Hindu man in UK fights for open-air cremations

Seventy-one-year-old Davender Ghai has seen little success in his three-year-old legal battle to conduct open-air cremations for Hindus in UK, but is far from giving up.

After the high court upheld a city council's decision to deny him a licence for a pyre in May 2009, Ghai will move the court of appeal on Monday challenging the earlier decision, reported UK daily Guardian

The Tyneside resident has been living in UK for the last five decades and has been fighting to be cremated in an open-air pyre after his death, on the grounds of the European Convention of Human Rights and "religious freedom".

Ghai moved the Newcastle city council in 2007 which refused to give him a licence, as it considered open air cremations unlawful under the 1930 Cremation Act.

In May 2009, Ghai approached the UK high court, which upheld the decision given by the city council.

Hinduism considers open-air cremation as the best way to dispose the body after death and helps the soul elevate itself to higher realms.

Ghai gained the support of many Hindus in UK after Justice Secretary Jack Straw made controversial remarks on the case.

Straw had said that people in UK "might be upset" by pyres and "find it abhorrent that human remains were being burned in this way". He said the court's ruling was justified and that it was in no way hampering with Ghai's human rights.

The Hindu Forum of Britain found the remarks "insensitive". "To suggest a practice which has been carried out for thousands of years and still is by 800 million Hindus in India is somehow 'abhorrent' is insensitive and very unhelpful. No one, including Baba Ghai, has ever suggested doing outdoor cremations in public."

However, Ghai said he would continue to fight for his "dignified" death, according to his religious beliefs.

"He should not have said those things about our tradition and culture. We gained a lot of support after that. I'm very positive I can win this. The only way I will give up is if I die," Ghai told the Guardian.

Image: Davendar Ghai at a Hindu funeral pyre of an Indian immigrant in Northumberland, UK, in 2006 | Photograph: STR New / Reuters