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“Dying is an art, like everything else;
I do it exceptionally well...
I guess you could say I’ve a call.”
Sylvia Plath, the American poet, wrote these lines in her poem Lady Lazarus about 100 days before she committed suicide.
She did it exceptionally well – by thrusting her head into her kitchen oven and breathing in carbon monoxide – and died on February 11, 1963.
Her two young children, meanwhile, were peacefully asleep in another room.
If you think you have a call, go ahead; the Indian law wouldn’t stand in the way, even if you fail. But, there is a catch: if you fail in your attempt to hang up on life you will be termed a mentally-ill person. For, the Mental Health Care Bill 2013, which was cleared by the Cabinet recently, seeks to de-criminalise suicide.
Drastic changes
The long-awaited Bill, which will replace the Mental Health Act of 1987, will now go to Parliament. The Bill has the potential, experts say, to bring drastic changes to the mental healthcare sector, one of the most neglected public health areas in the country.
For one, it recognises the right of the mentally ill person to decide on the treatment option – to get admitted to a mental health institution or not – and to nominate a person to act on his or her behalf.
One major aspect of the Bill is that it bars a person who fails in his suicide attempt from being prosecuted. Section 124(1) of the Bill says: “Notwithstanding anything contained in Indian Penal Code or the Code of Criminal Procedure Code 1973, any person who attempts to commit suicide shall ordinarily be presumed, unless proved otherwise, to have mental illness and not to be subject to any investigation or prosecution.”
As of now, the Indian Penal Code treats a suicide attempt as an offence to be punished with a fine and up to one year in jail.
Anachronistic law
The Supreme Court had dubbed the law anachronistic and the Law Commission of India had recommended its repeal.
Thinkers have long considered the right to take one’s own life as one of the fundamental rights of an individual.
The new Bill makes it a duty of the state to take care of those who have failed in their attempt to end their lives. Section 124 (2) makes it clear: “The appropriate government shall have a duty to provide care, treatment and rehabilitation to a person having mental illness and who attempted to commit suicide, to reduce the risk of recurrence of attempted suicide.”
A tenth of the Indian population is said to be suffering from some form of mental illness, but mental healthcare is a neglected area.
There is a heavy shortage of mental healthcare professionals and the number of institutions woefully inadequate.
The Bill, if enacted, is expected to give a legal framework for the development of the facilities for treatment and rehabilitation.
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