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mansimudgal's review
3.0
The stories in this volume are written with the hope of making readers understand the people we want to kill.
The Punished is a collection of stories written on the basis of interviews with death row prisoners and their families conducted under Project 39A, a criminal justice research and litigation centre based out of NLU, Delhi.
It’s a topic close to my heart, Capital Punishment sounds retributive and something that enables justice (that’s the version we are fed as a society I guess) but research on the subject is fairly clear, it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to, rather it often becomes a policy tool and a way to punish the already impoverished, uneducated and marginalised masses. Lost is the common human in legal jargons, a shaky criminal justice system, interrogation methods that are questionable and an apathetic society out for blood.
That is not to say that the crimes aren’t heinous and chilling but it’s presence in modern democracies is clearly a blot on its own.
The book strives to make us think of the families left behind, of issues that plague the accused (poverty, illiteracy, mental illness, alcoholism etc.), it also talks of the botched investigations and circumstantial evidences that enable judgements where death penalty is awarded.
Supreme Court’s Bachan Singh Judgement gave us the Rarest of Rare cases doctrine which talks of mitigating circumstances when it comes to awarding capital punishment and the book tries to lay before you the other side of a crime.
Now the limitations; I think to put in so many vignettes in a small book made the experience detached, the writer didn’t want us to sympathise with the people which is an interesting sentiment but at the same time I would have liked detailed back stories to form an informed and humane choice. The vignettes of Fathers and neighbours felt incomplete and absent at times which I guess could be due to lack of access to prisoners at all times. The book would have been dealt better if we would have been introduced to the jurisprudence behind death penalty and it’s abolition, giving an average person more tools to decide and judge.
This topic needs and detailed analysis.
The Punished is a collection of stories written on the basis of interviews with death row prisoners and their families conducted under Project 39A, a criminal justice research and litigation centre based out of NLU, Delhi.
It’s a topic close to my heart, Capital Punishment sounds retributive and something that enables justice (that’s the version we are fed as a society I guess) but research on the subject is fairly clear, it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to, rather it often becomes a policy tool and a way to punish the already impoverished, uneducated and marginalised masses. Lost is the common human in legal jargons, a shaky criminal justice system, interrogation methods that are questionable and an apathetic society out for blood.
That is not to say that the crimes aren’t heinous and chilling but it’s presence in modern democracies is clearly a blot on its own.
The book strives to make us think of the families left behind, of issues that plague the accused (poverty, illiteracy, mental illness, alcoholism etc.), it also talks of the botched investigations and circumstantial evidences that enable judgements where death penalty is awarded.
Supreme Court’s Bachan Singh Judgement gave us the Rarest of Rare cases doctrine which talks of mitigating circumstances when it comes to awarding capital punishment and the book tries to lay before you the other side of a crime.
Now the limitations; I think to put in so many vignettes in a small book made the experience detached, the writer didn’t want us to sympathise with the people which is an interesting sentiment but at the same time I would have liked detailed back stories to form an informed and humane choice. The vignettes of Fathers and neighbours felt incomplete and absent at times which I guess could be due to lack of access to prisoners at all times. The book would have been dealt better if we would have been introduced to the jurisprudence behind death penalty and it’s abolition, giving an average person more tools to decide and judge.
This topic needs and detailed analysis.
maa_yaa1's review
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
tense
fast-paced
4.5
Foreword talks about people who we want to kill, you don’t come across this until you reach the end and read about the author. I promptly skipped reading that and only read it at the end. I think it would have had a different effect on me had I read them earlier. The stories make us look into the lives of convicts who may or may not have done the crimes but are suffering nonetheless. Waiting for death, as years go by is probably the harshest part about the book. It’s a known fact but still skips the mind of an ordinary person. The stories are gripping and don’t go on for too long, giving you just enough to think. They are also presented in varied ways so the reader doesn’t get bored.
ananyakrishnan's review
5.0
I have followed Project 39A for a really long time so when I heard about this book, I knew I had to buy it. I had high expectations and I must say, I was not disappointed.
manugummi's review
5.0
“... if we as a society take on the onus of punishing with death, the least we can do is get to know the ones we punish a little bit better.”
ankita_g's review
3.0
'the Punished' has 18 'stories' of death row inmates in India, and each story tries to remind us that people who are serving death sentences in prisons across the country, no matter how bad their crimes are, are humans too. Death sentence in India is supposed to be conferred only in 'rarest of rare cases' - a vague threshold that, as research by a credible organisation like Project 39A (on whose work this book is also based) suggest, is arbitrarily applied in most cases, especially when the accused is from an economically disadvantaged background. Through the stories of the death-row convicts covered, the author tries to highlight a range of issues - flaws in our legal system, police brutality, mental illnesses, poverty - but doesn't quite succeed in establishing any of those very convincingly, in my opinion. The stories give you crumbs, but nothing substantial to "chew" on.
