A notable hanging took place last week. Ajmal Kasab, the butcher of Bombay, the only survivor of the group of ten attackers of 26/11, was hanged in Yerawada jail, with tight security and the utmost secrecy, after the due process of law had run its course. The nation woke on the morning of 21 st November to find the news of the hanging running across the ticker tape of the morning's news, just as they had seen the news of the attacks, and the never to be forgotten image of Kasab, swaggering with an automatic gun, dealing out death in all directions at Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus, in 2008. Both the Home Minister of Maharashtra, R.R. Patil and the Home Minister of India, Sushil Kumar Shinde, soon came on TV to confirm the news, each emphasising that the judicial process had been carried out to its last step.
The execution provoked mixed reactions, from the public, as well as the near and dear ones of the victims. There were those who experienced closure, and those, notably the father of the NSG commando Sandeep Unnikrishnan, who died in action in countering this operation, who said no one's death can be rejoiced over even if it was a legal necessity. It was universally agreed that Kasab, agent of death as he was, was only a puppet, and his deadly puppet masters, the real perpetrators of terror, remained at large, and outside the reach of justice. However, it could be said that justice had been done, even if in small and partial measure. It is interesting to remember, that George Orwell, the writer of the original As I Please, had written a piece with an identical title, a hanging. We wonder what his take would have been, on the case at hand. His customary clarity of thought might have yielded useful insight on the moral morass of the efficacy of capital punishment, even for a case like this. Meanwhile the debate goes on from the newspapers to the tea stalls.
This Monday, it will be four years from those three days of horror, that left 164 people dead, and a city shattered, but proud of the quiet heroism of its ordinary citizens. In their memory,
"And some there be, which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been".
We won't forget.
This blog post is by Neelima Gupte and Sumathi Rao.
For an earlier post by Rahul Basu on the Mumbai attacks see this link.
The title of this blog is my homage to a writer and a journalist, a man considered by many to be the conscience of his generation, Eric Blair aka George Orwell - his crystal clear prose, his felicity of language, his incisive grasp of contemporary issues. It strives as language as a clear pane of glass and this blog is an attempt, perhaps deeply inadequate, in that direction.
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About this Blog
- Rahul Basu
- I work in theoretical physics but this blog is only rarely about physics. The title of the blog As I Please, as some of you may guess, is my homage to a writer and a journalist, a man considered by many to be the conscience of his generation, Eric Blair aka George Orwell. I cannot claim to have Orwell's crystal clear prose or his felicity of language, or for that matter, his incisive grasp of contemporary issues. But I strive to emulate him -- language should be, in his memorable words, like a clear pane of glass and this blog is an attempt, perhaps deeply inadequate, in that direction. The other blog I run Rahul's Recipes is self explanatory.
2 comments:
A long time since I read Orwell's
piece; it was a pleasure to re-read it now, following the link from this post.
I filched the title from Orwell! It was very appropriate.
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