ABSTRACT
The most common understanding of the term suicide is of an act leading to termination of one’s own life. Suicide is the fatal outcome of an act that is deliberately initiated and performed by the deceased him- or herself, in the knowledge or expectation of its fatal outcome, the outcome being considered by the actor as instrumental in bringing about desired changes in consciousness and/or social conditions (Retterstøl, 1993). Suicide is a universal human phenomenon and a universal cause of concern across the globe. Every 40 seconds a human life is lost to suicide somewhere in the world. Every year around 5 to 12 million people die by suicide worldwide. A host of professionals across disciplines are engaged in providing support services and care to suicide survivors and suicidal individuals. Suicide is a social issue, a public health concern, or a result of mental illness when viewed from the perspective of those who are entrusted with the responsibility of preventing it. However, for the individual who takes the extreme step of ending one’s own life, it marks a cry of pain, a cry for help, a desperate attempt to get away from a situation one perceives uncontrollably painful, and perhaps also a desperate attempt to achieve a desirable goal that is perceived as unattainable otherwise. Even within the fraternity of helping professionals, suicide may be defined differently depending on the purpose of the definition – medical, legal, or administrative. Despite suicide being a universal cause of human concern, it is a matter of perspective that provides a particular definition to an act of self-inflicted violence. Such discrepancies of definition often get fore-grounded in the discourses regarding perceived righteousness of a particular act by a group contrasted with the opposite group ostracizing the same act as undesirable or harmful. Simple examples might be given of the Japanese ‘Kamikaze pilots’ during World War II who rammed their explosive-laden airplanes into the enemy ships and of the Viet-minh ‘death volunteers’ post World War II who blew up enemy tanks using long stick-like explosives-thereby causing huge damage to the enemy, though losing one’s own life in the act. In recent times, the suicide bombers of the Western world see themselves as martyrs for the cause of their nations or communities. Similarly, the contemporary debate about permissibility of euthanasia or ‘mercy killing’ highlights the difference of perspective in considering the act as an act of compassion or of cruelty. Further it highlights the moral dilemma involved in accepting the absolute right an individual has over his or her life, and death. Such a difference of perspective or philosophical stance is translated in the legislation formulated by different countries regarding euthanasia.
