all this is a far cry from the situation in this country where the indiscriminate use of pesticides like endosulphan in cashew nut plantations in Kerala has caused the most horrific abnormalities. While these cases have been documented to some extent, the “slow poison” associated with widespread use of chemicals is proceeding unabated. In 2001, the UN Environment Programme laid down a treaty on POPs, which also governed the “dirty dozen” -- 12 chemicals that include DDT, aldrin and chlordane. Apart from pesticides and fungicides, there are PCBs, which are primarily used in capacitors and transformers, paint, adhesives, as well as dioxins, by-products of combustion, of chlorine bleaching and paper bleaching. These chemicals surround us “every step we take”.
The Delhi-based NGO, Toxics Link, has done some pioneering work in making us aware of this slow poison. But much more needs to be done. For a start, the chemicals industry needs to become more proactive in disclosing the ingredients of its products and by-products, and what these may entail. And, to draw a parallel with the earlier phase of the campaign against child labour, the more hazardous occupations involving toxics, like ship-breaking and recycling waste, ought to be strictly monitored, if not banned outright. The counter argument, that we cannot afford to do this in a poor country, will not wash. On the contrary, if people are poor, illiterate and undernourished, their degree of protection against such contamination should be enhanced rather than lowered.
InfoChange News & Features, November 2006
Playing God: The arbitrary nature of capital punishment
The Supreme Court has stated that the death penalty is to be awarded only in the rarest case of exceptional depravity and brutality. But human judgement, as several recent court cases have revealed, is totally subjective
The death sentence awarded to Mohammed Afzal Guru, accused in the 2001 Parliament terror attack case, has brought the issue of capital punishment centrestage once again. A clemency petition by his family is pending before the President, and the execution has been stayed for the time being.
Recently, the Delhi High Court pronounced the death penalty on Santosh Kumar Singh for the murder of Priyadarshini Mattoo. The trial court had acquitted Singh. In the Parliament attack case, along with Afzal, S A R Geelani was sentenced to death by the trial court. The Delhi High Court acquitted Geelani, as did the Supreme Court. Today he is a free man.
In the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, the trial court awarded capital punishment to all the 26 accused. The Supreme Court acquitted 19 of the accused -- it found them innocent of any crime.
The facts speak for themselves.
All the evidence for and against an accused individual is adduced before the trial court. The prosecution and police produce whatever material evidence they have to establish the guilt of the accused. The individual accused of a crime adduces witnesses and material to show that he is innocent. Generally, no additional evidence is produced by either side at any stage after the trial is over. Thus, it is on the very same evidence that the Supreme Court found that there was no material to show the culpability of 19 of the accused in the Rajiv Gandhi case, while the trial court directed that they be “hung by the neck till dead”. The evidence for acquittal and the death penalty in Geelani and Singh’s case remained the same.
The fallibility of human judgement cannot be more clearly demonstrated. The criteria formulated by the Supreme Court that the death penalty is to be awarded in the “rarest of the rarest” case of exceptional depravity and brutality ultimately depends on the judge’s feelings of moral outrage and lie in the realm of the totally subjective. In fact, the award of the death penalty to Nalini in the Rajiv Gandhi case, is illustrative of the role of subjectivity in the imposition of capital punishment. Justice Quadri, after observing that “the taking of life, when it cannot be given, is a divine function,” went ahead and awarded the death penalty to Nalini. Justice Quadri, while resolving his dilemma in favour of death for Nalini, observes that Rajiv Gandhi “was a young popular leader so much loved and respected by his fellow citizens”. The judge goes on to say that Nalini joined the gang of conspirators “only because she was infatuated by the love and affection developed for Murugan (A-3)”. These factors seem to have weighed strongly with the judge.
But what if a judge did not have such a high opinion of Rajiv Gandhi? In fact, it is possible that a judge may think that the crowning of Rajiv Gandhi as leader of the Congress and prime minister was the perpetuation of dynastic rule, which has no place in a modern democracy.
