New beginning: Tiny village buries four crematoriums to cremate villagers at a common place

BARNALA: Setting a unique example of equality by burying the animosity between warring castes, in a first of its kind endeavour, the five cremation grounds (crematorium) in the tiny village have turned into one. The village Harigarh falling on Barnala-Sangrur highway has decided to put its dead at the common place and have overcome the decades old practice of cremating the deceased at different crematoriums in the village.

The four crematoriums have ceased to exist in the village and interestingly the village having the population of 4500 has agreed to keep one earlier meant for Majhbi-Ramdasia Sikhs and now onwards this will the only place for the dead in the village. Recognising the move Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday honoured the village panchayat at New Delhi under 'Rajiv Gandhi panchayat sashaktikaran abhiyan'(RGPSA) along with 5 other panchayats of Punjab.

In Punjab villages there are normally separate cremation grounds and even Gurdwaras for Jatt Sikhs and Majhbi-Ramdasia Sikhs and the warring castes avoid using each other' place of dead and worship.

The three crematoriums meant for Jatt Sikh families divided into various patties(localities) were located adjacent to each other but were separated by thin walls whereas the Majhbi and Ramdasia Sikhs had their different cremation place and Hindus have their own. No family was allowed to use the cremation place of another patti and used to get their dead at their own crematorium.

"It was in October 2013 that village youths started talking over demolishing the walls around the crematoriums. The village elders were not ready for it and were opposing it vehemently. They used to say that we are cremating our elders at own cremation places and let it continue", said village youth Gurmukh Singh.

Village Sarpanch Malkit Singh(44)took the initiative of prevailing upon the residents and approached the district administration. "Committees were formed in all the five patties of Gil Patti, Saido Patti, Dhaliwal Patti, Hindu locality and Tek Patti residing Majhbi-Ramdasia Sikhs. The committees were tasked to prepare their elders in agreeing for common place for cremations. We had tough time in prevailing upon the elders and it took one and half hours in ensuring unanimity in it", said Malkit.

Finally on March 3, 2015 a special session of gram sabha(panchayat) was called where all burying the past agreed to build common cremation place for the village and in few days it came up and was named as general(common)cremation ground, said Sarpanch. A 17 member committee was formed to run the affairs of the place.

Barnala Deputy Commissioner Gurlovleen Singh Sidhu elated over the development said "with villagers agreeing for common cremation place, the village has got 44 kanal 6 marla land which earlier was occupied by three different cremation places. A sports stadium is being built at this place and the proposed stadium has been named after village resident freedom fighter late Ajaib Singh". He said PM Narendra Modi honoured the panchayat on Friday for achieving big under RGPSA.

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