Jagdish Bheel belongs to Bhil Community.
In yet another incident showing negligence of the bureaucracy and society towards the downtrodden people, a tribal man was forced to cremate his wife using garbage, tyres, and plastic bags as he didn’t have enough money to arrange a funeral at a crematorium.
According to a report by Asian News International (ANI), Jagdish Bheel, a tribal man from Madhya Pradesh’s Neemuch area had to cremate his wife using garbage, plastic bags, and, tyres.
Jagdish Bheel’s wife Neji Bai, 67, died at 4 am on Friday due to illness. Bheel, belonging to Bheel community, approached the municipal corporation authorities seeking help to cremate his wife as he didn’t have money.
But the authorities turned down his plea and asked him to pay Rupees 2500 for buying logs for cremation.
“My wife died at around 4 am then around 7 a.m., I first went to a Municipal Corporation and pleaded them to arrange for wood, to which they said that they don’t have any logs and asked to pay Rs.2500 to buy wood. But I couldn’t because I did not have that much money with me. Then I went to visit Mundra, the city councilor and he also refused to help and told me to visit Bhil community’s councilor, but he didn’t help me as well,” Bheel told ANI.
As an age-old practice followed by those who are unable to afford cremation in a crematorium, some people advised Bheel to dump the body in a nearby river. But, the daily wager wanted to bury his wife’s body in a dignified way.
The ANI reported that though the family decided to bury his wife in nearby Ratnagarh area, some Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) members stopped Bheel midway and asked them to leave the place.
Finally, they decide to go to a nearby cemetery, but couldn’t reach there as the road leading to the cemetery was heavily damaged.
Left with no option, Bheel, and his family members cremated his wife using garbage and plastic bags.
“Since I did not have Rs.2500, let alone money to buy food, I decided to cremate my wife in a nearby field. I gathered wood, tyres, and other garbage materials,” he said.
“We belong to Bhil Community, we fill our stomach by cutting woods, where will we go if nobody is willing to listen to us,” he added.
Later, the local administration said that they had arranged wood to help Bheel.
“We came to know about the incident through the people and arranged for the wood to help Jagdish. We have also sent a show cause notice to the staff at the crematorium,” Shankar Lal Chauhan, a local administration official was quoted as saying by NDTV.
The NDTV report said that the Chief Medical Officer of the area had offered Jagdish Rupees 1,500 from his own purse.
In a similar incident, a few weeks back, a tribal man in Odisha’s Kalahandi walked 10 km with his wife’s body on the shoulder as he had no money for a hearse van and the district hospital authorities allegedly refused to arrange one.