Each account is extremely short and doesn't properly delve into the mind, motivation and/or circumstances that led to the accused committing (or being framed for committing, as some allege) the heinous crimes they have been sentenced to death for, nor do they delve into why a police officer, lawyer or/and judge acted in a (supposedly) biased manner. I think the author could have written more about the latter because conferring a death sentence, the strictest punishment in the legal system, to someone can't entirely be based on prejudice, especially when judges are supposed to be highly educated and qualified. If the point was to show incompetence of the judiciary, the claim(s) could have been backed by more substantial research or reasoning.
It requires more than a surface-level treatment of an important and contentious topic like capital punishment, to make a reader fully understand how the law or the system is failing the common people, especially the poor. Also, I didn't quite like the stylistic choice of writing some of these accounts like short stories with made-up 'dialogues'; it subconsciously made me question the authenticity of the account(s).
However, I do think this book is important because if you aren't very familiar with the Indian legal system, it'll atleast make you question the practice of conferring the death penalty, and think about whether it is indeed an "appropriate" punishment for any crime, and if death row convicts are really beyond redemption - which is one the core objectives of the book.
Each account is extremely short and doesn't properly delve into the mind, motivation and/or circumstances that led to the accused committing (or being framed for committing, as some allege) the heinous crimes they have been sentenced to death for, nor do they delve into why a police officer, lawyer or/and judge acted in a (supposedly) biased manner. I think the author could have written more about the latter because conferring a death sentence, the strictest punishment in the legal system, to someone can't entirely be based on prejudice, especially when judges are supposed to be highly educated and qualified. If the point was to show incompetence of the judiciary, the claim(s) could have been backed by more substantial research or reasoning.
It requires more than a surface-level treatment of an important and contentious topic like capital punishment, to make a reader fully understand how the law or the system is failing the common people, especially the poor. Also, I didn't quite like the stylistic choice of writing some of these accounts like short stories with made-up 'dialogues'; it subconsciously made me question the authenticity of the account(s).
However, I do think this book is important because if you aren't very familiar with the Indian legal system, it'll atleast make you question the practice of conferring the death penalty, and think about whether it is indeed an "appropriate" punishment for any crime, and if death row convicts are really beyond redemption - which is one the core objectives of the book.
zzzzzsz's review
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual violence, Violence, Murder, Sexual harassment, and Classism
mrusbooks's review
3.0
The book has 19 stories. The criminals include rapists, murderers, bandits from gangs, mentally disturbed people who killed their families. They include men and women.
A common theme I found across the book was that all these criminal were
1. From financially underprivileged backgrounds
2. All of them denied having any knowledge of their trials, as the trials were conducted in English and they did not understand the language. A woman who understood it was ill-informed by her husband and lawyer that she was given the life sentence. She learned on TV that she was given the death penalty.
3. All of them (except one of the criminals) denied having committed the crime and believed they had been framed.
4. Anger, uncontrolled and limitless anger, is the culprit behind most (85%) of the crimes.
A common theme I found across the book was that all these criminal were
1. From financially underprivileged backgrounds
2. All of them denied having any knowledge of their trials, as the trials were conducted in English and they did not understand the language. A woman who understood it was ill-informed by her husband and lawyer that she was given the life sentence. She learned on TV that she was given the death penalty.
3. All of them (except one of the criminals) denied having committed the crime and believed they had been framed.
4. Anger, uncontrolled and limitless anger, is the culprit behind most (85%) of the crimes.
chandanakuruganty's review
4.0
"But the truth is never pure- never black or white. It is complicated. And there can be no justice without it."
Crisp stories, accused specific narration ( which is often unheard or substantially publicized) and sticking to specifics instead of any sort of value judgement make this book a good read. Some stories in the book are little abrupt and some venture only into emotional zone missing out a clear event narrative.
However the purpose of the book is justified through the author's narration which rests on the premise that:
"If we as society take the onus of punishing with death, the least we can do is get to know the ones we punish a little bit better."
Crisp stories, accused specific narration ( which is often unheard or substantially publicized) and sticking to specifics instead of any sort of value judgement make this book a good read. Some stories in the book are little abrupt and some venture only into emotional zone missing out a clear event narrative.
However the purpose of the book is justified through the author's narration which rests on the premise that:
"If we as society take the onus of punishing with death, the least we can do is get to know the ones we punish a little bit better."
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