What I can never get, is why people make such a fuss out of suicides. This morning in the paper, I was again faced with the news of someone taking their own life. This time around though, it was a 60 yr old lady who did it as part of a religious ritual (She was a Jain). Half of the media pundits are saying it is a disguised suicide, the other half intoning that religious rituals are sacrosant, and thus above questioning on the so-called moral grounds.
But what no-one here is saying, is that if a man has the right to live, (declared a natural human right, not a constitutional one), why not one to die?
To deny a person the right to die is simply hypocrisy, nothing more. The argument that is usually put forward, to counter the validity of granting legitimacy to suicides is that a person is not in his/her rational state of mind when they decide to kill themselves.
As if we, sitting here, on our chairs are. A whole load of bull. Who is anyone to dictate whether I live or die? Who is anyone to push his/her morality over me, if I should choose that path?
Noone.
The only reason, the only real reason that suicide is taboo, is because it is detrimental to the society as a whole. If a man removes himself from this world, he is od no more use to the society. And so the society tries to prevent you from taking that step.
In India, I find something even more bizarre. Attempt to suicide is an offence. You can be booked for it. I find that so ludicruously insane that I am at times flabbergasted as to how to respons to such a situation.
The world is slowly going daft infront of my eyes, and according to the newly changing standards of sanity, it isn't. Which must mean that according to these new standards, I am going insane.
Striving to come back to the topic under the spot here, why is it so hard for us to imagine that a person might NOT be under duress, might not be under the influence of depressives, might not be in an unbalanced state of mind, and still may choose to not live any further?
The almost haughty expectancy of people to seemingly demand that every other person view life as AS sacred as they do, is contemptible.
The moment we take away the right to die, we are no longer a society that is a guarantor of liberty. For where is the liberty here? It is only a partial liberty.
It may be likened to the state of the pre-reform days in the US. Where masters of an estate may not kill the slave (in some cases) but may torture them in any other way they want.
We speak of the men of our Armies with great pride. We are proud of them, and respect them, for they are willing to lay down their lives for our security. There we are not talking about the sacntity of life, as our security is at stake, if those lives are held sacred. So human life is not so sacred after all, even in the so-call modern world.
Armymen may die, if they so choose, but only in the service of others. They may die no other way, with honour. For a jawan to shoot himself under the stress of not being able to go home to take care of his sick parents, who are on their deathbed, when there is no one else to look after them, is perhaps the most understandable of situations. The man felt so inadequate, that he saw no point in living any longer if he counld not fulfil his obligations to those most basic of masters - conscience and afection.
And this is not hypothetical, it has happened. Even in such cases, the suicide is viewed with contempt, as a sign of weakness. If that jawan had a sister, no youth would marry her. She would be 'tainted' forever by her brother's 'folly'.
What I see is honour. Perhaps the old Samurai of Japan would agree here. Suicide was the honourable way out to them, not the weak one. Hara-kiri is perhaps one of the best systems of restoring honour in the world, giving the incompetent to reclaim his respect in others' eyes by the one thing that was totally in his grasp. His death.
But as we move away from those times, there is more to the revulsion of suicide than simple selfishness. We are increasingly moving ourselves away from death, mentally. We see new medicines, we see less conflict, and lesser war deaths. We see very old people and hope to live longer than even them. And we try not to think about death.
Children are taught to not think about it, not being told if there a death in the family. Adolescents' queries are brushed away, and by the time they enter adulthood, they are already conditioned to maintain the status quo, and carry it forward in time, in turn teaching their youngers.
Civilised? I think not. What we are becoming is more and more deluded. And we are the ones doing the deluding.
So I say, Give me the right to live as I may make my life, that is my birth right. And Give me the right to die as I make choose to, that is my death right.
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7 comments:
BY the way, very well thought..but I disagree to u on this, Vipul......
I think its not that easy as u said that we should have the right to die, just as the right to live.
Life is boon,not a bane....yes, things do get messed up at times, and for a moment or two, everything appears bad, but that doesn't mean we should find way in killing ourselves. Suicide (what u call the right to die) is not a right actually. Our life is not jst ours, when we actually live in this society...many people may depend on it, like the soldier's example...will his parents be proud to knw that their son has ended his life for he cudnt turn up, or what abt the sis....wont she lose a support,as the parents were ill...
It may seem so easy to kill urself,as a solution to ur prob....bt it is nt a solution,but infact a bigger problem...
then you really didn't get the drift. I was pointing out the hypocrisy surrounding the issue. And by your stance, you seemingly agree with my point, even if you don't see it that clearly.
My views on the morality of suicide are my own, as your are your own. However, when you say that your life doesn't really belong to you, I disagree with you completely, and vehemently.
Nice one i will reply soon
I would like to argue on the the point that you assume a person to be sane enough to decide about his own existence.
As we regularly observe that man is not in his own control and more or less act on the principles which govern the crowd ,we can not grant an individual right to dicide about his own existence when he is not acting on its own or rather when the dicision is not a outcome from his individuality.
