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Duo pushing for funeral
rites right in UK
WSN Network
CHANDIGARH: Even as
Pakistan Government has conceded the demand for cremation grounds,
in United Kingdom, Barrister Andrew Singh Bogan and Davender Ghai,
president of Gosforth (UK) based Anglo-Asian Friendship Society, are
currently scouring India for scriptural references to funeral rites
to argue for the right of Indian Sikhs and Hindus to consign their
dead to flames, in court in the UK. Ghai, an Anglo-Indian, has
already launched successful campaigns in Greece, Pakistan and
Afghanistan for rights to an open-air funeral. He has now filed a
case in the Newcastle City Council and the European Court of Human
Rights.
 Some
Hindus and Sikhs object to mechanical gas-fuelled cremation but have
to comply there is virtually no alternative. Now thetwo even plan to
move the European Court of Human Rights on the issue. The two have
even visited the Banaras Hindu University, met the Shankaracharya
and other religious leaders in UP, Delhi and Punjab.
There is a ban on
funeral pyres in the UK.
Ghai was also
instrumental in getting the funeral pyre rights in Pakistan. The duo
is marshalling evidence that the British indeed themselves cremated
the bodies of the Indian soldiers who fought for the British
government in World War-II.
Ghai figured in the
media in 2006 when he flew Mohinder Kaur, a resident of Kapurthala,
to England, personally bearing the cost, and helped her consign her
son Raj Pal Metha's body to the flames on a traditional funeral pyre
in Northumberland when airlines refused to fly bodies abroad. The
police had then termed the cremation as illegal under the Cremation
Act 1902 leading to a court challenge. It ruled that an offence had
been committed but that prosecution would not be in the public
interest.
Davender Kumar Ghai,
the 68-year-old devout Hindu had earlier demanded that since he was
in poor health, it was his wish that when he dies, he be cremated on
an open-air pyre. An attempt to establish the first open air
cremation site in northeast England was blocked in 2006 after a
local authority ruled that it would breach cremation laws. The
decision was challenged by Ghai. The High Court judge then approved
his bid to seek a judicial review of Newcastle City Council’s
refusal to permit a funeral rite that Hindus regard as essential for
the successful liberation of the soul.
Judge Collins noted
that rulings in 1884 and 1907 “may mean that the burning of dead
bodies in the open air is not necessarily unlawful”. Britain has
559,000 Hindus and many are expected to opt for an open-air
cremation if such ceremonies are approved.
Ghai had also
arranged the funeral pyre in Britain since the Home Office
authorised the outdoor cremation of Sumshere Jung, a Nepalese
princess and the wife of the Napalese ambassador, in Woking in 1934.
Some argue that open-air pyres fall outside the 1902 Act, which
regulates what happens inside a crematorium, defined as “any
building fitted with appliances for the purpose of burning human
remains”.
Ghai has a Unesco gold medal for peacekeeping and an Amnesty
International Lifetime Achievement Award.
6 February 2008
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