M M Lawrence’s body to be donated for medical research

Kochi: The Government Medical College, Ernakulam on Wednesday decided to accept the mortal remains of CPM veteran M M Lawrence, three days after the Kerala High Court ordered the institution to look into the dispute between his children over handing over the body for studies and take a decision as per legal provisions.

A committee headed by medical college principal Dr Prathap S took the decision after hearing Lawrence’s daughter Asha Lawrence, who had objected to handing over the body for teaching purposes, and his son M L Sajeevan and Sujatha Boban, who wanted to donate the remains for medical teaching. On Monday, the high court ordered the medical college to consider the dispute and arrive at a conclusion after Asha moved the court, saying her siblings’ decision was against her father’s wish. She wanted to perform a Christian funeral for Lawrence. Her main contention was that there was no documentary evidence to prove that Lawrence wanted his body to be handed over to the medical college.

The medical college committee that heard the matter concluded that Lawrence had given consent for body donation to his son Sajeevan on March 9, and there are two witnesses to it. They are Aby Abraham, son of Lawrence’s brother M M Lazar, and Rajan P S, also a relative of the Marxist leader. The committee found that the presence of the two witnesses, Lawrence’s relatives, makes the consent valid as per Section 4(1) of the Kerala Anatomy Act 1957.

“There is no evidence that Lawrence retracted on the consent. There is also no mention of the retraction of the consent in Asha Lawrence’s affidavit submitted before me,” Dr Prathap said in his order to accept the body.

The committee observed that legal possession of Lawrence’s body was with Sajeevan and Asha did not dispute it. The order said during the last three-four years when Lawrence was ill, he was with Sajeevan and his daughters who were non-resident Keralites were “never actively involved in his care”.

The order stated that Sujatha claimed to have a recording of Lawrence agreeing to a church burial a few years ago when he was being treated for a dip in sodium in his blood. However, she said the recording was irretrievably lost. She said she did not want to antagonise her brother Sajeevan’s decision to body donation based on Lawrence’s wish. However, she said she preferred a religious burial following the dispute in the family. She did not give anything in writing before the committee.

Based on the findings, the committee instructed the medical college to accept the remains, which had been kept in the mortuary of the hospital and transfer them to the Department of Anatomy to be embalmed and preserved till being taken up for teaching purposes.

The Ernakulam Town Hall, where Lawrence’s body was kept for the public to pay homage, had witnessed high drama on Monday after Asha objected to her handing over her father’s body to the medical college.

In a Facebook post, Asha had termed Sajeevan’s decision as a betrayal by the CPM. She said her father was never against faith and was baptised. Asha, who has been at loggerheads with the CPM and close to the BJP in recent years, even called her brother, a senior advocate, a slave of CPM. The party leadership, however, distanced itself from the controversy, saying it was up to Lawrence’s family to decide whether the body should be donated for educational purposes or buried in a church cemetery.

Lawrence, who grew up with the communist uprising in Kerala in the 1950s, died at a private hospital in Kochi on September 21, Saturday while undergoing treatment for age-related ailments for about a month. He was 95. He was a former Lok Sabha MP from Idukki constituency and a former member of the CPM’s central committee. He had also served as the state general secretary of CITU, and convener of the CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF).