|
On the night of November 27, 1973, Aruna Shanbaug was attacked by a ward boy in the basement of Mumbai’s King Edward Memorial (KEM) hospital, where she worked as a nurse. The ward boy tied a dog chain around her neck, cutting off air supply to parts of her brain, and sodomised her.
This horrific attack rendered Aruna partially brain-dead, and she lies in a semi-coma in her bed at KEM, unable to see, speak, walk or even move her hands; she is thus virtually in a vegetative state. She is, however, not on a life support system. Kept alive by the force-feeding of mashed food, she has become, just by lying there, decade after decade, the world’s longest-staying patient in any hospital. But she remains in a twilight zone between life and death.
The right to live is enshrined under article 21 of the Indian Constitution; to willfully take away life is a criminal act under the Indian Penal Code.
This year, the Supreme Court of India heard a petition filed by activist-journalist Pinki Virani, who has written a book highlighting Aruna’s plight, seeking the court’s intervention to direct KEM hospital to stop feeding Aruna, and to let her die. Pinki’s petition states: “Aruna cannot be said to exist in the sense a human being is supposed to live. She is virtually a skeleton.”
Previously, petitions had been filed in the Indian courts for mercy killing but they all were from terminally-ill patients themselves. This is the first time that a petition was filed by a third party seeking an end to a patient’s life; the courts until now had rejected all these pleas holding that the right to life is sacrosanct.
On March 7, the two-member bench of the Supreme Court pronounced its judgment rejecting the mercy killing prayer. The Court while discussing the issue of mercy killing generally in this case allowed passive euthanasia in select cases.
Administering a lethal drug to advance the death of a brain dead person in a vegetative state is called active euthanasia, which is still banned in several countries including India. As opposed to this, the withdrawal of life-support systems from a terminally-ill or brain dead patient, whose chances of recovery are unlikely, is termed passive euthanasia.
The Supreme Court judgment has now legalized passive euthanasia under tough conditions. However, worried over the possible misuse of passive euthanasia by the greedy relatives of a comatose patient, the Court stipulated to follow such a procedure under a High Court monitored mechanism.
The Court also directed the legislature to repeal section 309 of the Indian Penal Code, similar to a provision under Pakistan’s Code, which deals with attempt to suicide.
So Aruna is going to live.
The nurses at the KEM hospital are ecstatic. All of them have individually taken care of Aruna at some point in the 37 years that she has been there. They do not want her to die. “I feel that nurses have been taking care of Aruna for years and when we do not ask for death for her, why should anyone else?” one nurse asked. “She fondly listens to music, especially devotional songs, which are played continuously on a tape. She is very much alive - she screams when she is upset and laughs when she’s happy. Why would anyone want to kill her? We don’t want her to die.”
Aruna is lucky to have some good friends. Is she happy with the Supreme Court verdict and to be alive? Or would she be relieved to leave this world for ever? We would never find answers to these questions… 
Anees Jillani is an advocate of the Supreme Court and a member of the Washington, DC Bar. He has been writing for various publications for more than 20 years and has authored several books.
|
Show/hide comments
Show/hide comment form
