On the Question of Death Penalty

I will neither advocate nor oppose death penalty, regardless of how severe/rare the crime was. But, as a lifelong student of philosophy, I will certainly urge everyone to first develop a clear understanding of what exactly they themselves seek before taking the final call.

Since in courts across the world, the punishment for the most heinous (rarest of rare), murderous crimes is either death penalty or life imprisonment, I will compare both and leave the choice to you.

(A) I have always considered life imprisonment to be the worst punishment for any convict. The only reason a person dares to live through this ugly/nauseating world is an anticipation of a better tomorrow. I dare to live only because I hope that the next hour or the next day or the next month will be better than this moment. Otherwise, in the absence of hope, life is rather repetitive, dull and hopeless. Life-Imprisonment snatches away precisely this hope from a person. With no hope for a different tomorrow, the convict wakes up, washes, eats, labours, sleeps, and again wakes up, washes, eats... Ad Infinitum within the dead grey walls of the prison until life oozes out of him. So, this form of punishment eternally gnaws at the flesh of one's very being. Technically, such a prisoner could even earn a distance Master's or Doctorate (!) while being behind bars. But even that would only worsen his life because he, realizing how much positive potential he had, would then curse himself and his fate every moment. "Why did I do that? Why?!" If Hope is Being itself, then this hopeless life would be worse than death (non-being), because a hopeless life is anti-being.

(B) Second in the hierarchy of torture comes Death Penalty. Death of a convict (in India, by Hanging) is immediate. Quick, sharp, final. But the only psychological torture the convict undergoes in this case is the prolonged duration between the conviction and the death. Each second of the intervening moments could last ages. His fast, thumping, fluttering heartbeats would constantly betray his fear and helplessness in the face of certain death: a lonely, mechanical death that would snap all his human connections in a moment. "What will happen to my ailing mother, my innocent wife, my 4-year old son?" Who would look after them? Will my son ever forgive me?" These thoughts will torture him for sure, but only for a few days or weeks before the hangman's pull will fling open the trap-door underneath to transport his soul to the fire of hell leaving his dangling corpse behind.

Therefore, those of you who are baying at the killer's blood with the sole desire to see him suffer proportionately to his crimes, why are you advocating death penalty? If your singular goal is his suffering, then logically, you should seek life-imprisonment.

And ironically, all you benevolent humanists who want to progress away from a beastly punishment and hence are advocating life-imprisonment, can't your enlightened eyes see that the most beastly, brutal torture is life-imprisonment? If you desire a relatively humane, moderated punishment, logically speaking, you should seek death-penalty.

But of course, my listing of the above punishments is influenced by the current legal framework of the Indian state, which is at its core, PUNITIVE in spirit.

If one were to envision a truly modern & humanist statute, it should be REFORMATORY in spirit. And reformation can be achieved neither by death nor by imprisonment. I would speculate that it can be achieved by bombarding the convict with advanced criminological therapies that would ultimately make him realize his faults, consequently leading to his own genuine efforts towards being a better man.

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." - Martin Luther King, Jr.