It would be unfortunate if Mrs Sonia Gandhi's reported request to President K. R. Narayanan to spare the life of Nalini, who along with three others has been sentenced to death for killing Rajiv Gandhi, is dubbed as a political gimmick by her detractors. The gimmick, if any, in the seemingly humane gesture should be attributed to Mrs Mohini Giri, former Chairperson of the National Commission for Women, who broke the news about Mrs Sonia Gandhi's clemency appeal to the President. Mrs Giri after relinquishing the NCW post has now floated a non-government organisation called Guild of Service and is currently busy garnering public support for the removal of the provision of capital punishment from the statute book. That Mrs Sonia Gandhi herself did not seek to obtain political mileage is evident from the fact that she met the President last week to acquaint him with her children's and her views on the death sentence awarded to Nalini, her husband and two others. Details of what transpired at the private meeting became public knowledge only after Mrs Giri shared with the media details of her own meeting with Mrs Sonia Gandhi who "categorically said that neither she nor her son and daughter wanted any of the four convicts to be hanged. Mrs Gandhi specially mentioned that no child should be orphaned by an act of State". Not only Mrs Sonia Gandhi but most human rights activists and organisations want Nalini's sentence to be reduced to life imprisonment because of her daughter who was born in jail. If both Nalini and her husband are hanged, there would be no one to look after their daughter. There is no reason why President Narayanan should ignore the plea for converting the death sentence awarded to Rajiv Gandhi's killers to life imprisonment.
Last year President Narayanan commuted
the death sentence of two convicts in the Guntur bus-burning case to life
imprisonment. The convicts, in their 20s, belonged to two poor Dalit families.
Their plea that they only wanted to loot the passengers and not kill them
by setting the bus on fire was ignored by the courts. The presidential
pardon was the result of the collective efforts of various organisations,
including the People's Union of Democratic Rights, Andhra Pradesh Civil
Liberties Committee, Amnesty International and UN Special Rapporteur on
Summary or Arbitrary Executions. Mr Narayanan's gesture was not only applauded
by Dalit organisations but also those who see in the legal sanction to
the sentence of death elements of primitive barbarity. More recently the
NCW was successful in getting the death sentence of Ramshri reduced to
life imprisonment by the President. Had the clemency plea been rejected
Ramshri would have become the first woman convict in free India to be hanged.
Mrs Giri evidently believes that by mentioning the names of Mrs Sonia Gandhi
and her children, who do not want "any of the four convict to be hanged",
the task of mobilising public opinion against capital punishment would
become easier. She should know that arguments in favour of not only retaining
the death sentence but extending its application to other crimes like rape
are equally strong. However, even the pro-capital punishment lobby is not
likely to oppose the plea for sparing Nalini's life purely on humanitarian
grounds.