Rumi Nations

I am against death punishment too. But I am in favor of death punishment for gargantuan-sized criminals such as Kasab, Raja, and Kalmadi. Let me see if I can explain that. Death punishment for Kasab seems to be such a no-brainer that no one would really give it a second thought nor would there be any need for writing columns about it. The usual homilies would be paid about the due process of law being followed and that would be it. That was my impression. And in due course, India being India, Kasab’s case would go to President Pranab and then perhaps the Congress Party will try to do Muslim pandering as it habitually does and Kasab’s fate might be left hanging like that of so many others’. And on each 26/11 anniversary, we would see the usual debates on the TV channels about why Kasab is still alive and blah blah. But no. That’s not how this has panned out. The against-death-punishment brigade has come out! Now THIS is something that I had not expected. I am not opposed t...

Indians seem to have a propensity for this. Once some high profile scamster gets caught committing some scam or crime and is sent to jail, one hears reports about how they are being treated like other jailed folks. We get to hear about how they are having to make do with simple prison accommodation and dal-roti stuff. What does this say? Should we feel sympathetic to these criminals? What do we know about what all crimes they have committed? How much they might have eaten literally and otherwise. When people commit frauds running into hundreds and thousands of crores, what can they do with all that money? Do people have any idea of that? If people feel so much about the inconveniences being visited upon these folks, then simply let them free to commit whatever crimes they wish to commit. People of India have a really weird sense of right and wrong. I wish we would have a stricter law enforcement mechanism and see some serious criminals who have committed some serious crimes being given...