Open air cremations may be allowed in UK soon

London, Apr 10: Open-air cremations may soon be legalised in the United Kingdom.

A High Court judge here has approved the petition seeking a judicial review of the Newcastle City Council's refusal to permit the traditional funeral rite that Hindus regard as essential for the liberation of the soul.

An attempt to establish the first approved site for the 4,000-year-old spiritual ceremony in northeast England was blocked last year, after a local authority ruled that it would breach cremation laws.

The decision was challenged by Mr Davender Kumar Ghai, a 68-year-old Hindu who is demanding his right to be cremated on an open-air pyre when he dies.

Mr Justice Collins ruled that it was in the public interest to allow the application because the issue was ''of some considerable importance to the Hindu community''. He also noted that rulings in 1884 and 1907 '' may mean that the burning of dead bodies in open air is not necessarily unlawful''.

Britain has 559,000 Hindus and many are expected to opt for open-air cremations if such ceremonies are approved.

Mr Ghai, the founder and president of the Anglo-Asian Friendship Society, hit the headlines last July when he arranged the first human 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.

The body of Rajpal Mehat, a 31-year-old illegal Indian immigrant found drowned in a London canal, was burnt on a wooden funeal pyre at a secret location in rural Northumberland. Newcastle council had ruled that the ceremony was illegal under the Cremation Act 1902.

Police investigated the incident and had passed a file to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). It ruled that an offence had been committed but that prosecution would not be in the public interest.

No date has yet been set for the judicial review of then application, which will be led by specialist human rights barristers Ramby de Mello and Tony Muman.

They argue that open-air pyres fall outside the purview of the 1902 Act, which regulates what happens inside a crematorium, defined as '' any building fitted with appliances for the purpose of burning human remains". The burning of a human body in the open air, they say, is an offence only if it causes a public nuisance, which would be avoided because the sites would be in secluded locations.

If the High Court disagrees, then Mr Ghai's case will be pursued on a human rights basis. '' Only if the law is made clear in favour of pyres can I incorporate a clause into my will and that would complete a lifetime of spiritual journey as a proud and active British Hindu,'' he said.

Mr Ghai, who has a UNESCO gold medal for peacekeeping and an Amnesty International Lifetime Achievement Award, said thoughout his life, he aspired to a ''meditative acceptance of mortality''.

''Hindus are Britain's third largest faith group. We have proved to be a model migrant community and we feel hurt that other groups are allowed to undertake their funeral rites while we are left out. It is time for that to change,'' he said.

UNI