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WHY MEN ARE HANGED
sibility for the crime is proved. Was there no extenuating circumstance in this case ? At least as far as the four not directly involved in the murder were concerned, particularly the women ?
But the point is not this or that particular case, or punishment of incivicluals. It is that here we have a type of “crime", the responsibility for which clearly belongs to the socio-political system that punishes it. The law is not a purcly political instrument, that is to say, governmental affair, as it is generally believed to be. It has a social sanction. The Indian society cannot shirk the responsibility for the legal punishment of this type of crime with the convenient plea that it had 110 hand in the making of the law. Didn't it? That is the question. Whence comes the shameless oppo sition to legislative measures meant not to harm the moncy-lender, but only to give some very inadequate protection to his helpless victims ? Even to-day, many Indian public men vehemently disapprove of projects for a radical cure of the cause of mass indebtedness which places people in such a hopeless position that they are compelled to commit crimes for the sake of remaining in human existence, supposed to be a gift of God. They want to help the peasantry, but would not do injustice to other classes. The peasants are to be helped out of their ruinous indebtedness, but the " legitimate ” right of their usurious creditors should also be respected. The nationalists are the
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