Another Man's War
Page 17
The British watched the Japanese progress with a rising sense of panic, but there were many other groups in Burma who shared their fears. Burma was a diverse and fractured country, and the apparent sudden end of British rule evoked varied reactions among different peoples. When the British drew up Burma’s borders in the nineteenth century, their primary concern was to keep out the French and Chinese, not to define the boundaries of a viable nation-state. The majority ethnic Bamar, also known as the Burmans, were concentrated in the central plain of the Irrawaddy River.* But around this fertile and flat land was a horseshoe of mountains inhabited by the Karens in the east, the Shans in the north-east, the Kachins in the north, the Chins in the west and a myriad of smaller groups, many speaking mutually unintelligible languages. Under the British, these minorities enjoyed autonomy. They had willingly provided many of the recruits for a colonial army and police force. Christian missionaries, who struggled to make inroads with the devoutly Buddhist Bamar, had more success in the hills and mountains, finding converts among the Karens, Kachins and Chins. The minorities came to feel they had a vested interest in British rule, and some were prepared to fight to defend it. The Bamar, in contrast, felt the humiliation of colonial subjugation far more acutely. It was their kingdom that had been overthrown by the British, and it was primarily they who in 1942 rallied to Aung San’s cause. As the Burma Independence Army advanced with the Japanese, there were attacks and massacres of Karen villages, reinforcing the impression that this was as much an ethnic Bamar militia as a nationalist army.
There was another important group that feared a victory for Japan and Aung San’s army. One of the defining characteristics of the decades of British rule in Burma had been a huge influx of immigrants from India; by 1942, they numbered more than one million. The Indians, with their understanding of both the English language and British administration, were better placed than most Burmese to take advantage of the opportunities offered by colonial rule. Alongside the minorities from the hills, they formed the bulk of Burma’s pre-war army. Many of the Indian and Gurkha troops were, in fact, descendants of soldiers who had originally conquered Burma under British command during the nineteenth century. Indians also dominated other parts of the public services: the railways, post office, prisons, police and so on. In Rangoon, where Indians outnumbered Burmese by a ratio of almost two to one,* Indian landlords owned much of the property and Indian shopkeepers and traders controlled commerce.* Burmese living in Rangoon were advised to learn not only English, but also Hindi, if they wanted to advance their careers.* There were also many Indian labourers, or ‘coolies’, doing manual work for pitiful wages, and, if successful Indians were resented for their wealth and influence, the coolies were despised for their poverty. Just like in East and South Africa, the Indians in Burma were the unassimilated middlemen of Empire, with their own distinctive languages, castes and religion.
During the economic downturn of the 1930s, the already strained relations between the Indian migrants and the Bamar took a marked turn for the worse. The farmers who had borrowed heavily from Indian moneylenders, the so-called chettiars, sank into debt when the price of rice plummeted during the Depression. When these farmers defaulted, as eventually many did, their land passed into Indian hands. Most of the soldiers who put down the Saya San rebellion were Indians. There were anti-Indian and anti-Muslim riots in 1930 and 1938, and, as the British retreated ahead of the Japanese in 1942, there were more attacks on the Indian community.
Some Indians were nationalists themselves, eager to see the end of the British Raj, but, as the Japanese and the Burma Independence Army closed in on Rangoon, fear spread through the entire community. The wealthiest were able to pay for passage out by sea, but the majority set off for the Indian border on foot, abandoning almost everything they owned. The Indians looked to the British Army for protection, only to find that the British were more intent on ensuring the success of their own retreat and would limit the numbers of refugees allowed on the roads. Tens of thousands of Indians died of starvation and disease on that journey; an estimated two hundred thousand eventually staggered over the mountains to Bengal and Assam.*
In the pre-war years, the Arakan, behind the barrier of the Yomas Mountains, was something of an irrelevance to Burma’s British rulers. Burma’s most valuable products – rice, teak and oil – came from the centre of the country or the Irrawaddy Delta, and were exported through Rangoon.
