Are religious fasts-unto-death suicide?

Three members of a Muslim family recently died and 10 others were hospitalised in a critical condition during a 40-day-fast at a 14th century Sufi saint’s dargah in Ajmer, Rajasthan.

The fast was undertaken at the behest of a senior family member who claimed he was acting under the “orders” of the saint who
appeared in his dreams and prescribed the ‘Chilla Kashi’ ritual to ward off black magic.

The Ajmer tragedy could perhaps be explained away as a stray instance of irrational misinterpretation of an imagined cult diktat. In contrast, the ongoing debate over Santhara — the ritualised fast-unto-death practiced sometimes in the Jain community — has ended up with the Rajasthan high court.

After failing to get the police to prevent Keila Devi Hirawat of Jaipur from killing herself through Santhara, Nikhil Soni, a human rights activist, filed a writ petition against the practice. Calling it “a social evil” that should be considered “suicide” under Indian law, the petition in effect demands that practitioners of Santhara should be prosecuted under section 309 of the IPC for attempted suicide and its supporters charged with abetting a crime.

If the court finally agrees with Soni’s contentions and outlaws Santhara, the decision would seriously dent the religious sensitivities of nearly six million practising Jains, for whom the centuries-old ritual holds a pride of place among their sacred traditions. Its apologists — including PC Jain, a retired high court judge — argue that Santhara cannot be characterised as “suicide” when a person relinquishes food and drink voluntarily after calm introspection with an intent to cleanse oneself of karmic encumbrances.

If Soni’s petition invokes the right to life enshrined in article 21 of the Constitution, the Santhara advocates turn the tables by positing its very corollary. The right to life, according to this
argument, is meaningless without the corresponding right to die.

Their defence further seeks the protection of articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution which respectively allow followers of all faiths to freely profess, practise and propagate their religion.

Soni and his ilk remain unimpressed. They are convinced that Santhara is suicide masquerading as religious practice wrapped in the mantle of hoary tradition. The parallels with Sati are chilling: most of the Santhara “volunteers”, it turns out, are women — elderly widows. And how “voluntary” is their decision, when it may be taken and persevered with under the threat of being socially ostracised if they reconsidered it? 

What, the petitioners also ask, distinguishes Santhara legally from say, euthanasia (or mercy-killing) which, at present, stands afoul of Indian law? And why, one may pose in the same vein, are protestors on hunger-strike promptly arrested and force-fed, and additionally charged under section 309 — as was done with NBA activist Medha Patkar during her agitation against government policies.

In ruling whether Santhara is indeed a legal means of terminating one’s life — and thus opining on whether an act sanctioned by religious belief can bypass the proscriptions of secular law — the court will need to make a fine distinction between a bonafide “religious practice” that reflects and manifests a believer’s genuine and deeply felt inner longing, and a seemingly legitimate but pernicious and inhuman “social custom” that preys on the hapless and the marginalised.

Nikhil Soni vs Union of India & Ors could also create history of sorts. Not for the first time has an Indian court been called upon to decide between conflicting Constitutional provisions concerning religion.

Way back in 1958, the Supreme Court in MH Qureshi & Ors vS State of Bihar took on the issue of a ban on cow slaughter impinging on Muslim festivities during Bakr-Id and on the fundamental right of butchers to carry on their trade. But this time, the issue is decidedly more sensitive, and its consequences far more profound: it involves the extinguishment of a human life.

The writer is a lawyer and law professor