DR. S. AUSAF SAIED VASFI comments on the recent Supreme Court judgement legalising passive euthanasia.
A two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court of India, comprising Justice Markandey Katju and Justice Gyan Sudha, delivered, on March 7, 2011, a disquieting judgement sending shockwaves throughout the concerned segment of our plural society.
The flawed verdict virtually ignores the sanctity rather divinity or both of human life. The views that appear to form the basis of the otherwise lucid and logical judgement do not go into the width and depth of the significant questions pertaining to death, life, the Creator and the fundamental question: whether and what has He suggested in the form of guidance on the issues concerned? Is God silent on death and life or hereafter? Has He or has He not authorised men to use, misuse, or disuse life according to his own whims, fancies, reading or experience. It is really surprising for us, and perhaps many that without dealing with the fundamental questions, the Apex Court, the highest palladium of justice, has tried to dispense justice.
What has been given a clean short-shrift is the religious and moral questions behind the so-called mercy killing and the sociological aspect pertaining to suicide. It is a matter of commonsense in cases where relatives are too poor, it is the state that has to look after its citizens, and fortunately our wise Constitution makers have laid down provisions for it.
ARTICLE 38
Article 38 in the Directive Principles of State Policy stipulates that the state has to secure a social order for the promotion of welfare of the people. “The state shall strive to promote the welfare of the people by securing and protecting as effectively as it may a social order in which justice, social, economic and political, shall inform all the institutions of the national life.”
Some commentators have described the 110-page verdict, written by Mr. Justice Markandey Katju as path-breaking, historic and pioneering. So had done this less-than-informed section when the Delhi High Court had, in an almost similar judgement, focussed on the need of decriminalisation of sodomy and lesbian ties. Now after the profusely praised verdict, mercy killing of our citizens has got legal sanction.
BEHIND THE SCENE
Behind the scene, they say, it was being practised earlier also at the behest of some too-busy or too-poor sons with their too-old and burdensome parents suffering from terminal diseases. The moment the doctor hinted at long, costly treatment, they would dispense with their helpless rather hapless patient, arguing somewhat like this: Now when the doctor has himself spoken out unambiguously, further treatment appears to be sheer wastage of money. Let it be stopped. Sooner or later he/she has to go. The disease is also incurable.
The background that threw up this painful case at national skyline is really brain-melting and heart-splitting. In 1996 Aruna Ramchandra Shanbaug from Haldipur in Karnataka joined the KEM Hospital in Mumbai as a staff nurse. On November 27, 1973 she was assaulted and raped by a sweeper in the hospital, Sohanlal Valmiki, who as a precautionary measure had bound her with a dog chain. A cleaner found her lying on the floor unconscious with blood all over. Sohanlal Valmiki was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for an attempt to murder and for robbing Aruna of her ear rings.
Journalist and author, Pinki Virani was given permission for shifting Aruna for tests at Jaslok Hospital. However, doctors fearing it could cause Aruna’s death, retracted the permission. The Supreme Court, on December 18, 2009 admitted Virani’s petition for mercy killing. And appointed a team of three doctors of Mumbai to examine the patient thoroughly and submit a report about her physical and mental condition. Dr. Sanjay Oak, Dean of KEM Hospital issued a statement opposing euthanasia of Aruna. The team of doctors submitted its report to the court and the Supreme Court ordered the three doctors to appear before it. On March 7, the Apex Court dismissed the plea for mercy killing of Aruna. It allowed passive euthanasia under exceptional circumstances.
Before the judgement, on February 2 to be exact, the Supreme Court screened a video of Aruna. The video showed a 60-year old Shanbaug on a hospital bed at Mumbai’s KEM Hospital: “feather-weight, her brittle bones could break if her hand or leg are awkwardly caught, even accidently under her lighter body. Her skin is like papier-mâché stretched over. Just by any parameter, Aruna cannot be said to be a living person and it is on account of smashed food which is put into her mouth that there is a facade of life which is totally devoid of any human element.”
About the special screening, the court said: “We had arranged for the screening of the CD in the courtroom so that all present could see the condition of Aruna Shanbaug. For doing so, we have relied on the precedent of the Nuremberg trials in which a screening was done in the court room of some of the Nazi atrocities during the World War II.”
PAIN & AGONY
Our pain nay agony is why, even slightly, did it not occur to Justice Katju and Justice Gyan Sudha Mishra that in the heart-rending story of Aruna, the central point involved is her rape. They did not even cursorily thought it fit to underscore the need of capital punishment for the rapists as had been admirably suggested by Mr. L.K. Advani or recommending total ban on extramarital sex. It is the officially encouraged permissiveness that is silently but steadily undoing the noble texture of Bharat.
To us, to Muslims, life is a God-given trust, to be used exactly according to His specific guidance given in the Last Book of Divine Guidance i.e. the Qur’ān. Man has no right to deal with life in a cavalier fashion. On the Day of Judgement actions in this life would shape the ultimate destiny of man, who has not been given the authority to kill or help kill another man, whatever his colour, creed or caste. Only a proven murderer, married adulterer and apostate can be executed.
The Apex Court plea to Parliament to endorse positive euthanasia and also delete the Article dealing with punishment to an unsuccessful suicide passes a common man’s understanding. The proverbial Dridranarayan fails to see any much-talked-of dignity in withholding or terminating medical life support to a man who has vegetated. To an aam admi, it is just bohemian, cruel and a crime of first order. Provision of punishment to a failed suicide works usually as a deterrent. If you let him to scot-free, he is bound to influence others. The mediocre boys and girls failing in exams would find a cheap means to do experimentation with the gallows.
TOTALLY IGNOBLE
The commentators’ argument that “no benefit can come from prolonging life” is totally ignoble, inhumane and mercantile. Please, for God’s sake, spare higher moral values like service and care of elders and the suffering. Each and every thing is not, and cannot and should not, be measured in terms of currency notes. Thus you are interpreting the value of life in terms of money which happens to be a fickle mistress.
See how out of tune this judgement is: only four countries in Europe and three states in the United States have laws permitting some form of euthanasia. In several Western countries piecemeal judicial legislative measures have been taken towards evolving a statue on the subject.
For a total picture add to it the significant fact that the entire Islamic world, the one-fifth of mankind, is free from the contagion of both euthanasia and suicide. The basic reason behind this healthy state of affairs over there is that selfless service to man, even strangers and travellers is Ibaddah or piety in Islam. Muslims instead of abhorring, compete with each other in serving the elders, the needy and the slumdogs.