The sentence in the illustration accompanying today’s column, originally photographed on a sign board in Mandalay, speaks a thousand words. During a visit to Myanmar to retrace my father’s journey as an eight-year-old, who, along with his family, walked from northwestern Myanmar to Dimapur in Nagaland (India) over a period of nearly 40 days as refugees of the Second World War, this sign captured my interest the most. Both my grandfathers worked for the British administration in Burma and I grew up hearing of the travails they encountered on the journey.
My father’s attempts to revisit his childhood home proved futile from 1980s onwards as Myanmar passed from one military regime to another, till the reform process started in 2010, allowing us an opportunity to visit it in 2014. What began as an academic exercise turned into a memorable homecoming experience that I shared with my 80-year-old father. The sentence in the signboard “The tatmadaw shall never betray the national c
Senior General Min Aung Hliang, Myanmar’s Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, has now assumed full control of his country after seizing powers; and detaining top officials of the ruling National League for Democracy Party (NLD), including its leader and State Counsellor Ang San Suu Kyi on Monday morning.
The new Myanmar military junta is emerging to face a world which is very different to the one which they relinquished to the civilian-led government under Aung San Suu Kyi more than four years ago. And there are already hints what they may do in the coming weeks and months in a world facing shrinking democratic space, despite widespread condemnations of the coup.