When the press stops questioning

A thoughtful article in the Pakistani newspaper Dawn (http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/27/a-half-chance.html) called for 2013, i.e. two years from the present date, to be the year of positive change for Pakistan.

> "Why 2013? In March 2013, parliament`s term ends. In September, the president`s term ends. In November, the army chief`s extension ends. In December, the Supreme Court chief justice will retire."

Surely we can't have opinion formers throw in the towel like this? What about 2011 and 2012? What about the lost opportunities and lives? (Remember that Pakistan is currently facing an extreme terrorism crisis, with democracy, and hence entrepreneurism, under threat.)

Part of the problem, if one considers the problem, in this case, being the Pakistani military hijacking the Pakistani state, is that this vassal-like relationship appears to be taken for granted by Pakistani intelligentsia. Foreign writers on Pakistan follow suit, unfortunately.

Not merely a stating of the status quo, but an affirmation of it, is what one encounters in opinion pieces in the newspapers (sample size is limited to the online editions of the English language Pakistani dailys: The Dawn and The News).

This is what also Mr. Cyril Almeida, the writer of the article quoted above, demonstrates.

Here's a scenario: what would happen if President Zardari were to fire the Army Chief today, add a Defence Ministerial veto to all postings and promotions for the rank of Brigadier and above, dissolve the spy organization ISI, and announce that all meetings with foreign representatives and press conferences of the army are to be held only when approved by the government? (Remember, according to most online resources, the ISI appears to be almost certainly involved with illegal dealings with terrorists and covert operations against Pakistanis, and has managed to keep itself outside the elected government's control.)

Would that engender a military coup? Possibly, given the history of this troubled relationship. However, I don't think that the army is in a position to do the whole tired operation once again, repeat the hoary mantras of "saving Pakistan" and "defending Islam" (the Pakistani Taliban et al are already defending Islam). And this is a post-Arab-Spring world. I'm not sure the West will view yet another military dictator with joy. If they support him, they will lose the moral high-ground, as far as regime change and the supporting of democracy, the holy cow of our times, is concerned.

As Kafka said, there is a point beyond which no turning back is possible. That point must be reached.

Surely, irrespective of the consequences, that would be better than allowing a few good men, the officers of the Pakistani army, impose their will on the many, the people of Pakistan.

The implication is that if a coup does take place, the resulting international pressure will be so great and unambiguous that the army just might be sent back to doing regular army stuff for a hundred years.

Ironically, perhaps, it is only recently that parts of the Pakistani press have started condemning terrorism in all its forms. And only recently that they have stopped using the shameful argument "terrorism is wrong because not just infidels, but also Muslims are being murdered". (Apologize for the unattributed, paraphrased quote - I read it in either The Dawn or The News, a couple of years ago, but do not have a link)

The press also needs to watch itself, and must be uncompromising in its brief, and ask the hard questions.

The Death Penalty – A Judicial Response to "Honour Killing"s

The Supreme Court of India (http://www.supremecourtofindia.nic.in/), the Apex Court in the world's largest democracy, recently upheld the conviction and sentencing of a man in a case of murder, BHAGWAN DASS Vs. STATE (NCT) OF DELHI.

A summary of the (prosecution's) case: "The appellant was very annoyed with his daughter, who had left her husband Raju and was living in an incestuous relationship with her uncle, Sriniwas. This infuriated the appellant as he thought this conduct of his daughter Seema had dishonoured his family, and hence he strangulated her with an electric wire."

The full text of the judgement can be found on the court's official website. The date is 09 May 2011 and the names of the judges are Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Misra; "CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 1117 OF 2011, @ SPECIAL LEAVE PETITION (CRL.) NO.1208 OF 2011". A direct link could not be found, but the judgement can be easily searched for (http://judis.nic.in/supremecourt/chejudis.asp).

This judgement offers a worrying insight into a system of justice.

The judgement starts with a quote in the Urdu language from the famous Delhi poet, Mirza Ghalib. No translation is included, even though the official language of the Supreme Court is English. Furthermore, a scholar of Urdu would not have understood the quote, for it is written not in the usual script, but in Roman letters. The judges like their poetry, obviously, and might well be connoisseurs but this judgement is a legal document. If we must quote poets in documents that decide the freedom or imprisonment for life of a human being, and the possible execution of others, let us do it with style.

The judgement appears to contradict itself, in at least one occasion.

