More than sixty years after Partition, sealed borders and complicated visa procedures continue to separate thousands of families in India and Pakistan – even to impact the dead. Since the two countries tightened already-cumbersome visa procedures in the aftermath of the war of 1971, Pakistani Hindus have been unable to take the remains of loved ones for immersion in the Ganga at Haridwar. While it is true that, due to the peculiarities of Pakistani life and times, a majority of poor and lower-caste Hindus tend to bury their dead, a large proportion of the well-to-do continue to cremate. And while the ashes of many are distributed in the river Indus and the Arabian Sea, there are still those who insist on immersion in the holy Ganga; and hence, the families have been willing to hold the ashes until such time that the visa regime into India is loosened. For this reason, the ashes of 130 Sindhi Hindus have for decades sat in limbo in Karachi. Finally, in late June, some relief was offered, as the Indian government announced for the first time that Hindus in Karachi – but only Hindus in Karachi – will indeed be given visas to take the remains of their relatives across the border into India, where the last rites can be performed. While the announcement led to public celebrations in Karachi, Hindus throughout the rest of Pakistan are wondering what to make of the new 'breakthrough'.
Karachi today has the largest Hindu population in Pakistan, numbering some half-million. Alongside, it has confronted the most significant problems in terms of how to deal with remains of the faithful. Perhaps the most notable temporary resting places for these remains has been an old library, the Gujjar Hindu Community Library, in the area of Old Golimar; here, ashes sit in earthen pots tied with red-and-white cloth and flower wreaths dotted with kumkum powder. Lining old bookshelves, each urn includes a tag carrying various identification details in the relevant languages – Sindhi, Urdu, Hindi, English. Some ashes are stored under precarious conditions, in flour bags. Housing human remains instead of books, this unique catalogue room is located within the premises of a 150-year-old burial-and-cremation ground, traditionally belonging to the Gujjar Hindu community. Community members and families believe that if the urns are taken home, the souls would wander aimlessly.
The library itself was established in 1934 by the government of the Bombay Presidency (under which Sindh was then ruled), at a time when Sindhi Hindus constituted the majority population of Karachi. Following Partition, the library was closed for several years, and today nobody seems to know what happened to the collection. The huge cremation ground had been given for community use, and the local Hindus proceeded to build the library adjacent to it. (The cremation compound was eventually extended to include the library itself.) According to one elderly leader of the community leader, Hari Motwani, the library housed a huge collection of books on science, history, Hindu texts, as well as academic books for students. Eventually, the Hindus who remained in Karachi took over the space, using it much as it is used today: to store urns containing the ashes of their loved ones, as they wait to be allowed to immerse them in the Ganga.
The urns do not contain only the ashes of Hindus, however. Motwani, who spent much of his student life studying in the library, recalls seeing several British and other non-Hindus cremating their loved ones there. One was a certain Professor Iyer, a Christian college teacher in Sindh, who died in the US while visiting his son. Iyer's will specifically stipulated that his body be cremated, and his son ended up seeking special permission to have the body flown back to Karachi to do so. Murad Baloch, the 66-year-old Muslim caretaker of the cremation facility said that when he conducted a study of the urns he also found the ashes of a Chinese dentist, a Buddhist schoolteacher and a Japanese horse trainer, the latter having died in 1992 while travelling through Pakistan with a circus. With no family members having yet claimed their remains, their ashes remain at the converted library.