NRI Wins Right to Hindu Style Cremation in UK
LONDON - An Indian-origin social and spiritual leader in UK on Feb 10
won the right to be cremated in an open air funeral pyre according to
Hindu rituals, ending a prolonged legal battle.
In a landmark judgement, Britain’s Court of Appeal granted Davender
Ghai, 71, the right to be cremated after his death in an open-air
funeral pyre.
Delighted at the ruling, Ghai said the verdict had “breathed new life
into an old man’s dreams. I always maintained that I wanted to clarify
the law, not disobey or disrespect it.”
Since open air cremations anywhere outside a crematorium have been
prohibited in Britain under the 1902 Cremation Act, many Indian-origin
families in Britain take bodies of their deceased relatives to India
for cremation according to Hindu rites.
Ghai has been campaigning for the right to be cremated according to his
Hindu beliefs for several years and sought legal redress.
His bid for Britain to allow open-air funeral pyres was opposed by the
Law Secretary on the ground that people might be “upset and offended”
by pyres and “find it abhorrent that human remains were being burned in
this way”.
Source:- India Journal
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