“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains”
                                                          – Rousseau

India chose to be a “welfare state” some 66 years ago with a promise of wiping tears from everyone’s eye. In this view the 5th and the 6th decades of our independence have been legendary when it comes to realising how those promises could never be realised! In the 15 years of these two decades so far, every year 1.2 lakh people on an average in our country committed suicide. No doubt the living standard has emancipated beyond recognition but so has the mental agony. While schemes for better living were being drafted, the other side – the one of the very human element which is invisible to the naked eye – somehow never came into prominence. It is this neglect that year after year culminated into a perpetual anxiety of uncertainty and a feeling of aloofness and being orphaned by the state en masse.

“More than one lakh people (1,34,599) committed suicide in 2010. This indicates an increase of 5.9% over the previous year's figure (1,27,151). The number of suicides in the country during (2000–2010) has recorded an increase of 23.9% (from 1,08,593 in 2000 to 1,34,599 in 2009)… The All India Rate of Suicide (number of suicides per one lakh population) was 11.4 as compared to 10.9 in 2009. Sikkim reported the highest rate- 45.9...the metropolitan cities fared still lower with Bangaluru (1,778); Mumbai (1,192); Delhi (1,242) and Chennai (1,325)”- says the National Crime Record Bureau’s report on Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India-2011.

The fact that “3,130 children below 14 years (1,640 boys and 1,490 girls) committed suicide in 2010” speaks volumes about the seriousness of the issue.

These are government figures, the actual ones may be more.

These figures, apart from questioning our policies and the nature and notion of our “welfare state” also raise questions on the conduct and role of society. They point fingers at the society’s inefficiency in addressing the problem and eroding human element in us. There is also a need to look back into the laws for those who attempt suicide but survive. In this article, I will focus on the plight of the suicide attempt survivors and not suicide victims per se which I believe demands a detailed study.

Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code reads: Attempt to commit suicide.

“Whoever attempts to commit suicide and does any act towards the commission of such offence, shall be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend up to one year or fine, or with both.”

In a society like ours which sees an act as an end in itself without venturing into the wisdom of the contributory reasons for that act, many are of the opinion that suicide (or its attempt) tantamount to ruining one’s life. Now, if ruining one’s own life in this manner is a punishable offence, then why not punish those who do it in various other forms? Ruining to me is a relative term and may have different notions for different people. To the one attempting suicide, living may be ruinous and to others the former may be the same.

However, I never intend to advocate suicide even in my dreams. What I seek is a response to this question – is it befitting to enlist attempt to commit suicide as a crime? It must be noted here that what I am talking of is ‘attempt to suicide’ and not ‘suicide’ per se. Attempt to suicide is definitely an act of shame for humanity and its principles. It is an act that demands mourning (both for the individual and the phenomenon) but definitely not a crime. Yes, we must strive in unison to outwit this Frankenstein’s monster called suicide and not tag its attempt as a legal offence. Because, by doing so, those who fortunately escape from the jaws of death will now be tagged as criminals, with their names registered in the criminal records forever – a burden that they will have to bear for the rest of their lives.

Will that person not live under a heavier burden than ever before? Will this tag (and the shadow it casts) not instigate him to do the same again and reduce his chances of revival? Now, even natural death won’t be able to liberate them of this punch mark against their names. Is this what we intend? Is this what the union and the law of the land aspire for? The answer has to be a big ‘no’. The law of the land wants them to live as dignified citizens and not as criminals. All mistakes need not necessarily be crimes. At times you need to handle them with emotions and sympathy and not legislation.

A supreme court bench of justices Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Misra, in 2011 opined – “the time has come when it (Section- 309 IPC) should be deleted by parliament as it has become anachronistic… we recommend to parliament to consider the feasibility of deleting Section 309 from the Indian Penal Code.” In September 2011, 25 states gave their consent on the removal of the said section to the ministry of home affairs. The law ministry then said that within a year the said section would be removed. However, it’s been 16 months since and the draconian section continues to haunt the society.

The 210th Report of the Law Commission of India on Humanisation and Decriminalisation of Attempt to Suicide says, “Only a handful of countries in the world, like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Singapore and India have persisted with this undesirable law.”

The report states that “suicide may be regarded more as a manifestation of a diseased condition of mind deserving treatment and care rather than an offence to be visited with punishment”. Though attempt to suicide (Section-309IPC) should be decriminalised, its abetment (Section-306 IPC) should continue.