> In the present case, the prosecution case was that the motive of the appellant in murdering his daughter was that she was living in adultery with one Sriniwas, who was the son of the maternal aunt of the appellant. (Point 6)

> The prosecution case is that the appellant was very annoyed with his daughter, who had left her husband Raju and was living in an incestuous relationship with her uncle, Sriniwas. (Point 4)

So, the Sriniwas goes from being the father's (or mother's) sibling or the husband of the father's (or mother's) sibling (which is the definition of the word "uncle"), to being the father's cousin. (http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0897970#m_en_gb0897970) In Point 8 iii), the judgement reinforces this with:

> "...incestuous relationship with her uncle (her father's cousin)",

clearly contradicting the Oxford English Dictionary. Someone ought to let them know; perhaps they can update the definition in the next edition of the dictionary.

The nature of Incest

The judgement states here (and elsewhere) that this was an "incestuous" relationship. According to the OED (http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0404640#m_en_gb0404640), incest is defined as:

"sexual relations between people classed as being too closely related to marry each other. the crime of having sexual intercourse with a parent, child, sibling, or grandchild."

This does not appear to have been the case between the murder victim and her father's cousin. Remember, in India (as elsewhere), it is not illegal for cousins to marry (and presumably have sex). Nor is it socially unacceptable. Seema, as belonging to the next generation, would be even further removed, as far as blood goes.

The judgement, therefore, extends the definition of the word "incest". Are we living in an increasingly prudish society? Will existing freedoms be taken away, blessed by the Apex Court? And even though the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of India is restricted to India (which, incidentally, is home to a significant part of the world's population), the judgement may well be used as a reference and precedent in other countries.

Validity of Extra-Judicial Confessions

The judgement also quotes a recent judgement of the same court which referred to an earlier judgement (also of the same court) which stated (Point 8 v):

"An extra-judicial confession, if voluntary and true and made in a fit state of mind, can be relied upon by the court."

But how shall we know what is true and what is not true! Let us be glad that only "true" extra-judicial confessions may be relied upon! Note that all this leads up to justifying accepting the statement allegedly made the mother of the accused, implicating the accused, to a police officer; even though she took back the statement in court and made a different one there, which was not accepted by the court.

The judgement, in the same place, states:

"Similarly, in B.A. Umesh vs. Registrar General, High Court of Karnataka, (2011) 3 SCC 85 the Court relied on the extra judicial confession of the accused."

This sounds like a dangerous precedent. Getting the accused to make extra-judicial confessions does not appear to be very hard for a police force. It is to defend against the abuse of executive power that this sort of thing is generally disallowed.

Indeed, the Constitution of India (http://india.gov.in/govt/documents/english/coi_part_full.pdf) in Article 20(3) states as a Fundamental Right:

"No person accused of any offence shall be compelled to be a witness against himself".

Obviously, the Supreme Court of India is well aware of the Indian Constitution. From where comes the disconnect?

Murder v/s Suicide

Point 8 vi states:

> The cause of death was opined by Dr. Pravindra Singh-PW1 in his post mortem report as death "due to asphyxia as a result of ante-mortem strangulation by ligature." It is evident that this is a case of murder, and not suicide. The body was not found hanging but lying on the ground.

The juxtaposition of the latter two sentences is worrying. Was it "evidently" a case of murder and not suicide just because the "body was not found hanging but lying on the ground"? Did the post-mortem report of the doctor not opine on whether the wounds were typical of suicide or murder? Surely, bodies that are hanging can be made to stop hanging and laid on the ground, post-mortem? One hopes that there was more evidence pointing to suicide, rather than to murder. If so, one must ask why it was not mentioned here, and why the fact of "lying on the ground" was especially stated.

The Barbarians – and the Death Penalty

The judgement rightly condemns "honour" killings strongly:

> "In our opinion honour killings, for whatever reason, come within the category of rarest of rare cases deserving death punishment. It is time to stamp out these barbaric, feudal practices which are a slur on our nation. This is necessary as a deterrent for such outrageous, uncivilized behaviour. All persons who are planning to perpetrate `honour' killings should know that the gallows await them."

However, can it be that the judiciary is overreaching itself? If Parliament abolishes the death penalty, as has been done by most of the civilized nations of this world, and which would certainly be in keeping with the non-violent and moral image that India likes to paint of herself, the Supreme Court would not be able to send anyone to the gallows. Should not the judgement restrict such a statement to "the maximum penalty under the applicable law" as opposed to "the gallows"?

