I had the privilege of living a few houses away
from Aung San Suu Kyi on University Avenue by
Inya Lake, for several months. The sole reason
for choosing my residence was I was hoping to
meet or atleast get a glimpse of the most famous
political prisoner and proponent of non-violence,
alive. On her sixty second birthday Aung San Suu
Kyi had spent a total of eleven years, ten months
and twenty seven days under house arrest, with
short spells in which she was allowed to meet the
people. On one such occasion, she visited the
office of the United Nations High Commission for
Refugees in Yangon. The office then headed by
Rajiv Kapur, had a poster; "A refugee would love
to have your problems’. Suu Kyi looked at the
poster poignantly and shook her head "no one
would like to have my problems’ she told him.
Indeed after her party, the National League of
Democracy won almost eighty per cent of the
votes in the last elections, the military regime
responded by imprisoning her and almost all her
supporters. The spy and surveillance system was
so intricately entrenched that I found the
land-lord of the inn on University Avenue,
copiously reading my diaries, eves-dropping on my
conversation and reporting my activities to the
regime, which resulted in my permit of stay not
being extended.
Everywhere I travelled, I had to have a liason
officer accompanying my research trips. At
Ziawaddy the door banged at eight pm. "Who is
it?" I asked alarmed. The voice informed me that
I had to report to the police station along with
my Burmese liason officer to record our visit.
"If you neglect to do this, you will be
imprisoned" and I know many Burmese who have
been. This rule of informing the police if you
stay overnight elsewhere, is in force to squash
any underground activity for democracy. Enroute
from the famed glass palace of Mandalay to Maymeo
I came across a huge construction site. I was
curious because I had hardly seen any new
economic activity in Burma with economic
sanctions from the West in force. I clicked
photographs and then asked the guard; "What are
you building?“”A prison" replied the armed
guard, blandly.
During my travels through the breathtakingly
beautiful country; green with tropical forests
and gold with pagodas in every village, I met the
most deeply spiritual and gentle people in the
world. The Burmese feed and clothe monks who have
the highest position in the Buddhist hierarchy,
which they believe earns them merit. These monks
led the recent demonstrations, but the military
brutalized them, raiding monasteries across the
country, savaging and arresting thousands of
monks and lay people. While the Indian government
is practicising a ’look east’ policy, let me
share with you the shame and horror I felt, on
seeing so many people of Indian origin living
without citizenship of Burma. Being without
citizenship implies that they cannot hold a
proper job, buy or sell property or even travel
within Burma without permission. Some of them
were members of Netaji’s Indian National Army
or those who fought for the freedom of India.
Official figures indicate that there are over
400,000 people of Indian origin, without
citizenship. Surely India should look after the
interests of its own people by obtaining their
basic rights?
I also tried to bring the matter to the attention
of Kedar Nath who I was told was the head of the
Arya Samaj in Burma. We talked on the telephone
and agreed to meet in a week’s time, but within
that period he was dead. He was only sixty two
and had been imprisoned in a Burmese jail for
four years on the charge of ’having given a
letter to a monk to take to India’, my sources
said. The conditions in jail were so pathetic
that his health deteriorated and while he was
released, he died soon after. This is the plight
of many socially and politically active people
within Burma. The pictures that are emerging are
only the tip of the ice-berg.
While India maintains a ’look east’ policy, the
north-east states are victim to the golden
triangle - drug-running that originates from
Burma into India. In desperation, India is even
resorting to a ’harm minimisation’ programme;
which is distributing free needles so that the
young are protected from HIV. The fact is,
profits of drugs are what the Burmese militia use
to build safe havens in the West, where they will
eventually retreat once democracy returns to
Burma, before long.
Burma has been isolated for too long and while
India soft-peddles its approach, claiming that
the generals help us in ’Operation Golden Bird’
to control insurgency in the north-east; the
truth is, the generals enjoy giving the
insurgents a safe haven in Burma while unleashing
a ’joint-operation’ as an eye-wash. Absolute and
brute power has been wielded to keep some of the
most spiritual, gentle and compassionate people
in the world oppressed; but the question is for
how long? International opinion will have to
build up to release Aung San Suu Kyi and the
Burmese people from the prison-house that the
militia has created out of Burma.