Beyond Borders: Indians, Australians and the Indonesian Revolution, 1939 to 1950 9789048531103

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Beyond Borders

Asian History The aim of the series is to offer a forum for writers of monographs and occasionally anthologies on Asian history. The Asian History series focuses on cultural and historical studies of politics and intellectual ideas and crosscuts the disciplines of history, political science, sociology and cultural studies. Series Editor Hans Hägerdal, Linnaeus University, Sweden Editorial Board Members Roger Greatrex, Lund University David Henley, Leiden University Angela Schottenhammer, University of Salzburg Deborah Sutton, Lancaster University

Beyond Borders Indians, Australians and the Indonesian Revolution, 1939 to 1950

Heather Goodall

Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: Nationalist graffiti in a Surabaya street © Imperial War Museum Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout 978 94 6298 145 4 isbn 978 90 4853 110 3 (pdf) e-isbn doi 10.5117/9789462981454 692 | 697 nur © Heather Goodall / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2019 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.

For Paulie, Emma and Judith

Table of Contents Preface and Acknowledgments

15

Part I  Seeing the Region 1 Everybody’s Revolution Internationalism and nationalism Forces for mobility Sources for the voices of workers, lascars, and sepoys Structure of the book

21 23 27 37 40

2 Connections and Mobility 47 Colonial armies – Clarrie Campbell 48 Cargoes – Indentured labourers and coolies 53 Traders – T.D. Kundan, Clarrie Campbell 57 Seamen 63 Australian perceptions 64 Indian perceptions 69 Who were the Indian seamen? 74 Working together: Indian and Chinese seamen’s unions 75

Part II  An Asian War 3 Dangerous Oceans: Merchant Seamen and War The Silksworth dispute, 1937 The Dalfram and Pig-Iron Bob, 1938 The Indian strikes of 1939 – Komalam Craig The Atlantic Charter, 14 August 1941 Continued Chinese activism – Fred Wong Exiled Indonesian seamen – Tuk Subianto Building networks

81 82 85 87 97 98 100 102

4 Home and Away: Invaded or Under Arms Home: Living in the Japanese-occupied Indies Away: The Indian Army in Burma – P.R.S. Mani

103 104 111

5 Sharing the Home Front: Wartime Australia as Transnational Space 121 War leads to rising awareness 127 The India-Australia Association – Clarrie Campbell 130 The famine 132 The Indian Seamen’s Social Club – Phyllis Johnson 134 Indonesians in Australia – Mohammad Bondan, Haryono 143

Part III  The Boycott of Dutch Shipping 6 Boycotting Colonialism: Supporting Indonesian Independence in Australia Visions of new worlds – Abdul Rehman, Dasrath Singh Black-banning Dutch ships, 1945-47

153 154 156

7 Seeing the Boycott in the Australian Press Indonesian Independence in Australia The available stereotypes in Australian media The Boycott in Australia

173 173 180 182

8 Indian Perspectives: The Boycott as Anticolonialism The press inside India Forging a union

189 189 203

Part IV  Fighting Two Empires 9 ‘Surabaya Burns’: Assault on a Republican City Indian troops arrive in Indonesia – P.R.S. Mani Surabaya, the Republican port city – T.D. Kundan The 49th Infantry arrives The unacceptable British ultimatum

209 210 212 214 224

10 Frenzied Fanatics: Seeing Battle and Boycott in Australia Sources of news in the Australian press Narrowing the focus Indians challenge this imagery: Filming the Boycott

233 234 241 244

11 ‘The Acid Test’: Seeing Surabaya in India 251 Sources 252 Context 253 Local issues 255 Events of the Battle 258 Bombardment narrows the focus 262 ‘Extremists’ 266 Absent voices 269

Part V  Aftermath 12 Breaking the Boycott Labour unity splinters BBad nullies – Clarrie Campbell Message read – Kapila Khandvala Re-focusing on Indonesia – Molly Bondan Bringing back the Asian Articles

273 275 278 286 289 291

13 Trading for Freedom Freedom and censorship: weighing the costs The rice deal – T.D. Kundan Protecting Indian soldiers – P.R.S. Mani

295 296 301 305

14 Transnational Visions The tightening Dutch blockade To trade or not to trade… Trade after the Partition of India Asian Airlines disaster – Fred Wong Activists in exile – Clarrie Campbell

313 314 316 322 323 327

Part VI  Reflections 15 Remembering Heroes 333 Conclusions 334 Remembering heroes 343 Implications 345 Visions and afterlives 347

Glossary 351 Spelling 357 Abbreviations 359 Bibliography 361 Index 377

List of Images 2.1 ‘Good Pals’ Gallipoli Truth, 21 August 1915 (Sydney) 2.2 T.D. Kundan in Surabaya, c. 1935 Photo from Kundandas family collection, courtesy Manoj Daryanani 3.1 Komalam Craig in Sydney, 1939 (with unidentified man, possibly Hari Sahodar Singh) Courtesy of the family of the late Deirdre Morton, from her private collection, interviewed by Devleena Ghosh and Heather Goodall, 24.9.2013 4.1 P.R.S. Mani with the Maharaja of Cooch-Behar in Burma; Captain Mani (right, with journalist’s notepad) interviewing the Maharajah of Cooch-Behar, another Indian who enlisted in the British-led Indian Army to fight in Burma Photo held in the P.R.S. Mani Collection, Blake Library, UTS, republished courtesy of the Mani family 5.1 Clarrie Campbell, Ada Boys, and Phyllis Johnson with unidentified Papuan seaman on picnic, c. 1944 Courtesy the late Phyllis Johnson, interviewed by Heather Goodall in 2008, 2009, and 2010. Photo from her personal collection 5.2 Fred Wong with Phyllis Johnson. From left: Johnno Johnson, Phyllis Johnson, Fred Wong, his elder daughter Gwen, and two friends, c. 1945 With permission from Helen Wong-Liem 6.1 Abdul Rehman (centre, seated) and Ligorio de Costa in discussion with Indonesian activists and Clarrie Campbell. From Left: Unidentified Indonesian, Ligurio de Costa, Abdul Rehman, two unidentified Indonesians, Clarrie Campbell. 12 Oct 1945, Tribune Photo courtesy Mitchell Library 6.2 Dasrath Singh, organizing secretary Indian Seamen’s Union in Australia. Published with the article ‘Dutch Gestapo Trail Indian’ 9 November 1945, Tribune Photo courtesy Mitchell Library 6.3 Sylvia Mullins being attacked by Dutch troops with a water hose during a demonstration on the Sydney

51 60

92

116

136

143

160

161

8.1 9.1

9.2 10.1 10.2

10.3



docks against the British ship Stirling Castle, which was then taking Dutch troops to the Netherlands East Indies. 7 November 1945, The Sun Photo courtesy Mitchell Library ‘When Gulliver Awakes’, 3 November 1945, Free Press Journal of Bombay. The cartoonist’s signature is illegible, but could have been RK Laxman Reproduced courtesy of Free Press Journal, Mumbai Street scene in Surabaya during a lull in the fighting, showing the Nationalist graffiti commonly written in English and Hindustani on the walls of buildings. Indian troops guard the inside of the building while, out in the street, Indonesian workers sweep away debris from the SEAC bombing Photograph courtesy Imperial War Museum, SE_005639 (c) IWM Indian gunners with 3.7 inch guns near Surabaya Photograph courtesy Imperial War Museum, SE_006735 (c) IWM ‘Seamen Demonstrate at Dutch Shipping Company office’, 19 December 1945, SMH p. 4 Photograph courtesy Mitchell Library Abdul Rehman and Clarrie Campbell taking part in the re-enactment of the activist pursuit of the Dutch ship Patras as it attempted to leave Sydney Harbour manned by a strike-breaking Indian crew Film still from Joris Ivens’ 1946 film Indonesia Calling!, published with permission from the Joris Ivens Foundation, Nijmegen, the Netherlands Indian unionists re-enacting the return of the Indian crew to Sydney Harbour after they mutinied on the Dutch ship Patras, convinced by the pursuing activists to join the strike. Although acting the parts of naïve, newly arrived Indians who were prepared to break the boycott, the men had all chosen to show their union membership by wearing the badge of the Indian Seamen’s Union in Australia Film still from Joris Ivens’ 1946 film, Indonesia Calling! published with permission from the Joris Ivens Foundation, Nijmegen, the Netherlands

