Yakub Memon: Glimmer of Victory in Defeat

NEW DELHI: Yakub Memon was not saved in the final analysis, but the conspiracy to turn his death into an issue of communal conflagration was defeated by the resilience of democratic India that struggled for the commutation of his sentence to life imprisonment, and raised a united voice against capital punishment.

The strong and visible resistance from all sections of Indian society to the relentless efforts of the state to hang the Mumbai bomb blast accused turned the aftermath into a defeat for communal forces. The exploitation of the death, that many political leaders admitted to The Citizen, was in the offing was stopped because of the fight back by those opposing the death sentence. Divisive voices, after a long gap, were overtaken by progressive voices for rights and justice as political leaders, lawyers, judges, academics, journalists and others united to counter the blood thirstiness exhibited by many of those clamouring for the execution.

The resistance to the efforts to communalise the hanging by BJP and the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra in particular came out on the streets through protests against capital punishment by activists cutting across professions and communities. In fact after the hanging a rather defensive senior Shiv Sena MP told reporters in Parliament that actually his party was trying to stop the communalisation and violence in the state, and it was “unfortunately the BJP” that was trying to foment polarisation on religious lines.

Efforts to polarise on religious lines were visible when Hyderabad leader Asaduddin Owaisi was fielded through television channels to make the Memon case a “Muslim” issue. His hard rhetoric did trigger a counter response but before this could gather ground, democratic India had stepped in with a petition signed by luminaries from all walks of life for mercy for Memon, and the abolition of capital punishment per se.

From then on the debate entered the television studios with lawyers and activists giving the counter pro-hanging view strong rejoinders. A case in point was of Tushar Gandhi, great grandson of Gandhi, who actually made garrulous Times Now anchor Arnab Goswami fighting for Memon’s execution, fall silent when he took up on remarks that he had clearly found offensive. On all television discussions, the voices speaking against death penalty, mercy for Memon, and advocating life imprisonment instead of execution, were able to drown the bias of anchors and question the ‘prejudiced’ views of the BJP spokespersons.

Interestingly, old issues of unresolved justice were raised on almost all fora with articles, editorials even in the regional Hindi media, and television debates pointing towards the discrimination and the bias shown against the minorities by the legal system. Reminders of the cases in Gujarat, of the Babri Masjid demolition, of the violence against Sikhs, and the absence of convictions in the communal violence that killed over a 1000 Muslims in Mumbai before the bomb blasts were all raised. In fact Congress leaders Mani Shankar Aiyer and Shashi Tharoor spoke out against the death penalty in defiance of the official party line supporting Memon’s execution. Similarly BJP leaders Shatrughan Sinha and Ram Jethmalani took a similar position, even signing a petition to the President, against the official BJP line.

The final imprint on the demonstration of Indian democratic resilience came through 29-30 July night when activists gathered for a vigil in a bid to persuade President Pranab Mukherjee to accept Memon’s mercy petition. That he felt the pressure was indicative from the long, nearly three hour meeting he had with Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on the issue, although in the final analysis he went with the government. However, this was followed by the lawyers ---Prashant Bhushan, Indira Jaising, Vrinda Grover and many others---who rushed with a petition to the residence of the Chief Justice of India for yet another hearing on the case. They said they were armed with new data, basically centering around the rule books and an earlier apex court judgement that stipulated a delay of 7 and 14 days respectively between the rejection of a mercy petition and the execution.

The senior lawyers stood outside the CJI residence for hours, until 230 am when finally the Supreme Court bench was constituted and the hearing to consider their plea was conducted. The plea was rejected but not before it had been demonstrated that India had a judicial system that could convene a court in the dead of night, to hear a petition if the need so arose. And that the lawyers were not turned away without a proper hearing by a SC bench at the CJI’s residence.

And secondly, that the determination of secular and just India could not be decried as it was evident in the last efforts of lawyers and activists to knock at these doors for justice. Memon was not allowed, thus, to be turned into a Muslim issue but was taken up by the progressive forces across the country as the showcase for justice.

And finally, if the same unity and foresight had been shown from the very beginning the story might have been different for Memon. As one of the lawyers said, “we have all learnt a lesson, through Memon’s death, and at grave cost. Never again.”

This is perhaps the biggest victory, despite the apparent defeat. The right wing forces controlling the government at the moment were clearly told, as was the world, that the pulse of India is democratic and progressive; and that the forces had finally united in Memon’s case to fight for justice. For those in the struggle to save democracy with freedoms and rights in India this is a major turning point after the Lok Sabha elections last year, with the coming together of civil and political society for justice. Perhaps Memon, in agony towards the end of his life and yet optimistic that the judicial system would not let him down as reports from the Nagpur jail suggested, might not have died in vain after all.