Below is the observation of the Delhi high court in State vs Sanjay Kumar Bhatia, a case under Section 309, IPC:

“Instead of the society hanging its head in shame that there should be such social strains that a young man (the hope of tomorrow) should be driven to suicide compounds its inadequacy by treating the boy as a criminal. It is ironic that Section 309 of the IPC still continues to be on our Penal Code. The result is that a young boy driven to such frustration so as to seek one’s own life would have escaped human punishment if he had succeeded but is to be hounded by the police because his attempt failed.”

“The way society treats you after your failed suicide attempt has a great role in determining the future course of your journey. Although my family never mentioned it to me the neighbours gave me a nasty glare whenever I crossed them. They would say – look he tried to commit suicide, what a disgrace he is to his family…now when I look back upon my life, it is not the attempt that scares me, what scares is the treatment I was subjected to after the failed attempt. It does a lot of psychological hampering and you start cursing yourself …sometime even think of a second attempt. When I attempted suicide, I was not in the know of the related legality but if I would have been stacked up with criminals in a prison after the failed attempt…I surely feel I wouldn’t have seen this day. Looking back at my mindset then (for that matter any other person too) I surely would have attempted it again and this time ensured that it was successful to ease off the added agony that the prison had given me,” says Nikhil Gupta (name changed), a second year student in the University of Delhi.

In Maruti Shripati Dubal v. State of Maharashtra, the Bombay high court observed “if the purpose of the punishment for attempted suicide is to prevent the prospective suicides by deterrence, the same is not achieved by punishing those who have attempted, as no deterrence is going to hold back those who want to die for a social or political cause or to leave the world either because of the loss of interest in life or for self-deliverance”.

One of the main arguments forwarded by the proponents of the said section is that attempt to suicide is an unnatural act i.e. against the order of nature and hence an offence. But the very term ‘order of nature’ is a relative one. There is no unanimity to either its interpretation or its manifestation. What may appear in the natural order in one instance may not be the same in other.

The Bombay high court further supports this argument in its observation that “the means adopted for ending one’s life may be unnatural varying from starvation to strangulation. But the desire which leads one to resort to the means is not unnatural. Suicide or an attempt to commit suicide is not a feature of a normal life. It is an incident of abnormality or of an extraordinary situation or of an uncommon trait of personality. Abnormality and uncommonality are not unnatural merely because they are exceptional.”

Suicide is not a choice but a compulsion. It is never a voluntary action. It is not something that one does with great pomp and joy. It is always an involuntary and reflexive action wherein the individual has least and often no control of his mind. He/she is governed by the environment around and the never-ending psychological webs. At that instant, the individual is more of a zombie than a human. Let us not analyse things from a second person’s viewpoint because then we can’t really attach ourselves to the agony that the victim suffers from. We need to approach it the way the victim was thinking at that time. Else, our quest for the solution will result in a series of hysteria wherein we will be focusing solely on the ethos of morality and legality and not practicality.

In its 42nd report submitted in 1971, the Law Commission of India, recommended repeal of section 309. Consequently the Indian Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 1978, which was passed by the Rajya Sabha, advocated the removal of the said section. Ironically, it could not be passed by the Lok Sabha as it was dissolved the same year and the bill lapsed.

However, in Gain Kaur case the supreme court held the constitutionality of Section 309. In this context, the 210th report of the Law Commission points out “The supreme court in the case of Gian Kaur focused on the constitutionality of Section 309. It did not go into the wisdom of retaining or continuing the same in the statute.”

Section 309 may be constitutionally sound but the larger question is whether it is humane or not? Also, we need to understand that what is constitutionally correct may not be morally and ethically correct.

If we observe why people commit suicide it appears that most of them do so out of frustration over their sad state of life which consequently perpetuates a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness. At times these reasons are ponderous enough for a mortal’s mind to digest them. It may swallow them and not chew and when it does swallow, they choke him down to oblivion… devouring his physical frame. Even though the person concerned is to be blamed but not prosecuted. The environment around and the norms and perceptions of the society do play a major role in it… they catalyse the act.

Let’s hope that in the coming days we will be able to combat this menace with a more mature, flexible, tolerant, and productive approach. Shouldn’t we?

(The writer is a Political Science (Hons) student in Delhi College of Arts and Commerce; University of Delhi)