TIMESONLINE: Open-air funeral pyres are a tradition too far
It seems ironic that Davender Ghai, the 70-year-old Hindu campaigning to be allowed to conduct open-air cremations, is also founder of a charity called the Anglo-Asian Friendship Society. In pushing for something that most Britons would find abhorrent, he is surely doing for Anglo-Asian relations what Timmy Mallett has done for music.
There are many ludicrous aspects to his position, not least his claim that open funeral pyres are “central to our religions” and that he has the support of many “prominent figures in India”. If the belief really was “central”, it would have become an issue some time ago, but Hindus and Sikhs in Britain have been using traditional crematoriums without complaint for decades. >>> Sathnam Sanghera | Wednesday, March 25, 2009
