Sucide,euthanasia and santhara

suicide, euthanasia[yoo-thu'ney-zhu(wish death,इच्छामृत्यु)] and Santhara — are being debated as never before.

Trying to find a pragmatic[prag'ma-tik(practical,अनुभवजन्य)] balance between these conflicting self-identities is the Supreme Court of India, an institution designed to uphold the rule of law, not evolve new national ideologies.

As the law stands today, trying to commit suicide is still a crime, but for how long? At the top of the pending legislative business list is the Mental Health Care Bill 2013, which seeks to convert an attempted suicide into a mental health issue triggered[tri-gu(activate,सक्रीय)] by “a presumption of severe stress”.

Meanwhile, the Minister of State for Health has stated that the government plans to delete Section 309, which criminalises suicide attempts. At one stroke it seems, the Judeo-Christian idea that our life is not ours to lose, is being jettisoned[je-ti-sun(throw,फेकना)] out the window.

To be fair, the Judeo-Christian ideological construct was never coercively[kow'ur-siv(forcefully,जबरदस्ती)] enforced on people whose religious beliefs clearly differed.
This changed on August 10, 2015, when the Rajasthan High Court decided in Nikhil Soni v. Union of India that the Jain practice of Santhara was illegal.
This is the question the Supreme Court has taken upon itself to decide when it stayed the orders of the Rajasthan High Court on August 31, 2015.

The Akhil Bharat Varshiya Digambar Jain Parishad has claimed a distinction between suicide and a vow[vaw(promise,प्रतिज्ञा)] intended to purify the soul.

It has pleaded that “this vow is not taken either in passion or in anger, deceit, etc. It is a conscious process of spiritual purification where one does not desire death but seeks to live his life.

It is the concept of peaceful and joyous renunciation[ri,nún-see'ey-shun(surrender,त्याग)] which is the basis of Sallekhana or Santhara”. The Jains claim as sacred[sey-krid(holy,पवित्र)] what others consider criminally profane.

No doubt, it will be many years before the Supreme Court decides these issues. Nevertheless, the Court appears to have been motivated by a simple reluctance[ri'lúk-tun(t)s(unwilling,अनिच्छा)] to engage in adjudicating[u'joo-du,keyt(judgment,निर्णय)] on countervailing religious beliefs.

Thus it is that the very next month, on September 28, 2015, the Supreme Court declined to interfere with religious practices once again, stating that it would not ban the centuries old tradition of animal sacrifice by various communities.
Raja Ram Mohan Roy would have had as much success in persuading[pu'sweyd(convince,मनाना)] the Supreme Court to ban sati as he did with Bengal’s Governor William Bentinck. Indian courts appear increasingly unwilling to allow religious practices that offend its fairly modern outlook.

That still leaves open the question whether we should treat our lives as belonging not to us, but mainly to God, and then to the local police station. Nothing brings this central dilemma[di'le-mu(uncertainty,दुविधा)] into focus as does the problem of euthanasia.

It laid down tight conditions in which ‘passive euthanasia’ may be implemented so long as it was bona fide[bow-nu,fId(genuine,प्रमाणिक)] and in the best interest of the patient.

There is something unreal about adding additional burdens on courts already buried under the weight of cases that have no hope of being decided within one’s lifetime.

When most people do not survive without water for longer than five days, the distinction between active and passive euthanasia becomes hard to understand.

At the end of the day, however delicately you may want to put it, to insist that we must all live for as long as technology makes it possible for us to do so, is to argue that we must live for as long as we have money to pay bills generated by the intensive care units of hospitals.

Even more disturbing is the idea that while others may in circumstances take these decisions for us after we have become incoherent[in-kow'heer-unt(illogical,असंगत)] and dysfunctional, we cannot be permitted to opt for a dignified end to our lives at a time of our choosing.

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