The presiding judge, Justice Thomas, commuted Nalini’s capital punishment to life imprisonment. The fact that Nalini had a small child born in captivity, and that the death sentence on Murugan, the child’s father, had been confirmed, weighed with the judge. Concern that an innocent child is not orphaned through judicial decree appears to have swung the balance in favour of life in Justice Thomas’ mind. However, this factor did not influence the other two judges on the bench who confirmed the death sentence on Nalini.
Unfortunately, judges are as subjective as any other human being. There can be no doubt that caste, class and gender biases operate in decisions to award capital punishment. Even to non-believers, the decision to order the cold-blooded execution of a human being seems like the arrogation of God-like powers by mere mortals. The South African Constitutional Court, while declaring the death penalty unconstitutional, reached the conclusion that “poverty, race and chance play roles in the outcome of capital cases and in the final decision as to who should live and who should die”. Studies the world over have found that the percentage of poor persons being awarded the death sentence is much higher. In the words of a condemned prisoner: “Them that have the capital, never get the punishment.”
The general arguments in favour of awarding capital punishment are those of deterrence and retribution. However, the onus of establishing the deterrent value of capital punishment is on those seeking to retain it. Till today, there are no scientific studies to show that the death sentence acts as a deterrent. Rather, the abolition of the death penalty in the princely state of Travancore, between 1947 and 1950, did not result in any proportionate increase in the number of murders. The hanging of Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh for the murder of Indira Gandhi does not seem to have deterred Rajiv Gandhi’s assassins.
As far as retribution is concerned, the less said the better. At most it may be understandable in a mob, anguished over the murder of a beloved leader, that screams, “Hang the villains!” It should have no role to play in the psyche of a judge who is not expected to be swayed by populist sentiment and on whom has been conferred the power of life and death over a fellow human being. The calculated and cold-blooded execution of a person convicted of murder does not serve any purpose. In the case of Nalini, as the majority of two out of three judges awarded capital punishment, it was the President who commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment.
A long illegal incarceration by the armed forces, a six-year-old child, and the fact that Afzal was neither the main conspirator nor actively participated in the attack should prompt the President to exercise the noble power of compassion and commute the death sentence to life imprisonment.
The global trend is towards abolition of the death penalty. Eighty-eight countries, including England, Germany, Brazil and Nicaragua, have abolished the death penalty as a means of securing human rights.
In the face of the contemporary reality of escalating violence and killings, the words of Bernard Shaw ring true: “And so to the end of history, murder shall breed murder, always in the name of right and honour and peace, until the Gods are tired of blood and create a race that can understand.” However, God may well turn out to be on the side of the bigger battalion, and blood, death and destruction. It is time for mere mortals to work towards the abolition of capital punishment in this country, as it annihilates the dignity and sanctity of human life.
InfoChange News & Features, November 2006
The death sentence awarded to Mohammed Afzal Guru, accused in the 2001 Parliament terror attack case, has brought the issue of capital punishment centrestage once again. A clemency petition by his family is pending before the President, and the execution has been stayed for the time being.
Recently, the Delhi High Court pronounced the death penalty on Santosh Kumar Singh for the murder of Priyadarshini Mattoo. The trial court had acquitted Singh. In the Parliament attack case, along with Afzal, S A R Geelani was sentenced to death by the trial court. The Delhi High Court acquitted Geelani, as did the Supreme Court. Today he is a free man.
In the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, the trial court awarded capital punishment to all the 26 accused. The Supreme Court acquitted 19 of the accused -- it found them innocent of any crime.
The facts speak for themselves.
All the evidence for and against an accused individual is adduced before the trial court. The prosecution and police produce whatever material evidence they have to establish the guilt of the accused. The individual accused of a crime adduces witnesses and material to show that he is innocent. Generally, no additional evidence is produced by either side at any stage after the trial is over. Thus, it is on the very same evidence that the Supreme Court found that there was no material to show the culpability of 19 of the accused in the Rajiv Gandhi case, while the trial court directed that they be “hung by the neck till dead”. The evidence for acquittal and the death penalty in Geelani and Singh’s case remained the same.
