Remembering the Childhood Days in Burma and My Ideal Hero Netaji, the Supreme Commander of Azad Hind Fauj

K. S. VALDIYA REMINISCENCES Remembering the Childhood Days in Burma and My Ideal Hero Netaji, The Supreme Commander of Azad Hind Fauj K. S. VALDIYA t was a piece of paradise on earth—the Nepal, the Indians formed a very large hill station Kalaw where I was born and proportion of the population of Kalaw. They Igrew up. A beautiful hill station in were traders and professionals. The business Southern Shan States at the altitude of 4500 was in their hands. They held high positions feet above sea level, the town was in administration as well. They were surrounded by forested hills and mountain engineers, doctors and lawyers. From ranges. In the pine-forests in the hill ranges, shoemakers, barbers, carpenters and masons there were quite more than a hundred and to chaiwalas and mithaiwalas, the Indians twenty beautiful bungalows, each with its occupied important places in the whole garden, tennis court and swimming pool, scheme of things. All petty workers and where lived Britishers. In the mountains casual labourers were from the poverty- covered by dense rain forests there were stricken parts of India. The Nepalis reared hamlets of a number of tribals, including cows and sold milk. Palaung, Padaung and Tongsu. The Indians had started coming to Burma after 1887, when the British Local people established their firm control on the country. The beautifully-planned township was The province Shan State and Kalaw became the home of Shans, Chinese, Burmese and the preferred destination of immigrants when Indians. The gentle, amiable and peace- in 1910 the work for laying down railway- loving Shans have close affinities with the line from the foothills Thazi (near people of the neighbouring countries— Mandalay) to the high Shan plateau was China, Laos and Thailand. The Shans were started. Labourers and skilled workers came very religious people, devoted to Buddha, from Nepal, Uttarakhand, U.P., Punjab, and they revered Bauddha Bikkhus which Bihar, Bengal, Odisha and Tamil Nadu. thronged the town every now and then in the They came in hordes. morning. Women not only dominated the society but also were in the forefront of trade Cosmopolitan society and business and adept in household chores. Ours was a close-knit community of all Indians, united firmly with the bond of Indian community friendship and camaraderie. There was Coming from all parts of India and cordiality amongst communities and music 26 Bulletin of the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture January 2019 REMEMBERING THE CHILDHOOD DAYS IN BURMA AND MY IDEAL HERO NETAJI, THE SUPREME COMMANDER OF AZAD HIND FAUJ in their lives. We spoke a melange language The entire rail and road transport systems containing words from Hindi, Awadhi, were in the iron control of the Chinese army. Bhojpuri, Bengali, Punjabi, Marathi and Tamil. We celebrated festivals of all Time without government communities with equal fervour, and joined In our town Kalaw there was no the Shans and Burmese in their versions of government left, no police, no one to run Holi and Diwali. Their Diwali was simply trains and buses, and no one to man spectacular, and the gaiety in their Holi was hospitals and schools. The police armoury incredible. had been looted and robbers and My grandfather was a kind and desperadoes roamed freely—robbing and compassionate person. Every immigrant who looting. Not knowing how to save ourselves, came and stayed with our family even for a we all left the town to seek the sanctuary of few days left with a pair of clothing and bungalows abandoned by the Britishers. Rs. 50 as a seed money for launching his Without enough food and without resources career. to survive, and with the threats of robbers looming large, we lived in the shadow of War breaks out fear and waited for the Japanese to come. Then came the devastating tempest—the country was thrown into severe convulsion. Coming of Japanese The Japanese had won Singapore in They came; and in no time established February 1942. Overrunning Malaya, they firm and efficient control on the machinery rushed towards Burma. Rangoon and of law and order. Lawlessness was put down Mandalay were bombed, triggering panicky with iron hand, and an incredibly efficient exodus. From southern Burma, the administration was put in place. Strict rules government brought thousands of Indian for sanitation and environment were sternly labourers working in their mines and enforced. They took keen interest in the dumped them on the sides of rail tracks in hygiene of the people, and in the integrity of middle Burma. In the soaring heat without the forest environment. shade of trees, without water, and without My grandfather, Lachhman Singh, was a food they all died of cholera that had broken worldly-wise man who