PANAJI
Goa's unique and historic British cemetery has brought an equally unique controversy to life, after an unclaimed body was allegedly recently buried at the 18th century cemetery located in the tony Dona Paula area.
While the Directorate of the Archives and Archaeology has filed a formal complaint with the Panaji police station, claiming that unknown persons had replaced the locks fixed to the gate of the cemetery, which is a protected state monument, according to historian Prajal Sakhardande, the cemetery, which is marked by gravestones of 42 Britishers, most of the soldiers who died during their posting in Goa, the recent burial was tantamount to abuse of the unique, historic structure.
"The cemetery is a monument and a historic one. I complained to the Director of Archaeology, eventually she made a police complaint... There should be no abuse of the historical monument and henceforth such an incident should not occur," Sakhardande said.
The cemetery is a blink-and-you-miss structure on the left of the road leading to Raj Bhavan. But its sheer presence is representative of an exciting story of Euro-Asian politics of the 18th and 19th centuries, when Goa was a Portuguese colony.
"The French and British were enemies, so there was a threat that the French would use Portuguese Goa as a base and throw out the British from India," according to the historian Sakhardande.
In the latter years of the 18th century, Napoleon Bonaparte was beginning to make his mark in the Courts of France. His promise and perhaps his hunger for expansion was not missed out by the sultan of Mysore Tipu, who had embarked on a correspondence spree with Napoleon, urging the latter to focus French attention to the South Asian region to rid it of the British. Both Tipu and Napoleon had one common enemy, the British Empire.
The year 1799 is a critical element to the story of the origins of the cemetery. Tipu Sultan died in that year in present day Karnataka, while Napoleon engineered a coup d'etat to emerge as the unquestionable monarch of France.
Wary of his ambitions, the British empire decided to move a garrison of troops to Goa, fearing Napoleon's expansionist intentions in Asia. The cemetery was also built in 1799 to lower the mortal remains of British troops stationed in Goa, most of whom were Methodists, a Protestant sect.
"The British wanted to protect their own interests. So from 1799 to 1850 all those British soldiers who died in Goa, whether they were soldiers or British officers or British women, this cemetery was reserved for them. They could not be buried anywhere else. Local Goans, Roman Catholics and Portuguese could be buried in other cemeteries in the state, but only the British soldiers, officers who were Methodist -- a Protestant sect -- were buried here," the historian said.
After the Napoleonic threat ended, British visitors and soldiers who continued to visit Goa and happened to meet an unfortunate end in the Lusophonian colony, were also buried in the same cemetery. The last such account of a burial dates to 1912.
The sudden, and more recent burial of an unclaimed body, believed to belong to the Protestant religious persuasion, 109 years after the last remains of a Britisher were lowered into the grave, has given the historic cemetery a contemporary twist.
The fresh burial issue was first highlighted by Cecille Rodrigues of the Aam Aadmi Party, who alerted the authorities.
According to a complaint filed by Blossom Madeira, Goa's Director for Archives and Archaeology, the tampering with the locks was noticed during an inspection conducted by her department.
"The department had put up locks on the entrance gate. During inspection at the site when the locks were tried to open, it was noticed that the department's locks had been replaced... In this regard, a complaint may be kindly registered to ascertain the facts and for necessary action to be taken at the earliest," Madeira's complaint to the Panaji police states.
