Sustaining the Growth of Bioethics in India: A Bioethicist's Perspective

This paper attempts to direct readers’ attention to the proven ideas apropos of sustaining the growth of bioethics in India, which includes doing more than issuing a verdict on passive euthanasia or updating guidelines on human research. The ‘doing more part’ entails surmounting two prevailing impediments: (a) The top-down bureaucratic approach which continues to interfere with the affairs of people and (b) illiteracy in ethics and in its applications at many Indian universities and colleges. The first could be overcome with the bottom-up approach: which involves the grass-root efforts of ground-level actors (teachers, doctors, lawyers, social workers etc.) against unethical medical practices, robust scholarship in bioethics and corresponding responses from the judiciary and legislative bodies. The illiteracy in ethics and in its applications can be remedied by treating and teaching ethics as an independent subject and encouraging its scholarship to the postdoctoral level. Given the current educational and political state of affairs in India, it is wiser perhaps to tackle the second impediment first. Hence, this paper recommends teaching bioethics along with humanities, social sciences, civics and the duties of good citizenship at all levels of higher learning. If the rest of us, who are passionate about bioethics, form a consortium of sorts and jumpstart this endeavour, then I am sure Indian bioethics will continue to be on a par with the best of them and, perhaps, even excel them.