"Hanging by the neck till death would continue to be the mode of execution of condemned prisoners, Supreme Court (of India) said on Monday refusing to entertain a PIL seeking replacement of the ‘cruel and painful’ method with the ‘lethal injection’, a method practised in the US.
"How do you know that hanging causes pain? And how do you know that injecting the condemned prisoner with a lethal drug would not cause pain?" asked a bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice P Sathasivam..."
The court is right. We don't know.
But can we trust the judgment of very learned Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779–1859)?
“Elphinstone did not hesitate to order the (Brahmin) ringleaders (of a plot to murder all the Europeans in Pune) to be blown from guns, observing that this method of execution ‘contains two valuable elements of capital punishment; it is painless to the criminal and terrible to the beholder’.”
(Philip Mason. “Men Who Ruled India”)
If we do, the following picture requires a small correction. Instead of tying the convict to the stump, he needs to be put in the barrel.
You still don't need additional staff!
And does the executioner have a sense of humour like Daulatrao Shinde दौलतराव शिंदे (1779 – 1827), the king of Gwalior state?
He ordered execution of his own commander-in-chief Narayanrao Baxi नारायणराव बक्षी by launching him into the sky, with the help of explosives attached to his body, to make a pun: "बक्षीचा पक्षी केला" ("Made bird of Bakshi")! (source: Marhati Lavani by M V Dhond, 1956 मर्हाटी लावणी, म. वा. धोंड)
After reading Mountstuart Elphinstone, I feel Daulatrao was a kind man. He could have chosen to crush Bakshi by elephant, the way Baji Rao II chose to deal with Vithoji Holkar विठोजी होळकर in April 1801, and let Holkar's corpse remain in the street near his palace for 24 hours so that he could enjoy watching it from window.
'Due to staff cutbacks...'
The Spectator