Opinion Suicide decriminalised: How the Mental Health Bill has righted an old wrong
There are challenges galore in the implementation of the new law including the lack of infrastructure and manpower in dealing with the mental health, being the least of them.
Stressed businesswoman 
There are challenges galore in the implementation of the new law including the lack of infrastructure and manpower in dealing with the mental health, being the least of them.
The idea of a man (or woman) who has made an unsuccessful attempt to take his (or her) own life then being hauled up by the police, is, to any right minded person, preposterous. Yet the fact that such a legal provision dating back to the British rule when anything to do with an unsound mind was uncharted and worse still, feared, remained a part of our statute books for more than 60 years is a classic example of the tardiness of our legislative process. It is also an example of how we have not quite shed the British reticence to talk about mental health issues.
When the Rajya Sabha gave its nod on Monday to the Mental Healthcare Bill 2013, it provided not only for healthcare for the estimated 6-7 per cent of India’s population said to be suffering from mental ailments but also laid down that any person who attempts suicide would, instead of being treated as a criminal, be treated as a person under severe stress and unless proved otherwise, there will be a presumption of mental illness.
Decriminalisation of suicide has been talked about in countless fora, including, about two years ago, in the Rajya Sabha when replying to a question, the government informed the House that it had decided to repeal Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code that criminalises suicide. It states: “Whoever attempts to commit suicide and does any act towards the commission of such offence, shall be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year 1[or with fine, or with both.”
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Interestingly there has been little word on the actual deletion of the Section from the code since then but following passage of the Mental Health Bill, it is now laid down in the law that the draconian and primitive section would not be invoked against a mentally troubled person who seeks to end his or her own life.
There are challenges galore in the implementation of the new law including the lack of infrastructure and manpower in dealing with the mental health, being the least of them. Social stigma against the mentally ill that forces them within homes and often at the hands of illiterate witch doctors is a far bigger hurdle to cross. But in decriminalising suicide, a beginning has been made in correcting an ancient legal aberration.
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