Gomantak Times, 29 March 2008
Vidyadhar Gadgil
In one of Leo Tolstoy’s most well-known stories, “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” (James Joyce once described it as the finest story ever written), he presents to us a greedy protagonist named Pahom, who is offered as much land as he can walk the perimeter of in a single day. Overcome by his avarice, Pahom tries to cover too much ground, and finding that he is late and the sun is setting, runs frantically to make it back to the starting point in time, only to collapse and die from exhaustion there. He is then buried in an ordinary grave six feet long, thus ironically answering the question in the title. Tolstoy, always inclined towards moral philosophy, uses this as a parable to illustrate the futility of avarice, and how we should learn to live within our needs rather than succumb to our greed.
Of course, Tolstoy never considers that even the six feet -- which he probably considered a basic minimum right -- may be beyond reach, even when it is a pressing need. But that is more or less the situation that Muslims face in Salcete taluka today when it comes to burying their dead.
In Margao, they have been making do with a graveyard at Pajifond Hill which was donated to the community about 125 years ago. This kabrastan is now grossly inadequate for the needs of the community, which has, like other communities, seen a big rise in population. Besides, the cemetery is at the top of a sleep slope, which cannot be reached by vehicular transport―thus, elderly people cannot attend funerals, and even transporting bodies for burial to the kabrastan becomes a problem. The pressures are such that bodies sometimes have to be exhumed within a few months to make space for new burials. The location, being at the top of a hill, is mainly hard rock, and graves have to be dug manually through the rock since it is impossible to take heavy earth-moving machinery up to the kabrastan.
It is not that no efforts have been made to solve this problem. After sustained efforts by the Muslim community, a unanimous resolution was passed in 1999 in the Goa Assembly. Land acquisition proceedings were initiated, only to be subsequently dropped. Luizinho Faleiro, the then CM, wrote to the presidents of masjids in the Margao area in 2004: ‘I was pained at heart to see the pathetic condition of the kabrastan and the hardships suffered by the people attending the funeral...Once a resolution is passed unanimously in the Legislative Assembly, it reflects the will of the state and nobody whosoever has got the right to neglect the same and deny burial facilities...It is shocking that the vested elements in the succeeding Governments chose to cancel the said land acquisition notification thereby adding to the hardships and difficulties of the Muslim brethren….”
Matters have dragged on since then. In 2005, the Congress candidate Digambar Kamat assured in his manifesto for the by-election to the Margao assembly constituency: ‘Pre-acquisition formalities for a large area of land for the purpose of a burial ground for the Muslim population of Salcete have already made good progress. This long standing need of the Muslim community will become a reality within the next six months.’ Land acquisition proceedings to extend the existing graveyard by acquiring land for a kabrastan adjacent to the existing one at Pajifond were to begin in 2007, but there were a number of objections, and groups like the Bajrang Dal actively mobilised opposition to the proposal. The government dragged its feet on the matter. Finally, Margao’s Muslim community asked the government to drop the land acquisition proceedings. The reason given by the Sunni-Jaamat-Ul-Muslameen General Secretary, Noor Mohammed Shah, was that the Muslim community want to live in harmony with other communities, and that ‘the other community has raised objections for the acquisition.’
But there is considerable resentment within the community over the denial of such a basic human right as burial space. While the land acquisition proceedings were hanging fire, Muslim youth conducted a two-day hunger strike in front of the Collectorate. All they got for their pains were more assurances from various politicians. It is now 2008, and Digambar Kamat is currently Chief Minister. The assurances are repeated every once in a while but there is no real progress on the matter to date.
Meanwhile, the Muslim community has been getting increasingly desperate. Deciding not to rely on the government, they have purchased land in a number of places. But just as in the Pajifond kabrastan extension case, there were objections in all cases -- in Macazana, Aquem Alto, and in Sao Jose de Areal. In 1997, in the ODP, the SGPDA had proposed a common burial space for the three major religious communities in Ambajim, Fatorda. To this proposal too there has been opposition from locals on various pretexts. Interestingly, the opposition has come from both the Christian and Hindu communities.
Members of the Muslim community in Margao express disgust and anger over the denial of such a basic right. Social activist Ranjan Solomon quotes a Muslim from Margao: ‘Our dead are being treated as if it were a garbage issue. Just as nobody wants garbage disposed of in their constituencies, so do people reject the idea of having a kabrastan in their vicinity. Our dead are not garbage. They are our fathers, sons and daughters, and sisters and brothers.’
The Muslim community continues to run from pillar to post to get justice. Efforts are also going on to get objections withdrawn through a process of inter-community dialogue to convince people that this is a legitimate need, and that a kabrastan would not create any nuisance or problems. But this alone cannot solve the problem -- essential to the process is political will on the part of the government. Till then, that elusive six feet of land to bury their dead with dignity will remain a distant dream for the Muslims of Margao.