169

194

215 227 243

248

249

13.1 13.2

14.1

15.1

T.D. Kundan (standing, second from right) toasting President Sukarno (second from left), undated, c. early 1950s Photo from Kundandas family collection, courtesy Manoj Daryanani 304 Free Press Journal of Bombay, 10 October 1946, upper section of page 1, showing context for Mani’s article on Indian defectors, ‘A New Unity Forged Abroad Among Indian Soldiers’ (top right column) Mani’s own clipping, held in the P.R.S. Mani Papers, Blake Library, UTS; image reproduced courtesy Free Press Journal, Mumbai 311 Clarrie Campbell, in 1971, hosting ten Australian women trade unionists including Phyllis Johnson (fifth from left in dark glasses) in the Singapore Automobile Club, of which Campbell was Vice President. 11 May 1971, Singapore Herald Photo provided by the late Phyllis Johnson from her clipping collection, published with her permission after being scanned by the author in 2008 330 Kundan’s name inscribed on Wall of Heroes, 2015: Number 48 in the second column from the left Photograph by the author, taken on visit to Heroes’ Cemetery with Mrs Priya Vashdev, T.D. Kundan’s youngest daughter 349



Preface and Acknowledgments

This book crosses many borders. Working with Aboriginal Australians as fellow historians, I have become increasingly aware of the diversity and tensions within the artificial borders erected between ‘White’ and ‘Black’ Australians. Many of the Aboriginal people I know had backgrounds which included South Asian seamen and African, African-American, and Chinese gold-miners. The non-Aboriginal Australians who unthinkingly declared themselves to be ‘White’ also often had diverse backgrounds, sometimes including Aboriginal – or Indian or Indonesian or Chinese – ancestry. The relationships that generated this complex racial geography were not in the distant past, but often within the time of my parents or grandparents – proof, if any more were needed, that the ‘White Australia’ policy was not only draconian but also based on illusions of a fictionalised racial purity, which turned its back on the rich cultural offerings that could have been the experience of all Australians. If this inquiry had just been about Australia I would already have had many people to thank, but this book posed even more of a challenge. Not only is it set during the tumultuous decade from 1939 to 1949, but it is also based on the premise that Australia was not isolated but instead embedded within a region: the eastern Indian Ocean, extending from India into Southeast Asia, China, and on into the South Pacific. The principal countries considered here are India, Indonesia, China, and Australia. Many groups of people have made their living by moving between at least three or four of these countries, even before they were connected to the more distant arenas of imperial politics and economic power in Europe. The decade of the 1940s was shaken not only by World War II – as was Europe – but also by the challenges to colonialism that made war and its aftermath a very different matter in this Eastern Indian Ocean region than it was in Europe. Mobile people – seamen, traders, soldiers, and later correspondents and activists – were the channels through which the many cultures of Asia were linked, interacting with each other and with the locally resident populations in each of their ports or battlegrounds. Until World War II, shipping was the dominant way people moved around, but the war accelerated new technologies. Even more rapidly than aircraft, the new media of cabled news and radio drew ever more people into regional circulation. The pivotal event in this region emerging from the war was the Indonesian Revolution, taking place in a country occupied by Japan but seizing the opportunity of the end of the war to challenge the return of Dutch

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colonisers. Indians, Australians, and Chinese had all fought against Japanese expansion as a common enemy and each had been shaped by conflicts around colonialism. Each, however, was in different circumstances. India remained under direct British control, while large sections of Australia’s population still chafed at the continuing pressure of the British Empire – people as diverse as Aboriginal and Irish Australians. The Chinese felt that they had shaken themselves free of European colonialism with the establishment of Sun Yat Sen’s Republic in 1911 but then the Japanese occupation had had many resonances with colonial force. The Chinese Republicans were left divided while the British remained in possession of Hong Kong. So the differing circumstances of these countries nevertheless held common themes. Both the Dutch attempt to reestablish colonialism in Indonesia and the British role in assisting that reestablishment, were unwelcome not only to Indonesians but to many Australians, Indians and Chinese. Each of these countries was riven with class differences and contradictory loyalties, making the intense decade of the war and its aftermath a complex period offering both fears and hopes. For a brief time, these hopes were shared across countries and across borders – through personal contacts and increasingly by the newspapers, radio, photographs, and film – with visions of a new future that would emerge from all the suffering of the war. While the history of this decade has often been written by military or diplomatic historians studying strategies and government or empire-level policy-making, it could be argued that it was the working people who forced the major upheavals of the years immediately after the war. It was the seamen who paralysed cargo and weapons shipping to the Dutch colonisers. It was the troops who carried out the military plans of Dutch and British empires in Indonesia – straining their loyalties and leading many to cross the lines, deciding to fight for regional independence rather than for imperial interests. And finally, it was the image-makers – the news correspondents and photographers and filmmakers – who put information into circulation and taught the region about itself. These are the mobilities and connections that this book aims to trace. There is a cost to be paid for looking broadly at such connections through working people’s mobility. It means that this book is not able to analyse the history of any one country or culture in the depth it deserves, including that of Australia. Yet the recognition of the active relationships that were being made and unmade between countries – despite the borders of language, politics, law, and culture – hopefully allows new ways to investigate the histories of each country and to explore such ongoing interactions.

Preface and Acknowledgments

17

In trying to understand how these linkages between mobile working people occurred across country borders and were negotiated with local resident populations, I have needed to learn about India, Indonesia, and China during this period of great turmoil. My work has been led and encouraged by many people whose expertise lies in the histories of this book’s focal countries. Their generous support and patient instructions have been critically important for the book’s development – but, as always, the directions in which I have taken their suggestions are my responsibility alone. For Indonesia’s overall history, I have learned from Adrian Vickers, Vannessa Hearman, Frank Palmos, Robbie Peters, Howard Dick, Dwi Noverini Djenar, Graeme Steel, Geoff Wade, and Anthony Liem. For Surabaya, my thanks to Kathleen Azali and the young Indonesian historians of the c20 Library. I was able to interview family and friends of T.D. Kundan; his grandchildren, Simran Punjabi, Dipika Daryanani, and Manoj Michael Daryanani have been enthusiastic contributors. I was assisted further in Australia by Charlotte Maramis, and in the Netherlands by Andre Stuffkens at the Joris Ivens Foundation and Anne Lot Hoek. Suzan Piper provided excellent translation and research assistance. For assistance with research on the Australian Chinese community I want to thank the Chinese Youth League, Daphne Lowe-Kelly, Kam Louie, Louise Edwards, Sophie Loy-Wilson and Helen Liem-Wong, the daughter of late Fred Wong. For assistance with the gendered dimensions of violence in war and of colonial discrimination, for men and for women, my thanks to Francisca de Haan, Kate McGregor, Vera Mackie, Duncan McDui-Ra, V. Geetha, and Samia Khatun. For Australian maritime and union issues, I am grateful to Paddy Crumlin (ITWU), Rod Pickette (MUA), Rowan Cahill, Meredith Burgmann, and Drew Cottle. In Australia I was fortunate to be able to interview activists who had been close to the Indian, Indonesian, and Chinese seamen, including Phyllis Johnson, Sylvia Mullins and her brother Jack Mullins, and Komalam Craig’s family and friends: Sushila Craig, Sabita Reddy, and Deirdre Morton. Extensive Australian and international archival and media research has been conducted for this project by Helen Randerson. For Indian seamen, I have been assisted by Ben Zachariah, Ned Bertz, Rochelle Pinto, and in particular Gopalan Balachandran. For research in f inding Indian seamen who had been in Australia, my thanks go to Joseph Pinto in Pune and Titas Chakraborty and Prakriti Mitra in Kolkata. In Mumbai, Abdulgani Serang of the National Union of Seamen of India explained the challenges facing Indian seamen today. For the Indian troops, my thanks to Anirudh Desphande and Srinath Raghaven. On Indian politics, the independence movement and the consequences of Partition, my thanks