An indigenous Muslim minority, Indian in appearance, had lived in the Arakan for centuries. But, during the more than one hundred years of British rule, Indians had also emigrated from the Chittagong region of neighbouring Bengal. The Arakan appeared to enjoy stronger ties with India than it did with the rest of Burma, according to one British soldier who visited in the 1920s. ‘Akyab reads Indian and not Burmese newspapers,’ he observed. ‘It has four mails a week from Calcutta and only one from Burma.’ In Akyab, prosperous Indian traders had built elegant houses. As a result of all this activity, the Arakanese Buddhists were growing ‘apprehensive about the steady invasion of their country by hordes of Chittagonians’, he wrote.* The impending collapse of British rule offered the majority Arakanese Buddhists a chance to reassert their supremacy. Sectarian rivalry swiftly descended into bloody conflict.
Even before Japanese soldiers entered Akyab on 24 May 1942, Arakanese Buddhist gangs, some loosely affiliated with the Burma Independence Army, were plundering and murdering their way through Muslim villages, before setting them on fire. The Muslims retaliated in the northern part of the Arakan, destroying Buddhist pagodas and monasteries and carrying out massacres of their own. Anthony Irwin described the conflict in chilling terms: ‘Whilst it lasted it was a pretty bloody affair. Where the Maugh [as the British called the Arakanese Buddhists] predominated whole villages of Muslims were put to the sword, and vice versa. My present gun-boy, a Mussulman who lived near to Buthjedaung, claims to have killed two hundred Maughs. For weapons they used a great two-handed Dahs, with a blade in some cases four feet long.’* There was panic in both the Buddhist and the Muslim communities, and refugees fled in opposite directions. Muslims consolidated in the north of the Arakan, and Buddhists in the south. Irwin’s V-Force, operating close to the Indian border, relied on Muslim support. ‘If they see a British soldier lying wounded and lost in the jungle they will get him in somehow. If they see a Jap body, they will cut off the head and proudly bring it to me, demanding Backsheesh,’ he wrote.*
The Muslims around Kyauktaw fared particularly badly during the turmoil of 1942. ‘A considerable number were massacred…and by the end of the year only a few thousand were left out of an estimated 40,000,’ according to a British official.* In January 1943, the British briefly recaptured Kyauktaw, during their first and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to retake the Arakan. Their advance set off a renewed wave of ethnic and religious violence around the town, which was now on a lethal fault-line between predominantly Muslim and Buddhist areas. A British official wrote that ‘large numbers of Mohamedans bent on loot and revenge followed in the wake of our troops as they re-entered Buddhist territory’.* One informer for the British wrote a vivid report of the triumphant mood among the Muslim militias at this time. They took khistis and sampans by force from the Buddhists, and ‘related lively stories of their adventures to the admiring crowds of Muslims who received them wherever they went’.* By February, the British military commanders in Kyauktaw were strongly advising their superiors that a battalion should be stationed there, specifically to keep the peace between Buddhists and Muslims. In the event, the British would soon be withdrawing. But nobody in the Arakan, and nobody around Kyauktaw specifically, could forget what had happened, and the tensions were still very much alive by the time the West Africans arrived the following year.
This explains why the Muslims were so pro-British. It also explains why many Arakanese Buddhists supported the Japanese – at least until the tide of the war turned. Isaac and David’s great piece of luck, if that’s what it can be
called, was to have been shot and nearly killed next to Mairong, a village of Muslims who identified with the British cause – and were more than ready and willing to help them. For instance, on 2 March 1944, the same day as the attack on the 29th CCS, the civilian affairs officer with the 81st Division, a Major P. Burnside, wrote to his superiors: ‘the Indians in the Kaladan have had a bad time and another lot of them around the mouth of the Pi Chaung were slaughtered after we evacuated in 1943!…Their cattle have been stolen and they have had to pay ransom. They are very glad to see us back but are still not sure that we are here for keeps.’* If David and Isaac had been lying injured by a Buddhist village a few miles up- or downstream, they would probably have been turned over to the Japanese, or perhaps abandoned to a slow death in the jungle.
