All those of us who live in this deliriously amazing metropolis called Mumbai, owe it a big one. Today some citizens are ignoring that huge debt, by exonerating a man who played a pretty big role in destroying that very city — not just key areas of Bombay/Mumbai — but the soul of what used to be a truly vibrant, open and generous slice of India where everybody miraculously managed to grab a piece of the sky that covered it. March 12, 1993, was that ghoulish day when our beloved Mumbai was blown apart by a series of bomb blasts that claimed 257 innocent lives, and left 713 injured. Sadly, 22 years ago, on that terrible day, Mumbai changed forever. Mumbai never did recover. Mumbai may never recover.
When a convict is told he is to hang on such-and-such day and time, when his family members, along with the doomed man, begin the ghastly countdown, when detailed reports giving minute details, start doing the rounds across media platforms, it is inevitable that a surge of public sympathy follows. After all, we are human. We connect to grief — no matter to whom that grief belongs. Or even why. In this defining case, we also know complete justice has been done, even if that has taken the courts 22 years and an incredible amount of work to get to this final point of closure. Despite all that, the first instinctive response is to place oneself in the shoes of the man who faces the gallows — it is a scary, eerie experience. Next, you think of what his wife and daughter are going through — equally troubling. And then you start to feel awful about yourself! Strange, isn’t it?
Temporarily, you forget the enormity of the crime committed against a city, a nation, humanity itself. And you personalise the situation. Why? Because death by hanging chills us to our bones. Yakub Memon’s hanging is imminent (unless Maharashtra’s governor, C. Vidyasagar Rao steps in). And it scares us. Perhaps, you have strong views about capital punishment. Perhaps, you have your own theories about the convict’s innocence (especially after reading R&AW man, the late B. Raman’s unpublished article on why Yakub Memon must not be hanged, written in 2007). Perhaps you believe he is being unfairly victimised and “sacrificing” his life for his brother’s sin. All these rational and irrational thoughts keep surfacing in an absurd sequence, even though there is incontrovertible evidence to show the man’s direct involvement in the blasts that destroyed the peace of a cosmopolitan, progressive city forever.
Then, there is the other thing: Yakub Memon is almost like “one of us” — he’s highly educated (a chartered accountant with two M.A. degrees in political science and english literature). He is a neatly dressed, well-groomed, soft-spoken, handsome man who has a good prison record. Let’s call him a “gentleman prisoner”, a family man who never had the chance to spend time with his only child, a 21-year-old-daughter, Zub-eda. Yes, it sounds depressing.
Memon’s hanging cannot be compared to Ajmal Kasab’s. Kasab and his fellow terrorists struck Mumbai with as devastating a force, 15 years later. Kasab was a poor, illiterate, hired killer, Memon a direct product of the very city he helped blow to smithereens. To refer to Memon as a gullible man let down by the system he trusted, is not just an untruth, it amounts to a travesty of the truth. This has been an exhaustive 13-year-old trial, with 123 accused. Our investigating agencies were up against tremendous odds. It was a Herculean job, thoroughly accomplished. It says a lot about India’s judicial processes. So, can we please stop clubbing both these criminals together?
The other annoying response to the verdict comes from random people who ask foolishly, “Why are you so upset? Were you directly affected by those blasts? Any relative dead? No? Friend? No? Then why bother?” I guess such people are not “indirectly affected” either, or they wouldn’t indulge in such annoying, “time pass” conversation. These are the same people who are fiendishly devouring all the pre-hanging tidbits, listing the many rituals before that final walk to the gallows. Oh, so Memon will have a hot bath just before he hangs... but why? And how can anybody in that position ask for special food and eat breakfast? That’s absurd! And imagine, he won’t be alive to receive his second M.A. degree, after working so hard for it.
Why is it so hard to find the same level of sympathy for survivors of those terrible blasts? People who still have shards of shrapnel embedded in their permanently maimed bodies? What about the shell-shocked families of the 257 victims who lost their lives in a grisly terror war that had nothing to do with them? Cynics will blame the media for creating a demi-hero out of Yakub Memon. In a way, they won’t be entirely wrong. All those pro-Yakub images, interviews and quotes, are enough to spin a synthetic mythology around a person who actively aided and abetted Tiger Memon, his much-feared brother, to successfully execute his dastardly plan to attack Mumbai/India. There will be books and movies about Yakub Memon soon. And speculations as to which star can do justice to the role. Unfortunately, such are the times we live in. Till then, the public will feed on prison rules and regulations — a hanging still evokes morbid interest, combined with a high level of fascination for every little detail surrounding it.
Days before that takes place (unless a miracle happens), it’s not Yakub Memon I am thinking of or feeling sorry for. It’s his young daughter. She was five days old at that awful time, according to media reports. Today, she’s a young lady of 21, living and studying in the same city her father tried to destroy. How tough must that be? Hang he will... and he must. That’s the law. But let his hanging not be in vain. Mumbai is far more precious than the single life of a man paying for a monumental crime against innocents. As the dark hour approaches, by all means let us pray for Memon’s tormented soul. Let us also offer prayers in memory of those who were killed and extend solace to survivors.
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