I was just walking through some documents I had saved over the years, when it struck me that there has been very little new research work or relook into the history of the hill states. One particular format has been the examination of oral ballads, very few of which seem to be available in popular culture today. However, that was certainly not the case in the British era, when much field work seems to have been done by scholars of Europe on the subject, as they panned across the state of the Lahore kingdom and their adjunct territories. Sirmour was a Small Princely state along the Yamuna river's course While their purpose may have been malevolent in nature, many interesting insights got captured over the course of their work, and replication or improvement on the same seems to be rather scarce, especially in the context of what the European scholars used to call the "Punjab Hill States". One such case was on Sirmour, where very little information can be found in the publi...
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| Sri Kali Hindu Temple in Yangon. It was built by Tamil migrants whilst Burma was part of British India. |
The actions against Indians in Myanmar remains a blind spot in our history and neglect towards Indians. Indians, who were derogatorily called 'kalas' were the biggest diaspora in Myanmar when it became independent. However, Indians had a significant role in the economy of the province. Money lending to mom and pop stores - every aspect was peppered with the presence of Indians.
The xenophobic policies of the government remained ignored for decades. Burma was ruled from India by the British till the 1930s, and subsequently got independence around the same time as India. The new government of Burma took a number of measures meant to strengthen economic interests of Burmese against the foreigners; however, in effect, these measures were targeted essentially at Indians and Chinese.
The 1948 Land Alienation Act forbade sale of land to non-Burmese. The Burma Land Nationalization Bill, which was passed on 11 October 1949, aroused deep resentment and strong protest among Indians in both Burma and India. However, Nehru did not feel it was discriminatory. Ironically, it was an era where any diaspora members across ASEAN And Africa were being treated by the rulers of India as people at fault for not 'fully integrating', a convenient excuse for not taking action to save Indian diaspora anywhere. The 1948 actions were followed by the 1949 nationalization affected mostly the Indian chettiyars, landlords, and financiers. This pushed several Indians out of the country; however, many still held on, hoping things would turn around.
However, when General Ne Win seized power in 1960, a new cycle of repression started. In the early part of 1964,the Ne Win government nationalized shops and stores, hitting small traders. In his zeal to 'nationalize' in the favour of 'locals', over 12,000 Indian concerns with assets worth Rs.15 crores were appropriated by the state. This deprived many Indians of their means of livelihood. Many wanted to come back to India, but had nothing with them to enable them to do so, having nothing left. However, the Nehru government was less than reluctant to do anything about them expect hem and haw.
Eventually, over 300,000 ethnic Indians were repatriated. Indian-owned businesses were nationalized, and the owners got just a nominal sum of 175 kyat for their trip back to India. The Indian Government maintained that the events were “strictly a matter of domestic jurisdiction”.
How big were the assets they lost? To quote a story
"Our estimate is that about Rs 1 lakh crore worth of assets belonging to the Chettiars remain in Burma," says 77-year-old A T Ganesan Kannan, who is a member of the Burma Mudhaleetalar Kuzhu, or Burma Investors Group, formed in 2007 to try and recover the assets in Myanmar. Kannan says that the group has around 300 members, of whom around 100 possess documents showing family ownership of land to the extent of 300,000 acres in that country.
The community at the time had tried hard to get their losses recompensed. They approached PM Nehru, who apparently told them that the community had enjoyed their investment in Burma for over 200 yrs and that as "the country was poor, asking them to pay such a huge money was not a good idea".
Of course, today, there are still about 2% of the country's population of Indian heritage, though the mix may be a littler more heterogenous. There is a mini India in Myanmar though even today. Ziyawadi as it is known, houses significant population. However, the Tamils, who formed the majority, face a cultural crisis in some ways, with little connect to their heritage roots.
Some of these Burmese Indians have been rather successful. One such person was the founder of the fantastic Burmese vegetarian restaurant chain Burma Burma. From their website:
Our journey in food is inspired by a story that traces back its origins to the year 1960. Thousands of Burmese Indians were forced to flee the country owing to a military coup, and among them was our co-founder, Ankit Gupta’s mother, Mrs Urmila Gupta. She was born to a family of businessmen in the quaint village of Prome (now Pyay). The move meant leaving behind everything familiar to adapt to her new life in Bombay. All that was left was a treasure trove of memories and recipes from her erstwhile home in Burma.
(this is a detour from the usual theme. Will come back soon with more on Himalayan states)
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