Proposed heritage list has 145-year-old Sewree Cemetery

Plans to list the Sewree Christian Cemetery as a heritage precinct under municipal laws have excited church history enthusiasts. The municipal corporation’s latest heritage list proposes to grade the 35-acre cemetery, established in 1867, as II-B precinct, which will give it protection from changes in its layout and usage laws.

The vast and undulating wooded grounds of the cemetery is the largest Christian burial ground in Asia.

Historian and archivist Benjamin Nasib, whose 1995 study on the cemetery was published in the Indian Church History Review, a journal brought out by church history buffs, said the burial ground was originally a horticultural garden. After a petition from the Anglican, Scottish and Roman Catholic Churches for a large cemetery, the botanical park was shifted to Byculla to make way for a burial ground. 

The cemetery’s famous graves include that of FW Stevens, the architect of Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus.

Scattered across the various terraces are graves of people who died in the 1944 dock explosion, epidemics and attacks by wild animals. Prominent members of the Christian community associated with the nationalist struggle, including Kaka Baptista, too are buried here. In one corner of the ground is a monument to Italian prisoners of war who died in Mumbai during World War II.

Across the world, historic cemeteries are finding a place in the itinerary of tourists. An international news magazine’s recent listing of attractions in the world’s great cities included Rome’s Non-Catholic Cemetery where poets Shelley and Keats and buried, and Buenos Aires’s Chacarita Cemetery, which is the resting place of poets, painters and tango composers.  The Sewree cemetery, too, gets visitors, especially those on a mission to trace graves of ancestors.

Rev. Graham Engineer, a former member of the Sewree Cemetery trust, said the burial ground is important to the Anglican Church as many missionaries and educators sent by the church are buried here.

“I was surprised when we had visitors from the UK, Canada, the US and Australia. We have meticulously maintained records of burials and if the visitors have the names and probable dates of burial, we can track down the graves they are looking for,” said Engineer.  

Church members welcomed the move. “We have already lost a fourth of the cemetery’s original acreage to encroachments. Protection under heritage rules will thwart any attempts to grab cemetery land,” said Engineer. Cyril Dara, a lawyer who heads a group that seeks to protect church properties from destruction, said the proposed heritage list includes several churches.