Offer clemency to Gandhi’s killers!
The
execution of three persons convicted over the assassination of Rajiv
Gandhi has been stayed for eight weeks by the Madras High Court. Murugan,
Santhan and Perarivalan, currently at the Vellore Jail, were to be
hanged on September 9, 2011. The bench, offering interim relief, had
observed a 11 year delay in the delay of mercy petitions filed by the
convicts to the President.
In the meantime, arch Tamil chauvinist and long-time choir-boy of
Tamil terrorism, MDMK leader Vaiko had thundered that if the three were
executed, then Tamil Nadu would secede from the Indian union: ‘If
Santhan, Murugan and Perarivalan, the accused in the Rajiv Gandhi
assassination case are executed as per the court order, it will
jeopardise Indian unity. When the 100th anniversary of the Independence
Day will be celebrated on 2047, Tamil Nadu would not be a part of
India.’
Pro-LTTE groups
I doubt that Manmohan Singh or Sonia Gandhi would take Vaiko’s
threats seriously. Indeed, if Vaiko was a serious Tamil nationalist,
then there are probably other and more compelling reasons to threaten
secession. Tamil Nadu probably has the best case for secession and this
is why successive Indian governments have consistently shifted the
address of Tamil nationalism from its traditional homeland to the
absolutely-no-case place off the Southern tip of India, namely Sri
Lanka. The sentencing of the three persons mentioned above has upset
pro-LTTE groups. All three were members of the terrorist outfit and
therefore this is to be expected. Some object because they are against
capital punishment.
Rajiv Gandhi |
Sonia Gandhi |
Manmohan Singh |
Vaiko |
In Sri Lanka there’s been a deafening silence. The LTTE-loving TNA
and other groups with eyes so ready to tear on account of debacles
suffered by the terrorists have all kept their silence.
How about the rest of us? What are we supposed to think?
Rajiv Gandhi was no friend of Sri Lanka. He wanted to ‘Bhutanize’ us.
He bulldozed into Sri Lanka to save the terrorists who his mother
funded, armed and trained.
Essential items
The LTTE did more than bite the hand that fed it, sure, but that’s
not something that those who suffered at the hands of the LTTE would
find cause to be sad about.
When Rajiv Gandhi arrived in Sri Lanka on July 29, 1987 to ink the
‘agreement’ he had arm-twisted J.R. Jayewardene to sign (‘Can’t do
uncle!’ was his dismissal of the Sri Lankan President’s plea to let Sri
Lanka handle her own affairs), a Naval Rating, Vijithamuni Rohana De
Silva, part of the ‘Guard of Honour’, lifted his rifle and brought it
down on the Indian Prime Minister’s head. I remember that day. I was
trying to get from Gampola to Kurunegala after receiving a call from my
mother, saying her father was seriously ill, but had got trapped in
Kandy because a citizenry livid and frustrated at how Indian hegemony
walked in and robbed our sovereignty, bailed out a terrorist and gave
legitimacy to Eelam myth-making (Dayan Jayatillake called it
‘Geo-political realities’ then) had attacked and burnt some buses. I was
forced to stay with friends and we watched the news. We saw that attack.
The three sentenced to be hanged, one can argue, did what Vijithamuni
Rohana could not do that day. If we can empathize with one, we can
empathize with the other and that does not make either ‘right’. Perhaps
this is why Sri Lanka has been silent about the sentence. We never cared
much for the Nehrus (not for Rajiv, his mother or her father, the last
having the gumption to complain that Sir John had not shown him the
speech he delivered at the Bandung Conference of the Non-Aligned
Movement) and also have very little patience or pity for terrorists.
Still, if we can forgive V. Muralitharan aka ‘Karuna’, if we can
forgive Prabhakaran’s notorious global arms procurement chief, ‘KP’, if
we could have send food, medicine and other essential items to the
people held hostage by the LTTE knowing very well that Prabhakaran’s
thugs would rob left and right, if we could pay salaries to doctors,
nurses, teachers, clerks and others in the Vanni and thereby allow
Prabhakaran to claim he was running a de facto state, then we can and
should forgive these three Gandhi-killers.
Capital punishment
These three have erred. Yes, there are erring degrees and their crime
is pretty much up there among the most horrendous. They have not harmed
anyone since they were arrested. They cannot harm anyone if they spent
the rest of their lives in jail. Society needs to be protected from such
people and if the containing facilities exist, then they should be used.
It is 20 years since Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated. A lot has
happened since. ‘An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,’ Mahatma
Gandhi once said. I’ve argued against capital punishment elsewhere and
will not get into that discussion here. If, as Vaiko claims, the hanging
of these three individuals provokes a full blown secessionist struggle
in Tamil Nadu, I will not stop cheering. That’s not reason enough to
want them hanged, though.
The world would not become any safer or more dangerous the day after
if they were executed. Rajiv Gandhi will not be resurrected. If India
doesn’t know how to deal with them, send them over here, that’s what I
say. A lot of blood has been shed. A lot of anger has been expressed. A
long time has passed.
There is a time to be wary, and a time to drop guard. If India is
scared about what these three individuals would do, then India can
repatriate them back to Sri Lanka.
I am not sure what their nationality is, but if they were LTTE cadres
and were Indians, then they can be extradited to Sri Lanka.
We have rehabilitated and reintegrated into society close to 8,000
ex-combatants, some trained to carry out suicide attacks, some trained
to toss grenades and spray bullets on civilian cadres.
We can handle these three prisoners. Not because we condone what they
did, but because we know that more deaths will not change things and
because we know that this is healing time and execution is not unguent.
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