Click to play videoLondon: The London High Court is currently reviewing a law that prohibits open-air funeral pyres. If it allows open air funeral pyres, the 1.5 million British Hindus in the UK will have a choice of conducting their last rites in the open, instead of in indoor public crematoriums.
For the claimant, 70-year-old Davender Kumar Ghai from Newcastle, this is now a matter of life and death, quite literally.
Claimant Davender Kumar Ghai said, “It is my religious right and birth right. I want to have a funeral pyre. I want my son to light my fire and not a gas flame to light me up.”
In 2006, the Newcastle City Council blocked Ghai's attempt to establish a site for open funeral pyres.
It said that all cremations apart from the ones at public crematoriums were banned under the 1902 Cremation Act. In 1930, new regulations were introduced but open air cremations were still illegal. Ghai's legal team says that the law is incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
Legal representative for Ghai, Satvinder Juss said, “The case has been brought on the basis of article 9 of the European convention of human rights which safeguards the interest of religious freedom.
Hindu groups say the choice of open air funeral pyres should be available to people like Ghai in keeping with the Hindu beliefs of passing on to the next world after death on earth.
Devout Hindus from Britain who want open pyre cremations have been taking their deceased relatives to India to perform the ceremony according to the Hindu rites.
However, the government in UK says that these open cremations are 'impractical' and illegal but for Hindus like Davender Ghai, they are essential.
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