Tragic mistakes of Terror and Consequences

Much of last week saw a debate on sentencing of the January 12 1993 bomb blasts accused. A good deal of it was also on Yakub Memon. As an astute accountant he should of course have known how money finds its way to whose pocket and how can it be accounted for. It is equally true that investigating agencies can trace the movement and source of money and its destination. If Yakub knew it well then why did he make the gambit of going to Katmandu to meet a lawyer and prepare for surrender? Or did he fall a victim to a trap prepared by CBI?

Only recently there was news that the younger brothers of Dawood Ibrahim were preparing to return to Mumbai. Their brother had asked them to return. Some lawyers were studying the viability of their reception back home. They wanted to sound water. Both the brothers are said to be free from any involvement in any illegal activity. Their advisers or friends must have found that Indian democracy was a working democracy. The courts were quite independent by and large and the law of the land was respected and could protect them as it does any other citizen. Either they had this rather robust picture of life in India or what the sister of Dawood Ibrahim, Haseena, had done to deal with legal hurdles in the case slapped against her in the extortion of money. She had managed to fight her own battle despite bearing the mark of a sibling of Dawood Ibrahim. But it now looks like they would have to wait and watch.

What has happened in between their declared intention to return to India and the present is the sentences given to the 100 accused in the bomb blasts of March 12, 1993. They might like to review their confidence in the judicial system and the intelligence agencies investigating crimes involving the minority community. The judgment passed on some of the accused, especially on Yakub Memon, is surprising. If Yakub had really intended to surrender then why did he not get any consideration on that account? There is reason to believe that he wanted to make a clean breast of all the accusations leveled against the family, excepting of course Tiger Memon and Ayub. That the rest of the family followed suit to hold family honour buttresses the claim. Even the father and mother of Tiger Memon surrendered. If it were otherwise the whole bunch would not have taken such a step.

But one fails to understand the recondite but agonized cry of Yakub in the court after Justice PD Kode read out the sentence. “Oh, Lord forgive him for he knows not what he is doing!” No doubt the biblical context is clear. If it refers to Christ who was betrayed by Judas Iscariot the meaning would be that Christ had tried to stop usury which must have angered the Jews who lived by it. He was crucified for a good cause for the sake of the miserable populace which was groaning under the ruinous high rates of interest they had to pay for loans from the usury system of the Jews. Hence death sentence unjustified and the judge ignorant of it. Read in this way Yakub’s quoting the Bible reflects his being betrayed by the legal system. It is tangibly there.

It would then mean that Yakub had prepared the family members to surrender to Indian authorities believing that lesser sentences would be passed on them and they would be accommodated in the society as repentant of their unlawful acts but sincerely wishing to live in harmony and loyalty.

But Yakub’s attempt to rhapsodize could also mean that he was denied what he believed he deserved and what the fellow criminal turned approver got. That state witness is given filmy sobriquet Badsha Khan. He got away with a pardon, and now has a flat and other amenities having got married after the crime and begotten three children. All this and yet for the same crimes others would hang at the gallows: for conspiracy, transport of explosives and also planting of the bombs. Badsha Khan revealed the details of the crime for the prosecution of the criminal case while Yakub handed over all the documentary proofs of Pakistan ’s involvement. So the debate boils down to what is in the larger interest for the country. Only crime and punishment? Or strategic advantage arising out of the case Home Minister SB Chaven put before the US Ambassador Frank Wisner? Or even more prudent statesmanship of accommodating the strayed youths who were lured to terrorism?

Viewed as a Greek tragedy with sub continental background and Asian characters the meaning would be far different. The plot thickens. It would be another conspiracy theory that everybody was in a remorseless pursuit of torturing the targeted community members involved in crimes. Then it would mean that the Tiger like the Oracle in Oedipus the King of Sophocles had acted as a soothsayer and warned Yakub: Tum Gandhiwadi ban ke ja rahe ho, lekin wahan atankwadi qrar diye jayo ge! (You are going there as a pacifist but would be branded as terrorist). Then it would mean that the hamartia or fatal flaw of Yakub’s character was his self assured belief that he would be welcomed for squarely showing the ISI as ultimately the cause of terror and in return he and family would be resettled. Their resettlement in Pakistan was the temporary pause or peripeitia of the Greek tragedy which brings temporary relief. Then it would also mean that Yakub’s outburst in the court was the an agnorisis or realization of the Greek tragedy.

Aristotle says that there is always catharsis or purification of emotion in a tragedy. What do the readers or viewers learn or how do they improve their emotional health from their witnessing the events of the play unfolding before them, in court as well as at the twelve locations of 1993?
The most cathartic is that law may be subverted and power usurped and court corrupted but ultimately good sense and restored justice, prevails. May we pray as the cases are going to be heard in appeal to the apex court that in the end the Supreme Court restores justice?