By Pratap Chhetri
Today, besides being our Independence Day; it is also the 75th Anniversary of V-J Day or Victory over Japan Day. On this day in 1945, imperial Japan surrendered to the Allied forces bringing an end to the Second World War. With Germany’s surrender on May 8, 1945, the War ended in Europe but history bears testimony that it would take the unleashing of the deadliest force known to mankind to bring the War to an end in the Eastern Front, just three months later.
In 1917 during the course of the First World War, our great grand-fathers from the different parts of the North East went all the way to France as non-combatants, a part of the wider Indian Labour Corps on a year’s contract. These men were pioneers for they saw modern civilization at its height for the first time ever in their lives. Awed, must they have been to see ships and airplanes. But most of all, the horrors of the War and that of modern warfare must indeed have left a lasting impression in their minds. One perhaps they wished they would never have to set eyes upon again.
Yet, just twenty five years after the return of these men, when the Second World War spilled over into the backyards of the region, in the form of the famous Burma Campaign, many of our ancestors fought and died defending British India against the Japanese, some in our own soil – in Manipur and Nagaland. The Burma Campaign saw some of the bloodiest battles of the Second World War. The decisive battles fought in Imphal and Kohima from the spring of 1942 till the summer of that year, which in some ways altered the course of the War are often referred to, in popular writings as ‘The Dunkirk of the East.’ The award of 7 Victoria Crosses in these two battles, three to Europeans and four to Indian soldiers is proof that these battles were epic.
The North East Region has two important threads that connect it intricately to the Second World War. The first which has been elucidated briefly above and the second, which many of today’s generation are not much aware of is that of the exodus of more than half a million Indians from Burma in 1942 through the North East to various parts of India. Within this harrowing narrative of refugees is also embedded, the story of the humanitarian services rendered by porters and tea labour force of the region under the refugee operations launched by the Indian Tea Association to help the fleeing Indians. It is these two aspects of the Burma Exodus of 1942 that this article wishes to touch upon.
In December 1941, the British in Burma were caught unawares by the Japanese forces and by March 1942, Rangoon fell. As the Japanese forces advanced northwards, the British fled bag and baggage retreating into India over a five month period through the unforgiving terrain of Upper Burma. Alongside the retreating British forces, thousands of Indians walked on foot through the jungles and swamps of Burma to safety into the North East.
Of three main land routes used by the escaping Indians – two led into the North East. One was from Mandalay northwards towards Kalewa along the Chindwin Valley, after which a long dirt trail led to the Tamu Pass and then onwards to Imphal. With the fall of Southern Burma, the remainder of the Indian population, that could not manage to escape through the Taungup route which passed through the Arakan coast into Chittagong in today’s Bangladesh had no option but flee to Mandalay on whatever transport was available – trains and boats or walk it up all the way to Mandalay.
Most Indians had to begin walking from Mandalay itself as there were very few vehicles available. The few motor convoys that were making the journey to Kalewa were reserved exclusively for the Anglo-Indians and Europeans, most of whom were employees of the Burma Oil Company. This discrimination is supposed to have even extended to the trails leading to the Tamu Pass with one route for Europeans and another for Indians. It is estimated that up to 250,000 Indians took this route which involved walking on foot for 2 to 3 weeks through mud trails, dense jungles and mountains for over 300 kilometres. By the beginning of May 1942 with the advancing Japanese forces, this route was untenable.
While the other more treacherous route started in Myitkyina in upper Burma through then unchartered Hukawng Valley, via the Pangsau, Chaukan and Diphu Passes in today’s Arunachal Pradesh into Ledo in Assam. Many in Mandalay who could not escape through the Tamu Pass carried northwards to Myintkina in upper Burma in the hope of being airlifted. About 5000 lucky ones were evacuated by air but when the air strip there was bombed in early May, all hopes of any further evacuations by air was dashed. The Governor of Burma Dorman Smith himself escaped on one of the last flights.
The only option was to trek through the route known as the Valley of Death braving the impossible. Groups of refugees trudged along this route from May 1942 up to September, braving the wrath of the monsoon and the unforgiving terrain and reached Ledo in Assam. Over 23,000 refugees crossed into India on this route and almost 7000 lost their lives. The harrowing ordeal of many months is captured very well in ‘Forgotten Frontier’ by Geoffrey Tyson. Just one of the many accounts is a reference to a young boy from whose head 350 maggots were pulled out! He was lucky to survive.
The association of British and local tea planters – Indian Tea Association played a pivotal role in the civilian evacuation from Burma. Between March and September 1942, they worked relentlessly mobilising porters and tea labour force for refugee operations. The daunting rescue operations that they launched at times on the treacherous treks through the Chindwin Valley and Hukawng Valley are no lesser heroic exploits than elsewhere during the Second World War. Had it not been for their operations, hundreds more would have perished. The Marwari Association of those days is reported to have helped set up refugee camps.
Over 200 porters which included 63 Garos, 59 Khasis, 52 Pnars, 13 Adis (known in British colonial times as Abors), 13 tea garden labourers and 2 government porters are recorded as having died in service on the routes from Hukawng Valley. The Adis (Abors) are reported to have been the most resilient and disciplined of the porters. One of the their leaders, Tanong Tamuk was mentioned in Despatches while another Adi, Tanbuk Irang was awarded the Albert Medal, a British award given for saving lives. Today this Medal has been replaced by the George Cross.
On both these routes, Naga villagers are reported to have rendered invaluable service by guiding the refugees through the jungles as the vast swathes of the area was largely unmapped. Villagers also built temporary shelters for the refugees on the routes to offer a place of rest for the tired and the infirm.
Estimates of those who died on these exacting treks range from 50,000 to 100,000. The majority died of hunger, starvation and exhaustion and from cholera, malaria and dysentery.
The sufferings endured by thousands who marched walking hundreds of kilometres through the harshest of tropics both in terms of climate and topography amidst hunger, disease and death is a testament to the limits of human endurance. While we must commemorate and remember this tragic event we must also take pride in the services rendered by our tribesmen to those who fled Burma in 1942. Sadly, there is no record of any commemoration of their services in the North East. But it is never too late to remember these Samaritans. For, commemoration and remembrance is a legacy that they richly deserve.
In many ways, The Long Forgotten March of 1942 bears an uncanny resemblance to the Long March of the Migrants of 2020; one that has played out too many times on our television screens. For, history always leaves a lesson to be learnt.
(Pratap Chhetri is a civil servant working on media and public communication for the Government of Mizoram. Since 2014, he has been researching the various Labour Corps from North East India who served as a part of the Indian Labour Corps in France in 1917/18 and also the unknown facets of Gurkha participation in the Great War. His Gurkha relatives served in both the Wars as soldiers, in the Western Front in WWI and in the Burma Campaign in WWII. He can be reached at [email protected])