knew the art of out with uncontrolled fury. befriending people. He opened a milk bar in The Britishers and all those Indians who the varanda of his general store. Milk was had resources, money, power and brought from the herd of his own cows connections scrambled to take aeroplane looked after by a Nepali Brahman some 10- flights to India, and the less fortunate people 15 km away. Hot milk was served free of trudged long surface routes to reach charge to every Japanese soldier that passed Manipur and Sadiya across the formidable by the road. The soldiers liked miraku, as Indo-Burma Border Ranges. Many hundred they called it, and their officers were perished on their ways to India. pleased. The British left Burma under the control The Japanese held Mahatma Gandhi in of the Chinese army of General Chiangkai great esteem. Whenever a Japanese Shek, who were retreating northwards to soldier saw a picture of Gandhiji hanging Yunnan, the southern province of China. on the wall, he would bow his head Bulletin of the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture January 2019 27 K. S. VALDIYA low and utter ‘Ganji! Ganji’!! government and an independent army. There was peace and security in the Accompanied by Ras Bihari Bose and society. There was cordiality amongst all Abid Hasan, Subhash Bose arrived at Indians. There was a large community of Singapore on 4 July, 1943, and assumed the Bengalese in town, most of them living in command of the Indian Independence Army the railway colony. Our family had special (INA) which Ras Bihari Bose had earlier bonds with the families of De, Ghosh and formed with Capt. Mohan Singh as its chief. Bose. The young girls of the Ghosh and The Supreme Commander of Azad Hind Bose families were very talented and well Fauj became the NETAJI of three million versed in dances and Rabindra Sangeet. Indians of south-east Asia. Together we used to organize dramas, cultural programmes and festive pujas—the Azad Hind Fauj pujas in our Thakurbari manned and The 50,000 Indian Prisoners of War managed by pandits (priests) from our home from British Army, belonging to various area in eastern Uttarakhand. regiments such as Baloch, Pathan, Sikh, There was only one hospital with a sole Garhwal, Kumaun, Gorkha, Rajput, Jat, doctor from Tamil Nadu. But no medicines. Maratha and Tamil, were completely There were no schools, no books and no amalgamated and regrouped into four stationery. As a matter of fact, everything brigades—the Gandhi Brigade, the Nehru made in and imported from India was Brigade, the Azad Brigade and the Subhash unavailable. The sole Hindi- school used to Brigade. Every group had a common kitchen function off and on whenever somebody and only one place for prayers, irrespective volunteered to teach. And teach well they of the religion of the soldiers and their did. officers. Netaji used to go to kitchens and The Japanese had in the beginning dine with the soldiers, exchanging views and opened their school for a couple of months pleasantries. to teach the public how to understand and A Government was also formed with speak Japanese. I too acquired a smattering Netaji as President of the Provisional of that sweet language. Government of Free India or Azad Hind Araji Hukumat. The cabinet ministers were Netaji assumes the command A. C. Chatterjee, S. A. Iyer, Lakshmi One day in mid-May, 1943, I heard my Swaminathan, A. D. Loknathan, Gen. father Deb Singh animatedly speaking with Mohammad Kiyani, J. K. Bhonsale, Gen. his friend Iyer: Subhash Chandra Bose had Ehsan Qader, Gen. Shah Nawaz Khan, M. S. landed in Tokyo, coming all the way from Bhagat and Gulzara Singh. Free India’s Berlin in Germany in a submarine. He met Azad Hind Bank also came into existence. Emperor Hirohito and the Prime Minister That was the time when the Burmese General Tojo. The General assured his Government was headed by Dr Ba Maw and government’s full help to the Indians in their his deputy was General Aung San, father of fight for freedom of India. He also declared the Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. 30 lakh Indians living in Thailand, Malaya, I cannot tell you how rapturous and Singapore and Burma as free citizens of proud we all felt that day—30 December, India, who will have their own independent 1943—when Netaji unfurled the tricolour 28 Bulletin of the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture January 2019 REMEMBERING THE CHILDHOOD DAYS IN BURMA AND MY IDEAL HERO NETAJI, THE SUPREME COMMANDER OF AZAD HIND FAUJ flag at Port Blair in the Andaman Island— donated all that he had earned during post- the first ever freed soil of India. The Japanese invasion—and every piece of Japanese had handed over the Andaman and jewellery that my grandmother and mother Nicobar islands to the Provisional Indian owned.

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