Of gallows & guillotines

Guillotine. As in “Yakub Memon has been guillotined.” Well, not exactly guillotined. And thank God for that. For, the guillotine is a machine with a heavy blade sliding vertically in grooves, used for beheading people. Thankfully, we no longer believe in torturing a person in this cruel manner, and most of the nations, if they haven’t already, are moving towards abolishing the capital punishment. 

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The guillotine these days is limited to being a device that incorporates a descending or sliding blade for cutting paper, card, or sheet metal. Or, the surgical instrument used to remove tonsils. The procedure used by British MPs in parliament to prevent delay in the discussion of a legislative Bill by fixing times at which various parts of it must be voted on is also called guillotine.

Intense debate warrants a death warrant since it is to be issued only in the rarest of the rare cases. It evokes extreme reactions and feelings, both from the people directly affected and the public alike. And, the judges have to be careful in sentencing the sentence. For, it can make all the difference. Consider this use of the ‘little’ comma by a jury that makes the difference between life and death:

Hang plea dismissed (life)
Hang, plea dismissed (death)

Incidentally, ‘as-we-now-know-the-powerful’ comma can also transform a male chauvinist into a feminist:

Woman, without her man, is nothing (male chauvinist)
Woman, without her, man is nothing (feminist)

There is that famous case of Motilal Nehru (eminent lawyer and Jawaharlal Nehru’s father) bringing his client back alive from the gallows in the early 1900s. Gallows (plural gallowses) is a frame usually of two upright posts and a transverse beam from which criminals are hanged.

The client was a young man charged with blowing up a British officer’s horse carriage. To deter the freedom-seeking youth of those times from taking the route of violence, the magistrate decided to hang the young man in public. Surprisingly, defence lawyer Motilal Nehru welcomed the judgment and walked away. 

The young man was brought to the death row. As soon as he was hung, Nehru sent men to hold on to his leg and rescue him. When the matter was taken to court, Nehru pleaded 

not guilty.

His argument was about the verdict. The magistrate had written the death sentence as “hang him”. And the man had been hung. The sentence did not say “hang him until death”. You cannot try a defendant again on the same charges following a legitimate acquittal or conviction. That is called double jeopardy. Ever since, death sentences specify: “hang until death”.

But what about the people who continue to be guillotined metaphorically? Those who are crucified for speaking the truth? Or, of trying to get to the bottom of the truth? Or, those driven to suicide following a wrong or a sense of injustice? Cases of some executive decisions leading to executions of the self are not unknown. 

Charles Dickens provides some solace to those who did not escape the gallows: “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” — A Tale of Two Cities.

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