An Indian woman has ignited a furious row over the centuries-old tradition of using vultures to dispose of the dead by sending gruesome pictures of rotting corpses to hundreds of homes.
About three bodies a day from the dwindling Parsi community in India are left to be stripped clean at a private 18-hectare complex in Mumbai, but the practice is threatened by a dramatic decline in vulture numbers.
The issue erupted after scenes from inside the Towers of Silence were revealed by Dhun Baria, 65, who printed leaflets with grainy pictures of bodies and distributed them to 2,000 Parsi homes in Mumbai.
She said she only learned what happened behind the walls of the squat circular towers after her mother's body was taken when she died eight months ago.
"The staff told me everything. They said: `Madam, it's a hell inside,'" she said.
"I was crying a whole day and a night. It's the biggest mistake of my life that I have put my mother inside there. I thought I must help to change this system," she said.
The Towers of Silence are off limits to all save pall bearers and the vultures who once circled overhead in large numbers before they dramatically died off.
Pictures circulating within the community are understood to show several dozen bloated and blackened bodies arranged around the upper platform of a tower and decomposing bones of other bodies in a well about 6m below.
The process, known as Dakhma, dates back to ancient Iran where earth, water and fire were considered sacred and not to be polluted by the bodies of the dead.
Bodies were first put on top of mountains and later on to specially built towers. It is not practiced by Parsi migrants in other countries.
But the process that once took a few hours or days now takes months, according to reformers, with crows and snakes taking over from vultures.
Baria said she was sent pictures anonymously and received threatening telephone calls over her campaign to persuade senior figures to allow cremation or burial.
Her actions have horrified the orthodox wing of the community which condemned her for making public a sacred place for the Parsis, part of the 3,500-year-old Zoroastrian religion.
"It's not going to be a big garden of roses inside," said Anahita Desai of the orthodox World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis. "But we feel she's exaggerating the situation."
But the Parsis' troubles are minor compared with the vultures that have suffered the biggest decline of any animal species in the world, from millions in India to just a few thousand in little more than a decade, according to the Bombay Natural History Society.
The drop has led to continuing debate over how India's Parsi community should dispose of bodies.
MORE VISITORS: The Tourism Administration said that it is seeing positive prospects in its efforts to expand the tourism market in North America and Europe Taiwan has been ranked as the cheapest place in the world to travel to this year, based on a list recommended by NerdWallet. The San Francisco-based personal finance company said that Taiwan topped the list of 16 nations it chose for budget travelers because US tourists do not need visas and travelers can easily have a good meal for less than US$10. A bus ride in Taipei costs just under US$0.50, while subway rides start at US$0.60, the firm said, adding that public transportation in Taiwan is easy to navigate. The firm also called Taiwan a “food lover’s paradise,” citing inexpensive breakfast stalls
US PUBLICATION: The results indicated a change in attitude after a 2023 survey showed 55 percent supported full-scale war to achieve unification, the report said More than half of Chinese were against the use of force to unify with Taiwan under any circumstances, a survey conducted by the Atlanta, Georgia-based Carter Center and Emory University found. The survey results, which were released on Wednesday in a report titled “Sovereignty, Security, & US-China Relations: Chinese Public Opinion,” showed that 55.1 percent of respondents agreed or somewhat agreed that “the Taiwan problem should not be resolved using force under any circumstances,” while 24.5 percent “strongly” or “somewhat” disagreed with the statement. The results indicated a change in attitude after a survey published in “Assessing Public Support for (Non)Peaceful Unification
PLUGGING HOLES: The amendments would bring the legislation in line with systems found in other countries such as Japan and the US, Legislator Chen Kuan-ting said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷) has proposed amending national security legislation amid a spate of espionage cases. Potential gaps in security vetting procedures for personnel with access to sensitive information prompted him to propose the amendments, which would introduce changes to Article 14 of the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), Chen said yesterday. The proposal, which aims to enhance interagency vetting procedures and reduce the risk of classified information leaks, would establish a comprehensive security clearance system in Taiwan, he said. The amendment would require character and loyalty checks for civil servants and intelligence personnel prior to
The China Coast Guard has seized control of a disputed reef near a major Philippine military outpost in the South China Sea, Beijing’s state media said, adding to longstanding territorial tensions with Manila. Beijing claims sovereignty over almost all of the South China Sea and has waved away competing assertions from other countries as well as an international ruling that its position has no legal basis. China and the Philippines have engaged in months of confrontations in the contested waters, and Manila is taking part in sweeping joint military drills with the US which Beijing has slammed as destabilizing. The Chinese coast guard
RSS