Aruna Shanbaug, 67, had died on the night of November 27, 1973, when she was brutally raped and strangulated by ward boy Sohanlal Valmiki. She died, according to our understanding on May 18, 2015. Finally, after four decades of torture and injustice, Aruna is free.
Free from her comatose and bedridden life, free from the obligation of depending onto the society’s norms and country’s law to grant her death. A death, which already took place when she was strangulated with a dog leash, that cut the blood supply to her brain. A death, which struck her again when her rapist walked away free in 1980. Does just staying conscious define life, define living?
If how we live our life is our choice, in cases like Aruna’s the choice of death should be theirs too. But alas! even that choice died with her 42 years ago.
On 18th May 2015, Aruna Shanbaug former nurse at King Edward Memorial Hospital, finally let go of her barely lived life at 8:30 p.m. A gloom descended on the hospital campus, where Aruna was not treated as a patient but was a member of the family. It was an unsaid rule that every nurse, who was assigned ward no 4, had to attend to the special patient's needs and care. In all 42 years, Aruna didn’t get a single bed sore because of the care and love that was bestowed upon her by the nurses of KEM hospital.
Pinki Virani, writer-activist and pro-euthanasia, had moved to the court with Aruna’s case seeking mercy killing.
“The woman who died a thousand deaths on the night of her brutal rape, the woman who was denied both the right to life and right to death by this society has left India a huge legacy”, Virani was quoted saying.
In 2011 the court passed the historic verdict allowing passive euthanasia in principle – under strict conditions and high court supervision.
Aruna Shanbaug has passed away, but she did leave behind something very powerful for all of us to look up to – HOPE.
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