‘An obscene law’: How Tamil writer Sundara Ramaswamy argued against the death penalty in 1999
Ramaswamy was responsding to 26 convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case being sentenced to death. After an appeal, the sentence was confirmed for four. Sundara Ramaswamy.
This is a period when opinions against the death penalty are being disseminated all around the world. Since the birth of the 20th century, Western thinkers have formulated arguments against capital punishment. Among them, Arthur Koestler (1905-1983), a Hungarian writer, is particularly important. He was subject to imprisonment under the dictatorship of a fascist regime.
During the Spanish Civil War, he was taken prisoner under sentence of death. He experienced the many brutalities of an authoritarian regime during his lifetime. Through his novel,
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