SC Stays Rajasthan HC’s Order to Make Jain ‘Santhara’ Illegal
‘Santhara’ allows the members of Jain community to fast unto death by choice.
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The Supreme Court has stayed the Rajasthan High Court’s order to term the Jain ritual of Santhara as suicide.
Lawyer Nirmal Kumar Sethi called it a landmark judgement and said that the community people are overwhelmed by it.
Community representative Subhash Oswal called it ‘victory of truth and morality’ which will have a ‘positive impact on the society’.
The SC order has fueled the debate of weather or not the Jain practice of slow death or sallekhana should be termed as suicide.
According to a discussion on Quora, the ritual is the ‘art of dying’ and is nothing like suicide, as it is not spontaneous.
The community supporters also defend the ‘the highest form of passage’ to be reserved for old people who have ‘served their purpose in life,’ thus making the ‘fast unto death’ ritual nothing like suicide.
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