Hang not, Give life a chance!

 “Hang him, not leave him” this was how the jail superintendent received a message on wire from his authorities, regarding executing punishment to a person who was on a trial. The jail authorities executed the order and the person was hung to death. When the higher officials heard of this news, they rushed to the jail, for the judgment declared was, “Hang him not, leave him.”

This is an anecdote I remember my English teacher narrating in the school about the syntax of using a comma in the English grammar class. A misuse of a comma in a simple sentence costs the life of a person in that trial.  

After 20 years of the assassination of our former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, three people who were convicted of the crime in a long trial will be hanged to death on the 9^th of September 2011, after the President of India recently rejected the mercy petitions of these three people raising a curtain to their 11 years of waiting for mercy on their ‘right to life’ from the Rashtrapathi Bhavan.

When globally there has been an increase in the number of countries abolishing death penalty (about 94 ), India once again comes to the global map, this time for a wrong reason of ‘judicially sanctioned murder’ by hanging three convicts of which two of them are Sri Lankan Tamils. A blatant murder of ‘right to life’ recurs in India now in 2011, after the last legal execution in 2004. The present UPA government in the Center wants to score a point both from the nation and Gandhi family by giving an impression that justice is being executed by hanging these three friends to death. However, these things cannot be done at the expense of forcing some people to death, which in itself is denying life, for life is a gift of God and no person or state has the right to kill, legally or otherwise.

As a community of faith, we believe that God has given life to all human beings, creating in God’s own equal image without any hierarchies and limitations. Affirming life in all its fullness is the core principle in our Christian faith and therefore any forces of death, any kind of death or any means to death in itself is a contradiction to our belief, and we strongly oppose capital punishment. In line with this, we also believe that Jesus’ resurrection from death has made death a history, for no rule of death can overpower any form of life, and therefore as adherents of such a faith in Jesus, we are called to counter all forces of death right from its seeds till its totality. In view of this faith affirmation, we as committed disciples of Christian faith, need to oppose capital punishment, legal execution of life by hanging, to any one at any place. There are no two thoughts that execution of justice would been bringing the guilty to task, but there is no right for any one to stop the breath of life at any given situation or circumstance.

When many human rights agencies are fighting against death penalty, for they all affirm that such a punishment is against the very spirit of human rights and the cruelest denial of human rights, it is high time that we as Christians in India need to rise up to the occasion in advocating for promotion of life by calling the state in abolishing death penalty as means of exercising justice in this land of ours. May we therefore appeal to the President of India and the Central Government of India to abolish capital punishment and to revoke death sentence and grant life imprisonment to Murugan, Santhan, and Perarivalan, the three convicted for their involvement in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, and thereby extend the same to all other death prisoners in the queue. Let this campaign to say ‘no to capital punishment’ be carried on in our localities to put on pressure on the government, for state cannot dictate terms to ‘right to life.’

I wish to hear that the government officials come rushing to say that there was an error, for the judgment is “hang them not!” instead of “hang them.”

27^th August 2011