Cultural and political importance of burying dead bodies

Why is the exchange of dead bodies between Israel and Hamas important? Why did the US give Osama bin Laden a sea burial?

Though people, in general, conceive of death as something that that leads to a sort of finality and closure, in actuality that is not so. Dead bodies (corpses) have tremendous power and do purport an immense amount of significance in the realm and lives of those who are associated with them in different ways.

The foregoing is true in the context of those who mark the burials with mausoleums, catacombs or graves. This brings to mind an interesting book — Death and the Regeneration of Life edited by anthropologists Maurice Bloch and Jonathan Parry, while they were faculty at the London School of Economics. As the title of the book implies, death need not be the be-all and end-all of everything, and that includes life itself: it directs us to the ‘Regeneration of Life’, after death.

The exchange of the tranche of dead bodies of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners between Hamas and Israel ever since the October 7, 2023, attack shows us the significance of the dead and how crucial a corpse can be. In fact, a very small number of corpses of Israeli hostages have been exchanged for relatively many more Palestinian prisoners!

A culture of sepulchre

If the regeneration of life of the dead was not in the realm of possibility, as Bloch and Parry contend, former United States President Barack Obama would not have ordered a ‘sea burial’ in the Arabian Sea for Osama bin Laden, in  2011. The US is supposed to have considered ‘political, religious, and practical factors’ as regards the disposal of bin Laden’s corpse.

Obama did not want bin Laden’s physical grave to become a shrine for his followers. The assumption was that if the physical remains were handed over to his near or dear ones, the latter would construct an ossuary for him, and that would, in turn, give rise to a memorial for his followers to establish a culture of sepulchre. Establishing a followers’ base for bin Laden would have been not only disturbing to many sections but would indeed be galling too, particularly for the US and its allies.

Now, Israel may have different ideas as to how to deal with the corpses, but the fact that corpses of Israeli hostages have been swapped for living Palestinian prisoners signifies the significance that is attached to the dead.

On its part, Hamas knew all along that holding on to corpses gave it a vital upper hand and would work to its boundless advantage when the question of seeking the release of Palestinian prisoners apprehended and incarcerated by Israel came up; which question arose during negotiations between Hamas and Israel. It is also pertinent to note that it was not just the Israeli dead that Hamas was harbouring; they have also been burdened with over 50,000 of their own dead Palestinians!

What emerges from the above is that there is significant import and power even in death, and a corpse does count for a lot per se — not just in symbolic and virtual terms. The import and power of the corpse has been ubiquitous and evident all throughout history; this is evident from the multifarious ways the dead and their mortal remains have been treated, and the funerary ceremonies and rituals associated with death conducted, as laid bare through the understanding of the excavations going back centuries.

It is plain that following death, certain crucial observances are deemed necessary in order to conceive and concede that there indeed has been a closure, and a sort of finality achieved, to what brings a person to breath their last. It is not just the funerary rituals that vary as regards the last rites, but also the way how and where the body is to be disposed. So, universally, we come across regional, religious, ethnic, and also genderised diversity as regards the obsequies and the way a corpse is disposed. In a way, the proper conduct of funerary rites seems to imply that the body would surely be ‘laid to rest’ as per the socio-cultural and religious norms specific to that society. Deviance in any form from the expected obsequies is highly disturbing to the societies concerned.

Death of an emigrant

Another milieu in which the corpse assumes a significant role is in the realm of the emigrants; particularly in the context of international migrations. While carrying out anthropological fieldwork and researching among south Asians in the United Kingdom, the US, and France, this author came across a kind of pattern as regards the burials of the dead of the kin of the migrants.

In the initial stages, when there are, in general, largely single male migrants and who mostly return after a while to the country of their origin, and their brother or another kin replaces them, invariably great efforts are made to send the corpses back to their native places. Gradually, when family formation comes about, and there is spread of their kindred (Biraderi) in the places of their destination, and a sort of settlement comes about, the dead are buried locally.

So, what comes about is that the dead are not to be left alone, as would happen in the earlier situation. But once the migrants realise that they have eventually come to stay on, as permanent or long-time residents or citizens, they bury the dead ‘among’ them.

However, when we look at the Gulf Cooperation Council countries where it still is largely the situation of male migrants and the chances of family formation are very low, and almost no chance of gaining citizenship, the bodies are invariably sent back home.

As elucidated elsewhere by this author, “[Q]uite frequently we come across people expressing a desire to die and be buried in their place of birth. On many an occasion respondent has expressed a deep sense of fear about dying in an alien area. They are concerned not necessarily with death itself but with what would happen if they died in strange surroundings, for a corpse has to be attended by kith and kin, and certain rituals must be performed before as well as after burial/cremation…. Inherent in this expression is the thought that one in death wishes to be with his kith and kin not only in life but also in death. Quite often respondents express the desire that there should be someone to cry when they die” (‘Moorings and Mobility in an Indian Context: An Anthropological Perspective’ in Peasant Moorings: Village ties and Mobility Rationales in South India).

Finally, going by the agitation pertaining to the more than 300-year-old grave of Muhi-ud-Din Muhammad (Aurangzeb), Obama would indeed be chuckling and feeling vindicated that he ordered a sea burial for bin Laden.

(M A Kalam, a social anthropologist, is visiting professor, The International Institute of Migration and Development, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.