Shiv seva: Charity begins at home in Karachi graveyard for low-caste Hindus

Funding is scarce, but awareness is spreading of need to clean up burial ground.


Our Correspondent February 19, 2012

KARACHI: It is not only in their everyday lives that scheduled caste Hindus face prejudice. The tag of being different follows them to their resting place too.

Blocks away from the newly renovated Shamshan Ghaat, the only crematorium in the city, lies a dilapidated graveyard for the Hindus, in Old Golimar. It is one of three in Karachi with the other two at Drigh Road and Mauripur, but they are in equally bad condition.

The Old Golimar scheduled caste graveyard has a dirty black gate that opens into the burial ground where graves are surrounded by wild bushes, stinking garbage and stray dogs.

“This is a lawaris [heirless] graveyard. It belongs to the poor people, whose final abode no one seems to care about,” said caretaker and grave digger Sohail Ahmed.

A majority of Hindus dispose of their dead by cremating them, but for those who want to be buried or follow family traditions the only option is this graveyard. It is a final resting place mostly for the scheduled castes but also includes the Marwari, Gujrati, Madrasi and Maratha castes. Sikhs are also said to be buried there.

Ahmed claims that there are thousands of Hindu graves, many of which have been vandalised by drug addicts who strip them of their tiles. It is easy for them to get in as the boundary wall is broken. Thus, every night Ahmed and his nephews have to stand guard to keep the thieves at bay.

Further down, the graveyard has no walls where it comes up against residential buildings. The space also serves as a dumping ground – in one corner is a broken bench from 1984 that was donated by the Shri Maharashtra Panchayat. Nearby is an out-of-order streetlight.

“There is no light,” Ahmed explained. “At night, we bury the bodies by torchlight.”

Kali Das, who heads a committee that runs the graveyard, said that for years their requests for renovation have been pending with the government. “We have asked for Rs8.5 million,” he said, mentioning the road and boundary wall for starters.

The Old Golimar graveyard is in stark contrast to the Shamshan Ghaat and its graveyard where upper caste Hindus are buried. They have all been renovated and rebuilt recently, which is why the president of the Hindu Cremation Grounds Association, Shri Ram Nath Maharaj, argued that it was just a matter of taking interest, which the Old Golimar committee seems not to have done. “We got a good amount [of money] for renovation from political parties, but also from well-off Hindus who care about the cremation site,” he said. “The owners of the [Old Golimar] graveyard do not want to improve its condition themselves.”

A week ago, however, a large number of volunteers from the Pakistan Hindu Seva, a welfare organisation, went about cleaning the graveyard. Its president Sanjesh Dhanja remarked: “We believe if the community gets together, we can straighten up the graveyard ourselves. Yes, we do need money, but cleaning up can be done by the people themselves.”

Published in The Express Tribune, February 20th, 2012.

COMMENTS (1)

Truth From Pakistan | 12 years ago | Reply

A respectable final resting place is any human being's right regardless of religion, cast, colour or creed. The community should start a drive, involve the necessary people and improve the state of this graveyard. The people in power should realise that when a Pakistani/muslim dies abroad and if family decides to bury him /her there, they get a respectable funeral and place in graveyards which are absolutely clean and orderly. We must offer same to all non muslim/Pakistanis as part of what human values teach us.....!

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