India, Feb. 20 -- There are few certainties left in this world, but the promise of a final, undisturbed rest should be one of them. In the dense forests of Bastar, Chhattisgarh, and in the red-earth villages of Odisha, that promise is being broken-not by the ravages of time or weather, but by the hands of neighbours.

We are witnessing a profoundly disturbing phenomenon: the denial of Christian burial and the forced exhumation of the dead. This is not merely a land dispute; it is a calculated assault on the dignity of the deceased and a profound rupture of the social contract.

The Supreme Court has long held that the right to a decent burial is a facet of the right to life under Article 21. As Justice BV Nagarathna observed in a split ve...