The Death Penalty

So just who are you Mr. Judge?
And just who are you Mr. President?
Who made you the Honorable Judge?
Who made you the Honorable President?
In My Democracy.
Was it my vote?!
So just how much did you know, 14 year old Hetal Parekh, Mr Judge?
(just so we know how much you felt for her)
And just how much did you know, Dhananjoy Chatterjee?
The same questions to you to Mr. President.
In what judgement did you sit Mr. Judge?
Was it legal, was it moral?
Of whom do you make an example off
and for whom?
Did you give life to Hetal Parekh, Mr. Judge?
Did you give life to Dhananjoy Chatterjee.
Maybe you did Mr. President?.
Did you?
What is ‘life’, to you Mr. Judge?
And when does it become precious, Mr. President?
Whom did you hang, when 15,310 people suffocated to death in Bhopal and 3,00,000 were maimed by Union Carbide?
How many people did you hang when the Children of Kumbakonam roasted in their school?
Where did you hang the officials, who rotted grain and caused starvation deaths in Orissa, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and in other states of India?
Why didn’t you hang the politicians of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra who’s ‘politics’ have caused scores of debt ridden farmers to kill themselves?
And whom do we hang for the destruction the nuclear tests have brought, on a poor tribal community in Rajasthan?
So just who are you Mr. Judge?
And just who are you Mr. President?
Who made you Judge?
Who made you President?
In my democracy.
Was it my vote?!

-written on-
14th September ‘04
10.45 a.m