CHENNAI: Tourists visiting Tamil Nadu will soon have more places to see than the usual spiritual, heritage and salubrious spots. In an ambitious plan, the Tamil Nadu Tourism Development Corporation has proposed to introduce Dark Tourism in the state by showcasing colonial cemeteries, packed with history.
Dark Tourism is a fast emerging area of special interest in tourism all over the world and involves visits to historic sites that invoke memories of battles or horrific crimes or instances of genocide. Some of the popular sites in the world are Ground Zero in New York, the Nazi extermination camp in Auschwitz and the Dakota apartment building outside of which John Lennon was killed.
“In our State, we have identified cemeteries built during the colonial period as examples of dark tourism,” A Chittaranjan Mohandoss, Director of Tourism and Managing Director of TTDC told Express. He said, “Cemeteries are important places, where tales of yesteryears could be traced. Tourists would be taken to various cemeteries to help them gain an insight into historical events.”
Among TTDC’s chosen spots are St Peter’s graveyard in Thanjavur, Christ Church cemetery in Kumbakonam, Dutch graveyard in Tarangambadi, graveyard of CSI Peter’s Church in Nagapattinam, Christ Church and graveyard in Anaikadu village near Pattukottai, the Madras War Cemetery and Cathedral Church in Chennai and few graveyards in Vellore Fort , Madurai, Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi.
“Interestingly,” Mohandoss said, “the cemetery of British Collector Jackson, who fought against chieftain of Panchalankurichi, Veera Pandiya Kattabomman, for refusing to pay tax to the British East India Company is situated in West Perumal Maistry Street in Madurai.”
Though dark tourism has not gained popularity in India, it has been successfully experimented in Haryana as it was the theatre for the Kurukshetra war.
Tales the cemeteries tell
Madras War Cemetery,
Nandambakkam, Chennai
The ‘Madras 1914-1918 memorial’, bearing the names of more than 1,000 soldiers who died in the First World War, lies at the back of the Madras War Cemetery, spreading across 2.85 acres. It has 856 graves of soldiers, sailors and airmen from various countries, who died in India en route to the different theatres of the World War II.
C Venkatesan, former Emeritus Professor in the Department of Indian History, the University of Madras, however, clarified that cemeteries and memorials in Chennai were different from those in France and Belgium. Venkatesan said that unlike France and Belgium, where soldiers fell in battle fields, South India did not witness any war. So graves and memorials are of those who served in garrisons.
According to him, India was a transit point for the forces and many died here due to natural causes or injuries sustained in battle fields elsewhere. “ As these servicemen, who came to fight the war were stationed in different parts of the then Madras province, their mortal remains were brought to Chennai,” he said.
One could find Islamic religious symbols on the tombstones of Muslim warriors at the Madras War Cemetery, Venkatesan said and added that the stones were uniform in size and design and demonstrate the principle that all those who died in war lay down their lives for the same cause.
Glorinda Church Cemetery, Palayamkottai
Glorinda Church Cemetery in Palayamkottai has the grave of the British district collector C H Ashe, assassinated by Vanchinathan in 1911 at the Maniyachi railway station.
Vanchinathan, who participated in the freedom movement was trained by V V S Aiyar, who at that time had sought refuge in French Pondicherry. Vanchinathan was peeved by the collector’s interference in the local affairs. Ashe expressed his dismay over people of a dominant caste refusing to let a pregnant woman, belonging to a lower caste, being taken through their street for medical treatment, said Josephine Jeyashanthi, Professor in the Department of Tamil, Loyola College.
“The Glorinda Church Cemetery also has the cemetery of Sybil Florence, Ashe’s wife, who died on February 19, 1920,” she said and added that it derived its name from a woman called Glorinda, whose grave was nearby.
According to Jeyashanthi, when a 19-year-old girl, of an upper caste was forced to commit Sati, she tried to escape and a British soldier on horseback rescued her. Thereafter, the soldier taught her English and both of them married. She was given the name Glorinda and the couple were involved in social service.
Jackson Cemetery, Madurai
Kayathar in Thoothukudi district, where Veera Pandiya Kattabomman was hung from a tamarind tree in 1799, is a popular site as the government has already installed his statue at the spot.
Has TTDC missed out some?
Apart from the Madras War Cemetery in Nandambakkam, Chennai has two similar cemeteries. “The St Mary’s Church Cemetery and St Patrick’s Cemetery are equally important from a historical perspective,” said Venkatesan. The St Mary’s Cemetery near the Central railway station is at the end of a civilian cemetery and has graves of men and women of the days of the British East India Company, who came to Indian.
On the significance of St Mary’s Church cemetery, Venkatesan said: “It is a cemetery within a cemetery.”
The St Patricks Cemetery, situated adjacent to the recently demolished Central Prison, also has graves of about a dozen persons killed in war.
Dutch Cemetery, Pulicat
Another historic spot that has not been included by TTDC in its Dark Tourism package is in Pulicat, a fishing hamlet about 50km from Chennai. It is a window to the Dutch settlement in India. “Perhaps, it has south India’s biggest cemetery built by the Dutch,” said Jeyashanthi, who was part of the team that shot a documentary on Pulicat.
“The cemetery is an amazing place that can throw light on the history of Dutch colonial era in India. The place was ruled by Cholas between the fifth and 13 century, followed by Portuguese, Dutch and British,” she pointed out.
Famous grief spots
Yogesh Kabirdoss
‘Ground Zero’ in America, marking the collapse of the twin towers, has become an essential part of the ever expanding dark tourism sector. US relaxed its travel norms after the 9/11 attacks, visitors poured in at the Ground Zero to capture the smoking remains of the WTC.
Auschwitz in Poland was listed a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979; it’s mandatory for all German schoolchildren to visit during their education and it’s virtually an Israeli right-of-passage to visit this Nazi extermination camp. The Killing Fields of Pol Pot’s genocidal regime in Cambodia are drawing more and more tourists and Hiroshima in Japan (where the Allies dropped the atomic bomb that ended World War II in the east) is also on the tourist trail.
Within the United States itself there are already several tourist destinations defined by tragedy. The Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas’ former Texas Book Repository is one such place. It opened 26 years after gunman Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy from a sixth-floor window there — it has since become the city’s biggest attraction, with 450,000 people a year. Ford’s Theater, where President Lincoln was assassinated, the museum in the Lorraine Motel in Memphis where Dr Martin Luther King was shot and Pearl Harbour are all historic memorial sites.
The Dakota apartment building outside of which John Lennon, probably the world’s most famous rock star, was shot dead, and Strawberry Fields the memorial in Central Park just across the street that’s named after the Beatles classic Strawberry Fields Forever.
The prison of Alcatraz, located in the middle of San Francisco Bay in California, continues to rank among the most popular tourist destinations in the US.
Established by Napoleon in 1804, the Pere-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris where Balzac and Proust, and other French intellectuals, artists and leaders lie. But it’s Jim Morrison’s grave that draws the craziest fans and that needs a full time guard.
San Vicente Cemetery at 4,500m above sea level for the love of Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid. Though mind you, there are no graves there.
There are plenty of dark tourism sites to visit in the war-torn Baltics. In Tallinn there is Patarei prison, a former KGB detention center. The prison closed its doors in 2002 and has now been turned into a museum.
Alternatively, Estonia has the Vaivara camp in Northeast Estonia, which has become a popular tourist attraction. Established in 1943, this served as a prisoner of war camp. As with many of camps, the evidence of horrifying times can still be seen here.