Vidyadhar Gadgil
In one of Leo Tolstoy’s most well-known stories, “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” (James Joyce once described it as the finest story ever written), he presents to us a greedy protagonist named Pahom, who is offered as much land as he can walk the perimeter of in a single day. Overcome by his avarice, Pahom tries to cover too much ground, and finding that he is late and the sun is setting, runs frantically to make it back to the starting point in time, only to collapse and die from exhaustion there. He is then buried in an ordinary grave six feet long, thus ironically answering the question in the title. Tolstoy, always inclined towards moral philosophy, uses this as a parable to illustrate the futility of avarice, and how we should learn to live within our needs rather than succumb to our greed.
Of course, Tolstoy never considers that even the six feet -- which he probably considered a basic minimum right -- may be beyond reach, even when it is a pressing need. But that is more or less the situation that Muslims face in Salcete taluka today when it comes to burying their dead.
In Margao, they have been making do with a graveyard at Pajifond Hill which was donated to the community about 125 years ago. This kabrastan is now grossly inadequate for the needs of the community, which has, like other communities, seen a big rise in population. Besides, the cemetery is at the top of a sleep slope, which cannot be reached by vehicular transport―thus, elderly people cannot attend funerals, and even transporting bodies for burial to the kabrastan becomes a problem. The pressures are such that bodies sometimes have to be exhumed within a few months to make space for new burials. The location, being at the top of a hill, is mainly hard rock, and graves have to be dug manually through the rock since it is impossible to take heavy earth-moving machinery up to the kabrastan.
It is not that no efforts have been made to solve this problem. After sustained efforts by the Muslim community, a unanimous resolution was passed in 1999 in the Goa Assembly. Land acquisition proceedings were initiated, only to be subsequently dropped. Luizinho Faleiro, the then CM, wrote to the presidents of masjids in the Margao area in 2004: ‘I was pained at heart to see the pathetic condition of the kabrastan and the hardships suffered by the people attending the funeral...Once a resolution is passed unanimously in the Legislative Assembly, it reflects the will of the state and nobody whosoever has got the right to neglect the same and deny burial facilities...It is shocking that the vested elements in the succeeding Governments chose to cancel the said land acquisition notification thereby adding to the hardships and difficulties of the Muslim brethren….”
Matters have dragged on since then. In 2005, the Congress candidate Digambar Kamat assured in his manifesto for the by-election to the Margao assembly constituency: ‘Pre-acquisition formalities for a large area of land for the purpose of a burial ground for the Muslim population of Salcete have already made good progress. This long standing need of the Muslim community will become a reality within the next six months.’ Land acquisition proceedings to extend the existing graveyard by acquiring land for a kabrastan adjacent to the existing one at Pajifond were to begin in 2007, but there were a number of objections, and groups like the Bajrang Dal actively mobilised opposition to the proposal. The government dragged its feet on the matter. Finally, Margao’s Muslim community asked the government to drop the land acquisition proceedings. The reason given by the Sunni-Jaamat-Ul-Muslameen General Secretary, Noor Mohammed Shah, was that the Muslim community want to live in harmony with other communities, and that ‘the other community has raised objections for the acquisition.’
But there is considerable resentment within the community over the denial of such a basic human right as burial space. While the land acquisition proceedings were hanging fire, Muslim youth conducted a two-day hunger strike in front of the Collectorate. All they got for their pains were more assurances from various politicians. It is now 2008, and Digambar Kamat is currently Chief Minister. The assurances are repeated every once in a while but there is no real progress on the matter to date.
Meanwhile, the Muslim community has been getting increasingly desperate. Deciding not to rely on the government, they have purchased land in a number of places. But just as in the Pajifond kabrastan extension case, there were objections in all cases -- in Macazana, Aquem Alto, and in Sao Jose de Areal. In 1997, in the ODP, the SGPDA had proposed a common burial space for the three major religious communities in Ambajim, Fatorda. To this proposal too there has been opposition from locals on various pretexts. Interestingly, the opposition has come from both the Christian and Hindu communities.
Members of the Muslim community in Margao express disgust and anger over the denial of such a basic right. Social activist Ranjan Solomon quotes a Muslim from Margao: ‘Our dead are being treated as if it were a garbage issue. Just as nobody wants garbage disposed of in their constituencies, so do people reject the idea of having a kabrastan in their vicinity. Our dead are not garbage. They are our fathers, sons and daughters, and sisters and brothers.’
The Muslim community continues to run from pillar to post to get justice. Efforts are also going on to get objections withdrawn through a process of inter-community dialogue to convince people that this is a legitimate need, and that a kabrastan would not create any nuisance or problems. But this alone cannot solve the problem -- essential to the process is political will on the part of the government. Till then, that elusive six feet of land to bury their dead with dignity will remain a distant dream for the Muslims of Margao.
