12th December 1999

Go ahead and kill yourself

By Mudliyar

In 1883, by an Ordinance called the Penal Code, our imperial masters brought in legislation and made an attempt to commit suicide an offence. Section 302 of the Penal Code has it that "whoever attempts to commit suicide, and does any act towards the commission of such offence, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to one year, or with a fine, or with both."

Thus you can see how unfair the white imperialists have been. They have taken away our right to either live or die. In the olden days when this provision was first introduced, the interpretation was such that even if the act was complete the families had to suffer. They had what they termed in legal jargon 'posthumous penalties', which meant certain penalties imposed upon the families.

These medieval concepts had been advocated by statute, but some countries have enacted that the corpse shall be given an abbreviated funeral service without the customary rituals, and the body shall not be touched by the immediate members of the family.

The British had a funny sense of justice. They thought that a person's life was not only valuable to the possessor but also to the state. They believed that the state has a right to protect life and the state exists for this reason.

When legislation was made in this regard, however, recognition was not given to deaths caused by state policy or oppression. When these laws came into being thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, were dying due to hunger and starvation in India. The imperialist state did not do a thing to prevent such a calamity. When they rebelled against state tyranny, the state shot at them and killed them as if the state had better control over anyone's life than the very man who possessed it.

These asinine laws were interpreted in such a way that it has been decided that if a man jumps into a well and is rescued he is guilty of attempting to commit suicide, but if he runs towards the well with the intention of jumping into it but for some misfortune knocks his feet against some rock and tumbles over he could not be charged, as it was only an act of preparation.

The insurance companies had clauses in their policies to prevent people from entering into large life insurance policies and then committing suicide so that their immediate family members will be benefited.

A man who had large insurance policies and paid a substantial amount as premium became insane and when he went into a bout of insanity he had consumed sulfuric acid and killed himself. The lower court held that this was not suicide but what it called 'a felonious killing'. But the insurance company, hell bent on not paying the insurance claim to the beneficiary — a charge very common in Sri Lanka — appealed.

The learned Judges of the Court of Appeal in England held that as the person had killed himself it did not matter whether he was sane or insane but had killed himself intentionally. The poor widow and the children not only lost their sole bread-winner but lost the little savings they had in litigation, and were left impecunious. The youngest child asked the lawyer how the Court concluded that their father who was schizophrenic and violently insane would have what the Judges called the 'intention to kill himself'. "Law is an ass", was the only reply the lawyer could give to this little child.

Lalith Athulathmudali who was a popular lecturer at the Law College used to crack a standard joke to illustrate the offence of attempt to commit suicide. He said there are two offences where the attempt is only a punishable offence, but the completion of the act was not. One was the attempt to commit suicide.

After the completion of the act even the great British Raj could not punish the corpse. The other was to attempt to overthrow a Government or carry out a coup d'état. If the act was complete and the coup was successful the lawfully elected Prime Minister would be shot dead or put behind bars and those who carried out the coup would be in power.

The President recently said that we have the highest rate of suicide in the world and not even Ranil Wickremesinghe challenged it. Therefore we have to accept that it is the truth. When the present rulers were in opposition it highlighted a number of suicides committed by farmers and an ½attempt was made to give a political twist to these suicides.

Once a group of politicians rushed to the house of a farmer who committed suicide and found that the cause of death was his wife's illicit affair with another farmer. But it was cleverly twisted. The Lake House group was the only media institution that published the truth of the amorous affair. But no one took what is appealing in Lake House newspapers seriously after the takeover by the Sirimavo Bandaranaike government in 1974.

With the huge publicity given in the free media to the suicide of this farmer, giving economic reasons and the government's failure to look after the farmers, suicides of farmers mushroomed all over and it seemed for a moment that at the rate the farmers were committing suicide the entire country would starve as there would be no farmers to cultivate the land.

Now stories appear of not only paddy farmers committing suicide, but thanks to state policies, potato farmers, onion farmers and vegetable farmers are committing suicide. In addition to that, there was a sob story about a priest eating 'Kaneru Seeds' — a highly poisonous seed and committing suicide. So the Government has indeed considered the options and remedies available to them.

To relieve the pain and suffering of its subjects who try to take their lives, the Government has decreed that the subjects have the absolute unfettered right to do so. The concept of the British imperialists that the Government has an interest in the life of its subjects is repugnant to the thinking of the PA Government. The principle "the law esteems the lives of men as not only valuable to their own possessors, but also valuable to the State which protects them and for the protection and amelioration of which the state exists" appears to have lost its relevance.

It is repugnant to the values and the thinking of the present regime that the state should intervene and punish those unfortunate beings who due to their inability fail to kill themselves. When they survive the state spends a lot of money to treat them in hospitals. The state also spends an equal amount of money in trying to investigate and decide the reason for their attempt to take the suspect's life. The victim might state that he tried to kill himself because he was suffering from hunger or that his farm products could not be sold due to the import of potatoes, onions and vegetables and the free media which are trying to topple the Government will give these statements undue publicity.

Even if the truth is published in the Daily News or Dinamina, they have to carry a correction as it has of late become the daily routine of the paper. Then the suspect will have to be produced in Court and as is normally done a probation report is called spending more government money. What a criminal waste of government money, when it could be spent profitably in defeating Prabhakaran!

Then lawyers will make all sorts of noises, whether there was intention or whether the ingredients of offence were proved — more money is spent.

Why should the government interfere and arrest the individual freedom of its subjects? Even the framers of the Constitution very correctly did not incorporate 'the right to life' as a fundamental right. Instead they should have included the fundamental right of the 'right to die'.

So on June 4, 1998 by an amendment, Section 302 of the Penal Code was repealed. Isn't this the most progressive piece of legislation that was ever introduced?

Unfortunately the police and some magistrates do not seem to know that this section no longer exists.

I am told that in the North Central Province, a large number of suspects are produced in Court under Section 302 and are charged and punished. To educate the public, I believe, a poster showing a man being produced in Court and charged with attempting to commit suicide and sentenced to one year's imprisonment could carry the words 'Mathakada" – "Do you remember?" Now you are free to take insecticide, acid or eat 'kaneru seeds' and if you escape death by some misfortune you will be patted on the back and sent home and advised not to fail the next time.

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