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to Mushirul Hassan, Furrukh Khan, Jim Masselos, Meghna Guhathakurta, and Urvashi Buthalia. Rindon Kundu in Kolkata and Subarta Singh in Delhi have been outstanding researchers. My analysis of P.R.S. Mani’s experiences in military and civilian investigative journalism has only been possible because of the generosity of his sons, Inderjeet and Ranjit Mani, who donated their late father’s papers to the Blake Library at UTS, where they have been digitised, transcribed, and made accessible for open access online. I was also grateful to interview Dr S. Padmavarti, the sister-in-law of P.R.S. Mani, and the Indian activist Sarla Sharma. In beginning to understand the active role of the media I have been assisted by Andrew Jakubowicz and Catriona Bonfiglioni. I appreciate the support of Amsterdam University Press, whose interest in the Indonesian Revolution has located it in a regional perspective and whose anonymous reviewers offered valuable questions and suggestions that have hopefully clarified this attempt to work across borders. Cartographer Sharon Harrup has skilfully and patiently made that regional perspective visible. For an overall awareness of regional connections, I am indebted to my co-researchers in the Indian Ocean Project: to Michael Pearson, Stephen Muecke, and particularly to Devleena Ghosh, who has joined me in later projects with the same patience, generosity, and insight. And for their advice, encouragement, support, and warm friendship, in India and across the globe, my thanks to Gunnel Cederlof, Kanchi Kohli, and Mahesh Rangarajan. Books do not come into existence without the support of people who understand words on paper, and I am grateful to the tireless work and thoughtful insights of my editor, Venetia Somerset. Families bear the real cost of any long work. My deepest thanks are for them: to my daughters, Judith and Emma, for the inspiration I draw from their passions, and to my husband Paul, who has been unfailing in his patience, love and encouragement.

1

Everybody’s Revolution

The Indonesian Revolution seemed – for a while – to be everybody’s revolution. The struggle for Independence in Indonesia sent waves of hope and fear across many borders, old and new. It signalled the ending of some empires and the beginning of others, although there were many long struggles still to be undertaken. This book explores why Indonesian Independence was so important to so many people around the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia. To do so, it considers two events in detail: the Boycott of Dutch shipping in Australian waters in support of the Indonesian Republic (begun in September 1945), and the Battle of Surabaya in Indonesia (October to December 1945). Each of these events is iconic within their own national histories in India and Australia as well as Indonesia, but neither has been analysed or commemorated in relation to the other or to the region as a whole. Yet they happened simultaneously and were linked to each other through people, politics, and rapidly travelling news over the radio, in newspapers, and on film. From a broader view, analysing these two events together allows us to see the region in a new way – to go beyond both the old borders of empire and the newly imposed borders of the decolonising nations. At the time, many people no longer saw the region as the old network of imperial colonies that it had been, nor as the patchwork of separate nations enclosed behind individual borders that it was to become. Instead, their lived experience of the region was of a series of connections along which trade, ideas, and people flowed. Although many people along these connected routes had conflicts with each other or held prejudices and fears about each other, they also held shared hopes for new worlds. The two focal events of this book, the Boycott and the Battle, each involved people who had crossed many borders. The Boycott in Australia would not have begun or been sustained without the transnational effort of Indonesian, Indian, and Chinese seamen, and Australian maritime workers, both on ships and on the docks. While it was recorded and analysed in both the Australian and Indian press, they each presented and explained the news of the Boycott in very different ways. Boycott was a time-tested weapon of maritime workers for obstructing international trade, but it could be a double-edged sword: while it attempted to challenge imperial commerce, it could also isolate the newly emerging national movements. Unionists and nationalists in Indonesia, Australia, and India all struggled to use the benefits of this strategy and avoid its weaknesses over the ensuing months.

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At exactly the same time, the Battle of Surabaya was taking place. Surabaya, on the north-eastern coast of Java, was the largest port city in Indonesia, the hub of Dutch colonial maritime economic power and so also an important cross-roads for Arabic, Chinese, and Indian traders – some connected directly to Australia. Just as importantly, it was a node in the flow of ideas and philosophies. For centuries, Islamic culture had spread around the coastlines along with the traders. More recently, socialist ideals had spread through the movement of industrial and maritime working people. The Battle of Surabaya was fought between highly politicised nationalists on the Indonesian side and, on the other, a British-led international force composed largely of Indian troops – themselves from a country in the midst of its own struggle for independence. The brutal fighting and relentless bombardment in Surabaya were observed by both Indian and Australian journalists, whose home-country newspapers drew comparisons between the Indian role in the Battle and the Boycott. The news from Surabaya shaped not only how the Boycott was seen in Australia, but also the later events in the campaigns for independence and justice that were being carried out in India, Australia, and Indonesia. To understand more about why these two events have been remembered the way they have, this book will look at each event and then at its media representations in India and Australia. The media – newspapers, photographs, radio, and film – played an active role in this story. One of the central Battle participants, P.R.S. Mani, was an Indian journalist enlisted in the Indian Army under British command, who wrote and broadcast from Burma and Indonesia. All of the other participants – troops, residents, nationalists – paid careful attention to the news. The Indian Seamen’s Union in Australia (ISUiA) kept an extensive file of the Australian newspaper coverage about the Boycott, and its members also took part in a f ilm about it. Each of the actors in this story tried to intervene and reshape the news that was circulating about the events in which they were involved. Much analysis of the media’s representations of the conflict in Indonesia, both in Dutch and in Bahasa Indonesia – as well as the vernacular press in many languages in India – remains to be done. Yet there is a rich fund of comparisons that can be drawn from English-language media alone. It is this English-language media that is covered in this study. All these consequences of news flowing across borders to shape government and activists’ decisions about separate campaigns are lost when events like the simultaneous Boycott in Australia and the Battle of Surabaya are seen only within national boundaries. Yet that is how they have continued to be portrayed in most analyses.

Everybody’s Revolution

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Mobile working people are this book’s focus, sharing person-to-person relationships, not the diplomats and leaders who negotiated the upper levels of political change. I follow the seamen and soldiers, labourers and traders – the mobile people who had been quietly building a network of links that might have used imperial infrastructures, like cargo shipping, but had subverted them to their own goals. There were variations of class among these working people but, other than the traders, many were not literate and few left their own accounts. There has been much valuable research exploring the lives of working people across borders – sometimes moving voluntarily, like seamen and merchants and sometimes involuntarily, like soldiers, convicts, slaves, and indentured labourers.1 Many of these studies focus on the period before World War II, with the important exceptions of Yasmin Khan and Srinath Raghavan, who both focus on World War II itself.2 This book looks beyond that conflict, tracing how the war opened up possibilities for very new worlds once it was over, because it had shaken the foundations of the old empires. Moreover, this book looks across more than one empire: the British, the Dutch, the Japanese, and the emerging Cold War alliances that later led to other empires. Finally, this book looks beyond the conventional assumption that mobile people were men; in these pages, the women involved in this period – as travellers, as workers, as lovers and wives, and as activists – become visible.

Internationalism and nationalism Calls for an end to colonialism had been heard for a long time. Movements for autonomy and then complete independence had been building since the end of the nineteenth century and had gathered force after the Chinese Republican movement toppled the Manchu Dynasty in 1911.3 The paradox identified by Glenda Sluga was that this period of intense campaigning for new nations – with, inevitably, a set of clear borders – was also a period of active internationalism; an obvious example is the emergence of bodies like the League of Nations, which were aimed at fostering free communication across such borders. 4 Vijay Prashad argues in The Darker Nations that 1 Tambe & Fischer-Tine 2009; Ballantyne 2012; Anderson 2012; Raza et al. 2015; Loy-Wilson 2016; Rettig & Hack 2011; Omissi 1995, 1999; Das 2011; Streets 2004. 2 Khan 2015; Raghavan 2016. 3 Raza et al. 2015. 4 Sluga 2013.

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there was a different type of ‘nation’ being conceived among anticolonial independence movements like those in South Asia. Rather than being based on an imagined nation where citizens shared identical histories, cultures, or racial backgrounds, Prashad argues that Nehru and others understood the ‘nation’ to be always in a reciprocal relationship with the ‘international’, across many cultures and borders.5 Benjamin Zachariah in Playing the Nation Game has shown that this dimension of Nehru’s thinking had faded, by the 1940s, as pragmatism forced him into alliances with more conservative coalition partners. Nevertheless, this perspective can be seen well into the 1950s in Indian foreign policy interventions in, for example, the conflict in Korea. How far did this broader conceptualisation of the ‘nation’ extend to the decolonising movements of Indonesia and India in the 1940s.6 Illusions of – and desires for – racial ‘purity’ had led settler colonies with dominant European populations like Australia, the USA, and South Africa to impose racially restrictive immigration acts beginning in the 1880s. Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds have traced how settler colonies built ‘a confederation of colour’ – that is, an alliance of ‘White’ nations – that held for decades. This shaped consciousness in places where it held power, like Australia, even when it was contested and disorganised, as it was in the period considered in this book.7 In places where this ‘alliance of Whiteness’ did not hold political or cultural power, like India, there was wide knowledge of and anger about such racialised barriers around the settler colonies of the region. Yet the idea of racial ‘purity’ in Australia was always an illusion. Ann Curthoys explored the cultural and racial diversity of Australian society despite its myths of racial purity as early as 19738 and has continued to work on this theme with Marilyn Lake and others.9 The conceptualisation of a communicative, transnational space that encompasses the Indian Ocean and South and Southeast Asia has been laid out effectively by Devleena Ghosh, Paul Gillen, and Stephen Muecke in a series of volumes.10 There was, in fact, a great deal of communication across this region. One of the ways this book intervenes in conventional histories of the region is by ‘de-centering Europe’, in Dipesh Chakrabarty’s phrase, to shift the focus to this Indian Ocean–Southeast Asian region and recognise the sustained 5 6 7 8 9 10

Prashad 2007. Zachariah 2012. Lake & Reynolds 2008. Curthoys 1973. Curthoys & Lake 2005; Lake 2010. Gillen & Ghosh 2007; Ghosh & Muecke 2007; Ghosh et al. 2009; Ghosh 2012.

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mobility and communication around it.11 As Prashad suggested, nationalism may not be the polar opposite of internationalism, so their co-production may not be the paradox which some have suggested. Although Australia is seldom included in regional definitions of ‘Asia’, it was part of the flow of information, trade, people, and politics in the interwar period. Long before Gandhi’s political work was publicised in Australia, people had been moving back and forth across the Indian Ocean, writing letters about what they found in Australia to family back in India, but also building relationships – and often lasting marriages – with Australians, including Aboriginal Australians, as Samia Khatun is showing.12 Many Australians had Irish backgrounds and shared an acute awareness of the bitter Irish struggles for independence from the British, so when the Irish press in Australia linked the 1919 British massacre at Amritsar with the Irish independence struggle, there was a ready Australian audience.13 Protests from India against the restrictive White Australia immigration legislation, introduced with Federation in 1901, had continued, backed by threats of trade boycotts in 1903 and 1905 and then voiced at the postwar Commonwealth Conferences of 1921 and 1923, finally forcing some amendments to the Act in 1925. In Indonesia, the emergence of many movements opposed to colonialism – an ‘Age in Motion’, as Shiraishi has translated the pergerakan14 – led to a powerful surge in independence and communist movements in 1926 and then the imprisonment by the Dutch of many on the Left in West New Guinea. Some activist Indonesians escaped by fleeing overseas, which ironically enabled them to attend the many anticolonial forums occurring at the time, such as the League Against Imperialism where Mohammad Hatta met Jawaharlal Nehru.15 In China, the British shootings at Shanghai in 1925 – and the presence and implied participation of Australian troops in the massacre – had galvanised Australian unions into issuing calls for solidarity with Shanghai workers and their unions.16 The presence of many Australians in China escalated this communication, as Sophie Loy-Wilson has shown: some were Australian citizens of Chinese ethnicity, while many others were European Australian in China because of personal relationships, looking for work, taking up new 11 12 13 14 15 16

Chakrabarty 2000. Khatun 2012, 2015, 2016. Catholic Press 15.7.1920: 27.7.1921, 17.7.1921: 13; Southern Cross 12.8.1927: 11. Pergerakan is a base word that means both ‘movement’ and ‘motion’. Shiraishi 1990. Loy-Wilson 2016.

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commercial links, maybe pursuing missionary evangelism, or monitoring Shanghai’s British-owned factories.17 Yet despite such widespread communication, including tragic events and powerful anticolonial campaigns, the empires were still standing at the end of the 1930s. World War II changed all that forever. The Atlantic Charter, announced on 14 August 1941, seemed to promise an end to colonialism. Later years were to show that this reading of the Charter was illusory, but in 1941 it inspired hope across the colonised world, where people struggling for independence saw the document as a commitment that an Allied victory would see a new world of equality, safety, and democracy for all. Then the Japanese push began into the Pacif ic, Southeast Asia, and beyond, with intermittent threats and bombing raids on India and Australia. The Western European empires were destabilised or unceremoniously pushed out of these areas altogether by the Japanese advance in Indonesia, Indo-China, and Burma. Although welcomed by some, the Japanese vision for a Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere stalled and ultimately failed. Yet the Japanese had shown that European empires could be beaten and sent packing by an Asian army. In many areas there emerged bitter opposition to Japanese rule, which came to be seen as just another form of imperial domination. William Frederick has documented the rising anger among the working-class kampung (urban neighbourhood) populations of Surabaya about the mounting controls imposed by the Japanese.18 The romusha (forced labourers) from Java suffered most severely. Initially volunteering as workers, the romusha were soon coerced into performing body-breaking labour, and suffered from acute starvation and severe brutalisation, leading to a far higher death rate than that of European prisoners of war (POWs), though this is seldom acknowledged.19 The opposition to the new Japanese empire, however, also fuelled nationalist hopes. Barely 24 hours after Emperor Hirohito announced the Japanese surrender, the Indonesians took their first steps towards independence – and offered an example for many of the anticolonial movements across the Indian Ocean, Southeast, and East Asia. The struggle for independence was on! There were many battles still to be fought in Indonesia and elsewhere before independence even looked possible. But once that call had come from Indonesia, there was no turning back. 17 Ibid. 18 Frederick 1989. See Glossary for ‘kampung’. 19 Kratoska 2005. See Glossary for ‘romusha’.

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For the leaders of the new Indonesian Republic, hopes for success seemed to lie with international networks. One of the first actions of the Indonesian Republic reflected this desire to speak to a wider world. In a radio broadcast on 8 October 1945, President Sukarno invited four leading figures from ‘neighbouring countries’ to visit Indonesia to see for themselves what conditions were like under the new Republic: Madame Chiang Kai-Shek of China, General Carlos P. Romula of the Philippines, Jawaharlal Nehru of India, and Herbert Evatt of Australia.20 Other than providing testimony, the leadership of two of these countries could have offered little help: Republican China was heavily damaged after the Japanese occupation and, though technically independent, the Philippines was entrapped in rising American anti-communism. The third leader was Nehru, who had no nation – and indeed was barely out of jail – but who led a rising nationalist movement that was clearly about to take control of India. Bert Evatt, the Attorney-General and Foreign Minister of Australia, was simply not concentrating on Indonesia, but rather on jockeying for power with the USA and Britain over the occupation of Japan and the Peace conditions. His involvement was to come only later, as a supporter of Indonesian Independence at the United Nations. None of these four leaders came to Indonesia immediately, and even their sympathy and availability would not have been enough to bring Indonesia much assistance, but the new Republic wanted international witnesses.

Forces for mobility The communities to whom the Atlantic Charter, and then the Indonesian Revolution, promised so much were mobile because of processes accelerated by colonialism: the flow of cargo and ideas on the one hand and, on the other, the exercise of power backed by guns. Cargo The networks of trade involved the labourers – often enslaved, bonded, or indentured – who produced the goods, the seamen who transported the goods to and from Europe, and the merchants who conducted the trade. Another element was imperial power, although not necessarily enforced by colonial armies. Instead, such power might be enacted through the private owners of cargo ships, but their interests were backed by the colonial states. 20 Anderson 1976/2006: 179.

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It has become common to refer to groups such as Indians and Chinese, who settled in new places, as ‘diasporas’ following William Safran’s definition of the term, in which orientation towards and identification with the homeland is an important defining characteristic.21 Yet, as Joya Chatterji and David Washbrook point out, people’s orientation towards a ‘homeland’ changes over time.22 Thus, it was only when an active nationalist movement developed within the homeland that people in overseas countries began to conceive of themselves as having closer ties to it. Nationalism at home and among the diaspora was therefore produced in particular historical circumstances, rather than being a permanent characteristic of peoples living away from their places of origin. Members of such diasporic populations may also – and simultaneously – have strong links to their new places of residence, so that in times of crisis, their loyalties might be complex and multiple. Such complexity has been explored by cultural geographers like Doreen Massey and Ben Rogaly and their work has been taken up in current discussions around ‘translocality’.23 It was clearly a factor among many of the actors we meet in the following chapters of this story, whose primary loyalty was not to a single ‘nation’ but rather to a region or perhaps to an idea. The other important question surrounding such diasporic groups, particularly successful trading communities, was whether they functioned as a collective, drawing strength from closely woven networks of kin and the constraints of caste, class, and religion that were dominant in their place of origin, or whether their success was a result of factors common to businesses in their new location. Claude Markovits’s work on Sindhi traders in Central and Southeast Asia during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is an important source for the focal areas of this book, particularly Surabaya.24 Many other authors have followed his work to attribute the success of these trading communities to their culture, as Heiko Schrader, for example, did with the Chettiers, the Tamil traders who became widely established throughout Malaysia, Burma, and Sumatra during the same period.25 Markovits later reflected on his own work and concluded that the ‘culturalist’ approach was too simple.26 In his view, the success of the Sindhis in Indonesia was not due to tightly knit ethnic, religious, or caste structures, as they were in fact a multi-caste and multi-religious group. 21 22 23 24 25 26

Safran 1991: 83-99. Chatterji & Washbrook 2013: 1-10. Massey, 1994; Rogaly, 2015, Greiner and Sakdapolrak, 2013. Markovits 2000. Schrader 1992; Mahadevan 1978a, 1978b. Markovits 2008.

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Instead, Markovits believed that it was the mobilisation of particular bodies of knowledge, such as the efficient circulation of information about business strategies and skills in how to rapidly acquire fluency in new languages – as well as simple contingency or luck! – that allowed the Sindhis in Southeast Asia to strengthen their business fortunes. There has been much important research on seamen, particularly Indian seamen, who are widely known as ‘lascars’ – a general term for ‘seamen’ that became specifically racialised to refer to South Asians in the late nineteenth century, as Janet Ewald pointed out.27 Gopalan Balachandran and Ravi Ahuja have both contributed significantly to this literature, which overall relates largely to the northern hemisphere. The southern hemisphere archival resources used to discuss the organising of Indian seamen in Australian waters in this book are therefore both unusual and valuable. A widely held belief among shipping companies and colonial states was that there were ‘genuine’ lascars who were not political but could be ‘contaminated’ by ‘agitators’. This conceptualisation has also entered the scholarly literature; for example, Kris Manjapra notes that M.N. Roy ‘travelled as a lascar’, suggesting that the ‘ordinary’ lascar was not going to be a political activist.28 Ali Raza and Ben Zachariah point out that this is a simplification of a far more complex reality.29 As this book too will show, Indian ‘ordinary seamen’ could be intensely politicised but nevertheless ‘genuine’ lascars, while at the same time anyone could and did ‘travel as a lascar’: for example, working one’s passage to get to the Hajj was common among Indonesians, making them ‘lascars’ for the period of the voyage but not necessarily before or after it. Raza and Zachariah identify four routes to becoming a lascar, but point out that there was ambiguity and overlap between them all, and that all were subject to change over time for the individual involved: ‘We need to understand lascars’ political inclinations not as organised or coherent ideology, but as related to lived experiences, dealing with the movement of ideas, the processes of formulating them and of translati[ng] them, and acknowledging the complexity and intermingling of motives and ends.’30 The importance of trade meant that its obstruction – or boycott – was just as important. Boycotts could be carried out by consumers, traders, or transporters. Fostering trade links was a way to build and cement commitments to the stability of trading partners, in this case the new nation of 27 28 29 30

Ewald 2000. Manjapra 2010. Raza & Zachariah 2012. Ibid.: 15.

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Indonesia. For a movement like the Indonesian nationalist movement, the use of boycotts as pointed out earlier was a double-edged sword: while the initial Boycott of Dutch shipping was a powerful way to hinder the return of the Dutch colonisers, economically and militarily, it eventually became a major liability for the new Republic because it threatened to keep it isolated from more powerful nations. For seamen, however, whether they were Indian, Chinese, Australian, or Indonesian, using the weapon of boycott by intervening in the transportation of cargo was one of the few powers they could utilise that would actually make a difference to empires. Military power Most visibly, the power of the coloniser was enforced by troops, many recruited from the colonised populations themselves and then deployed to enact imperial control. Each of these colonial armies had their own history. Tobias Rettig and Karl Hack have gathered an important body of scholarship together in Colonial Armies, building on the work of David Omissi, Sanatu Das, Heather Streets, and others in relation to WWI and Yasmin Khan and Srinath Raghavan on WWII, much of which is discussed in the following chapters.31 Gajendra Singh has argued that, just like the lascars discussed by Raza and Zachariah, the identities of the troops were far more complex than suggested by simplistic, racialised categories such as ‘martial races’. Most important, they changed over time and in relation to lived experiences. Singh’s valuable analysis of the changing self-perception and affiliation of troops over the early twentieth century is particularly relevant to the discussion of how Indians responded to the conditions in Burma and Indonesia. In these two locations, they faced not only differences in geography, climate, and enemies but differences in how the context framed military confrontations as challenges to very personal loyalties and identities.32 Ideas Yet another element shaping all of these mobile populations, including the troops, were the circulating webs of universalist ideas. Some of these philosophies had survived for a long time, particularly Islam, which had been carried around coastal regions by traders and seamen around the 31 Rettig & Hack 2011; Omissi 1995, 1999; Das 2011; Streets 2004; Raghavan 2016; Khan 2015. 32 Singh 2006.

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Indian Ocean and into Southeast Asia from around 1000 ad.33 Then came European Christianity, associated with and tainted by its links with European imperialism but still taking hold widely, penetrating into inland areas, sometimes through force but at other times as a choice intended to challenge local power relations. Other Western universalist ideas took a more critical stance towards empire. One was Theosophy, which rejected European Christian dominance in favour of Hinduism and Buddhism, setting up an international base in Adyar, India and branches in many places, including Australia. This influential body of thought drew many women both in metropoles and colonies into its ideology of ‘universal brotherhood’, which promised ‘no distinction on the grounds of race, creed, sex, caste or colour’. In theory at least, Theosophy embraced a world of cultural tolerance, actively involving itself in movements for constitutional change and self-government like the Home Rule movement in India – although some of its leaders rejected Gandhian non-cooperation as both ‘revolutionary’ and unrealistic, calling instead for the discipline of conscription and for standing armies to guard civilised India against the ‘savage tribes’ of the north. Theosophy drew in many educators who were interested in staffing girls’ schools in particular, and came to include the methods for the instruction of very young children associated with Maria Montessori. From the 1880s to the 1920s, these links drew Europeans into the rich cultures of Asia by embracing religions like Hinduism and Buddhism in ways imperial bureaucracies and military structures had never done. Still more critical of empire was socialism, circulating from the 1880s, then communism from 1917, disseminated through the old links of trade and transport, particularly among seamen. Based on class differences rather than differences of religion or race, socialism and communism reached across the hierarchies and divisions within colonised societies. These included those between castes in India or between the Javanese aristocracy and Java’s many workers, particularly in the port cities of Calcutta, Bombay, and Surabaya, where the seamen carrying cargoes and the wharfies handling them were increasingly likely to be unionised. Gendered worlds These webs of cargoes, people, power, and ideas intersected and interacted with each other, sometimes in tension and sometimes in mutual 33 Ali 2016.

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amplification. Each also generated personal relationships of love, sex, and marriage. While the stories of seafarers, soldiers, and journalists are often written as if only men participated, women were involved in all of these flows. Women were labourers in the plantation fields and took part in the movement and trading of cargo, either as family members of traders or as traders themselves. Women were involved with seafarers at every port – often as sex workers but also as lovers, wives, and comrades. Women took active roles in the circulation of ideas. Theosophy, in particular, included many women among its leaders, such as Annie Besant, Margaret Cousins, and Rukmini Devi. Movements for national independence and communism also involved many women and generated sexual relationships across racial, cultural, and national borders. And finally, as writers and journalists, in radio and theatre, women travelled across borders and became emotionally and sexually involved as they did so. Recognising gender amounts to far more than ‘adding in’ women, difficult though that may be given the gaps in the archival record. It is just as important to see that the many stereotypes of male members of mobile communities of seamen and soldiers were intensely gendered, presenting varied forms of masculinity and their embodiments in association with particular groups of people or specific trades. The gendering of racial representations was a long-established and highly effective tool of colonialism.34 The European gender order in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries routinely attributed males with characteristics of rationality, relative physical strength, and assertiveness over women, who were expected to be emotional and childlike, physically weak and compliant. There were assumptions of a biological basis for such distinctions, like the descriptions of diseases with symptoms including uncontrollable emotions that could only affect women, notably ‘hysteria’, which were developed by early Egyptian and Greek medicine but persisted into the popular psychology of the twentieth century. The stereotyping of colonised peoples was shaped by variations in these characteristics, which established hierarchies in which European men could be considered dominant. Rationality was central to many elements of such hierarchies; conversely, the absence of rational control of emotions, 34 Works on gender theory in colonial contexts used for this study include Spivak 1988; Jayawardina 1994; McClintock 1995; Stoler 1995, 2002; Burton 1998; Levine 2004; Sinha 2004; Allen 2008; Ballantyne and Burton 2009; Fischer-Tine and Gehrmann (eds) 2009; Haskins & Lowrie 2015. See Ewald 2000 and Balachandran 2008, 2012 on the gendered stereotyping of seamen in the Asian Articles (which had different categories for seamen from different countries) and the characterisation of male Indian ‘lascars’ as effeminate, physically weak, compliant, easily led, and – at times – irrational.

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leading to either childlike naivety or ‘frenzy’, was commonly ascribed to the colonised – in other words, male colonised people were believed to demonstrate characteristics that were assumed to be ‘feminine’. Another gendered ‘colonial’ stereotype was the British depiction of ‘martial races’ as part of its strategy to recruit Indians into the military. This was both an expansion and a diminution of European masculinity: their aggression, assertiveness, and strength might be enhanced, but colonial males were still considered lacking in the European masculine traits of rationality and capacity to lead.35 There were similarities in the Dutch depictions of the ‘Ambonese’, whom they encouraged to join their colonial army.36 This book traces such representations of lascars, ‘martial races’, and other colonised people in the Australian and Indian media, showing them to be not only gendered and shaped by both British and Australian histories but also changing over time. Media and new mobilities The flows along these networks circulated at an ever-increasing pace as technologies changed, first introducing steam into the cargo transport system and then changes in the media from postal carriage and telegrams to photography, radio, and film. All contributed to the intensifying circulation of ideas and facility of commerce. The expansion of colonial communication media was exponential and was initially aided by European colonisers like the British and Dutch. They sought to bolster the legitimacy of their colonial rule in the later nineteenth century by fostering literacy in their colonies through education and the creation of a ‘public sphere’ to allow rational debate. Of course, the expansion of this ‘public sphere’ in fact created many ‘publics’. Direct participation in these ‘publics’ might require literacy, but people without skills in reading or writing could still listen to others read and use scribes to contribute to these debates. Photography, radio, and film offered even more possibilities for non-literate intervention, and, as this book shows, mobile working people were quick to grasp such opportunities. Emerging elites in India and Indonesia often led the late nineteenth century movements demanding a voice for the colonised. Their literacy enabled them to turn readily to the local press – which they may sometimes have owned – to express those demands. By the 1910s, alarm in the British and 35 Streets 2004; Singh 2006, 2014 on gender and recruitment in India. 36 Hack & Rettig 2011.

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Dutch colonial regimes led to increasing censorship and judicial proceedings to muzzle such oppositional press. As both Timothy Harper and Keith Foulcher point out, the imposition of such controls merely led to more subtle use of metaphor and symbol, greater publication in vernacular languages, and diversification of challenges to colonial control.37 Through the interwar years, colonial regimes intensified their efforts to establish and control the press and newly emerging media such as radio. The two world wars accelerated this process as technologies like radio and photography became essential to the militaries of all sides. This book traces the expanding role of the press through the mid-twentieth century in covering both warfare and social conflict. Correspondents’ written reports, photography, radio, and film were crucial means through which the participants in this story observed and shared the events in which they took part. This new international communication was called ‘news’ and presented as factual, although there was always selectivity and interpretation involved from journalists, photographers, filmmakers, or editors. The expansion of this industry of international communication initiated the circulation of a whole new group of people filling roles variously called foreign correspondents, war correspondents, and public relations staff. Some of these people had worked earlier in their home country press, like P.R.S. Mani, the Indian journalist whom we follow throughout this book. Others may have been travellers or bureaucrats, but they could still do the work needed for the expanding industry of international news. Their accounts – whether professional articles or the by-products of more mundane personal letters and company reports – not only depicted events that had seldom been recorded but also, through the press, circulated accounts of these events to new audiences on the homefront and other battlefields. In fact, they showed the events to the participants themselves, who then had the opportunity to see both the events and themselves in a new light. Finally, these news reports and images are how these events have been remembered, either in the impressions left at the time on personal memory or through library holdings. Ownership and control over the news industry during the 1940s was diverse: some journalists, like Mani, were employed by the military or the colonial states, while others had a degree of independence as the employees of nationalist newspapers, as did T.G. Narayanan. Yet others were employed by working-class organisations, like the filmmakers in Australia who were commissioned by the Waterside Workers Federation 37 Harper 2001; Foulcher 2009.

