In another instance of discrimination against women being reported from Rajasthan’s Bundi district, a family was ostracised after four sisters lent their shoulders to their father’s funeral stand and cremated him. The community panchayat allegedly gave an order to outcast the Regar family after taking a collective decision. The panchayat had ‘warned’ the girls to not partake in the cremation rituals of the deceased.
After the incineration, the girls and their family members were not permitted to take bath in the community compound. Moreover, they were neither supplied food by the village community as per tradition. The deceased was identified as 58-year-old Durgashankar. He died on Saturday after an extended illness. It was last wish of the father that his four daughters must shoulder his pedestal as he had no son.
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After he died, his daughters fulfilled his last wish despite all warnings from the panchayat. The eldest of all daughters is 25-year-old Meena who told Times of India that community leaders first told them to not participate in the last rites of their father, which they refused to agree to.
After the daughters finished their father’s last rites, the community panchayat asked them to seek forgiveness for the act. The women refused to do that as well. Meena said, “We refused to do that as we had done nothing wrong.”
She further added that when they returned from the cremation ground, the family found the community complex locked. They were not allowed to bath there and instead, had to take bath at home, unlike traditional rituals. The superstitious behaviour of the area is not new. This diktat originates less than a month after the local panchayat in Haripura village banned a minor from entering her home after she accidentally broke a bird’s egg.
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