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Ramkumar Singaram's grandfather, T T Perikaruppan, went to Burma in 1965-66. He was an agent in the money-lending business in Tharrawaddy district of Burma, as Myanmar was called then. At the time, Perikaruppan held the power of attorney to sell and manage over 5,000 acres of land in that country, mostly collateral for the money his employers had lent to the people over the years. Having been in Burma for over 250 years, the Naattukottai, or Nagarathar, Chettiar community, one of the most affluent communities of southern Tamil Nadu, ran flourishing financial businesses there. But soon after World War II, they had been expelled from the country.
When Perikaruppan returned to Burma around 20 years later, he couldn't make any headway in getting the dues collected. He died a decade ago. It is now upto his grandsons, Singaram, who runs a PR agency in Chennai, and S Raja, who is the south India dealer for Hindustan Inks, to take up the challenge. The duo are collecting documents proving Chettiar ownership of assets in Myanmar and seeking their return, or in lieu, their monetary value.
And it's not some trifle that the Chettiar community is fighting for. "Our estimate is that about Rs 1 lakh crore worth of assets belonging to the Chettiars remain in Burma," says 77-year-old A T Ganesan Kannan, who is a member of the Burma Mudhaleetalar Kuzhu, or Burma Investors Group, formed in 2007 to try and recover the assets in Myanmar. Kannan says that the group has around 300 members, of whom around 100 possess documents showing family ownership of land to the extent of 300,000 acres in that country.
This is a sum that people would kill for. As it tragically proved for AMM Vellayan, part of the Chennai-based Murugappa business family. At the end of World War II, Vellayan, the second son of AM Murugappa Chettiar, was in Burma to take stock of the wealth his family and his community left behind during the Japanese occupation (1942-45) of that country. He was pressing for a Bill in the Burmese Parliament to recompense the Chettiars for their losses. One evening, Vellayan walked back to his house after a meeting with creditors. As he reached the door, a young man emerged from hiding and shot him. Vellayan, just 40 then, died on the spot.
He seemed to have died in vain, because for almost six decades now, the Chettiars have had no chance of getting back their properties. But with Myanmar opening up, and a democracy of sorts replacing the long junta rule, the Chettiars hope that they can finally get justice for their losses. The Chennai-based Burma Mudhaleetalar Kuzhu has been collecting documents and proof, including deeds to lands surrendered as collateral for loans to its members. It plans to open another office at the community hub of Karaikudi and also in Myanmar. Members of the group will visit the country in March to explore the possibilities of engaging the Myanmar government on the issue.
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In his study of the Chettiars, Sean Turnell of Australia's Macquarie University says that the first Chettiars seem to have arrived in Burma at the outset of British rule in 1826, accompanying the Indian ('Madrassi') troops and labourers to Tenasserim. By 1880 the Chettiars had fanned out throughout Burma, and at the end of the century had become by far the most important players in the agricultural credit structure of Lower Burma.
Kannan recalls that some European banks like the Chartered and the Imperial used Chettiars as intermediaries in the money-lending business. While these banks would lend money to the Chettiars at a 0.25-per cent interest, they, in turn, would loan it out, mostly to local farmers, at an interest of 0.50 per cent.
A Karuppiah, 52, visited 22 places in Myanmar over 11 months last year. He went to places where his community members had set up their businesses to ascertain how the local people felt about the matter. He says that the Chettiars had set up base on the banks of the Irrawaddy River, Burma's "Golden Water". The area consisted of rich agricultural land, but the problem was capital. Kannan claims that it was the Chettiars, who by injecting money into the area, changed the swathe of forests into a flourishing agricultural society by the beginning of the 19th century. "Chettiars can lay claim to 71 per cent of the total arable land there today," says Kannan.
The distribution of Chettiars in Burma was uneven. In 1930, there were Chettiar offices in 217 towns across the country - 155 towns in Lower Burma, 55 in Upper Burma and seven in the Shan states. That same year, it was estimated that the Chettiar capital in loans was a minimum of Rs 650 million. Nine years later, the loans outstanding was estimated at £50 million, a figure which was "the equivalent of all British investments in Burma combined", according to Turnell's report.
Chettiar loans were overwhelmingly employed in agriculture. Two-thirds of all Chettiar loans outstanding in 1930 were held by agriculturists, the remainder roughly categorised as 'trade'. Chettiar lending was secured against collateral, and mostly against titles to land, says Singaram, who holds documents that firmly establish ownership of various Burmese plots in his grandfather's name.
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By the beginning of the 1950s, the Chettiars had become victims of the anti-Indian sentiments that manifested after the end of World War II. At the time, almost half the population of Rangoon (now Yangon) were Indian. They had prominent posts in the British administration and were thus the target of Burmese nationalists. They also faced racial animosity.
In 1962, Indians were expelled from Burma, while private ventures were nationalised in 1964. Over 300,000 ethnic Indians were repatriated from Burma. Indian-owned businesses were nationalised, and their owners given just a nominal sum of 175 kyat for their trip back to India.
After their exit from Burma, mostly between 1948 and 1962, the community has tried hard to get their losses recompensed. They approached the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who it is believed told them that the community had enjoyed their investment in Burma for over 200 years and that because "the country (Burma) was poor, asking them to pay such a huge money was not a good idea".
The official attitude to Chettiars' demand has been lackadaisical at best. On a few occasions, the issue has found mention in Parliament debates, but nothing concrete has materialised. In the current United Progressive Alliance government, the community has two representatives, Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Minister of State for Commerce and Industry E M Sudarsana Natchiappan. Community members privately say that the two only use the issue to win political points.
Karuppiah says that the community knows it would be impractical to demand the return of properties, mostly land, as they existed in the 1940s. He says they recognise that the land they were entitled to have, over the years, been nationalised. But, he says, there still are some bungalows, houses, gardens, estates, shops, warehouses and and rice mills that belong, on paper, to their ancestors.
In a notice through the community newsletter, the Burma Mudhaleetalar Kuzhu has asked the Chettiars to retrieve paperwork, including ownership titles, power of attorney receipts, tax receipts and related documents. Among them is a 1962-63 letter from the then British Government reassuring the Chettiars about recognition of their ownership to Burmese land.
The group is working out ways in which these properties could be sold and compensation for the land holdings determined. "As the laws are getting relaxed locally, we could soon hear some good news," says Kannan.
