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Hindu Funeral Reform. : 231 dual freedom, so badly needed by Indians, to mind hygenical, economical and political affairs of their land. If on the contrary, India wants to remain a mere museum of castes and creeds with her shows of sentiments and scourges, sorrows and susceptibilities, pity and pestilence, constraint and credulity, she is lost for ever. The present honorary undertaker ( daghoo ) working in exchange of caste-dinner, is well and good! But one must ask whether the work of hewing wood, fetching water and carrying the dead on the shoulders were to remain as old national • virtues ? till doomsday. - What individuals are, that will nations be.' To improve the bottom of an old structure one must begin from the top, and without reconstructing the institution of the funeral process Hindus cannot successfully reconstruct the marriage institution, and till that is done India cannot possess vitality enough to be a free and enlightened nation.
But such a step towards funeral reform being beyond the capacity of individuals our municipalities which are supposed 10 ba responsible to the public from the cradle to the grave should come forward to start end finance the movement of nationalising the Hindu dead by equipping big cities in India with public cromtoria and trolley stretchers like those used for the ambulence service. The educative influence of such better methods will surely be felt by people in course of time. Tho masses are already inwardly tired of the old order, and will be willing to accept thousand such reforms if only the initiative is made by any Power.