To illustrate i would love to give the example of russia and china.Before the red revolution russia was among the one of the religious country in the world but can any one tell what happen in a year or so that the same religious people burnt churches ,killed preists or trashed the statue of jesus and christ.Same happened with china when in overnight buddhist became atheist(taking buddhists as follower of buddha who is consideredas god by them).All this points out to a conclusion that then and even today a individual is not the owner of his own consciousness and as you your self stated that a person who is not in his own senses can not be provided the right to end its existence ,t would be a absurd and dangerous idea to grant people the freedom to die.
Apart from this as you talked about jaina ritual Santhara ,i would like to take your attenton to the fact that the woman who decided to die in such manner was actually going to die of the cancer .Do you notice that how even religion and the freedom to die can actually be a passport to cowardice so as to avoid the effect of the acts you have done.Don't you think that when even a soldier or the woman who dies in santhara is just attempting to escape the result of what he has been into,soldier or samurai must be brave enough to face disgrace when he knew that is inevitable as no one has ever marked only victories without loss or the woman just escaped the bitter fruit of her acts which may be improper lifestyle or extreme repreesion of the body.
I agree with you that people are creating more and more illusions to avoid death which are proved by the statements such as everythingh is right ir nothing is affected because of recent bombay blast.However the right to die to individual who are still to found their individuality on the ground that it is an attempt to hide the fact that one has to die holds no relation.
Buddha went in search of enlightenment after witnessing a dead body but it does not mean that now we should have the freedom to die as we will die sonner or later.Rather awareness or consciousness is what is needed to incultate which will eventualy end in the anouncement that i am deathless and will solve the problem for not looking into the eyes of death .
But do distinguish my argument with that of csa as she again tried to bring the crowd in the play.And also i would like to state that i am not against the suicide for one who are actually experimenting with the truths as it was the original reason why mahavira ,only mahavira allowed the sadhak ,first time in the history of religion to die before the natural death.
Well anonymous, it seems we have a bone of contention then. For I really do not agree that a person's morality, or even his sanity is is under question if he simply refuses to conform to the social norms. If that is how we view things, we are headed to those very catastrophes that you mentioned - religious persecution and riot.
Moroever, the examples you gave, Russia and China, are not very good analogies. If you read the history of the Russian revolution, you'll find why religion had to be knocked down, officially. Because the State, was to be omni-potent. That is what Lenin and Marx were talking about all the time. And that is exactly what the Nazis did, yet to a lesser extent.
The people that destroyed temples and killed priests were no more the representation of the true mood of the Russian people that were the thousands at Babri Masjid.
Fear was the reason, in both the cases. Even if you find a group of people abominable, according to your perceptions, as the Russians found the believers, do you go and burn their churches? Then what are you?
Tolerance is the one thing I'm trying to put out here. What distinguishes Mahavir, Buddha and Jesus from their millions (billions) of followers? It is the fact that they defined their own thoughts. They introspected, and did not allow the social currents prevalent at the time to prevent them from doing so.
Jesus taught different from the Old Testament, and the Torah. The Jews do not believe in Jesus as the son of God. They still do not go around burning churches.
As to the ritual that you referenced, I mentioned that as a counterpoint to the one you made later - Freedom to choose.
You say that a man willingly contemplating suicide is not his right senses. Just believing that makes him insane, according to what you have written. Absolutely not. You are falling into the same trap. Why is suicide wrong? why is it right to follow the society? I have already mentioned the real reasons.
I am not saying that acting contrary to crowd or society make you insane rather i say that you are insane or schizophrenic if you are a part of crowd.
Today people are acting as part of crowd and therefore freedom of death can be dangerous because if it turns in to fashion than it will be difficult to cope with.
Don't we see the jeans of students at their knees .Can you tell me why majority of people or student have started to wear so.ISIN't it just a play of the rule of crowd that is it is fashionable now.
So can we not predict that the independence to voluntary death will catch the imagination of youth now or later if allowed.
Analogies of russia and china were just an example how people act as crowd and the idea of sucide if catched their imaginationthen it may prove to be self destructive to our society.Ideals always determine the nature of the society,India is just a victim of its ideals such as buddha ,shankaraand more recentky of gandhi as all of them preached the values which if taken at face can be distructive to society.
and don't we know the people who can do anythingh just to be differnet or so called revolutionaries .Who will stop them then if they start to be the champion of such cause.
In my opinion only few people exist as individual and they shall be allowed liberty but you know rules have a disadvantage that they are mundane ,they are inflexible you can not have a play of subjectivity in laws .and we all know if individual wants to end his existenace he or she will invent one way or other.
Then there is no need to have such a pomp and ceremony as we noticed in the case of santhara.woman that died under santhara is just a good example of the case when freedom to die can be misused as an easy escape from the difficulties of life
It will be nice to hear from you about freindship,love and sex.
Zorba
i agree. You seem to have very interesting views, not contrary enough to mine to cause racuous contention, but at the same time not similar enough for ennui. I'll write about love, friendship and sex in time. Right now i'm a bit busy.
But especially want to write on friendship. I find view that relationship very differently from others... so keep waiting. ;)
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