How the life and death of Aruna Shanbaug changed the debate over mercy killing in India

Settling a long debate, the Supreme Court on Friday legalised passive euthanasia, allowing terminally ill patients a chance to die with dignity.

The court recognised "living wills" made by patients likely to go into a permanent vegetative state, laying down guidelines for who could execute the will and the medical board that would give the final nod for euthanasia.

A living will is a document in which patients with no hope of recovery can give consent for withdrawal of life support systems — effectively subscribing to passive euthanasia. Active euthanasia, which involves administering a lethal injection to the patient, is still illegal.

The ruling comes almost three years after "the face of the mercy killing debate in India", Aruna Shanbaug, died in 2015. A nurse in Mumbai's KEM hospital, Shanbaug had spent 42 years in a vegetative state after she was raped by a wardboy on November 27, 1973.

The wardboy, Sohanlal Walmiki, attacked her when she was changing her clothes after work. He raped her anally and choked her with a dog collar, cutting off oxygen supply to her brain. At the time, 25-year-old Shanbaug had been engaged to be married to a doctor who worked at the same hospital.

The assault left her confined to her bed for the next four decades. The nurses and doctors at the hospital took care of her. Her bones turned brittle, her teeth decayed. She was usually fed mashed food through a feeding tube. But she continued to exist, on life support

Her rapist, Valmiki, was convicted of robbery and attempted murder, but not for rape. He served a seven-year prison sentence. In Aruna's Story, a book on Shanbaug's life, human rights' activist and author Pinki Virani writes: "The worst part... He was not sentenced for rape because he had not committed the rape vaginally; it was anal."

In 2009, Virani sought mercy killing for Shanbaug. However, the doctors and nurses at KEM opposed the plea.

On March 7, 2011, the Supreme Court turned down the plea, but said the hospital staff could withdraw life support if they changed their mind, with the approval of Bombay High Court.

Shanbaug died of pneumonia in May 2015.

After her death, The Indian Express had quoted Kalapana Gujula, nursing tutor at KEM, as saying: "The Supreme Court stated that the hospital is her guardian had even appreciated our work for Aruna. We had a right to decide whether her life should be ended in such a way. She deserved to live and we were all against the mercy killing plea."

Shanbaug belonged to coastal Karnataka's Haldipur village. Her father had passed away when she was 10. She was the eighth among six brothers and three sisters, and was the only one among her siblings to complete higher education. At 17, she came to Mumbai to pursue a career in nursing.

During the time of the assault, she was with the animal experimentation unit at KEM Hospital. Her rapist Valmiki later said he had gone to ask her for leave but she refused, which led to a quarrel between them and he assaulted her.

After Shanbaug died, he had told The Indian Express, "Mujhe bahut pachchtava hai. Main unse aur apne bhagwan se maafi maangna chahata hun (I have deep regret, I want to seek forgiveness from her and god)."

Also read: Supreme Court verdict allowing Indians the right to die with dignity is momentous