Where shall we bury our beloved?

BURIALS and cremations are private affairs where family members and friends of the deceased gather to intern a beloved person. They are embedded in religious practices, traditions and norms wherein the internment or cremation of a deceased is seen as a sacred duty.

- DR ISMAIL VADI

In Lenasia as elsewhere in South Africa, while the sacred dominated the burial of deceased persons within families, it was overshadowed by the racial policies of successive white governments.

Since 1950, due to the racialised nature of human settlements in Johannesburg under apartheid, burials of persons from different racial groups took place in racially-designated cemeteries. This became the norm particularly after the passing of the Group Areas Act.

Added to this is the demarcation of cemeteries into different sections based on religious identity.

Prior to the introduction of apartheid policy in 1948, residents living in Johannesburg and surrounds, including Indians, buried their deceased in different sections of the Braamfontein, Roodepoort, Newclare and Kliptown cemeteries.

These cemeteries had developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, after the discovery of gold on the Reef, and consequent influx of miners and speculators into the fast-growing tent-town that Johannesburg had become.

Before that burials were on privately-owned farms such as Alberts Farm, Bezuidenhout Valley and Klipriviersberg. Other private cemeteries also arose under the control of churches, hospitals and mines. Historically, cremations were done at the Hindu Crematorium in Brixton in Johannesburg, which is on the doorstep of Vrededorp.

This was established in 1918, due to the campaign for a crematorium by the Transvaal Indian Congress and Tamil Benefit Society leader, Thambi Naidoo, who incidentally is the grandfather of veteran Lenasia ANC leader, Prema Naidoo. This was a wood-burning crematorium, which is now declared a national monument. In 1956, a gas-fired crematorium was built alongside the old crematorium and its chapel, which is still used presently.

The Muslim section of the cemetery is located a few kilometres away at the Braamfontein Cemetery, opposite the University of the Witwatersrand.