Rajasthan Court’s verdict on Santhara and its outcome

10th August, 2015, the day was when Rajasthan High Court verdict on Public Interest litigation (PIL) filed in May 2006 against Santhara, an age-old practice of starving unto death. The Rajasthan high court ordered that henceforth Santhara would be served as “suicide” and made punishable under Section 309 and Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Thousands of members of Jain Community came on to the Street in protest against judgment pronounced by the Rajasthan High Court in Jaipur and several places in Rajasthan on Monday. The decision against Santhara uprooted the Philosophy and aroused the criticism on Jain community. Seeking to verdict, members of Jain Community have made a plea and challenged the High Court’s order in the Supreme Court and claimed that how it can be considered as “suicide”.

The Court’s judgment apparently misinterpreted the supremacy of the Supreme Court of India about individuals’ moral principles. It is our Constitution which allows us to follow religion in any manner and practice its importance without being affected by discrimination.

What is Santhara?

Santhara is a practice of religious fast unto death in Jain Community, practiced when a person endure from disease which is incurable and feels that someone is near to end life. Santhara is a form of cleansing ones’ own soul and live a peaceful life unto death. When a person feels that all the ambition in his life is served or body does not intend to serve ambitions in life, then that is the stage when he practices the Santhara. This is the time when he decides to leave his soul from his body. The person is in a state where he desires to spend his maximum time in listening and reading religious texts. Santhara is followed with the practice of taking vows strictly such as daily routine prayers, fasting until death; avoid thinking about the desire for live, for death and even to remember the pleasures delighted by him in the past as well as the pleasures he is going to enjoy in the future. There is belief that this practice helps them to achieve the ultimate salvation and preventing himself from reincarnation or rebirth so that his divine soul reaches in a state of perfect happiness. It is believed that many people consider it a blessing when they spend some time and do “naman” or “pranam” (mudra of holding both the hands together up to forehead) with the one who follows Santhara.
How Santhara originated?
The practice of Santhara was originated nearer to the year of 1445-1446 AD, or as per Hindu calendar in “Vikram Samvat – 1389”. Chandragupta Maurya, founder of the Maurya Empire practiced Santhara i.e. fasting until death in the Hills of Chadragiri, which is situated nearer to Sravana Belgola, Karnataka. There are some facts that Santhara is being practiced by more than 180 Jains every year in India. This practice is more evenly found among women than men.

How Santhara is being treated as “suicide”?

The Santhara has frequently been considered as suicide in spite of being followed it strictly, starving unto death and leaving all the pleasure aside at a certain stage. Suicide is a state when a person intentionally involves into act of harming himself even he knows that his act would leave negative impact on others. It depends on ones’ own karma whether he will attain salvation or not. It does not empower to get rid of one’s karma nor even believe in reincarnation. But, it is noted that many of those who fast, do not complete the practice of Santhara. In such situation, it is considered to be as suicide after all; person tried himself to get into the act of killing self. The person reaches to certain state of negative mentality and feels to commit suicide.

According to the Rajasthan High Court’s, practicing Santhara is an attempt to commit suicide and is punishable under Section 309 and Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). According to Court, it’s a matter of how one chooses his life to lead in right direction and enjoy his constitutional rights. When someone practices fast in such manner definitely ruins his personal life and right to life is breached.

The Court’s verdict was mainly predicted on the two basic grounds i.e.

• Firstly, the assurance of right to life does not bounds someone in a promise of right to die and therefore, the practice of Santhara does not preserve someone by Article 21 in The Constitution of India 1949 which is protection of life and personal liberty.

• Secondly, Santhara being a religious practice, it is not important that it should be a part of Jainism and therefore its practice is not protected by Article 25 in The Constitution of India 1949 which is right to freedom of conscience, free profession, practice and propagation of religion.

The Jains practice Santhara to achieve inherent choice of living life with dignity until death. Invariably, there is no dignity in fasting and that too with no freedom practicing Santhara prolonging one’s right to life under Article 21. The Article 25 on the other hand clearly signifies that every person have equal right to conscience and religious freedom, right to practice it. This signifies that it is not essential that Santhara be a part of Jainism. The practices which are essentially religious practices are protected under Article 25.

The facts, scriptures or articles are not even available to find whether Santhara is right practice or not, even then Santhara has been treated as an important religious practice to attain salvation by Jains. Is this a correct practice as per law, where everyone are abided by the Constitution of India, the determination of religious practice varies on the form of judgment. This investigation as an evident, does not even allow a person to perform Santhara for self belief. In Jainism, where there are no proper religious texts available, the question arises whether Santhara is really important to practice. The practice of Santhara is inspected in fully disappointing approach.

The Jain Community have dared the Rajasthan High Court’s judgment saying that Santhara cannot be considered as “suicide” and made a plea in the Supreme Court of India. Whenever the Supreme Court seeks a plea from members of Jain Community, question will be asked over the judgment of Rajasthan High Court’s decision of whether the right of religious freedom of Jain Community is being breached through practice of Santhara.

An approach in demand of full Justice

Many people of Jain Community including Jain Sanghs have approached to Supreme Court of India by filing petition against the Rajasthan High Court’s judgment on 24th August, 2015. They have insisted that it had turned to destruct basic principles and beliefs of Jainism. They claimed that it had mistakenly considered a holly religious practice called Santhara with an annoyance of suicide. Santhara is only a practice of purifying the inner soul and fasting until death.

A petitioner wrote to Supreme Court of India “Every individual have right to “freedom of conscience” mentioned in Article 25 of Constitution of India, which describes the freedom to think and confidence to have own beliefs then how such judgment have been forced to order.”
The petitioners have demanded that the verdict passed by Rajasthan High Court should be considered to as invalid and it doesn’t seem to be legal.