CAB129-33 — Page 349

Page 349

Page 349

Page 349

Leventated 10/3/49 (5pm!

HIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT

Page 354for the Cabinet. March 1949 Page 350 of 488 181

CONFIDENTIAL

C.P. (49) 60

9th March, 1949

CABINET

Copy No. 31

EUROPEAN CEMETERIES IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

NOTE BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS

I attach, for the information of my colleagues, a draft of a Statement which it is proposed to make in the House of Lords on Tuesday, 15th March, on the subject of the maintenance of European Cemeteries in India and Pakistan.

I propose to arrange a question in the House of Commons, and in reply to make a brief summary of the House of Lords Statement.

Commonwealth Relations Office, S.W.1,

9th March, 1949.

P. J. N.-B.

MY LORDS

DRAFT STATEMENT

EUROPEAN CEMETERIES IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

Many Members of Your Lordships' House will, I think, be concerned to know what arrangements are contemplated for the care of European cemeteries in India and Pakistan. Your Lordships will be aware that, as a result of the transfer of power, European cemeteries maintained in the past by the Government of India have become since April last the responsibility of the United Kingdom Govern- ment. Since that date they have been maintained largely at the expense of United Kingdom revenues. With Your Lordships' permission I will outline briefly the arrangements proposed for their future maintenance.

I should first explain that before 1948 the maintenance of these cemeteries was supervised by the Government of India through the Public Works Depart- ment, the Military Engineering Service, or the Railway Board, as appropriate. For this purpose Indian expenditure amounted to £45,000 a year apart from the proceeds of income from private endowments. The cemeteries numbered over 350, of which about 350 are open for further burials. A considerable number of the remainder are not cemeteries in the strict sense, but merely groups of graves, ften by the roadside, in remote places. Many of the cemeteries date from a listant past and have had no burials in them for generations.

Your Lordships will, I am sure, appreciate that a full-scale maintenance of ll these cemeteries would be a formidable commitment, and I am bound quite rankly to admit that we shall not be able to continue to maintain some of the emeteries on the old standards; indeed, there are certain cemeteries that we shall ot be able to maintain to any extent. Nevertheless I hope to satisfy Your Lordships that the Government are doing what they can to secure that where emeteries cannot be maintained their preservation will be safeguarded so far as ocal circumstances permit. In such cases our aim would be to secure that they hould revert to nature in a dignified and decent manner. In respect of the rest,

36699 Page 350 of 488

Page 350"

2

als are as reasonable and

I hope also to satisfy Your Lordships that our proposals are as be appropgatek mabst of us can expect.

:

Manifestly our High Commissioners are unable to maintain an organisation for the care of these graves comparable with that of the old style Government of India. It is on members of the Christian congregations resident in India and Pakistan that the local task of caring for Christian graveyards must now primarily devolve. In many places the Christian Churches now find their European congregations depleted or non-existent. Thanks, however, I am happy to say, to the authorities of the Christian Churches, and to many members of both the European and local communities, a number of voluntary bodies have been formed who have undertaken to care for our graves. I am sure that Your Lordships. would desire to be associated with His Majesty's Government in commending those who have undertaken this invaluable and generously given help.

•

:

So far some 312 voluntary local Cemetery Committees have been formed. They include representatives of the Clergy, local industry or business, the United Kingdom Citizens' Association, and the Anglo-Indian Association, and they will undertake local supervision of the work of maintaining the cemeteries. In certain areas, however, the local body will consist, through force of circumstances, of only a solitary missionary or local Christian. Hitherto the Committees have been in direct correspondence with the High Commissions, but this is not a practicable long-term arrangement, and it is intended to set up, generally on a Provincial basis, a number of Trustee Boards to act as a link between the Committees and the High Commissions. The Trustee Boards will generally co-ordinate and supervise the work of the Committees. They will be composed... of senior representatives of the religious denominations concerned, prominent local members of the Province and, wherever possible, the Deputy United Kingdom High Commissioner in the area.

