Death Penalty (India)

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

Exactly. I am sure that other Members will raise the question of what is happening with the Dalits and other groups.

The eight-year moratorium lulled us into a false sense of security. Naively, many of us thought that although India retained the death penalty on the statute book the continuation of the moratorium was an indication that it would eventually be abolished once and for all. Unfortunately, that was a naive judgment and our hopes were dashed in the spring of last year when reports emerged that the Indian Government were moving to execute Balwant Singh Rajoana and, possibly, to authorise the execution of Professor Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar. That caused widespread concern among the Punjabi community in the UK, across many of our constituencies and across the world.

I want to refer to the two cases, as they have been prominently mentioned in the media and carry immense significance around the world, the Rajoana case for its historical context and the Bhullar case because it is almost now a symbol of the injustice meted out to so many Sikhs in recent decades.

Let me deal first with Balwant Singh Rajoana, a former member of the Punjabi police. He has publicly acknowledged his role in the killing of the chief Minister of the Punjab, Beant Singh, in 1995. He has refused to defend himself and refused legal representation, and he has not asked for mercy. However, Sikhs and Sikh organisations in gurdwaras have appealed for mercy on his behalf, and urged the Indian Government to appreciate the context of Balwant Singh’s actions and the feelings of the Sikhs at that time and now.

Balwant Singh was party to killing Beant Singh, the chief Minister of the Punjab. We now know that Beant Singh personally commanded the police and security forces in the killing and disappearance of possibly more than 20,000 Sikhs—men, women and children. Faced with the failure of the Indian authorities to take action against the former chief Minister for his crimes against humanity, Balwant Singh and a co-conspirator took the law into their own hands. Nobody, including Balwant Singh, claims that he is innocent of the killing, but Sikh organisations, human rights lawyers and human rights groups are urging the Indian Government to take into account the context of his actions, the scale of the human suffering that the Sikhs were enduring at the time, and the anger that young men such as Balwant Singh felt at the failure of the Indian state to bring to justice the chief Minister responsible for the atrocities against the Sikhs in the Punjab. On that basis, they plead for understanding and mercy on Balwant Singh’s behalf and that the death penalty is avoided at all costs.

If Balwant Singh Rajoana symbolises the suffering of the Sikhs in that period, Professor Bhullar symbolises the injustice meted out to Sikhs, to be frank, over the years at the hands of the Indian police and the judicial system. Professor Bhullar came to the attention of the Punjab police because he investigated the abduction and disappearance of a number of his own students. The disappearances were linked to the Punjab police. The resultant persecution of his family, with the disappearance of his own father and uncle and others, led him to flee to Germany for asylum. Tragically, the German authorities believed the assurance of the Indian Government that he would not face the death penalty, and he was returned to India.

The German courts have now ruled that that deportation was wrong. Professor Bhullar has been in prison for 18 years. He has been convicted of involvement in an attempted political assassination solely on the basis of a confession, which he retracted, with not one of more than 100 witnesses identifying him at the scene, and on a split decision of the court judges. In split decisions in India, the practice of the courts is not to impose a death penalty, but Professor Bhullar has been sentenced, held in solitary confinement for eight years and, despite his deteriorating health, his plea for mercy has been rejected. Despite a further petition to the Supreme Court, the fear is that the Indian authorities could move to execute him at any time. This is a shocking miscarriage of justice waiting to happen unless we can intervene effectively.

The fears for Balwant Singh Rajoana and Professor Bhullar prompted the launch of the Kesri Lehar campaign last year. Our fears were compounded when on 21 November India ended its moratorium on the death penalty and executed Ajmal Kasab. In December the United Nations voted for the fourth time for a resolution calling for a global moratorium on executions; 111 countries voted for the moratorium, but India voted against. That is another clear indication of its intent at that time to return to the implementation of the death penalty.

A further execution by hanging took place on 9 February this year. There is a real risk therefore that, with more than 40 people now on death row in India, with 100 more sentenced to death each year, many more executions are likely to follow unless action is taken.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman just mentioned the UN vote. The Prime Minister has just come back from India and the UK Government and Governments around the world have high expectations of the future for India. What message does the hon. Gentleman think it sends to the rest of the world that India voted against the moratorium at the UN?

[John McDonnell]

The message was clearly interpreted by our communities, our constituents and the Kesri Lehar campaigners as showing that India is now intent on the restoration of the death penalty with its full force. That is our fear. The executions that have taken place have confirmed those fears.

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[Mr Swire]

As the hon. Gentleman would expect, the permanent under-secretary listened to what I had to say. He was aware of our consistent position on this issue but stressed to me the very real fear in India created by acts of terrorism.

[Richard Fuller]

The Minister is being very generous with his time. May I press him a little on the consequences of this issue for the UK? For example, suppose a terrorism suspect from India is in the UK. If India moves forward with executions, what will be the UK Government’s position on extradition to India?

[Mr Swire]

As my hon. Friend would expect, the Government would review the case on an individual basis. I cannot comment on a hypothetical case of that nature.