Also, the language of the judgement appears to stress the difference between an "honour" killing and a "normal" killing. Surely, murder is murder? And for "honour killing, for whatever reason" to deserve the death punishment seems to imply that the other kinds of killing do not?

On a relatively bright note:

"Often young couples who fall in love have to seek shelter in the police lines or protection homes, to avoid the wrath of kangaroo courts."

The Supreme Court of India recognizes the human capacity and tendency to fall in love, even if the people of India do not!

The judgement is not written in flawless English either, with grammatical errors aplenty, not to mention poor style. Some examples are:

a) "In our country unfortunately `honour killing' has become common place..." (Point 8 i)

Missing commas around "unfortunately"; "commonplace" preferred to "common place" (see http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0166590#m_en_gb0166590).

b) "If someone is not happy with the behaviour of his daughter or other person, who is his relation or of his caste, the maximum he can do is to cut off social relations with her/him, but he cannot take the law into his own hands by committing violence or giving threats of violence." (Point 8 i)

The male pronoun is insisted upon for the perpetrator, but the victim is afforded the benefit of a "her/him", i.e. the victim might belong to either gender, but not the perpetrator. A charge of sexism may not be easily answered.

c) Spelling error: "ws" for "was". (Point 8 viii)

d) "We have held in Lata Singh's case (supra) that there is nothing `honourable' in `honour' killings, and they are nothing but barbaric and brutal murders by bigoted, persons with feudal minds." (Page 16)

Improper use of comma between "bigoted" and "persons".

Remember, in case the reader gets the impression that one is nitpicking, this is an official judgement of the Supreme Court! This is not a translation, either - and the text is taken from the official website of the Supreme Court of India (retrieved on 10 May 2011, one day after the judgement was made).

Also interesting is to see how the press interpreted the judgement.

Reactions of the Press

The Press, another pillar of the Indian polity (as in any other democracy), failed miserably in its brief. There is hardly any critical analysis, unfortunately.

To quote The Hindu (http://www.hindu.com/2011/05/10/stories/2011051063171700.htm):

> The Bench dismissed the appeal and confirmed the life sentence in this case, and directed that in future all trial courts and High Courts should treat honour killings as rarest of rare cases and award the death sentence

No, dear journalist, the judgement does not direct Indian courts to award the death sentence. And even if someone had indeed read the judgement after an evening at the bar in the Press Lounge, and therefore misread it, surely a journalist, a defender of democracy, would have known that it would be very wrong for the highest court to instruct lower courts to always award a certain sentence?

The Times of India (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Perpetrators-of-honour-killings-should-be-ready-for-gallows-SC/articleshow/8212061.cms) managed to get this particular bit right:

> The Supreme Court on Monday warned that perpetrators of 'honour killings' could face death penalty,.....

“Could”, dear Hindu, not “should”. And how about the definitive article before "death penalty", dear Times of India?

However, a tasteless sketch accompanied the story, where a young lady sits on the palm of someone's hand, hair loose, her bum accentuated - very attractive, really, in other contexts. The sketch would have been appropriate for an advertisement for sadomasochism products and services, for instance.

The Washington Post ran the story too (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/indias-top-court-recommends-death-penalty-for-honor-killings/2011/05/10/AFRk2IeG_story.html), but in no particularly fetching way.

> The court’s ruling rejected an appeal by Bhagwan Dass, who argued he was innocent of strangling his daughter, Seema, in 2006 after she walked out of a troubled marriage and had an affair with a cousin.

A troubled marriage? How does the Washington Post know that the marriage was troubled? Because they read not just the Supreme Court ruling, but did some independent research – found Seema's diary, perhaps? If that’s the case, they choose not to reveal it. The judgement itself does not note that the marriage was "troubled"; indeed, the nature of the relationship between Seema and her husband is not touched open. To be fair, the story is attributed to the Associate Press. Authorship is anonymous.

But surely, a watchful editor at the Washington Post would have been concerned with this statement:

> While there are no official figures, an independent study found around 900 people were killed each year in India for defying their elders.

A study by whom? Surely, we don't accept the quoting of statistics without provenance?

Does the figure include teenagers who drive their parents' car in spite of being told not to ("wait till you're 18 and have a license" and all that sort of thing), and get killed in an automobile accident? The language employed, "killed for defying their elders", does not exclude this and other similar cases.

> The court said tough measures were needed to stamp out India’s caste system....

As it happens, the judgement does not say that. The judgement does not call for the general eradication of the caste system. Indeed, the judgement affirms the existence of the caste system (without, of course, validating it) in many places.