![]() ![]() "However, people have to be convinced before they make a change. "The beauty of Hinduism is that it is not a die-hard philosophy," he said. The government wants to build 13 more such furnaces in the capital, but environmentalists question whether it can supply the power to guarantee uninterrupted service.Ī cremation at New Delhi's Nigambodh Ghat electric facility costs about $4, compared with $40 for a wood-log cremation.Īgnivesh said the government should do more to highlight the savings. New Delhi has 58 wood-burning cremation parks, like the one Bahadur was using, and four electric facilities. "Many Hindus would welcome the change, especially if they were made aware of the environmental consequences of wood cremation," he said. The incident took place on Monday in Tuslipar village in the. Swami Agnivesh, a Hindu theologian and social activist, says the religion is flexible enough to accept technology. Police in India say a woman has burned to death on her husbands funeral pyre, committing the outlawed Hindu practice of 'sati'. "Apart from the ashes, this is an even bigger environmental hazard for the Ganges River," said Sunita Narain, an activist with the Center for Science and Environment in New Delhi.Įnvironmentalists prefer electric furnaces because they don't need wood and they reduce the body to a small urnful of powdery ash that does less harm to the rivers. Worse, since wood is scarce and expensive, bodies sometimes are thrown into the river half-burned. The ashes of millions of dead have helped turn the water into a stinking, polluted swirl. Varanasi, the holy city on the Ganges 395 miles southeast of New Delhi, attracts hundreds of thousands of people who cremate their dead and pour the ashes into the river to ensure "moksha," the final liberation of the soul from the endless cycle of reincarnation. Sengupta, of the government's Central Pollution Control Board. "They deliberately don't let the crematoriums function so that hapless people are forced to buy wood from them at exorbitant prices," said B. ![]() Some officials say wood traders collude with operators of the electric crematoriums to ensure that the furnaces malfunction or run short of diesel for their generators. The bereaved are at the mercy, however, of a cartel of wood traders. Widows in some states of India still immolate themselves on the funeral pyre of their husbands in accordance with sati, an ancient Indian practice of burning oneself alive, Interfax reports. ![]()
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