Should you mourn the evil?

Aftermath of Charlie Kirk murder underlines moral confusion of our times

Alok Tiwari

The killing of right-wing extremist Charlie Kirk in the US last week and its aftermath has sparked an intense debate on how such characters are to be remembered. Kirk used his charisma and mastery of social media to promote an extreme conservative agenda across the US and abroad. His tirades targeted entire communities including blacks, immigrants, gays, and transgenders. Though he denied being a racist, but his vision of America unambiguously was one led by white Christian majority. Unsurprisingly, that made him a darling of the vocal right-wing. After his killing, they, fully supported by the Trump administration, are spending considerable resources in mythologising him as some kind of hero.

For others, though, he was anything but. It was a relief that his killer turned out to be from a gun-owning conservative family. Had it been from any of the groups that he so hatefully targeted, there would likely have been a severe violent backlash. For many Kirk represented the evil the modern age is spawning. In his many tirades he justified bodily harm including death to persons whose only fault was that they belonged to the group he hated. For him, it was okay for a person suspected of a crime to die because of police brutality. He justified murder of innocents, just like his own, if that was the price of maintaining an unfettered right to own guns in the US.

Such people are speaking out. And they are being targeted for speaking out. While there is universal condemnation for the murder, many are saying they find it tough to mourn the kind of person Kirk was. He wished for many the very fate that befell him. Should you mourn such a person? Does the dictum only good should be spoken of the dead apply to someone demonstrably evil? Is it uncivilized to talk of failings of the departed even if they are horrific?

Sometimes the answer is easy. The world has celebrated the fall of dictators who killed and persecuted millions. Germany’s Hitler, Romania’s Ceausescu, Philippine’s Marcos, and several others. But they too had their supporters. What if their numbers had been more? What if they had been internationally popular? Would a popular chorus then demand that we speak not of the evil they perpetrated in the world? If North Korea’s Kim Jong Un were to be assassinated, should we only sing praises to him? Or at least keep quiet about his cruelties and ruthlessness?

At other times things are a bit murkier. We too have struggled with such moral dilemmas. Right at its birth, India had to deal with ideologically targeted killing of Mahatma Gandhi. There are many who to this day believe his assassin did the right thing. The right-wing universe terms it ‘vadh’ or slaying, as in slaying of a monster, and not the cowardly murder of an unarmed, unguarded man that it was. In recent times, there is renewed glorification of the assassin. Does this not amount to automatic condemnation of a man nearly universally regarded as an apostle of peace? Is that not a condonation of the murder itself? Is not justification of murder itself evil?

Police forces in India have infamously killed many criminals in ‘encounters’ that are at best suspect. The killings of alleged perpetrators of Hyderabad gang-rape and shooting of a gangster responsible for gunning down many policemen in UP immediately come to mind. But such instances are too numerous to be recounted. Mumbai police have had encounter specialists for decades to deal with its violent underworld. They are part of its folklore and movies have been made of them. There are media reports of UP police carrying out dozens of encounters in which copy-paste FIRs have been filed.

There are many uncomfortable with this approach. But to speak out against the encounters is seen as support for the ‘criminals’. There is a vocal opposition to those questioning the police acts. This stems from frustration over delays in the legal system and its structure that favours those wanting to avoid justice rather than those seeking it. The frustration is so intense that a big number of us is willing to overlook the possibility of police getting it wrong. What if innocent persons are being labelled gangsters and gunned down?

In the polarised, social media dominated world, nuanced approach has little space. We are increasingly demanding black and white responses. Almost everyone thinks in terms of us vs them. If you are not with me then you are against me. There are no longer opponents, only enemies. A balanced approach is seen as weak or confused. It is difficult for many to see that one can condemn the crime but still question the summary justice that the police dispense in dark alleys. If violence is evil, then even violence by the righteous is evil.

By the same token, evil remains evil even if it has been wrongly eliminated. Things are less confusing if our response is led by principles rather than emotions. If you are for peace, then violence in every form and by everybody is wrong, including by the state and police forces. Then it is easy to condemn the killing of someone purely over ideological differences. If you are for justice, then it is easy to oppose an act that denies due process to even worst criminals.

The responses led by emotions are tailored around how we feel about the person. If some bad has been done to the person we like, then we outrage about it. If it has been done to someone that we despise, then we tend to justify it. It is the sign of losing our moral compass, our sense of right and wrong. Your moral standing is determined by whether you can condemn the wrong done to people you are opposed to while still calling out the things that you oppose them for.

This column appeared in Lokmat Times on Sept 18, 2025