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[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

I join other hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) on securing this debate. I also congratulate the signatories to the Kesri Lehar petition which has been extremely influential in securing the debate.

Many hon. Members have talked about the importance of this issue to their constituents of Punjabi origin, and that is certainly true for my home town of Bedford and for Kempston, but this issue affects the whole community in the United Kingdom. We should all embrace it as a matter of importance. I draw Members’ memories back to the part of the Olympic opening ceremony that celebrated all that is great about our open, multicultural society, when Tim Berners-Lee said, “This is for everyone”, and talked about the interconnectedness of modern society. One of the things that makes our country unique and so special is that we can draw on people’s experiences from their origins around the world, and it is right that this Parliament, the mother of Parliaments, should debate this issue today.

We debate the issue in a spirit of humility, because we are talking about the legislation and rules of another sovereign country, which is—as the hon. Gentleman said in his opening speech—the world’s largest democracy. We need to be extremely respectful and humble in the representations that we make here today, but we also need to carry forward determination and conviction from our own experiences of the death penalty in the UK, and the ways in which politicians over the ages here worked, on principle and for practical reasons, to seek the abolition of the death penalty. In that there is a message for modern Indian politicians.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about being respectful of the sovereignty of other nations, but we can also point out that, according to Professor Steven Pinker, the professor of cognitive psychology at Harvard university, western Europe is now the safest place to live in history in terms of person-on-person violence and even war and interstate violence. That is in a society with the complete absence of the death penalty. It is worth pointing that out to other places in the world to encourage them to change, rather than demanding that they change.

[Richard Fuller]

The hon. Gentleman makes the point perhaps more eloquently than I could. This is a matter not just of principle for many hon. Members, but a matter of practical impact. The existence of the death penalty can exacerbate situations and stimulate other criminal activity as a response.

I wish to make a couple of points that perhaps go a bit further than the petition in making representations to our friends in India. Although a moratorium is desirable, the intent should really be outright abolition, because history teaches us that moratoriums are not always an effective long-term solution. As has already been mentioned, India has had a moratorium, and it has ended—the consequences of that remain to be seen. We have also had the experience of the United States, where the Supreme Court issued what was essentially a moratorium. That went away, and before George W. Bush became President he was one of the most excited and active executioners of people under the US criminal code when he was governor of Texas. There are pressures on politicians and the judiciary when there is still the option of ending the moratorium. Modern societies need to strive to achieve abolition if we are to accomplish both the in-principle benefits and the practical benefits of the elimination of the death penalty.

[Bob Stewart]

If someone is executed, they can very quickly become a martyr. Martyrdom by execution is rather sad: I would prefer to see people punished by imprisonment. I hate the idea that people become martyrs, especially when they have done great wrong.

[Richard Fuller]

My hon. Friend obviously speaks with great experience from before he became a Member of Parliament in dealing in highly conflicting situations with people of different religious and ethnic backgrounds in Europe. Those differences can lead to extremism and the actions of governing authorities can create martyrdom situations that exacerbate divisions. Any healing democracy always wishes to heal the divisions within society. The death penalty is not a friend of that aim; it is an opponent. As we can see from the petition, there are real concerns that the existence of the death penalty in India will exacerbate the tensions within Indian society rather than achieving a better long-term solution.

The human aspect for those under threat of the death penalty must also be a considerable concern to us. It is inhumane treatment to leave a human being on death row for many years. No one should have to go through the psychological trauma of not knowing if or when their appeal may be heard and whether they may be executed. That is not a mark of a decent society.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned George Bush, and some years ago, when I was a member of the Home Affairs Committee, we visited Huntsville in Texas, where most of the staff were against the death penalty. People had been on death row for 17 or 18 years, and I agree with the hon. Gentleman that that is utterly inhumane.

[Richard Fuller]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support for that point. The hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) mentioned the recent reaction in India to the issue of rape. If there is still the possibility that the death penalty can be applied, and if its application would have political currency in certain situations or be popular at a particular moment, politicians will use that as a reason to bring it back. It may be completely ineffective, or out of step with what is needed at the time, but it is always alluring to politicians who believe that the death penalty has popular support to seize on it as a remedy. A moratorium always leaves that possibility: abolition removes it.

[Mr Bailey]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that appalling episode occurred while the death penalty was in existence, and, indeed, while all indications pointed to its greater implementation? Is that not a demonstration of the ineffectiveness of the death penalty to deal with such incidents, and a reflection of a wider problem that has to be dealt with in a more sophisticated way than the crude implementation of this policy?

[Richard Fuller]

I refer the hon. Gentleman to what has already been said about the situation in India with regard to rape. The broader point is that there are lessons for politicians of all countries about the possible use of the death penalty in political discourse. The hard-learned lessons in this country are that we end up with a more effective and fairer criminal justice system if we abolish the death penalty. There is no stopping point along the way to abolition that will ultimately provide the security of those two outcomes: there has to be outright abolition.

