India: Caste-based crematoriums violate constitution why did govt's allow them ?

The Hindu
JAIPUR, September 11, 2014

‘Caste-based crematoriums must end’

Aarti Dhar

The Rajasthan High Court has asked the Jaipur Municipal Corporation to end the practice of maintaining crematoriums on the basis of caste.

Following a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Ramchandra Machwal, the Division Bench of Chief Justice Sunil Ambwani and Justice V.S. Siradhana directed the civic body to end the practice and submit a compliance report within a week.

The petitioner pleaded that the Corporation maintained some of the biggest crematoriums, but many of these were segregated on the basis of caste, allowing only members of that caste or community to perform last rites.

He further said that those from deprived sections of society too were often prevented from performing the last rites of their kin at crematoriums meant for upper castes, even though the facilities were maintained by the civic body.

This also amounted to violation of right of equality guaranteed by the Constitution, the petitioner contended.

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The dead have caste, the living have their divide
Prabhjit Singh , Hindustan Times Badal (Mukhtsar)/Mansa, April 25, 2014

The dead, too, have a caste in rural Punjab, and even in the chief minister’s village in Bathinda parliamentary constituency of his daughter-in-law, there is no exception.

“Aithe hi saad dinde si, sardaran de khetan’ch, panj-satt saal pehlan (We used to burn the bodies right here in the fields of the landlords, five to seven years ago),” re plies a middle-aged Dalit woman when asked where the Scheduled Caste communities had been burning their dead before they got a crematorium of own at Badal village.

A boy, 18, finds pride in explaining that “Badal Sahib” (chief minister Parkash Singh Badal) has been generous in allotting cremating space to the (lower-caste) “Majhbi” Sikhs and “chamars” in the village. The separate crematorium was ready before the last Lok Sabha elections in 2009.

“A common cremation compound in any village is rare in the Mansa belt,” said Sukhdarshan Natt of the Communist Party of India, Marxist-Liberation. The radical Left leader named Ber n, Fatehpur, Pinchhiyan, and Jo g a among t he c o untless Dalit-dominated, povertystricken villages to the left of the Mansa-Sirsa highway that have separate cremation grounds for the lower castes.

‘VEHRE’ AND VOTES

“Vehre”, se parate residential clusters of the lower-caste communities in villages, are vote banks that the Akali- or Congress-dominated panchayats lure with toilet, 5-marla-plot, and employment guarantee schemes that remain on paper. At Khyala Kalan and Malikpur Khyala twin villages, poverty looms large amid these tall election promises that include things as basic as water.

Borawala village in Mansa district has 2,400 voters, half of them Scheduled Caste, of which 100 families defecate in the open, for they have no toilet. “Asi taa kade tatti te baith ke nahi dekhea, saddi gariba di kaun sunda hai (we have sat on a proper toilet seat; who listens to poor people like us?” said a middle-age woman, waiting to go into the fields for morning ablutions.

A night before in Borawala, she was in the crowd listening to Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) candidate Harsimrat Kaur Badal, who was counting toilets and pucca houses among her contributions to the village.

The Khyala Kalan Dalits, a little more aware and impacted by communist ideology, have a lot to say about “vote bank politics”.

Everyone in Khyala Kalan know how many votes swung to the sar panch after people had a 5-marla plot or a toilet or both. Beore the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the landless peasants of 28 villages in Mansa district occupied the panchayat land, demanding their share in the 5-marla-plot scheme, as promised in the 2007 state election manifesto of the ruling SAD.

Notwithstanding the written assurances of the district administration to meet the demand, the police chased them away after voting. “Nearly 30 of those families got the plots in the past 6 months, while 70 remain in the hunt, for not falling in line with the SAD,” said Hakam Singh, who led the violent protest at Khyala Kalan in 2009.

At Narinder pura village, more than two dozen toilets that the panachayat built last year are yet to be allotted, even though many families continue to ease self in the open. Those voting as the sarpanch guides will get the facility.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/punjab/chandigarh/the-dead-have-caste-the-living-have-their-divide/article1-1212062.aspx

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The Times of India

Jaisalmer plans to set up crematoriums by caste
Vimal Bhatia | Sep 12, 2013, 01.24AM IST

JAISALMER: For the dead in the desert town of Jaisalmer, their caste tag lives on. A government agency for urban affairs in the western Rajasthan district has sanctioned separate and clearly marked cremation grounds for different castes and communities.

The Urban Improvement Trust (UIT) in its board meeting on July 10 adopted the proposal for developing 47 new crematoriums and sanctioned Rs 5 crore for the project. The money will be spent as per the requirement of various castes and sub-castes, from across the hierarchy. Some of the 47 groups allocated cremation sites are nai, darji, bhatia, kumhar, puskaran, grahaman, ranvanarajput, maheshwari, soni and jeenagar. The UIT is under the jurisdiction of the state's urban development and housing ministry.

"We have taken this decision as people do not like to take bodies to crematoriums that serve several castes. At times, one caste denies others permission to perform last rites in the crematorium designated for their castes," said UIT chairman Umaid Singh Tanwar. The tender has been proposed and the trust is now waiting for a nod from the state government.

Experts warned such an act by a government agency was a violation of the Constitution. "It is very unfortunate and in complete violation of constitutional norms and scientific temper. When you take birth, unfortunately your caste identity is established. But it is beyond rationality that society can even discriminate a body on the basis the dead person's caste," said Rajiv Gupta, former head of sociology, Rajasthan University.

The stamp of legitimacy provided by the UIT comes just ahead of elections in state and is seen by many as a way to appease voters from all sections in an area which is sparsely populated and winning margins are thin. Defending their stand, officials claimed that it was their public responsibility to cater to the people's demands.

Surprisingly post-death apartheid is not new in the town. There are already cremation grounds for different communities like bissa and maheshwari. Several makeshift grounds have been developed by a few other communities. In fact, after tenders were invited by the UIT through advertisements in local newspapers, public representatives brought to the authorities' notice that three or four communities had been left out. These were later included in the list.

"The practice of cremating people in their respective caste grounds has existed since the time when Jaisalmer was a princely state. Even today, these crematoriums are registered in revenue records and municipal council records. It is old tradition here and there is nothing weird about it," said Tanwar.
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