Sulekha Biswas is young, pretty and holds a well-paid job. Yet, she can’t find a husband. It’s not that she is extremely choosy; it’s simply that there are very few eligible bachelors in her community. Sulekha belongs to a Bengali family from Kolkata but she herself has never been to the city. Her parents met and married in Rangoon, and Sulekha has spent all her life in the Buddhist country. “My brothers have gone back to Kolkata,” she rues. “Opportunities are drying up here, they say. But I have never been to Kolkata and am scared to venture into the unknown.”
Sulekha’s brothers were lucky to have been able to return. For there are thousands of persons of Indian origin who have been living in Burma for over four generations and yet “belong” neither to the host country nor to India.
The last official census in Burma was held in 1983 and the results published in 1986. At that time, there were 4,28,428 PIOs in Burma, the majority of who were Hindus, followed by Sunni Muslims. Accordingly, the current population would be about 6,00,000. However, that’s only a part of the figure, believed to be closer to reality, estimated by a report commissioned by the Government of India.
According to this report – the Singhvi Report – though the exact size of the community is a matter of conjecture, there could be about 2.5 million PIOs living in Burma. The majority of them, the report guesstimates, are Muslims, who account for about 1.3 million and could include immigrants from Bangladesh. About 0.8 million are Hindus and 0.4 million Christians and Sikhs.
However, in so large a diaspora, only about 2,000 persons hold Indian passports. In other words, about 2,00,000-4,00,000 people are “stateless”, possessing no citizenship documents. Though they have been living in the country for more than four generations, speak Burmese fluently and have adopted local customs, they are still not Burma’s citizens for lack of documents required by the Burmese Citizenship law of 1982. This implies they cannot travel outside the country, and this has contributed to weakening their ties with India.
Adding to the woes of these people is their low economic status. The Indian Embassy in Rangoon estimates that most of the PIOs in and around the capital work as domestic help, mechanics, construction workers and petty traders. Their financial status differs sharply from that of the affluent NRIs (non-resident Indians) in Burma, who either run export-import businesses or are employed by big firms in India, Singapore and Thailand.
The Indian diaspora would like their children to be educated in Indian schools so that they imbibe “Indian” values. However, Burma’s laws don’t permit an Indian curriculum in schools and the Rangoon Kendriya Vidyalaya too has closed. Nor can these individuals afford to have their children educated abroad.
From the 60s to the 80s, Myanmar had been under a military regime that followed a policy of diplomatic isolation, dissociating itself even from NAM and stressing the policy of nationalisation. The use of Burmese was encouraged at the expense of English, which was also the language of the hated colonial rulers who annexed Burma in the 19th century and made it part of India. Consequently, though over 90 per cent of the population are literate, very few speak or understand English.
During British rule, Indians dominated the civil services and even businesses, the latter being controlled by the rich Chettiyar community of moneylenders from southern India. But after Independence in 1948, Prime Minister U Nu’s land reform policy ensured that foreigners did not hold any land, triggering an exodus of rich Indians. Gen. Ne Win, who took over after a coup in 1962, boosted the departure of foreigners with his policy of Burmanisation – the takeover of businesses by the government. Non-Burmese citizens were also excluded from government jobs, had no vote and faced restrictions on travel and change of residence.
“My father was a civil servant,” says Muthuswamy, now in his 60s. “But because of the change in policy, I couldn’t get myself a government job. So I worked with an Indian insurance company. Even they had to leave after the nationalisation. I have six daughters and it’s a very hard life. But how can I go back?”
After the democracy movement in 1988 led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi – currently under house arrest in Yangon – the Indian Embassy was regarded with suspicion by the military government. The latter believed that the embassy had supported the movement and that Indians were Suu Kyi sympathisers. According to a report, “Thereafter, Indians were viewed with much suspicion and, therefore, the Burmese were hesitant to have good social relations with the Indians settled in Myanmar.” However, things improved post-1988 when following Gen. Ne Win’ resignation, the economy was thrown open to liberalisation.
If the PIOs in Burma are told they could have a wish granted, most of them would like to be granted citizenship. Despite the military regime in the country – which prevented Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party from coming to power though it swept the 1990 elections, the restriction on Internet access and political activities, the PIOs in Burma prefer to stay on where they are. Some of them, as well as those who have left Burma, still dream of receiving compensation from the government for the takeover of their lands and properties and have been urging the Indian Embassy to take up their cause.
The embassy as well as New Delhi have raised the issue with Rangoon. As a first step, a delegation on outstanding financial and consular matters visited Yangon in end-2003 for discussions with the Burmese government. But when or whether the dream would be fulfilled is anybody’s guess.
For the moment, the PIOs have to be satisfied with the issuance of the “white card”. It is a document issued to children of stateless PIOs that allows certain rights. Though the card does not grant citizenship, the PIOs now have a ray of hope: the government has agreed to decide their status on a case to case basis when they attain majority.
Faced with problems and aspirations, the PIOs have little time to ponder the changes taking place in distant India. When the results of the 14th parliamentary election were announced and Dr Manmohan Singh named the new Prime Minister of the world’s largest democracy, it created little stir among these people. “I know who the Prime Minister of India is,” said a Tamil cabbie in Rangoon. “It’s Rajiv Gandhi.”