Burmese Connection. Ashish Basu

      During one of his trips to Rangoon, Aung met Suu Myint, the sister of one of his Shan comrades. Her elder brother introduced the two of them. Suu Myint had finished high school and was wanting to go to culinary school. Her parents did not like the idea of culinary school at all, so they sent her to Rangoon to be with her brother and decide. Together, they were supposed to figure out if she could study hotel management or join the upcoming tourism industry in some way. Aung and Myint fell in love quickly, and the frequency of Aung’s Rangoon trips started increasing. Myint’s brother had known Aung.

      He knew Aung from his days at the intermediate college they attended, and he loved Aung for his honesty and his passion for the Shan cause. He had said so to his sister when she had asked him about his impression of Aung. Myint and Aung had a number of interactions in the presence of others and one-on-one. Aung was a shy person, and Myint was not. She talked all the time. Rangoon was still recovering from its wartime devastation and carnage, so Aung and Myint’s romantic outings were limited to the immediate vicinity of Rangoon University.

      Her brother studied there and lived nearby, so she was familiar with the neighborhood. During his fifth trip, Aung asked her out and somehow mustered the courage to ask her if she would marry him. Aung was a shy person, and during his four years at school in Rangoon, he knew only one girl. That girl was a distant cousin who was studying to become a nurse someday. So, what occurred in the case of Suu Myint was not normal for Aung. Something happened to him that day, and he felt he could not wait. After Suu Myint agreed, they spoke with her family and her parents. Myint’s brother introduced Aung to a few of their relatives around Rangoon. The war had dispersed their family.

      Aung still remembered his last question to her that day: “You know me now, directly as well as through your brother. If there is one thing you want me to change what would that be? If I know it, I promise that I will try very hard to change it for you.” Aung knew he was not like a regular husband. He neither had a regular job nor a steady income. Marrying him was not an easy decision—it could mean much uncertainty. He thought it was fair that he asked that question to Myint that day because she was making a very difficult choice for life.

      She did not wait for long, and she said, “I respect and support your commitment to the Shan cause, but when we have a family, our children would have to come first. I hope that would be acceptable to you.”

      Aung was not prepared for that particular statement, so he had to think for a bit, and then he said thoughtfully, “That would be acceptable to me, and I would remember that commitment.”

      Later that year, they decided to get married in a simple ceremony in front of his Shan comrades. She came from a Shan family, so the marriage was out and out a Shan affair. Aung stayed in Rangoon for a few days after their marriage and then returned to Myitkyina with Myint. His scouts had set up a one-bedroom apartment. The apartment was on top of a store—it was more comfortable than the hammocks and tree branches.

      The caretaker government led by the army and Ne Win provided immediate stability. It paved the way for new general elections in 1960. The new elections returned U Nu’s Union Party in government with a majority, but not much of governing happened. Each stakeholder was pursuing its own narrow agenda. Increasingly, Tatmadaw and its staff officers had greater influence on everything. Nothing moved in Burma without their explicit or implicit approval. Despite the good start Ne Win had, the situation did not remain stable for long in Burma.

      There was political bickering from all quarters. As soon as the Shan Federal Movement started talking about the prior promise of a “loose” federation, the others in power started calling it out as a separatist movement that would definitely hurt Burma. They said that the Shan Federal Movement was undermining Burmese national unity. The Burmar and the Mon leaders often said that the Shan insistence on the government’s agreement to the right to secession was happening at the wrong time. Some folks often called it treason or revolt from within.

      Aung could not understand this dramatic shift in attitude in the same people that had expressed support for the idea. The only good news of 1960 was the birth of Aung’s son. He and Myint named him Win Lung. Win was born in a local hospital in Myitkyina. On the day he was born, the Father from the church in Myitkyina came and blessed the mother and son. As ethnic Sans, Aung and Myint were both born Theravada Buddhists via their families, but because of the life they had led both had developed a very inclusive view of religion.

      They were both schooled by life during war. Rituals and bigotry often associated with organized religion meant nothing to them. They had both seen how so-called nonviolent Buddhists perpetrated extreme violence against fellow Buddhists in the Mon state, and they had seen the same treatment against the Muslim Rohingyas in the Arakan state. An outward allegiance to an organized religion without any real commitment toward tolerance had no appeal for Aung and Myint. They felt quite comfortable without any outward or visible attachment to any organized religion. If anyone asked, they said they were not sure as yet.

      Both Aung and Myint had developed a liking for Kachin Baptists. Kachin Baptists in particular had a message on inclusion that resonated with both of them. Aung, in particular, loved their humanity. Their developmental programs were helping the hill tribes a lot; that also mattered. It was not just Aung’s wartime experience with the church in Myitkyina—some of his scouts and their families liked the KBC’s inclusive approach. He did not go to the church to pray every Sunday, but he continued to assist the church with its educational and social programs for the Shan and Kachins. Aung had developed a personal bond with the Father at the church in Myitkyina. In time, the vocational training program they started became widely popular.

      Win resembled Aung closely like a carbon copy. In the Western tradition, he would have been named Aung Lung Jr. Aung, Myint, and baby Win did not have much material comfort in Northern Burma in 1960, but they were happy in their austere home in Myitkyina. Burma remained a very poor country postindependence, so one area of focus for Aung was to find a steady job and a source of income. He now had a family to feed, so he knew he had to do something about it sooner than later. Aung had seen the ravages of economic hardship among the tribes, and he did not want those to touch Myint or baby Win ever.

      For the first thirty odd years of his life, the Shan cause was all that Aung was about. After Win’s birth, he realized that he was responsible for the well-being of baby Win and Myint. If it was not him, someone like him could pick up the Shan cause, but Win and Myint had no one else—they had no backup. Aung had to deliver a decent quality of life to his wife and son. Unlike others, he had no extended family on either side to lean on, so, Aung took the responsibility of looking after Win and Myint very seriously. He had always remembered the question Myint had asked when he requested her to marry him in Rangoon, so he had to act.

      General Ne Win had already succeeded in stripping the Chaofas of their feudal powers in exchange for comfortable pensions for life. He staged a coup in 1962, arrested U Nu and several other leaders, and declared a socialist state run by a council of senior military officers nominated by him. They were all his own people. He effectively got rid of the last traces of the civilian government. Essentially, his band of brothers from the army ran the country according to their personal priorities. Self-interest was above all else for the corrupt generals.

      After the 1962 Burmese coup, the status of the Shan States and the Chaofas’ hereditary rights were completely removed by the military government. At that stage, Burma was what Ne Win and his band of generals decided for her. She had no views of her own—nobody even asked. Some people in Rangoon called Ne Win’s style of governing a necessary form of “benevolent dictatorship” for Burma’s quick advancement. Aung could see the dictatorship part clearly but could not sense the benevolence part. At least there was none toward the Shan or the other hill tribes: they had learned to suffer in silence.

      Independence usually brings progress and development in its wake, but Burma was an exception. There was very little progress and virtually no development immediately after independence. The fact that independent Burma was a multiethnic society that had different priorities did not seem to be a consideration for Ne Win. Most of the Burmese people had no independent voice; there were no real national elections in sight, so no one really knew what they wanted. As Aung had feared, the hill tribes had no influence in the national