Foreigners express resentment at the condition of Dharamsala church and cemetery

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HimVani Dharamshala: Situated in Dhramashala Cant, the church of St. John, and the cemetery adjoining it, which are more than 150 years old and a must visit for foreigners, are in a very bad condition. On their third visit to Dharamsala, Leon & Phiona, a married couple from Glasgow met HimVani and strongly voiced their concern about this cathedral.

According to Phiona, “The church is a heritage site and must be properly looked after as it is known worldwide for its architecture style and, moreover,  is a memorial for Lord Elgin, (the British viceroy of India). But look at broken beer bottles all around and garbage littered everywhere. The cemetery seems like heaven for trespassers, who for their greed have not even spared the dead as many graves have been broken and their marble stolen. What is the government doing as there is not even a fence around the cemetery,”   Leon complained.

Well, even after being registered in the category of protected monuments where defacing, trespassing is strictly prohibited, it looks like nothing seems to work.  While the government has from time to time announced grand plans to preserve and promote British churches and cemeteries as tourist places, it is now quite clear that on ground not even a simple fence has come up.

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4 COMMENTS

  1. This was the church site where Lord Elgin was buried.  Brits were trying to take his remains back to Britain for burial there, I have no idea, what took place. Of course, we use to visit the place,every time we visited Bhagsu Nath. That was in the sixties and seventies,but that time still the church was in appropriate shape  as per the time.

  2. If Brits are so interested then they can come and maintain it by themselves. Do they maintain any temple or mosques in their countries, it’s all maintained by the followers. Their government never spends a single penny on anything other than their own culture, religion. They don’t even celebrate anyone else’s festivals and dont even give them public holidays. Hypocrisy at its best by yet another european!

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