Isaac and David had the nous to further strengthen their bond with Shuyiman and his friends and family by pretending to be Muslim.* It’s difficult to know how important this white lie was in motivating the villagers to help the injured soldiers. British and New Zealand pilots who were shot down or crash-landed behind enemy lines elsewhere in the Arakan left accounts of how Muslim families went to great lengths to conceal and protect them, despite the risks of reprisals from the Japanese.* But the communal violence in the Arakan would have created a heightened sense of religious solidarity, which Isaac and David used to their advantage.
The Japanese did fulfil their promise and granted independence to Burma in August 1943. The ceremony in Rangoon was grand, and the leader of the government, Ba Maw, dressed up in elaborate silks and gave himself the title of Adipadi, ‘He Who Stands First’. Aung San was named his deputy, and the Burma Independence Army became the Burma National Army. But it was all something of a sham, a puppet independence recognised only by Japan and its Axis allies. Real power in Burma remained with the Japanese military, and their priority was the increasingly difficult task of winning the war.
The independence ceremony had produced a flush of patriotic pride, but Burmese dissatisfaction with their new Japanese rulers soon turned into a burning hatred. Khin Myo Chit, a young Burmese intellectual who had been a fierce opponent of British rule, wrote an extraordinary account of life under the Japanese. In it, she recounted innumerable instances of cruelty and torture, saying, ‘I am glad for the people who died somewhere before 1942, for they never knew what Japanese rule was like.’* Most feared of all were the Kempeitai, the Japanese military police. People who lived next to the Kempeitai headquarters in Rangoon would ‘shudder as they relate the shrieks and howls which it was their misfortune to hear every night – shrieks of mortal fright and howls of deadly pain and agony’. And, although the Japanese spoke of pan-Asian solidarity, they showed little respect for native Burmese culture. In particular, the Burmese resented the Japanese practice of face-slapping anyone suspected of disobedience. ‘This was regarded by the Burmese people as the greatest humiliation of their lives,’ wrote Khin Myo Chit, who blamed the Japanese for ‘a crass ignorance…for which they were soon to pay dearly’.*
The economic situation, which had already grown precarious in 1943, worsened in 1944. Japanese soldiers seized whatever food they needed, and forced young Burmese men to build their roads, bridges and railways. Burmese women, desperate for food and clothes, sold themselves to Japanese soldiers. People began to say that ‘the British sucked Burman blood but the Japanese went to the marrow of the bone’.*
In the Arakan, the Japanese commandeered canoes and boats, depriving local people of their means of transport – indeed, in many cases, their means of making a living. An agent working for the British in the Arakan in early 1944 painted a bleak picture of life in the villages around Kyauktaw.
The people here are very poor. They are in rags as they have had no clothing to purchase since 1942. There is no salt, matches, cooking oil and ngapi [fish paste]. Cattle have died in numbers due to Rinderpest and the shortage of bullock power has made rice cultivation impossible. They have just enough rice to live on as the Japs have taken away all their rice, poultry, pigs, cattle etc. They live on the land and the villagers are forced to give them all their requirements. The people are suffering from small-pox, skin diseases and malaria as there are no medical aid since the Japs came in. There is poverty and distress all over and the people are praying that the English may take over the place soon.*
The agent was no doubt writing what his British masters wanted to read, but his account was consistent with many others at that time. It was into this situation that the West Africans made their advance down the Kaladan Valley.
The relationship between the Japanese army and Aung San’s Burma National Army was also deteriorating. Burmese soldiers in training camps complained that their Japanese instructors were sadistic. When Japanese soldiers inevitably slapped Burmese recruits during their training, clashes broke out around the barracks.
The British disparagingly referred to the Burma National Army as the ‘Burma Traitor Army’. In fact, Aung San was secretly developing plans to turn against the Japanese. By late 1944, when Isaac and David were still in hiding, British intelligence officers were in contact with Aung San, but urged him to bide his time. He did, and it wasn’t until March 1945 that his soldiers suddenly attacked Japanese positions in the countryside near Rangoon. Overnight, in British military communiqués the Burma Traitor Army became the Patriotic Burmese Forces! Aung San’s Burmese soldiers would fight against the Japanese for the remaining months of the war, stressing their independence from British forces through every battle they waged.
