India, March 23 -- Although we humans tend to jump straight to conclusions and our judgements are generous, gratis and more often than not unsolicited, the domain for such an exercise is surprisingly predominantly cloaked in veils of facts and contexts that are every which shade of grey rather than perspicuously black and white.

The recent decision in the Harish Rana case sits precisely in that uneasy grey. A young man, suspended between life and its absence for over a decade, sustained not by hope of recovery but by tubes, routines, and the stubborn devotion of a family.

For families, this is not a matter of doctrine or jurisprudence. It is a slow erosion. Days accumulate into years, care becomes exhaustion, and hope becomes ritual. It...