Giving Kasab a Chance

We are looking for a way to kill Ajmal Kasab. And we will find one soon. But the case for keeping him alive is equally strong

The case against the 26/11 accused terrorist Ajmal Kasab rests on the assumption that he is 21 years old. Which means he is an adult capable of independent thought and action. But if the prosecution is unable to prove he is an adult, in all likelihood, Kasab will have to be sent to a juvenile home.

In his confession, Kasab says he is guilty of the terrorist attacks and that he is 21 years old. He also says he is a Pakistani national, which, for some reason, is even more important to us than his personal guilt.

Having extracted the confession, just as the Indian cops were sitting back in relief and wedging tambaku against their blistered gums, Kasab went back on all that he had said. Last week, he said his confession was made under duress. So, now the prosecution has to invent the case all over again, beginning with the nationality and age questions.

Which is why a proto-Taliban outfit like the Shiv Sena makes sense at one level when it demands a summary execution of Kasab. The Sena’s argument is appealing to those whose idea of justice is the same as exemplary, vindictive violence. This is the way Sena looks at it: we have all seen on the tube what Kasab and his friends did—with a little help from our iconic TV commentators whose one nightmare is to be aboard the sinking Titanic without a camera and mike—in November. Now fetch the executioner drunk sober from the local country liquor bar and pass him the hemp.

And that would be the end of that.

But the chances are we will find Kasab’s posthumous absence unsettling. Because Kasab is not just a criminal. He is a terrorist. A jihadi who thought he was doing what his unreasonable God demanded of him. In short, he is a priceless curio from the museum of Islamic fundamentalism. And as with any rare thing, the thing to do with Kasab is to preserve him. Hand him down from generation to generation, watch him grow from boy to man to perhaps sage, body and face the slowly evolving map of a story gone wrong from the start.

To give a man a name and hang him is easy. But to keep him alive despite himself and despite ourselves needs courage. Certainly our sense of justice would need to be better honed.

The ultimate victory over Kasab would be to forgive him, whether he is 17 or 21. Forgive whether he is a Pakistani national or not. Forgive him, whether he was—as police officials claimed in the first shaken days after 26/11—under the effect of drugs or not. Forgive him whether he was misled or not. Forgive him for the loveless, hand-to-mouth life he led, which eventually guided him to a room with walls but no doors.

Most of us are just not good enough for this. But if the Father of this Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, were alive and well, we can hazard a prediction. Kasab would be forgiven.

Gandhi himself fell to bullets fired by Nathuram Godse, a fundamentalist of another persuasion. We don’t normally call Godse a terrorist, perhaps because he is a Hindu. Some even call him a patriot. Gandhi expected to be killed. If you are that good, you must be at the mercy of petty insecurities of lesser people. In a prayer meeting on 16 June 1947, he said, “I shall consider myself brave if I am killed and if I still pray to God for my assassin.” Gandhi famously did that on 30 January 1948.

We are lesser mortals. Forgiveness must come hard for us, especially since we are poor at forgiving ourselves. But surely our test as a people is to try and live with Kasab’s great failure to be human. To understand the nature of a way of life which constantly claims divine sanction for its extremist validity. To comprehend, if possible, the great question of why the authority of God is at the heart of great evils.

In a recent interview, Shantanu Saikia, husband of a 26/11 victim and father of two children, said he forgave Kasab. That he doesn’t want to see him hanged. There is not likely to be a debate on this. The generosity of Saikia’s muted position is beyond the understanding and, therefore, the tolerance level of most of us.

Yet, the bare truth is, only in life will Kasab discover his humanity, not in death. The test of our civilisation is to try and give him a chance to redeem himself. Who knows, when Kasab is 90, he may turn a saint and sing to the birds. We may not live to see that change. But our children will. And they will wonder why a man like this would kill when he was a boy.

Ajmal KasabfundamentalismIslamMumbai 26/11