In the Arakan, the local militia that was affiliated with Aung San, known as the Arakanese Defence Army, ultimately swung round to the British side, as well. In May 1945, in the days after British soldiers had recaptured Rangoon, General Slim met Aung San for the first time. The two men got on rather well.
‘“Go on Aung San”’, wrote Slim in his memoir, with a famous account of their conversation, ‘“You only come to us because you see we are winning!” “It wouldn’t be much good coming to you if you weren’t, would it?” [Aung San] replied simply. I could not question the truth of this…I liked his honesty. In fact, I was beginning to like Aung San.’*
However, these changes in fortune were still many months away. For now, all that Isaac and David knew was that the war was getting closer – uncomfortably so. They could hear planes above the basha during the day, dropping their bombs and strafing targets in the hills around them. One explosion was so loud that the house shook. The planes had to be British, surely, as no one had seen or heard any sign of the Japanese air force for many months. Sometimes at nights they could hear the rapid fire of Bren machine guns, very different from the slow Japanese ‘woodpeckers’. It was impossible for them not to be a bit hopeful, even as the fighting seemed to be edging up to their doorstep. They noticed Shuyiman beaming with joy on some days; that had to be a good sign. His friends had started to bring presents of food to the house – plates of gurugusa and murgi curry – which were shared with Isaac and David.
One night when the moon was full, Isaac and David looked through the bamboo latticework and across the silver waters of the Kaladan. A large boat was drifting downstream, packed full of Japanese soldiers. The men seemed to be standing still, lifeless almost. The following night, they saw more boats, with more Japanese soldiers, heading in the same direction. The signs were unmistakable. The Japanese were pulling back from the Indian border, and towards Akyab. It was a silent retreat, carried out under cover of darkness because it had become too dangerous for the Japanese to use the river during daylight. Three or four days later, Isaac peered through a small gap in the bamboo wall, and saw more Japanese soldiers, this time walking down the path at the front of the house. He stood there, transfixed, as they passed by, just yards away. They were so close he could smell their sweat. There were perhaps a dozen, their rifles on their shoulders, and ammunition slung round their waists. Their steps were heavy, their eyes dull and their faces unshaven. They marched right through the village of Mairong, and t
hey never looked up.
Another week passed. The rice crop Shuyiman had planted when they were in the shelter was now ready for harvest, and he was working long days in the fields. He would bring Isaac and David cups of tea just before dawn, placing them silently by their mats, before heading out for the day. On this particular morning, the village was very quiet for some hours after Shuyiman had gone. It must have been about ten o’clock when Isaac and David heard the noise outside. It was a noise unlike any they knew. It sounded like people shouting, far off in the distance. They looked at each other in fear and moved back to the shadows at the far side of their room. But was that also cheering they could hear? Whatever the noise was, it was getting louder and louder, and it was coming in their direction. And then it was right outside the basha. Suddenly, someone threw open the blind.
Khatoun and Gulasha were standing in the doorway. Khatoun was laughing and praying and telling them to go outside, all at once. ‘Get out, get out!’ she said. Isaac was pinned to the far corner of the room, shielding his eyes from the bright sunshine. ‘Come out, why?’ he asked, even as she implored them to follow her. It made no sense, but they went anyway. David was first and Isaac crawled behind.
Outside, Isaac blinked and struggled to focus – he had not been in bright light like this for nine months. Nor had he seen so many people for a long time. For they were surrounded by a crowd, and now it wasn’t only Khatoun, but everybody in the village of Mairong who was laughing and praying. Gulasha was jumping up and down beside them. All these smiling faces, all these arms reaching out to touch and feel them. It seemed as though everyone had known in which house they’d been hiding all this time. After the months of darkness and whispers, of secrets and fear, David and Isaac were finally being welcomed into the village. And only then did they understand why.