Indian system of execution of death penalty is perhaps among the most brutal and the most inhuman executions on earth, when one compares it to democracies and developed nations across the globe. Developed nations follow various humane execution practices and painless methods of executing death sentences.
It is one thing to say that a person must be executed for his crime to satiate the collective conscience of the society, it is completely another to follow a system that provides million painful deaths in the process of execution. The United states uses lethal injection that makes the process quicker and instantaneous. The European union has no death penalty. Many other developed nations follow painless and instantaneous execution system
In India, section 354(5) of the Indian Penal Code 1860 reads "When any person is sentenced to death, the sentence shall direct that the person be hanged by the neck till the person is dead.". The emphasis here is on "hanged till the person is dead".
In other words there is not just one death but hundreds of deaths that occur from the time a person is erected on the noose with his hand tied behind till the point the last breath of life leaves the body. The short interval of acute violence that follows with every fibre of the person's being struggling for the breath of life is perhaps the most violent and the most inhuman system for any civilized society to follow. Death by asphyxiation is not instantaneous and is a very painful death just as death by drowning in water is violent due to the stark struggle of breath of life before the death occurs.
The black mask on the face with a rope around the neck is perhaps to ensure that the magistrate standing nearby and the hangman do not feel pangs of conscience when the see the face of the man. Let us suppose if you could place a closeup camera inside the black mask and see the painful last minutes of struggles of the person before he dies on TV. Would you still advocate death by hanging or a humane and painless death like lethal injection or barbiturates?
If one agrees that right of life guaranteed under Article 21 of the constitution includes "Right of life with dignity" as its fundamental element, then it logically follows that the "very dignity" is to be accorded by the constitution till the last breath of life by making executions humane and painless.
In my view, the whole process of death by hanging violates fundamental rights and dignity of a man. The fact that such dignity is violated by a legally sounding order of the court makes no difference whatsoever.
(PS: people feel horrified when isis executes people by drowning them under water but not when the law executes with same asphyxiation system by hanging)
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