Aruna Ramachandra Shanbaug passed away this morning. She lived 42 years in a bed of King Edward Memorial Hospital, Mumbai. A brutal rape had rendered her comatose. The rapist spent seven years in the prison and became a free man. His victim lived in a vegetative state as a question mark on many things. The most controversial question her life raised was about the limits and possibilities of euthanasia when Pinki Virani, writer and human rights activist, moved the Supreme Court seeking euthanasia for Aruna in 2011. Can anyone choose another person’s death however absurd that person’s life may be? This was the question that the apex court was faced with. Obviously, the court decided against Virani’s choice. Yet can we blame Virani for what she did? She was being compassionate to Aruna. Compassion and justice need not always be on the same side of morality. That was one of the paradoxes raised by Aruna’s life. Aruna’s relatives in her home state of Karnataka had aba
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