A section of the Death Railway bridge over the Kwai Noi River at Kanchanaburi province Thailand. Photo: 123rf.com
The story of the Siam-Burma Death Railway (built in October 1942 to Oct 16, 1943) constitutes an important aspect of what historians call "the Pacific theatre of World War II".
There is an international dimension to this, involving the Japanese, the Allied Forces and the colonised peoples of South-East Asia, including the migrant Indian population.
Although Japan ruled East and South-East Asia after the fall of Singapore, its ships in the Indian Ocean were vulnerable due to British military presence in India and Ceylon, affecting supplies to their troops in Burma. Hence the Japanese Imperial Army built roads and a railway linking Siam and Burma, as a safer supply route and to dislodge the British from India with the help of the Indian National Army (INA).
They mobilised the Allied prisoners of war from their colonised territories and forced about 270,000 Asian workers to complete the railway in record time of just over a year, and under very harsh, inhumane conditions. Most of the forced labour from Malaya were Indians, largely Tamils, besides the Malays and Chinese.
The Tamil workforce was forcibly recruited largely from the impoverished rubber estates of Malaya, though many went voluntarily on the promise of high wages, and for a short duration.
Not knowing what they were getting into, some had even taken their families along.
At the end of the war, there were about a thousand children at the various campsites, a quarter of them orphaned.
The conditions on the railway were horrific, causing the death of about 13,000 of the prisoners of war (POWs) due to overwork, malnutrition and diseases like cholera, malaria and dysentery.
The death rate of the Asian workers, however, was much higher, but the number is unknown (the Japanese did not count them). The total number of those who perished on the Death Railway is estimated to be well in excess of a hundred thousand, hence the abominable name.
Almost half of the forced Asian labourers are believed to have perished due to disease, starvation, overwork, lack of sanitation, basic medicines, etc.
Surprisingly, such a huge casualty rate has been glossed over and does not even find mention in the footnotes of history books.
Before upgrading work: Front view of the monument built in the 1950s over a mass grave of the workers, in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. The Chinese script reads: 'Tomb of tens of thousands of souls'.
While the ordeal of the POWs is immortalised in the movie The Bridge On The River Kwai, a search in the public domain reveals very little about the Asian forced labour. In stark contrast to the POW victims, there is nothing to mark their graves. Their remains lie in shallow, unmarked mass graves along the railway and campsites – forgotten by all but the elderly residents in the vicinity. Even when their remains were found in large numbers recently, they were unceremoniously disposed of, for want of someone to take ownership and do the needful.
This tragedy took a heavy toll on the lives of the Indians in Malaya and resulted in untold miseries, not only to the survivors, but also to the widows and orphans. However, research, documentation and awareness of these events are scarce.
DRIG president P. Chandrasekaran (fifth from left) and committee members, with Brig Gen (R) Surin Janpian (sixth from left), the Chief Monk and committee of Wat Thavorn Wararam temple in Kanchanaburi, Thailand, after written consent was obtained for upgrading the monument to Asian victims of the Death Railway, in September 2022. Photos: Death Railway Interest Group
For the past seven decades, it has remained in the collective memory of the people, but is fast fading and soon will be lost if we do not act to preserve it.
The repainted monument.
Today, the Death Railway is a major tourist attraction in Thailand that draws thousands of domestic and foreign visitors to the cemeteries, the Thai-Burma Railway Museum and the famous bridge and viaduct, with hardly a hint of the enormous role of the Asian forced labour. Understandably, even photographs of Asians, especially Indians, are rare in the museums run largely for western tourists.
The workers on the Thai side of the railway were predominantly Tamils conscripted from the rubber plantations of Malaya, although Malays were also taken in significant numbers and fewer Chinese and others.
Since all the stakeholders from the colonial government to all the post-Independence governments have forsaken them for the past eight decades, it is now incumbent upon the lay people to do the needful.
As Malayans formed the largest group of casualties, the responsibility of making their voices heard falls on all Malaysians, not just the descendants of the victims.
After the National Symposium on the Death Railway in Kuala Lumpur in 2016, the Death Railway Interest Group Malaysia (DRIG) undertook to identify at least one mass grave along the railway and build a monument over it that will stand as a testament to the horrors these victims went through.
We had envisioned bringing along a dozen or so survivors fit to travel for the dedication ceremony.
The travel restrictions due to the Covid pandemic had caused much delay and the loss of several survivors.
However we identified a suitable spot for the memorial in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. It is a pagoda built over a mass grave in the 1950s, in a Buddhist cemetery adjacent to the POW cemetery.
DRIG subsequently obtained the consent of Wat Thavorn Wararam (aka Wat Yuan), to proceed with upgrading work at our cost to identify it as a dedicated monument to the Asian victims of the Death Railway.
This is a milestone in our journey to honour our forefathers. It has enough space for messages in Tamil, Thai and English, complete with a suitable mural. It is a fitting monument for the Death Railway victims.
The dedication ceremony of the monument will take place in Kanchanaburi on June 3, 2023, and will be attended by a group of about 40 Malaysians – including one survivor of the Death Railway and descendants of survivors – led by DRIG.
P. Chandrasekaran is the president of the Death Railway Interest Group Malaysia. For more information, call 017-888 7221 or email: deathrailwayinterestgroup@gmail.com.
