Suffering, Care, and Moral Theology in Disability: An Interfaith Reading of Guzaarish

Abstract

This article offers a critical, interdisciplinary, and interfaith reading of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Guzaarish (2010) through the intersecting frameworks of disability theology, moral theology, and care ethics. The film is situated within global debates on euthanasia, autonomy, and dignity, while also being examined as a cultural text that constructs disability through aestheticized suffering and ethical ambivalence. The article critiques dominant bioethical assumptions that equate disability with diminished quality of life. Interfaith moral traditions from Christianity, Islam, and Hindu philosophy are used to expand the ethical horizon beyond autonomy-centered frameworks. The analysis argues that while Guzaarish powerfully represents embodied suffering and relational dependency, it risks reinforcing ableist narratives unless reinterpreted through disability theology’s relational and justice-oriented paradigms. The article proposes an interfaith moral theology of disability grounded in radical care, vulnerability, and shared embodiment, challenging euthanasia-centered solutions by foregrounding structural and theological transformations of care.