[Mr MacNeil]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is being very kind. To back up his argument from history, again from Steven Pinker, we can draw on the example of England. Some 800 years ago, the death penalty was commonplace and there was a hangman’s hill in every village throughout the British Isles. An Englishman was 50 times more likely to be killed by a fellow Englishman in a society that had the death penalty than they are in the modern day when there is no death penalty.

[Richard Fuller]

That is an interesting statistic, which I am sure also pertains to Scotland.

Another point that I humbly submit for our friends in India to consider is that this issue shines a light on the general operation of the judicial system in India. Those who study the British empire—I have read only a few books on it—learn that the English judicial system is one of the gifts we gave to the world. I am sure we talk that up a lot, but there is a lot of truth in the fact that many people around the world see the British judicial system as a reliable and trusted friend when they are in conflict situations. There are issues relating to the Indian judicial system that exacerbate concerns about the existence of the death penalty. I have mentioned the implications for the mental health and well-being of people on death row. With the case load in Indian courts so backed up, what is it that says that a certain case should move forward or not? How are those decisions made? What is the due process in a system that finds itself not fully capable of dealing with its work load?

Constituents of mine who have had legal disputes in India have always made the point that they have had to go back to India to deal with them. Without putting too fine a point on it, sometimes that is because of issues to do with money in the criminal justice system. I have no idea whether that is true and certainly, of course, none of my constituents has been involved in any of that, but it is interesting that there is that question. Our friends in India, being part of a great hope for the world, need to address those issues. The petition shines a light on how the world will look on the decisions made regarding the death penalty in India as a result of those issues.

The Minister kindly responded to the question of what India moving forward with the death penalty would mean for UK relations in certain circumstances. He was right to talk about considering cases on an individual basis. However, if India became a more active proponent of the death penalty, that would have significant implications for how the UK would look at extraditing people to India. We do not want the death penalty to affect our relationship when there is so much that is positive that we want to talk about, and we do not want to have ongoing disputes on this issue. I therefore hope that the British Government would look very dimly on extraditing any person to India that might result in their being subject to the death penalty, and seek assurances that it would not be applied in any such cases.

I again thank the signatories to the petition. This issue may be of particular concern to our Sikh community, but it is a concern for all of us in this open United Kingdom and for all of us in Parliament. May we together send the message to our colleagues who sit in the Indian Parliament that on the issue of the death penalty it is often the politicians who have to lead public opinion, not the other way around? They should have the courage to halt executions immediately, and to step forward not just to reinstate a moratorium but to effect outright abolition.

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[Richard Fuller]

If I may say so to the hon. Lady, this is precisely the point. If we wish to decide on a case-by-case basis, as the Minister rightly said, and if India goes down this current route, it will necessarily complicate our relationship with India. There will be consequences for our relationships with India unless the Indian Parliament looks at this issue very seriously again and makes the changes that Members are asking it to do.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I also wanted to make the point that Germany got that commitment, yet we know that that commitment is at risk of not being fulfilled in this case. That is something I am very concerned about. We must keep pressing on the principled issue, which is that international human rights standards are not things that can be conveniently negotiated, as they are standards that we need to be at the forefront of upholding.

Speaking as someone who has campaigned strongly on issues relating to violence against women and has asked for more effective prosecution of such cases, tougher sentences and so forth, I strongly feel that India’s response to the horrific case in Delhi has been a failure of understanding. The Government have wanted to look tough—traditionally part of the problem with the death penalty is that it makes Governments look tough—but have not brought along people who can make a real difference. I am particularly concerned that under the proposed new law, the present exemption for marital rape, whereby it is not an offence in India, is being retained. I am diverting from the real subject at issue, however, which is the use of the death penalty in India.

As I think everybody has said, every speaker in this debate regards themselves as a friend of India. Speaking as friends of India, we want the country to be able to fulfil its enormous and growing potential in the world. One thing that makes that less possible is the existence of the death penalty. We are concerned not just about it continuing, but about the way in which its deployment helps to divide communities in India, making the country less safe and less stable.

I am worried that the rights of religious, ethnic and caste minorities in India are not sufficiently well protected. The people who sent us the briefings have brought that issue to the debate because of their sense that the death penalty is being used to target dissidents or campaigners for those minorities. People like Professor Bhullar who have exposed some of these cases are being punished, as it were, pour encourager les autres.

It seems to me that we have a responsibility to say to India, “We expect you, as the largest democracy in the world, to promote the standards of democracy and human rights that we expect, and to recognise that if the death penalty is used in this way, there is a risk that you will deepen the divisions between ethnic and religious communities in country. There is a risk that you will make your country less safe and less peaceful for all who live in it.”

I believe that if India were to commit itself to abolition of the death penalty, it would build its capacity to fulfil its potential as a leader in the south for the developing world. Its economy is growing, and I think that if its reputation for respect for democracy and human rights grew at the same pace, it would play a great role in making the world safer. In respecting the rights of its Sikh, Christian, Dalit, Muslim and other residents, it would become stronger. It is in India’s interests, as well as the world’s interests, for the motion to succeed.