Indore: The death of a three-year-old girl in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, has sparked off a major legal debate on parents can be allowed to choose whether their children should live or die. In this case, the child’s parents stopped food and water to their terminally-ill child in the Jain practice of Santhara.
Santhara means fasting unto death. This is normally practiced by the elderly who are ill and infirm. In this case, Piyush and Varsha Jain – both IT professionals – received recognition from the Golden Book of World Records, a US-based organisation, after their daughter Viyana became the youngest person to ‘vow the religious ritual Santhara’.
In 2015, the Rajasthan High Court had declared Santhara illegal. The Supreme Court, however, struck down this order, granting legality to the practice.
What has stirred a debate is whether a child, who has no idea of life and death, can be made to practice Santhara. As Madhya Pradesh Child Rights Commission member Omkar Singh has said: “It is a religious practice for elderly people. I have sympathy with the parents, but it shouldn’t be done with a toddler, even if she was on her deathbed. The toddler was not aware of anything. We are looking at the legal aspects of the matter.”
According to reports, Viyana was diagnosed with a tumour in her brain. She was operated upon in Mumbai on January 10. However, the cancer relapsed in March. She had severe throat congestion from March 15 and was put on juices from March 18. According to Varsha, doctors fixed a Riles Tube through her throat on March 21, so she may be fed liquids.
That evening, they consulted their spiritual Guru Rajesh Muni Maharaj. He convinced them to go in for Santhara to decrease the child’s suffering and ‘improve her next birth’.
The Santhara ceremony began at 9.25 pm on that day at the Guru’s Ashram in Indore and the child was no more at 10.05 pm.
“We broke down after the incident but Guruji provided us the needed mental support and asked us to prepare for the record,” Varsha added.
Doctors said that the fact that the child passed away barely 40 minutes after the incident reveals that she wasn’t going to survive for long anyways. “However, she should have received proper medical care even in her last moments. Maybe, she would have passed away peacefully. I don’t think she was in any condition to go through the rituals,” one of them said.
