A partial view of the ‘European Civil Cemetery’ located in the present day Midland Colony, Kohima. (Morung Photo)
Morung Express News
Kohima | August 22
On August 17, the management of the ‘European Civil Cemetery’ located in the present day Midland Colony, Kohima published a notification asking families of those buried at the cemetery to exhume their remains before August 31, 2022.
“A Community Hall-cum-Parking facility is being proposed there. The names of all those buried there will later be inscribed on marble Panels inside the Community Hall,” the notification read.
While most Kohima citizens were unaware or had forgotten about the cemetery that houses about 40 graves, the notification stirred mixed emotions especially among family members of those buried there.
Among them, a person whose mother and grandfather were buried there in the 1970s shared that it felt ‘vile’ and strange to come back and identify graves.
The person who has since relocated out of Kohima reasoned that the move may have been taken by the appropriate authority, keeping in mind that land is becoming scarcer, and that development which is bound to happen is inevitable.
Another person said it was in the 1980s that his grandmother was buried in the same place. “It is such a short notice for all of us who have our family members buried there and is not a easy task to dig graves and relocate,” he expressed.
He said that the place was dear to the hearts of many people. “To just bulldoze them away because of the exigency of space would be an act completely contrary to our beliefs and culture,” he opined.
When The Morung Express visited the graveyard on Monday, only one grave had been exhumed. Most of the graves bear fading inscriptions while some are just concrete headstones and structures spread across and area measuring approximately 120x45 in dimension.
The boundary of the graveyard is surrounded by a concrete fence and residents near the area are utilizing spaces to grow vegetables, indicating that it is no longer being maintained.
While the last date of burials could not be ascertained, the cemetery is believed to date back to the 1930s when the British were headquartered in Kohima. The remains of many early British frontier administrators, officers, missionaries, travellers, soldiers and prominent citizens of the past are said to rest there, as per unconfirmed local accounts.
According to a member of the management, the last burial had taken place in 1985-86. He added that a register of all those who have been buried in the cemetery since the 1950s have also been maintained.
The member informed that the cemetery was, “earlier maintained by the British High Commission from funds provided by some European relatives but thus stopped in 1990.”
Owing to such turn of events, the present site has been explored for further development where a multipurpose building will be undertaken by the Kohima Smart City Development Limited (KSCDL), he said.
In this connection, the Chief Executive Officer, KSCDL Er Kezha Theunuo said most of the graves were of “unknown people,” and the gravesite was no longer in use.
Theunuo said the graveyard would not be removed but will be levelled, and the Community Hall-cum-Parking facility would be constructed above it. The project would have a parking space on the ground floor, commercial space on the first floor and a Community Hall on the third, he said.
