Cemeteries - too small, too few, too far
Sakal Times
CAMIL PARKHE
The number of cemeteries for the Christian community in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad have remained the same although the population of Christians in the city has increased during the past few decades. This has posed a problem for the members of the community who are forced to travel long distances to bury their dear ones.
Dapodi is the only burial ground available to the sizable Christian community in Pimpri Chinchwad and Khadki.
The other burial grounds are located at Hadapsar, Yerawada, and near the Holkar Bridge. Farther away, there is one more Christian cemetery in the jurisdiction of the Dehu Road Cantonment Board.
There is another cemetery – the War Cemetery in Khadki, but no fresh burials are allowed here. It was created to bury the remains of mostly Allied army combatants killed during the second World War and is more of a memorial.
All the cemeteries in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad, barring the City Church cemetery at Nanapeth, are open to all Christians - Catholics as well as Protestants.
The burial grounds in Dapodi and Hadapsar have been existing since the British days and today these lands are owned by the civic bodies. These cemeteries are managed by committees having representatives of various Christian sects.
The permission for burial at the various cemeteries is given only on presentation of the death certificate issued by civic bodies and a letter from the representative of the church to which the deceased person belonged.
Due to the space crunch, the practice of selling land for construction of a tomb over the grave has been discontinued at all the cemeteries.
Encroachments on the periphery of burial grounds is another problem faced by almost all cemeteries as there are no resident care takers at these sites.
The area of the Dapodi cemetery shrunk a couple of years back when a portion of the graveyard was acquired for the widening of the Pune-Mumbai highway.
Fr Clement Raj, parish priest of St Ignatius Church in Khadki, said that Dapodi cemetery had also lost some land due to encroachments.
Unlike all other cemeteries, the City Church cemetery is used to bury only those belonging to the City Church parish and also Goans belonging to any parish in the city.
Explaining this peculiarity, City Church parish priets Fr Joe D’Souza said that the City Church, built in 1852, is the oldest church in the city and it also happens to be the only church in Maharashtra which came under the jurisdiction of the Goa diocese.
The cemetery was the property of the City Church and its parishioners were all Goans and therefore, for over a century, only Goans were buried there. In the recent past, this custom had created a conflict among the Goan and non-Goan parishioners of the church and therefore the cemetery was thrown open to all those belonging to this church.
Fr D’Souza said that due to the shrinking space at the burial ground, the church no longer permits permanent graves at the cemetery.
“The problem has become so acute that we do not allow anyone to build a permanent tomb even if the person is willing to offer Rs 50,000,” said the parish priest.
For the past few years, the City Church cemetery has been forced to follow the practice of using graves that are more than three years old for fresh burials. However, some very old tombs continue to exist in the cemetery. “It is difficult for the Church administration to seek removal of these very old graves as it is a sensitive issue,” said Fr D’Souza.
A Christian cemetery on an acre of land near Vadgaonsheri, given by the Pune Municipal Corporation, was dedicated by the Bishop of Pune on November 2, All Souls Day. The land on the banks of the Mula-Mutha was earmarked for cemetery for the past many years but no burials had taken place there due to some pending disputes, said Joe Kasbe, a local Christian leader.
Church welcomes cremation too
-Fr Joe Abraham, Chancellor of Pune diocese, said that the Catholic Church has no objection to people preferring cremation to burial as this solves the problem of space at the cemetery.
- There is no theological issue involved in this, Fr Abraham said, adding that “after cremation, the remains of the departed persons can be kept in niches on the compound walls of the cemetery.”
- Fr Abraham informed that at least three Catholics were cremated in Pune during the past decade. “The custom of cremation has been accepted more by Catholics in Mumbai,” he added.
