Shortage of graveyard plots

The population in Bangladesh is growing fast and consequently living space is shrinking in the major cities of the country. Yet, as we know, the living can always improvise, adapt and cope with such issues while the dead cannot do anything when burial spaces are being overwhelmed to capacity.

For the living, graveyards are sites of remembrance and mourning. However, most of the time, we prefer not to think about what actually happens there. Many of the graveyards in this country have grown with no development plans. They lack proper walls or fences and are adjacent to population settlements. Graves may now start encroaching on the settlements. The pandemic is now forcing us to think about this issue which may well spiral out of control. The gravediggers were forced to work round the clock in the graveyards designated for Covid-19.

Getting to grips with the lack of burial space requires weighing the rights of the dead, as well as of the living that they leave behind. It goes without saying that a graveyard doesn’t suddenly find itself full. The graveyard authorities know how many plots are left and how many burials take place a year. That should give them a chance to adapt to the changing needs. Somehow, more space has to be found — or created — before time runs out. Sometimes that means expanding or converting space.

A report published in this newspaper on Tuesday says that The Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) and Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) don’t allow permanent graves in any of their 10 graveyards. Families or housing societies own some cemeteries. The number of graveyards were too few to accommodate the dead. They said that to ensure burial for all, they imposed excessive charges for grave reserving and discouraged people from making reservations. City officials struggling to find space are now encouraging people to bury their dead in their ancestral villages. However, even those families in Dhaka who are willing to bury their dead in their village home may find it quite costly to transport the body.

The crisis has left many others in the capital unable to secure a permanent resting place for relatives and friends. Many people find the situation difficult to accept but most have no choice. Religious scholars say that Islam permits more than one body in the same grave. Yet the overwhelming preference of people is for their deceased loved ones to have their own graves which are not shared. Of course, cremation can’t be an option for Muslims.

Officials in some countries have come up with innovative ideas. One of the ideas is to build a ‘vertical cemetery’ with 300 crypt cells on two walls facing each other. A 50-feet pit is dug in the centre. Each cell measures six feet by two feet. It is also cheaper than the cost of traditional burial. The religious scholars have okayed it in neighbouring India’s capital Delhi’s newly established Dwarka Muslim graveyard. Families in Spain and Greece, meanwhile, rent a "niche", an above-ground crypt where bodies lie for several years. When they have decomposed, the bodies are moved to a communal burial ground, so the niche can be used again. Some Americans are trying to regain a certain level of intimacy with death. The green burial movement couples environmental concerns with land preservation—it rejects embalming and recommends burial in a shroud or biodegradable coffin.

At the end of the day graveyards are public infrastructures they need to meet the public’s best interests. When someone we love dies, the availability of graveyard space becomes really important. But if one doesn’t have that connection, people don’t think about the rights of the dead too often.

The rapid growth of population, especially in the urban areas, demands construction of modern and well maintained graveyards in the towns and cities. As said earlier the dead need respect and we can best ensure that by giving them a decent burial in a proper graveyard.

Therefore, we have to find a solution to the grave crisis, as it were.