Who makes a ‘mulk’?

Mohan Singh

Japan, a small naval power during World War II, had captured British colonies like Malaya, East Indies and Singapore, because the British were more fiercely engaged in Europe. Rangoon (Yangon), where we lived, was actually bombarded and captured by the Japanese, like the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, after we set out on our long trek to India following government orders for immediate evacuation in February 1942. All sea routes from Rangoon, except the land route, were closed, and only women and children were permitted to leave the country that used to be a part of British India. All of the east hilly terrain was one province Assam, then, devoid of any roads and transport. No wonder, the exodus saw people — barring women and children and the elderly — walking with, or without head-loads on the mountainous tracks that were mostly wet. The tired, the dead or the dying were left to their fate.

After spending eight to nine weeks — sometimes in transit camps — we reached Siliguri, and therefrom by special trains, landed in Amritsar — after 65 days. We had escaped the Battle for Imphal by a week or so. I was only eight then. We, kids, didn’t understand why we were only walking and walking, day and night, but not reaching anywhere. When we asked, my mother would say that we were going to our mulk. Questioned how far it was, she would point to a distant light, and say that just beyond that was our place. But there was no mulk till we reached Amritsar.

Fortunately for us, our house that my father, a train examiner in Burma Railway, had constructed, and let out at a monthly rent of Rs 2, stood us in good stead. The tenant vacated it in a matter of an hour or so. Such were the social values back then. We were called ‘Burma evacuees’ by the administration, and there was sympathy all around.

We had been fed on the belief that Churchill’s gesture of forming the English letter ‘V’ (for victory) was an anathema to the Nazis.

I was admitted to class I of the Municipal Board Primary School in our neighbourhood, where the medium was mainly Urdu, and its right-to-left script was foreign to me. But I had advantage of age over other boys, and soon developed a calligraphic hand. However, my phobia of the letter ‘V’ wouldn’t let me concentrate as all government properties boldly displayed it on the front. A municipal hospital near our house also had the sign, a clear indicator of ‘impending’ German bombing, or so I thought. However, when I saw similar caravans in 1947, my immature mind was once again overcome by the word mulk. The 1965 Pakistan bombing of the suburbs of Chheherta here opened fresh memories. What, after all, is a country? How can I say this is my mulk, my country? Can I prove it logically or mathematically? Where does humankind not belonging to any country come from? Such questions gnaw at my mind when I ponder over the issues arising out of the National Register of Citizens.