CPM district secretary Ganesh Kumar Verma plays dead to draw the attention of Hazaribagh authorities on Wednesday. Picture by Vishvendu Jaipuriar

The dead may consider being dead and buried in Hazaribagh. For, there is no means for their salvation otherwise.

Muktidham, the only crematorium in the town, is facing an acute crisis of burning wood for the past two months and the management committee — Baba Bhutnath Mandali — claims pleas to the district administration for a timber bank or electric funerals were falling on deaf ears.

Wednesday saw the living roll and play dead to draw administrative attention to the unusual predicament.

District secretary of CPM Ganesh Kumar Verma posed as a corpse, while 35-odd party workers arranged his kafan (shroud), plugged his ears and nose with cotton wool and lit incense sticks. They squatted beside him with faces long drawn and armed with placards crying for wood.

Fraught with indirect slogans like “murda mange more-more lakdi (the dead want wood)” to first person appeals like “mujhe jalane ke liye lakdi do: laash (give wood for my cremation: corpse)”, the protest continued for two hours from 11am in the Kheergaon neighbourhood, which houses Muktidham. A memorandum was also submitted to the administration for the governor.

The bizarre dharna drew people in hordes if not the attention of the district mandarins. Many flayed officials for disrespecting the dead and called for installation of electric furnaces for cremation.

Binod Kumar, a member of Bhutnath Mandali, said they received around 10 bodies a day and conceded that they were also turning away family members of the dead because there was no wood in stock to perform last rites.

He pointed out that the minimum of this biofuel required to burn a body was three quintals, which is charged Rs 450 per quintal. “When the crisis reared its head, we had to make people wait for two hours before we could arrange wood. Last week, however, we ran out of stock completely. There was no wood to cremate a woman who had died,” he said.

Finally, a senior forest officer who was among the mourners took personal initiative. “The forest department arranged for wood for her last rites,” another member of the Mandali said.

District officials said Muktidham would soon boast electric cremation facility.

“Governor Syed Ahmed had laid the foundation stone for this facility on March 6,” one of them added.

CPM veteran Verma, however, refused to buy the promise. He pointed out that hundreds of trees were felled during the recent renovation of NH-33, but the timber made its way only to forest department godowns for auction.

Verma demanded that a chunk of this stock be released for the crematorium immediately or else his party would launch a bigger agitation. “We have placed our twin demands in the memorandum to the governor. One, we want a wood bank for last rites of the dead; two, construction of an electric crematorium should begin without delay,” he said.

Chairperson of Hazaribagh municipal board Anjali Kumari said she had heard out members of the Mandali on Wednesday.

“I will raise the issue with the district administration tomorrow (Thursday). Besides, in a day or two, we will invite tenders for installation and maintenance of indoor electric furnaces,” she said.

Do you think the unique protest will yield results?

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