Is Pranab Mukherjee the most merciless president?

Every judicial verdict, apparently, boils down to what a judge may or may not have had for breakfast that day. This is what former US judge Jerome Frank had once famously said, suggesting psychoanalysis before appointing any judge. 

Since the President of India does not have to go to court after breakfast, we can safely modify that breakfast bit to diet: every presidential verdict boils down to what his diet is. Going by that, it is understandable why President of India Pranab Mukherjee’s approach toward death row mercy pleas is so different from his predecessor, Pratibha Patil. 

President Mukherjee is a die-hard non-vegetarian, eats fish curry almost every day. No wonder, he has turned down mercy pleas in 97 per cent cases, ever since he took up the reins in 2012. In contrast, Patil, a total vegetarian, holds the record in using the presidential powers to pardon death row inmates: a record of 90 per cent of India’s total death sentences pardoned ever.

Former president, APJ Abdul Kalam, wasn’t a 100 per cent vegetarian always, but became one to save money as a college student — a habit which stuck. Look at his mercy decisions: he had taken no decision on most cases, except just two. Rape-cum-murder convict Dhananjoy Chatterjee was hanged in 2004 while one Kheraj Ram of Jaipur, who had killed his wife, two children and brother-in-law, was granted life imprisonment in 2006. 

India takes (or at least, used to take) pride in having very few executions in all these years of independence. Could that be because most of our presidents were vegetarians? The early presidents, especially Rajendra Prasad and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan — both vegetarians — did not support death penalty and tended not to agree when the government recommended one.

Not much is known about the views or actions of a lot of presidents like VV Giri, Fakruddin Ali Ahmed, or N Sanjiva Reddy. There’s nothing in the archives. But during the 1970’s, most of the capital punishment cases were not carried out: to commemorate Mahatma Gandhi’s birth centenary year in 1969. 

By the 1980s and 1990s, India’s list of executions had become a trickle. Yes, despite Shankar Dayal Sharma (1992). Sharma, an upper-caste Brahmin, who lived on boiled potatoes as a student in England, had rejected all mercy appeals that he had ever received: but then he had just 14 in his five years.

During President KR Narayanan’s tenure (1997–2002), as South Indian vegetarian fare filled up Rashtrapati Bhavan dining halls, a pause button was pressed on executions: a total of nine cases were placed before him, he kept eight of those pending.

Of course, exceptions prove the rule: 1) The third president, Zakir Hussain, used to have elaborate non-veg meals and patronised Delhi’s tandoori experts, Moti Mahal. Yet, like his predecessors, he was strongly against capital punishment, keeping those only for the “rarest of rare” cases. 

2) President R Venkataraman (1987-1992) was a very strict vegetarian (his wife Janaki had even proposed silk saris that did not involve killing of worms), but he was personally in support of capital punishment: he holds the highest record of rejecting 33 mercy petitions.