Why it's time to move beyond astrology, Bollywood and cricket

Yakub Memon's hanging at Nagpur Central Jail around 6.45am on July 30 has sparked a fresh debate in the Muslim majority Kashmir Valley about two other executions, that of Mohammad Maqbool Butt in 1984 and Mohammad Afzal Guru in 2013.

Both Butt and Guru were Kashmiri Muslims and executed for different reasons.

Afzal Guru, convicted by the Supreme Court in connection with the 2001 attack on Parliament, was hanged inside Tihar Jail at 8am on February 9.

Maqbool Butt, a well-known Kashmiri resistance leader and founder of the pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), was declared guilty of killing a bank manager in North Kashmir, and hanged till death on February 11, 1984, also inside Tihar Jail.

The Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (JKNC) headed the state governments in 1984 and 2013. President Pranab Mukherjee had rejected Guru's clemency plea (filed by his wife Tabassum in 2006) on January 23, 2013. After Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru, Yakub Memon is the third individual linked with "terror activities" to have been awarded the capital punishment under Mukherjee's tenure.

And Mukherjee does not bear allegiance to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

There is a new twist.

Currently, the National Conference (NC) is in opposition in the Jammu and Kashmir legislative Assembly. Aga Syed Ruhullah, the party's chief spokesperson, has demanded the return of mortal remains of Afzal Guru from Tihar Jail, where he was hanged till death and subsequently buried. His body has still not been handed over to the family in Sopore, North Kashmir.

At that time, Omar Abdullah was the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir and he did nothing to stop Guru's execution. He also admitted that his government was kept in the loop on the hanging. In May this year, Abdullah told NDTV that the Indian Parliament attack convict Guru was executed for "political reasons" and the former chief minister was informed only hours before the hanging.

Now Omar Abdullah's chief spokesperson, Aga Ruhullah, is arguing that the government is displaying a "double standard" by not returning Guru's mortal remains.

"Guru's family being deprived of his body was against the tenets of natural justice and undermined the constitutional principles of the country. The system cannot differentiate based on biased presumptions and politics and that such glaring double standards between Memon's and Guru's cases highlighted the perception of discrimination among the people of Kashmir," Ruhullah said.

Where did Ruhullah's emotions and sentiments as a Kashmiri disappear in 2013? Had these vanished into thin air when Guru was hanged, and his party, the NC, in power?

Like the Congress, this is sheer politicking at the wrong time from the so-called secular party, the NC. For the National Conference to demand the return of Afzal Guru's mortal remains is akin to Adolf Hitler being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for being recognised as a well-wisher of Jews in Germany and across the globe.

Politics aside, the rot is much deeper.

Fifty-three year old Yakub Abdul Razak Memon, convicted for his "involvement" in a series of bomb blasts in Mumbai in March 1993 which killed 257 people, was executed by hanging at the Nagpur Central Jail, after the Supreme Court rejected his final clemency plea. The president of India and governor of Maharashtra also rejected his mercy petitions.

Memon's body was handed over to his family. He was buried on the same day as the former President, APJ Abdul Kalam. According to moderate media estimates, around 8,000 people participated in his funeral. But the government forbade the media from reporting Memon's burial.

The question is why?

What did the government achieve by not allowing the media to show the reality on the ground? Does such censorship on the pretext of government's concern for Mumbai's polarisation change the reality? Would the live coverage of Memon's burial enhance the sympathy wave for a "terrorist"?

A similar mistake is committed by the media when it shows waving of one or two Pakistani and ISIS flags in Kashmir, but because of self-imposed censorship does not show around 10,000 people attending a militant's funeral in the Valley. Media highlights trivia, ignores the real issues. It talks about the symptoms, forgets to mention the disease.

The real debate is what matters more in the judicial system: gravity of a crime or the identity/religion of a convict? And who should decide for the media what is important and what is not?

Leaving legal matters for legal experts to deliberate upon, I would rather try to focus on how perceptions are created and strengthened in the absence of a perceived fair system.

A report in the Times of India quoting a study by the National Law University said that 94 per cent of those sentenced to death were either Dalits or Muslims.

If one were to analyse events and backgrounds impartially one would come to a discomforting conclusion. The Mumbai blasts that Yakub Memon was convicted for happened on March 12, 1993. In January, 1993 over 500 Muslims were mercilessly killed in riots in Mumbai. In December 1992, the BJP-led movement against the Babri Masjid resulted in the demolition of the historic mosque and subsequent killings of Muslims. Without historicising and contextualising the events one would always reach the wrong conclusions.

The job of a journalist is not to become government's stenographer and disseminate the narrative which the government wants in the public domain, but a journalist must deconstruct such narratives, critique those at the helm, and challenge them by asking tough questions on what ails the Indian judiciary and various government institutions today?

While it is a fact that social media and other alternative spaces have brought in a revolution of sorts to resist all attempts to kill stories for national interest in the so-called mainstream media, there is also an increasing tendency in sections of media channels to disseminate propaganda in the name of news.

Do hangings really act as a deterrent?

Five years after Butt's execution in 1984 a popular anti-India armed uprising erupted in Kashmir. It is difficult to say whether Butt's hanging fuelled militancy, but equally difficult to conclude that it did not.

Similarly, after Guru's hanging in 2013 there is a new face of militancy in Kashmir. According to police sources, more than 70 young boys from reasonably good socioeconomic status and educational background have joined militant ranks in some south Kashmir districts. Did Guru's execution play any role?

I vividly recall a meeting with Imran Aslam, the president of Geo TV, in Bonn in 2007. While interacting with a group of editors of Deutsche Welle, Aslam made a point about the Indian media, saying that it was mostly about 3C's: Crime, Cinema and Cricket. Or to put it another way: ABC, where A is for Astrology, B for Bollywood and C for Cricket.

Isn't it time to treat the disease rather than talk about the symptoms?