Man has it all in his hands, and it all slips through his fingers from sheer cowardice.”
His body language tensed , his voice shaky , his demeanor far removed from the larger than life image that he portrays on-screen and he even broke down while admitting that ‘he is a shattered man’ . Sanjay dutt has not only gracefully accepted that he will abide by the judgment of the Supreme Court but also said that he won’t appeal for mercy.
Responding to a nationwide debate in India on whether he should be pardoned by the state after being sentenced by the Supreme Court, Dutt told journalists at his home on Thursday: "There are many other people who deserve pardon. I just want to say with folded hands that when I'm not going for a pardon then there's no debate about it."
What did he do wrong? He purchased a .9 mm pistol, and accepted a gift of an AK-56 rifle and ammunition from the underworld, he broke bread and raised toasts with the mob and entertained their calls. Perhaps, as a drug-addicted youngster, Sanjay Dutt didn't learn the perils of supping with the devil. Now, the one-liner from his hit Naam(1986) must be haunting him “This criminal world has a one-way street, there's no exit." Well settled both in the industry and in personal Life as he recently became father of twins with his wife Manyata Dutt, he will have to face the remaining 42 months of his sentence behind the bars for the crime he committed 20 years before. Real life had provided Sanjay Dutt with an exit when he kicked his drug habit. But he chose to continue to flirt with danger.
Bollywood and well-wishers like Justice Katju are raising voice to launch a ‘Save Sanjay’ campaign but we also need to realize that Law isn’t about selective conviction. Will we set a good precedent by pardoning him? We aren’t living in a Caliphate.
Twenty years ago, Mumbai was still Bombay and Sanjay Dutt was in his early thirties. A Bollywood brat with a Neanderthal image then, he is now a middle aged man with 3 children. Those were extraordinary times when even Naseeruddin Shah contemplated of leaving India and fleeing off to Mauritius. When even people like Dilip Kumar and Saira Bano were vulnerable. Sanjay Dutt belonged to a family where his father was a Hindu and his mother was a Muslim.
He was found guilty for possession and guilt by association as his guns were a part of a consignment smuggled in by Dawood and his associates in 1993 and even was found guilty of destroying evidence with his friend Yusuf Nullwalla. The 1993 Mumbai blasts which left 257 people dead with its diverse cast of characters from film, crime and media had all the makings of a Russian novel. It left many children orphans and many women widows. It ushered tragedy and fear in the City of Dreams like never before in the past. Mumbai had never ever before witnessed the clout of communal tension as it did in those years.
Sanjay Dutt knows how his father was humiliated when he tried to plead mercy for his family. He comes from a lineage where respect and self-dignity has always been prioritized higher than personal interest. Sunil Dutt had to request Bal Thackeray to get him off from the TADA Act else he would have received a much stricter punishment. Bala Saheb had himself helped Sanjay as he had a deep fondness of the actor.
All said and done, we also need to look at the basis of Justice and what it basically wants to achieve by giving punishments. With Sanjay Dutt, it has also convicted Zebunissa Kazi(70 years) whose house was purportedly used as a transit for storing weapons before transferring them to Sanjay’s house . Tragic yet interesting is the strange fact that Zebunissa has been convicted under the TADA Act and has been sentenced for 20 years while Sanjay Dutt who was the end user of those weapons has been let off and has only been convicted under the Arms Act. Also important to note is the fact that while 30 other convicts will serve Life imprisonment, the main Convict, Abu Salem will walk free after 25 years of imprisonment and the main mastermind - Dawood Ibrahim will sit comfortably in Pakistan.
Zaibusnissa Kazi (70) has suffered for 20 years too, spending 8 months in jail; but when the verdict came out, the only person who perhaps was batting for her was her daughter. Entire brigade of politicians and actors were appealing for mercy for the Congress MP kin and friend of gangsters, Sanjay Dutt on humanitarian grounds.
I realize the law is impersonal and one must respect the law as we do at the end of most Bollywood movies. To ask pardon only for him makes law a fact of power. To say that one should appeal to the president is to be elitist; to believe justice can be softened for those with connections. Yet the verdict left a strange after taste for me. It punishes a middle aged balding overweight man for his childish crimes. Sanjay’s life was like B-grade thriller and his behavior never reached the heights of villainy while the real culprits are ensconced safely across the border. Sanjay Dutt was right in saying that a lot of people deserve to be pardoned but haven’t been shown mercy.
He remained the happy Neanderthal from Sanawar School, someone haunted by adolescence in these late thirties. A confused overgrown boy with a brawling style of life seeking comradeship, identity and love in the years of the Mumbai blast, who was still recovering from the tragic death of his first wife and Mother from cancer. As Sunil Dutt once said of him, Sanjay lacks the intelligence to be a terrorist.
As for me, I would repeat what one of the jurors said in 12 Angry Men, “I don't believe I have to be loyal to one side or the other. I'm simply asking questions. He's had a pretty tough life. If not anything else, I just think we owe him a few words, that's all.” If not clemency, I think he deserves some sympathy. 
No comments:
Post a Comment