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I was seeing the image of the funeral pyres, and was thinking that this is the easiest way to make a body disappear.

As 70-85% of Indians are Hindus and they burn their deceased, if someone wanted to count total number of deaths by dead bodies, they would not be able to.

All bodies are gone.

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Births and deaths are registered with the government.

can't burn in the burning grounds unless a death certificate is produced

Well, there were stories of unburned bodies found floating in the rivers, there are many who couldn't afford the cremation. There's the official rule (registration needed) and the reality on the ground: insufficient government service coverage leading to undocumented births and deaths.

Even China has a lot of undocumented births, because of the 1-child-policy: https://thediplomat.com/2015/03/chinas-hidden-children/ (IMO the accepted "legend" that there were a lot of abortions just demonized the Chinese, whether nefariously or on purpose)

You can't just cremate a corpse by throwing it on some wood and pouring gasoline on it. Even proper cremation still leaves behind some "scrap" (of course medical devices and prosthetics, but also some bones can be very difficult to fully turn to ashes).

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