{

:

Turning now to the future method of upkeep of the cemeteries, I should explain that these have been considered broadly under two heads, namely, open cemeteries, which are those still used for burials, and closed cemeteries. Since 1st April, our High Commissioners have been in the closest consultation with the various Church authorities in India and Pakistan, whose attitude, I can gratefully say, has been both realistic and helpful. We have also been fortunate in obtaining the views of a number of former Secretaries of State, Viceroys, Commanders-in- Chief, Provincial Governors and others, as well as of the Ecclesiastical authorities mainly concerned. May I, on the Government's behalf, take this opportunity of thanking all these eminent persons for so readily assisting us with their counsel? I do not claim that the proposals which I am about to describe received their unanimous approval, but I can at least assure Your Lordships that a substantial majority of those consulted, including the representatives of the Churches, are generally in favour of proceeding on the lines which the Government have now decided to follow.

As regards the open cemeteries, the Church authorities have said that it is their avowed object, with the help of income from endowments and burial fees, to maintain them in a suitable manner. It may well be that at the outset Church funds will not be wholly sufficient for the purpose, and that they will have to rely on the High Commissioners for small subventions. It has also been decided that the more important historically of the closed cemeteries should be cared for in the same way. These include, for example, the cemeteries at the Kashmari Gate in Delhi and St. John's in Calcutta.

It is with regard to the thousand or so closed cemeteries that different con- siderations arise. They are, of course, of all sizes and they are to be found all over the sub-continent, from Gilgit in the far north of Kashmir, to the Andamans. A number of them, perhaps about 100, lie in areas where it has not been possible to form Committees, for example, in certain of the Tribal Territories, remote districts and ancient camping grounds. These, with however great reluctance, we feel compelled to leave to revert to nature, along with certain isolated groups of graves. Assurances, however, have been received for which the United Kingdom Government are grateful to the Governments of India and Pakistan and to the Provincial Governments concerned. The Government of India say they will protect cemeteries from destruction and desecration in the same way as property belonging to the Government themselves. The Government of Pakistan have also issued instructions that the cemeteries in Pakistan are to be protected from encroachment and desecration. As to the majority of the close poemeteries, it has been decided, after mature consideration, that they should

age 351 of 488

3

be attended to at intervals, as distinct from constant maintenance, and that this attention will Bonnie Tofas Song as funds will last. This is BagatedÃœɓ4 £œr at least ten years and perhaps for an appreciable time longer.toe gujarat

:

To meet the cost of attending periodically to closed cemeteries, and to provide i some initial assistance to the Churches in caring for the open cemeteries, Parlia- ment will in due course be asked to provide a lump sum to be placed in trust to .....! be drawn on as required by the trustees, who will include the High Commissioners. Provision on maintenance for the interim period has been made in the 1949-50 Estimates for the Commonwealth Services. The capital sum is, of course, quite separate from the private endowment funds in the hands of the two Governments which are shortly to be transferred to our High Commissioners. The interest from these endowment funds, in so far as it pertains to the open cemeteries and tow the closed cemeteries of historical importance, will, of course, continue to be applied in the manner intended. But in the case of the majority of the closed cemeteries it will not be practical, under the arrangements contemplated, to apply the interest on endowment funds precisely in accordance with the original intentions. Where the money cannot be used for the upkeep of these cemeteries the most equitable course, subject to the express wish of any individual who has endowed a grave located in a closed cemetery to have a local record of the grave maintained, will probably be found to lie in its use for the assistance of the Churches in the maintenance of the open cemeteries.

I trust that I have satisfactorily explained to Your Lordships the decisions reached in this important matter. It has not, of course, been possible in a brief statement such as this to cover all the points that arise, but on one specific matter of wide interest I should add that war graves continue, as in the past, to be the responsibility of the Imperial War Graves Commission.