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By Himanshu Bhatt. THERE was a bizarre incident recently in mainland Penang that raised the ghost of a sensitive issue that is plaguing urban areas. Rumours began spreading in Butterworth when some 110 tombstones were found along the Pantai Bersih beach. As police swooped down to prevent hysteria, investigators managed to trace the incident to negligent cleaners of a cemetery, who had replaced old tombstones and dumped them at the beach.
The incident opened a can of worms on another problem, one that is beleaguering urban populations in congested townships – that of shortage of burial grounds. Concerns have been aired about the dearth of new graveyard plots at Muslim cemeteries, especially in George Town, many of which are already brimming with occupied plots. And as though it was not enough for the dead to have their tombstones removed, they then had to be dragged into something even more sinister – politics. Penang Umno Youth jumped into the bandwagon, criticising the PKR’s state executive councillor for religious affairs, Abdul Malik Abul Kassim, for failing to solve the problem of inadequate space at a cemetery in Jelutong. The Pakatan Rakyat Youth retorted that the problem was a prolonged issue since the last twelve years, even under the former government. Indeed, the pressure on burial spaces has been tremendous, becoming increasingly acute with the urban sprawl and rampant development that is encroaching over every available space left, over the last two decades. Modern development has mercilessly eaten into several traditional settlements in cases like the demolition of Kampung Buah Pala and the plans to evict Kampung Tanjung Tokong. If development has so little regard for the living, what more for the dead? But the issue has become particularly urgent of late. For many cultures, it is preferred and even required that their deceased be accorded proper burial. Earlier this week, the Christian community met the state government, and one can only guess what the most persistent grouse was. Lack of burial space. The state has admitted that there is a need for new Christian burial grounds in Penang. Obviously, the problem is rather unpleasant and disconcerting to address. But it is serious. In fact, there are other communities who are also crying out for burial spaces. The issue has become contentious as there was a plan to impose heavy fees for use of burial plots for certain periods of time. But how would the descendants of a person keep paying to maintain his or her burial plot down the decades? The Penang Island Municipal Council (MPPP) had a plan to even “recycle” burial plots in non-Muslim cemeteries. The idea was however rejected by the state government, due to the obvious sensitivities involved. State executive councillor Chow Kon Yeow commented that burial plots that are old needed to be exempted from such a move, while new plots needed to be governed by proper guidelines on matters such as exhumation and safe-keeping in columbarium. What is interesting about all this is that there is no law to govern non-Muslim cemeteries in the state. The MPPP is now tabling a by-law to govern the century-old Western Road Christian cemetery in a test case to help tackle scarcity of land for burial grounds on the island. If the by-laws work in helping to make things more orderly in the packed cemetery, and manage to provide acceptable guidelines for exhumation and safekeeping of remains in a columbarium, they may be adopted to provide a much needed governance mechanism for other cemeteries. But there is a more important concern about all this. It is the question of whether our pace of development has spiralled out of control, and whether it is sustainable enough to accommodate both our living – and our dead. **Reproduced with permission. This article first appeared in the April 29, 2010 issue of theSun. Himanshu is the newspaper's Penang bureau chief.
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