I recently met X—once a domineering professor, now a lonely man living in a community for senior citizens. He is 90 years old. His wife and two sons are dead. He can still walk without help. X would like to die. But he can’t because India believes in non-violence and has respect for life. The professor believes that this is an inversion of the truth—it is because we do not respect life that he is still alive.
Euthanasia is not legal in India. A few countries like Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, parts of Australia, and parts of the US allow the practice of euthanasia.
Etymologically, in Greek, eu means happy and thanatos means death. The drugs used usually are barbiturates like pentobarbital. This can also be used in combination with muscle relaxants. Peaceful death occurs in minutes.
It’s fashionable among optimists to talk of India as a young country. ‘Vibrant’ is the nearly-meaningless word they use to qualify India. Some 380 million of the population is aged 10-24 years, which is why they hope for a demographic-economic dividend.
But the current elderly population—those above 60—is 153 million (by the magical year of 2047, this number is likely to touch 350 million), and it is not clear with what sense of comfort they are living. How many of them are rich enough to be assured of a good life in their terminal years? How many are likely to be looked after by their families? How many are healthy enough to enjoy a ‘life of quality’? Our kindness to the elderly is kindness only because we do not ask these questions. It is sentimental evasion disguised as kindness.
In countries where euthanasia is legal if approved doctors agree that the patient is not mentally or physically able to have a ‘quality life’, he or she could opt for assisted death. And a rising number of people, especially from the elderly bracket, are opting for it.
We are a society that deifies youth. So, the truth is that we do not much care how the old live, simply because we have already got everything from them. It is in this context that we must look at euthanasia as a possible option for those like the professor—whose eyes were once black and sharp, and now are grey and wet.
Why should elderly Indians be denied the option? The question assumes urgency given our poor social and healthcare. If the government were in a position to take care of the elderly, one could still argue against this option. But then even in advanced societies where funds are not a problem, loneliness, depression and physical disabilities beset the old.
Humans have no choice in many significant matters. One cannot choose one’s country of birth, parents, race, gender, IQ level or appearance. These are accidents contrived by fate. But one can choose when and how to die. Why is this not a fundamental right provided conditions are met?
In Europe, social security takes care of the old. In India, you may be paying up to 30 percent of your earnings to the government every month for over 30 years. Yet, the day you retire, nothing comes back to you. Poor financial condition translates to poorer healthcare and other tardy standards of living, contributing to debilitating physical and mental problems. The net result is that quality of life suffers. Why not end one’s life peacefully?
Empower the ailing and the lonely old to die. This is the least a poor country can do, no matter what its delusions of grandeur are. Euthanasia is especially relevant to India as its scriptures recommend the practice of vanaprastha to the old, meaning when one is old, one must disappear from society.
Euthanasia might look like a luxury in a relatively poor nation. But ask the old. The answers could surprise you. Who among us doesn’t want to die well? Especially since most of us have not lived well. It is just that India has always been reluctant to adopt what ‘seems’ a cruel measure.
Till a few years ago, attempting suicide was a criminal offense. A desperately lonely person tries to hang themselves and, typically, the rope breaks. Instead of giving them a shot of brandy and an attentive ear, we had thought the right thing was to put them away in jail. That is our idea of love and respect for life. Our love is a kind of war.
Back to the professor. As I was leaving, he quoted the epigraph to T S Eliot’s The Waste Land: I have seen with my own eyes, the Sibyl hanging in a jar, and when the boys asked her, “What do you want?”, she replied, “I want to die.”
The Sibyl was a prophetess in Cumae, an ancient city in Greece. She asked Apollo for eternal life and was granted the wish. But she forgot to ask for eternal youth. Who found her wasting away in a jar? A bunch of boys. To the young, the old is often just of curio value: the Sibyl in the jar of time.
Open the jar, release the spirit.
C P Surendran
Poet, novelist, and screenplay writer. His latest novel is One Love and the Many Lives of Osip B
(Views are personal)
(cpsurendran@gmail.com)