 "Life after death: What drives the decision to donate one's body for the benefit of science?")
ILLNESS RELATED to old age was an element common to the deaths of former Prime Minister AB Vajpayee, former Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi and former Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee — the three towering political personalities who passed away in August 2018. What was not common to them was the nature of their final journey, a euphemism employed to describe the disposing of the mortal remains — Vajpayee was cremated, Karunanidhi was buried, and Chatterjee ended up in the anatomy department of Kolkata’s Seth Sukhlal Karnani Memorial Hospital, better known as SSKM Hospital. Cremation and burial scarcely ever involve a human choice, largely because these two methods of disposal of bodies have been culturally normalised through religious rituals constructed around them. These rituals render inevitable and, therefore, inescapable the reduction of a cadaver to ashes or letting worms eat into it. People know their families will organise their final journey in accordance with the practice followed by the community to which they belong.
Cremation and burial scarcely ever involve a human choice
By contrast, a person wishing to donate his or her body to a medical college has to make that choice in their lifetime. It can be an unsettling process – it requires the person to contemplate death and engage in an inner dialogue through which they reach the conclusion that the usefulness of donating their body outweighs the religiously sanctioned traditional practices of burial and cremation. Yet the person cannot but imagine the different stages through which his or her body will pass in the anatomy department – it will be embalmed, de-skinned, the fibrous connective tissues removed before the muscles from bones will be separated. The gradual and controlled disintegration of the body watched and studied by students. Ultimately, he or she is reduced to so many separate bones, which are not even kept together on one shelf of the anatomy department. Many find contemplating death, let alone the body’s disposal and its eventual change in form, upsetting. [lq][caption id=“attachment_5043961” align=“alignnone” width=“1024”]  Chatterjee decided to donate his body in 2000 — 18 years before his demise[/caption][/lq] And to think, Chatterjee decided to donate his body in 2000 — 18 years before his demise. As is the practice, he would have intimated his decision to SSKM Hospital, filled a form stating his intent, and submitted an affidavit to that effect signed by two witnesses, preferably family members. It would have likely involved Chatterjee discussing death with his family even when healthy. “I have found that people who donate their bodies are individualistic,” said Dr Rajat Mitra, who heads Swanchetan Society for Mental Health, Delhi, and has counseled people who wish to donate their organs or bodies. “They have deeply thought of issues such as death and how the body is integrated with the Cosmos and Infinity. Their beliefs run deep.” Perhaps as deep as ideas spawned by culture and religion run in others.
Many find contemplating death, let alone the body’s disposal and its eventual change in form, upsetting
Chatterjee was a communist, for whom atheism would have been an inseparable element of his beliefs. Ideas of after-life, such as the link between karma and rebirth, heaven and hell, presumably had little or no pull on him. For the communist, the body dies, so does the mind and consciousness, which are aspects of the concept of immortal soul that exists in most religious thoughts. It is easy to believe in such theories, quite difficult to act on them, not least because of the pull traditional practices have on human beings. It is indeed not surprising to find many Communists on the list of body donors, a fact which became public on the death of former West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu, who too was wheeled into SKMM Hospital in 2010. Communist leaders who have volunteered to donate their bodies include Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Biman Bose, Shyamal Chakraborty, Surjya Kant Mishra, among others. [imgcenter]
Religion need not always be a barrier to body donation
Religion, however, need not always be a barrier to body donation. “I know of two Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh persons who have donated their bodies,” said Singh. Obviously all RSS activists are not religious – for instance, BJP leader LK Advani, once an RSS pracharak or full-time worker, is not. Singh cited the example of the two RSS men to make a larger point – that a deeply religious India has been witnessing a sharp spurt in the number of body donors. The sheer volume of inquiries had Organ India map the entire country, listing medical colleges and the names and numbers of their staff who could be contacted for body donation. In fact, religion can be tapped to inspire people to donate their bodies or organs, said Dr Saurabh Sharma, project manager at Organ India. He cited the Hindu myth of Dadhichi Rishi to make his point. [imgcenter]
It does appear that altruism is a principal motivating factor behind body donations
The most popular reason cited for donation was “usefulness after death” – 93 percent; the second most was “expression of gratitude” to medical science – 49 percent; these were likely people who benefitted from healthcare. Only 15 percent people cited negative reasons, such as their distaste for death rituals and ceremonies, or their fear of being burnt or buried, or because they did not want to be a burden on their families. One respondent in his answer said he did not want to give the opportunity to funeral professionals to earn money out of his death! It does appear that altruism is a principal motivating factor behind body donations. But altruism isn’t always selfless. People can resort to altruism because it enhances their status or is a style statement. “There could be a dark side to the decision to give your body away,” said a Delhi-based psychoanalyst who did not wish to be named. “There is a parallel between a person who is inspired to donate his body for medical science and the soldier who is willing to offer his body for the nation.” What the psychoanalyst means is that both the body donor and the soldier could be motivated by publicity campaigns that highlight their decision as an act of greatness and an opportunity to achieve immortality. Just as the soldier is said to live through the nation that survives because of his martyrdom, so does the donor who on his or her death continues to live in the body of another person. Or whose cadaver helps enhance the skills of medical science students. Altruism, selfless or egoistical, does not diminish the significance that body donation has for medical science and the people at large. For instance, when the body of Chatterjee was taken to SSKM Hospital, a part of his skin was grafted on a patient with burn injuries. In death, Chatterjee and Basu were more useful to society than Vajpayee and Karunanidhi. — All photos courtesy Reuters
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