For her senior thesis, Syna is analyzing the administration of the death penalty in India and how it exposes deep structural failures within the country’s criminal justice system. Despite legal safeguards meant to ensure fair trials and just sentencing, systemic issues—such as violations of due process, inadequate legal representation, and the widespread use of torture—undermine the integrity of capital punishment proceedings. Her research examines how these failures shape death penalty sentencing outcomes, disproportionately affecting marginalized individuals from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, lower castes, and religious minorities. Her archival research in Delhi, India, will bridge the gap between constitutional protections and their enforcement in practice by tracing empirical and case data, legislative policies, and analyses of legal history. By gathering this legal data, she intends to argue that capital punishment in India is not merely a reflection of the severity of crimes committed but is deeply entwined with structural inequities that render certain groups more vulnerable to retributive convictions and excessive sentencing.
An AMEC major, Syna is writing her thesis under the supervision of Barnard College’s AMEC department.