Bernard Shaw , Godse, Capital Punishment and Constituent Assembly Debates

Tuesday, the 30th November 1948

Shri K. Hanumanthaiya (My sore): Mr. Vice-President, Sir, the amendment moved by Mr. Lari is sponsored on the ground of consideration and following progressive ideas. The abolition of capital sentence is a matter open to argument, and I wish to differ from him. We have to look at this problem from two points of view: one from the point of view of the convict himself and the other from the point of view of the State. From the point of view of the convict, I had an idea that the convict would relish a life sentence in preference to execution. Some days back, I happened to read one of Bernard Shaw's dramas; it was Avery good drama concerning the great heroine of France and there she prefers to be burnt alive rather than be kept in prison for a life time. He brings out that idea very beautifully in the drama, I had to change my opinion that the convict would prefer to be kept alive almost untouched by social inter course and aloof behind the prison walls. The convict would any day prefer to go out of the world instead of being kept almost like a dead person behind the prison walls for a life time. Then from the point of view of the State, a man who has no consideration for human lives does not deserve any consideration for his own life. Society is based not merely on reformation, but also on the fear instinct principle. To forget all other considerations except the question of reforming the convict does not hold the field and it has never held the field. If every man who takes away the life of another is assured that his life would be left untouched and it is a question of merely being imprisoned,probably the deterrent nature of the punishment will lose its value. The practice in prisons today is if a man is sentenced to life, he will be released, after concessions and remissions now and then given, in the course of about seven and a half years.Therefore, if a man who kills another is assured that he has a chance of being released after seven or eight or ten years, as the case may be, then everybody would get encouragement to pursue the method of revenge, if he has got any. For example, let us take this Godse incident.

Mr. Vice-President: No reference should be made to this particular individual.