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(WWF) to produce films from the workers’ point of view. Each type of coverage, whether it was identified as factual news or as opinion or review, not only conveyed glimpses of reality, but interpretations of that reality – and often very partial interpretations, at that. This book takes a close look at the news media in this period. Historians usually draw on newspapers and other media as sources – to be assessed critically but then taken as evidence of the events under discussion. In this story, on the other hand, the media itself is an actor in the events – not only the key participants in the Boycott and Battle, but also the broader publics in Australia, India, and war-torn Indonesia were influenced by what news they heard or read or saw as ‘news’ and how it was explained to them. This in turn shaped political, industrial, and military decisions. There has been no previous comparative historical study of the media of Australia and India, so this book turns over new ground in its comparison of the English-language Indian-owned press with Australian newspaper coverage of these two major events in 1945 and 1946. The most useful media studies approach has been the body of theory on ‘Framing’, that is widely used today and has many different interpretations.38 One definition which is held in common is that ‘frames’ can be considered as simplifications of information that narrow the range of possible reader interpretations and responses. Frames might be developed in the media over time through contextualisation (by proximity in a newspaper’s layout, for example), emphasis, repetition, omission, or the ascription of agency or passivity to different characters. Most useful for this study has been the work on frames done by Robert Entmann and by Teun van Dijk. Entmann’s comparative approach considers how similar events have been presented by the same media in very different ways. This book has also used comparison but looks at how the media of two different countries – India and Australia – considered the same events.39 Van Dijk has paid particular attention to the discursive strategies of ‘the ideological square’, in which the ‘frame’ shapes the way media products are understood to favour one interpretation over others. 40 My book has not attempted to assess reception, that is, how audiences understand media coverage. Instead, I have followed Van Dijk in comparing how information has been presented in the media products themselves, using the framing elements indicated above, in the hope that others will build on this analysis. 38 Attributed to Erving Goffman in his 1974 Frame Analysis, the concept has been widely used but retains currency although the definitions of ‘frames’ vary substantially. 39 Entmann 1991. 40 van Dijk 1998a: 267; 1998b.

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The newspapers in India and Australia reported on exactly the same events, but they demonstrated wide differences in the contexts in which they were presented – in both explicit references and the visual layout of the newspapers – and the meanings attached to them. Often the same sources were used, but the editorial approaches to the information were very different. Sometimes the same journalists authored articles for use in both the Indian and Australian press, but the allocated column space – and therefore the amount of detail that could be conveyed – was very different, as were the headlines. At times the same vocabulary was used – terms like ‘the Atlantic Charter’ and ‘extremist’ were common in both countries – and yet the meanings associated with these words or phrases had very different values. In particular, the meanings explicitly or implicitly associated with the term ‘extremist’ varied significantly before and after the commencement of the Battle of Surabaya. This was an important turning point for all of the parameters mentioned above, so this book analyses and compares the media in the two countries before and after the Battle commenced. The gendered nature of the characterisations of actors and actions is also noted and compared. At the time of these events, pictorial news coverage was increasing, although it had been introduced earlier in Australian papers than in Indian ones. Visual media like photographs, films, and political cartoons in newspapers and the aural media of radio broadcasts all exhibit divergences that correspond to those in the textual sources – but it was the visual and aural forms of media that were targeted by the seamen’s (and at times soldiers’) attempts to intervene. Identifying the differences in print, audio, and visual media in content and source, context, and frame, may be considered incomplete from the perspective of media analyses, but are necessary dimensions of the historical analysis undertaken in this text. Globalisation The circulations of people, trade, ideas, and power described in this book can be seen as an expression of what we now call globalisation, which has often been assumed to have emerged only in more recent times. Yet, this study demonstrates that global circulations and contestations were occurring at least as early as the mid-twentieth century. In his 2017 book India, China and the World, Tansen Sen has shown the presence of such circulations for centuries Yet after describing such mobility and border crossing, my book closes with a series of obstructions to these global flows. In the 1950s, the Cold

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War and Stalinism combined to choke off the international exchange of ideas, while mechanisation reshaped the shipping industry, cutting down the flow of people in unionised crews. The new nations of the 1950s, so hard-won after decades of struggle against empires and often with passionate commitments to be ‘nations of citizenship’ rather than ‘nations of blood’, nevertheless set up borders that seemed impermeable. Ironically, the end of empires saw nationalism interrupting the global flows that had offered so much hope of a new world. At the same time, however, circulations also accelerated with more and faster channels of communication and new populations of mobile people who reactivated the person-to-person interactions that had been so characteristic of the 1940s. Sometimes the links were restored by the same people who had built them in the 1940s, but sometimes it was new people reshaping the abandoned networks of the past into new visions of the future. Such restored or reimagined links – the re-emergence of globalisation – will be suggested in the final chapter of the book.

Sources for the voices of workers, lascars, and sepoys The opportunity to look closely at the networks of mobile people in the 1940s arose because two resources have only recently become available. While they do not provide comprehensive histories, they nevertheless offer insights that are not otherwise available. The first of these sources is the archive of the Indian Seamen’s Union in Australia (ISUiA). This was a union established by Indian seamen in 1945 to protect their interests while in Australian waters. This archive contains one of the very few bodies of material written or dictated by Indian seamen themselves in any part of the world. Some of this material was compiled by an Australian who was the Honorary Treasurer of the Union: Clarence Hart Campbell, who was a Gallipoli veteran, a committed political activist on the Left of the Labor Party, and a close associate of the Communist Party, as well as a small businessman trading in the cargoes of the future, oil and bitumen. Although there are some notes by Campbell and much careful tabulation of expenditures and incomes in his handwriting, the archive contains many notes from speeches made by the seamen themselves and 800 union membership cards, filled out by many different hands and often signed with thumbprints or crosses. They reveal home addresses and languages, political affiliations and shipboard trades. There are also letters from the seamen to the Union and to Campbell from different ports in Australia and

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India for years after the seamen had left Australian waters and, as the later chapters explain, been denied return. The other source is the collected papers of P.R.S. Mani, an Indian journalist who was ‘embedded’, in today’s terms, with the Indian troops who fought in the Battle of Surabaya. Mani had enlisted in 1943 in the Indian Army, which was under British command. He was assigned as a Captain to the Military Public Relations unit, to travel with Indian troops in Burma and Malaya during the war and then went with them to Indonesia. While there were other Indian journalists there at the time, Mani was the only person telling the story of the Battle of Surabaya from the standpoint of the Indian troops. The Mani papers have been generously made available by his family for research and they are now universally and freely accessible through the Blake Library at the University of Technology Sydney. Mani was also unique in leaving us different types of writing that were written for different audiences. First are his despatches in 1944 and 1945 to his British commanding officers. Second are the articles written for the public audience of the Free Press Journal of Bombay, the newspaper Mani joined when he left the army in protest in early 1946. Finally, there are fragments of his diary entries while still enlisted at Surabaya in late 1945 and then as a war correspondent in 1946. Mani seems to have kept all of these materials during his long later career as a diplomat in the Independent Indian Foreign Service after 1947 with the expectation that after he retired he would write about his time in Indonesia. His book did indeed come about and was published by Madras University in 1986, but not all of his carefully conserved notes were used for its composition – leaving questions taken up in the following chapters about his reasons for selection or exclusion. These Indian sources are all in English, and the newspapers reviewed for the analyses of the Indian press are also all in English. This is clearly a disadvantage of this study, and much research remains to be done on the vernacular language press. There was, however, a vibrant independent newspaper culture flourishing in the English language in India in the decades before Independence, with presses owned by Indians defying British disapproval to express strong views in support of Indian nationalist causes. These newspapers were speaking to audiences in India – where most secondary and all tertiary education was in English – but also to the Left in England and across the empire, and indeed across the region. English was a widely used and often subversive medium. While this book is not as comprehensive as it would be if it delved into the press published in local languages, the media comparisons here are at least able to open up the field of regional actions. The material of Indonesian origin is far more difficult

