Simple marble gravestones lie flat in the grounds of St Andrew’s Church in Bandra, one of the oldest Roman Catholic places of worship in the Indian city of Mumbai.
The names on the tombs bear witness to the city’s Portuguese heritage, as a groundsman sweeps wet leaves from generations of Da Silvas, D’Souzas, Pintos, Pereiras, Furtados and Fonsecas.
Behind the white-washed church are newer, much smaller memorials, stacked on top of one another like drawers in a high perimeter wall bordering the sea.
Inside these “niches” are the mortal remains of the more recently deceased, whose bones have been disinterred and replaced by those who have died in the last year or two.
The spiraling cost of land and its lack of availability is a major issue for the estimated 18 million people crammed into India’s financial and entertainment capital.
However, increasingly, the squeeze is affecting the city’s dead, prompting changes in -centuries-old rituals, forcing up the cost of burials or leading to practical solutions to tackle space constraints.
“It’s an issue in all the churches. There’s a lack of space,” said Father Michael Goveas, a parish priest at St Andrew’s, where flattened tombstones are found even in the corridors leading to the main church. “We’re no longer giving permission for permanent graves. Anyone who has a permanent [family] plot can still utilize them. For everyone else, we give niches.”
The lack of burial space, a growing problem for minority Christians and Muslims in India’s fast-growing big cities, as well as many countries around the world, is particularly acute in Mumbai.
The local authorities estimate that there is just 0.12m2 of green open space per person, making it one of the most densely populated places in the world.
One solution submitted last year to the US-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat suggested building a tower, with space for Christian and Muslim burials and Hindu cremations.
The idea’s thrust was that traditional solutions were unlikely to succeed, as older churches — and even the newer, state-run public cemeteries in outlying districts — stop providing graves in perpetuity.
“Cemeteries have a system where they don’t leave the bodies for more than two years. Then the bones are moved to an ossuary,” said Father Anthony Charanghat, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Bombay.
One significant consequence of the space crunch is the increasing number of Catholics opting for cremation — the norm among Hindus — which was once viewed by the Church as a denial of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
“You used to have to get permission [to be cremated],” Father Michael said. “Now, it’s becoming more widespread ... The idea that if you burn there’s no resurrection doesn’t exist any more.”
“If you’re buried or burnt, it’s the same thing,” Father Michael said.
Demand for burial plots has led some city churches to advocate the use of linen shrouds or coffins made from plywood to speed up the decomposition process, said Dolphy D’Souza, from the Bombay Catholic Sabha, a community group.
“With the sizable increase in population and lack of space, it [burial] has become very difficult and the turnaround has become something like 18 months after the body is buried,” he said. “Sometimes they have to rush it through.”
Protracted disputes have also raged over the allocation of new land reserved for burials and over the building of walls to house the disinterred bones, he said.
Undertakers say that the cost of the diminishing number of burial plots available on a 30-year lease in private cemeteries has gone up in line with sky-rocketing real-estate prices.
Funeral director Dion Pinto said a basic 1.99m by 0.9m plot has risen as much as five fold in recent years.
“Six or seven years ago it was about 5,000 rupees [US$111] for a plot. Now it’s gone up. It’s like the property rates,” he said.
The situation is met with resignation by many Muslims, who face a similar squeeze on burial space.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese