Tragic case prompts India to adopt law permitting 'passive' euthanasia

Delhi: Aruna Shanbaug was working as a nurse in Mumbai when she was brutally raped and assaulted by a co-worker - an attack that left her in a vegetative state for the past four decades. Her case inspired a bestselling book and sparked a heated debate about euthanasia in India.

Now, a law has taken effect that may help Indians facing a similar tragedy. But it still may not alter Ms Shanbaug's condition. Last month, India adopted a landmark Supreme Court decision to allow "passive euthanasia" for patients who are in a permanent vegetative state or are declared brain-dead.

The procedure involves withdrawing medical treatment and allowing death to occur - as opposed to "active euthanasia", in which a life is ended through a lethal dosage of drugs or other means. A handful of other countries, like Sweden and the Netherlands, have similar legislation.

In a culture steeped in traditional notions of karma, destiny and duty, the new law is unlikely to be widely invoked, some say. In Ms Shanbaug's case, hospital staff are vowing they will continue to care for her.

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"Euthanasia does not even enter our minds as a thought. It does not exist in our vocabulary. Everybody in the hospital loves Aruna so much," said Shubhangi Parkar, dean of the KEM Hospital and Medical College where Ms Shanbaug worked. Her family abandoned her years ago and the hospital is fighting to keep her alive. "The nurses go out of the way to care for her, celebrating festivals in her room, keeping her clean. They spend personal time with her even after duty hours."

Ms Shanbaug's saga began in 1973, when she was raped and choked with a dog chain by a janitor. The incident left her blind and deaf and suffering from a severe brain stem injury. Now 66, she has not responded to people for decades. Her attacker was convicted of attempted murder, but not rape. He served six years in prison.

Ms Shanbaug's condition moved author Pinki Virani to write a popular book about her in 1998. Eleven years later, Virani went to the Supreme Court to plead for passive euthanasia for Ms Shanbaug.

In her five-year crusade, Virani faced extensive criticism from the hospital's nurses as well as from religious figures, she recalled.

But the euthanasia issue was widely debated on radio phone-in programs, social media and prime-time TV talk shows. And slowly, Virani said, there was a perceptible shift away from the "crushing emotional burden of duty" to individual rights.

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Tragic case prompts India to adopt law permitting 'passive' euthanasia