Grain or graves?

By Liang Chen Source:Global Times Published: 2013-3-18 20:28:01

 

Villagers have rebuilt demolished graves after a policy U-turn by the State Council. Photo: CFP
Villagers have rebuilt demolished graves after a policy U-turn by the State Council. Photo: CFP



Editor's Note:

The story Bringing back the dead appeared in the Global Times on March 12. It was about local villagers in Zhoukou, Henan Province, who rebuilt ancestral graves during the Spring Festival holiday after the local government initiated a controversial campaign to forcibly level them in February last year.

The story:

Daliu village, administered by Shangshui county, had been praised by local government officials for having an "excellent performance in the grave-leveling campaign."

Despite this status, villagers said it was not easy for them to erase the dreadful memories left by leveling the graves.

The story deals with how they felt about the campaign and the villagers who rebuilt the ancestral graves.

Back story:

The contradiction between available land and population has always been a crucial problem in heavily populated China. Reclaiming cultivated land seems to be an unavoidable choice for central and local governments.

In the city of Zhoukou, Henan Province, the local government initiated a campaign to level numerous graves and relocate them in public cemeteries in February last year, in a bid to reclaim farmland and maintain grain production levels.

However, the campaign came to a bizarre end after several villagers rebuilt the tombs during the Spring Festival holidays after the State Council banned all such actions.

At least 100,000 tombs were rebuilt during the Spring Festival, making up 7.7 percent of those that had been leveled, according to official statistics from the Zhoukou Civil Affairs Bureau.

Officials complained to the Global Times that the backlash has made it difficult for them to carry out funeral and burial reforms in the long term.

Zhoukou has always been a major supplier of grain, accounting for one-seventh of the provincial total, official statistics showed. 

The local government said that maintaining grain production is their top priority.

Daliu was the village chosen to initiate the campaign. Guo Kui, the village's party secretary, took the lead by leveling his ancestors' graves.

Guo said that in November 2011, a provincial-level official visited his village and asked about the possibility of leveling the graves to reclaim farmland. Officials traveling with him said the proposal was feasible.

After that, the campaign was rolled out across the city.

Although the government said they had solicited public opinion, the process seemed little more than a formality.

Liu Sanyang, a villager from Daliu, said his father was asked to sign a consent form before the tomb removal, but "nobody dared not to sign it, because we were afraid of retribution from village officials."

  "Village officials warned us that tombs would be removed with bulldozers and we would not get the 200 yuan compensation for each grave if we didn't remove them ourselves," Liu told the Global Times.

Villagers said many of the graves were rebuilt after the State Council called off the campaign.

A majority of the villagers interviewed by the Global Times said they might rebuild the graves on Tomb Sweeping Day, and that even though it is sowing season, they won't plant any grain on land where graves were once located.

"If I planted wheat on it, I would not be able to find its original location. Where could I burn offerings and commemorate my ancestors?" a villager from Daliu, who asked not to be named, told the Global Times.

It is not difficult to make out the original locations of the graves, even though some villagers have already planted wheat on them. Most of the villagers were unwilling to remove the graves entirely.

  "Most of us leveled the graves to 20 to 30 centimeters off the ground so that we can find the original locations for the graves and commemorate our deceased family members there," Zhang Zhenhua, a villager in Taikang county, told the Global Times.

Last November, more than 300 scholars, experts, journalists and businessmen signed an online letter lambasting the local government for carrying out the tomb relocation "forcefully" and going against Chinese culture.

In response, the State Council amended the regulation on the funeral and burial system late last November, banning local governments from leveling graves.

However, the trauma for those affected lingers on.

 Some villagers complained that their relatives who worked in big cities did not return to their hometowns during the Spring Festival holiday after they found out the tombs had been demolished.

  Others pointed out that while they don't oppose leveling the graves, the government should have taken people's feelings into account.

"At the very least, the government should have built public cemeteries before leveling the tombs," Feng Zhenguo, a villager from Daliu, told the Global Times.

Daliu did not have a public cemetery until late last year, while many other villages had not even built cemeteries by the time this story went to press.

"We admit that we dealt with the problem forcibly and enforced the law brutally in some individual villages, and we should have built public cemeteries and other facilities before starting our work," Gong Changlin, deputy director of the Zhoukou Civil Affairs Bureau, told the Global Times.

The argument for leveling the tombs is not without merit. Villagers say the cost of employing a harvester could be doubled if there are graves on the farmland.

At the same time, the campaign did reclaim over 3 million hectares of farmland, according to official statistics.

During my visit to some villages in Taikang and Shangshui county, I was astonished to find the extent to which residents lacked information.

In many villages, people approached by the Global Times were entirely unaware of the policy on leveling graves. Some simply asked, "What is the central government's policy now?"

To tackle the problem, Gong said, the local government has deployed officials to spread information on policies regarding funeral and burial reform.

Gong also pledged that the local government would no longer forcibly level graves.



Posted in: Metro Beijing

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