The fallibility of human judgement cannot be more clearly demonstrated. The criteria formulated by the Supreme Court that the death penalty is to be awarded in the “rarest of the rarest” case of exceptional depravity and brutality ultimately depends on the judge’s feelings of moral outrage and lie in the realm of the totally subjective. In fact, the award of the death penalty to Nalini in the Rajiv Gandhi case, is illustrative of the role of subjectivity in the imposition of capital punishment. Justice Quadri, after observing that “the taking of life, when it cannot be given, is a divine function,” went ahead and awarded the death penalty to Nalini. Justice Quadri, while resolving his dilemma in favour of death for Nalini, observes that Rajiv Gandhi “was a young popular leader so much loved and respected by his fellow citizens”. The judge goes on to say that Nalini joined the gang of conspirators “only because she was infatuated by the love and affection developed for Murugan (A-3)”. These factors seem to have weighed strongly with the judge.
But what if a judge did not have such a high opinion of Rajiv Gandhi? In fact, it is possible that a judge may think that the crowning of Rajiv Gandhi as leader of the Congress and prime minister was the perpetuation of dynastic rule, which has no place in a modern democracy.
The presiding judge, Justice Thomas, commuted Nalini’s capital punishment to life imprisonment. The fact that Nalini had a small child born in captivity, and that the death sentence on Murugan, the child’s father, had been confirmed, weighed with the judge. Concern that an innocent child is not orphaned through judicial decree appears to have swung the balance in favour of life in Justice Thomas’ mind. However, this factor did not influence the other two judges on the bench who confirmed the death sentence on Nalini.
Unfortunately, judges are as subjective as any other human being. There can be no doubt that caste, class and gender biases operate in decisions to award capital punishment. Even to non-believers, the decision to order the cold-blooded execution of a human being seems like the arrogation of God-like powers by mere mortals. The South African Constitutional Court, while declaring the death penalty unconstitutional, reached the conclusion that “poverty, race and chance play roles in the outcome of capital cases and in the final decision as to who should live and who should die”. Studies the world over have found that the percentage of poor persons being awarded the death sentence is much higher. In the words of a condemned prisoner: “Them that have the capital, never get the punishment.”
The general arguments in favour of awarding capital punishment are those of deterrence and retribution. However, the onus of establishing the deterrent value of capital punishment is on those seeking to retain it. Till today, there are no scientific studies to show that the death sentence acts as a deterrent. Rather, the abolition of the death penalty in the princely state of Travancore, between 1947 and 1950, did not result in any proportionate increase in the number of murders. The hanging of Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh for the murder of Indira Gandhi does not seem to have deterred Rajiv Gandhi’s assassins.
As far as retribution is concerned, the less said the better. At most it may be understandable in a mob, anguished over the murder of a beloved leader, that screams, “Hang the villains!” It should have no role to play in the psyche of a judge who is not expected to be swayed by populist sentiment and on whom has been conferred the power of life and death over a fellow human being. The calculated and cold-blooded execution of a person convicted of murder does not serve any purpose. In the case of Nalini, as the majority of two out of three judges awarded capital punishment, it was the President who commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment.
A long illegal incarceration by the armed forces, a six-year-old child, and the fact that Afzal was neither the main conspirator nor actively participated in the attack should prompt the President to exercise the noble power of compassion and commute the death sentence to life imprisonment.
The global trend is towards abolition of the death penalty. Eighty-eight countries, including England, Germany, Brazil and Nicaragua, have abolished the death penalty as a means of securing human rights.
In the face of the contemporary reality of escalating violence and killings, the words of Bernard Shaw ring true: “And so to the end of history, murder shall breed murder, always in the name of right and honour and peace, until the Gods are tired of blood and create a race that can understand.” However, God may well turn out to be on the side of the bigger battalion, and blood, death and destruction. It is time for mere mortals to work towards the abolition of capital punishment in this country, as it annihilates the dignity and sanctity of human life.
InfoChange News & Features, November 2006
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