Euthanasia is less about suicide and more about the right to have the choice to end your life when you choose, when death is inevitable. It is a more dignifying way to die than letting an illness take full control of your body. Why do we make an already terminal person suffer more with useless, expensive treatments?
Some may argue that the family will suffer from one’s decision to be euthanised, but the patient is already going to die. It gives more comfort to those who are affected to be there for that person when he or she takes a final breath in a comfortable, controlled situation.
The religious aspects of euthanasia are personal opinions. The person who is making the decision probably isn’t too worried about the religious beliefs of others.
Euthanasia is an unfortunate choice, but a personal choice that people should be allowed to make. The stigma behind it needs to be addressed. Terminally ill people should be allowed to do what they believe is best for them.
Meanwhile the pulling down of Vladimir Lenin’s statue in Tripura (North-east India) is not just an attack on left ideology. It is an assault on the plurality of ideas and diversity of thought that has been a characteristic of Indian civilization. Lenin was a Russian communist, a revolutionary, a politician and a political theorist and was considered as one of the tallest leaders of the world. Such acts of vandalism reflect the extreme levels of intolerance and are contrary to the argumentative tradition embedded in the Indian civilisational values.
Indian revolutionaries like Shahid Bhagat Singh and Chandra Shekhar Azad believed in the teachings of Lenin. Dr Deol, the biographer of Bhagat, refers to the great Indian revolutionary studying the life of Lenin. Gopal Tagore, another biographer, retells that a few days before his death, when asked what his last wish was, Bhagat Singh replied that he was studying the life of Vladimir Lenin and wanted to finish it before his death.
Jubel D'Cruz,
Mumbai, India