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to access because the imperial – and widely used – language was Dutch, while Malay was the crucial language of dissent. Some of this material has been translated into English, but I have relied heavily for new translations on the assistance of researcher Suzan Piper and historian Dr Frank Palmos, as well as the support of other Dutch researchers and journalists. The analysis and comparison of English-language media in Australia has utilised a new tool: the digitisation of newspaper sources in the online Trove program of the Australian National Library. This has made a far wider range of rural and urban newspapers more freely available than ever before. This tool has allowed the careful analysis of mainstream newspapers, both ‘quality’ and ‘tabloid’, in particular those owned by union and working-class interests, alongside the newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA). Since there is no systematic digitisation program of newspapers in India, I have drawn on four Indian-owned newspapers that utilised English and that have been painstakingly searched for this study.41 Although the editorial policy of each of these four newspapers was nationalist, they were widely separated by geography, demography, and ideology. In the eastern city of Calcutta, the Hindusthan Standard was aimed at the large English-speaking Bengali population, who were acutely conscious of the armed resistance to the British, the Indian National Army (INA), that had operated in Burma and been led by Bengalis. The south-eastern Madras-based Hindu was liberal and nationalist but far more moderate. The Communist Party of India, while drawing strength from various areas, based The People’s War in the old capital of Delhi, seeking to reach the many different states of the country but publishing less often than the other three papers considered here. The Free Press Journal of Bombay was, as its name suggests, based in the western city of Bombay. Its owner and editor was the committed nationalist S. Sadanand, but the paper showed less interest than the Hindusthan Standard in the INA or Bengali separatism. Sadanand was, like the city of Bombay, cosmopolitan and outward-looking. Like the Hindu, he ensured that The Free Press Journal of Bombay sent foreign correspondents to Southeast Asia. 42 Although there are no other comparisons of the media of Australia and India on the events discussed in this book, Remco Raben’s thoughtful 1999 edited collection Representing the Japanese Occupation of Indonesia has 41 With the assistance of researchers Rindon Kundu (Kolkata), Subarta Singh (Delhi), Unnayan Kumar (Delhi), Ajinkya Lele (Mumbai), and Helen Randerson (Sydney). 42 With the assistance of the Blake Library, UTS, which has purchased, digitised, and made accessible the relevant period of The Free Press Journal of Bombay.

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considered how the 1942-45 occupation had been seen in Japan, the Netherlands and Indonesia itself. Raben has argued that the same events have been remembered and represented very differently in each of the countries involved, arising not only from that country’s position in the war but from its earlier history and the futures it experienced after the war. Moreover, as each of Raben’s contributors confirm, such memories varied between different groups and individuals within those countries, suggesting ‘the layered and pluriform nature of memory’. 43 Limited as it is by using only English-language press, the comparison in this study of the same events viewed in India and Australia offers similar conclusions to those of Raben about representations in each country of the intensely conflicted conditions of Revolution, Boycott, and Battle. There are certainly questions remaining about how far the Englishlanguage newspapers surveyed can reflect the views of the majority of Indian or Indonesian working people. There are questions, too, about the capacity of historians to access the voices of Australian workers, even though they might share the English language. This book draws on the CPA newspaper Tribune, the journal of the Seamen’s Union of Australia (SUA), and the autobiographies and memoirs of unionists and the research of labour historians. Where possible, interviews have been recorded with the very few surviving working people who participated in the Australian events. The demographics of ageing have meant that most of these interviewees were women, which has had the benefit of providing some insight into the roles of women in the political and social interactions that were occurring across cultural borders within Australia. And so, as well as the histories of the focal events, this book traces some fragments of the individual histories of those brought into unfamiliar situations by these border crossings – they found they were encountering and being challenged by difference. This often generated misunderstandings and confusion, and as far as possible their misunderstandings are traced or suggested in this study.

Structure of the book After this introductory chapter, the chapters follow a chronological path to explore the context of the dramatic events of the postwar period and the influences and interactions that occurred. The earlier chapters also introduce 43 Raben 1999.

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the people who went on to play roles in the major events of the Boycott and Battle, and who therefore return again and again in the later chapters. Part I, ‘Seeing the Region’, comprises two chapters. This chapter, Chapter 1, ‘Everybody’s Revolution’, outlines the goals and structure of the book. Chapter 2, ‘Connections’, sketches the background of the mobile people who came into contact in the Boycott or Battle and their aftermaths. One was the troops of colonial armies, into which category both the Indian and Australian armed forces fell. 44 Gallipoli was one point where both Indians and Australians were present, suffering heavy losses on behalf of the British. One of the individuals whose life threads through this story, Clarrie Campbell, is introduced more fully in this chapter. He was at Gallipolli and met Indian troops there, both as military comrades and as medical staff after he was wounded. Campbell continued his involvement with Indians once he had returned to Australia. Many of the mobile populations who played a role in the events of 1945 were involved with cargoes as labourers, seamen, or traders. Chapter 2 continues by tracing the racialised and gendered structuring of the industrial legislation governing seamen in particular, named the Asian Articles but in fact incorporating different regulations for different racial groups. Eventually this structure also controlled traders through restrictive immigration laws. Another person introduced in this chapter who reappears throughout this story is T.D. Kundan, a Sindhi merchant from Hyderabad, one of a community of Hindu traders who expanded their businesses far across Southeast Asia. In the early 1930s, Kundan settled in Surabaya, the busy port city in eastern Java. He became a spokesperson for the large resident Indian population of the city and went on to take an active role in the Battle of 1945. 45 Part II, ‘An Asian War’, contains three chapters that demonstrate how World War II looked very different in Asia than it did in Europe. While again not comprehensive, this section brings in perspectives from across the region. Chapter 3, ‘Dangerous Oceans’, considers how the coming of war generated new activism on the waterfront, initially from Chinese and Indian seamen, then from Australian maritime workers, and finally from exiled Indonesian seamen. This chapter introduces Fred Wong, the Australian of Chinese descent who took an active role in linking Chinese seamen with Australian unions to bring much-needed land-based union support to the Chinese seamen’s 44 Omissi 1995, 1999; Singh 2006, 2014; Das 2011; Bose & Manjapra 2010; Manjapra 2010. 45 Sandhu and Mani 1993; Markovits 2000, 2008; Kundan, Resumé, c. 1975, held in the Kundandas family archive.

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industrial and political demands. We also meet Komalam Craig, an Indian university graduate studying teaching in Australia, the widow of an Austra­ lian, who had a background in theosophy. Komalam’s nationalism and links to left-wing Australians enabled her to build links between militant Indian seamen and Australian unionists. Chapter 4, ‘Home and Away’, considers the impact of the Japanese expansion, first on those Indonesians – Malay, Indian, Chinese, and Dutch – within Indonesia at the time of the Japanese occupation in 1942. Then it considers the impact of the Japanese expansion on the Indians in the British-commanded Indian Army who fought the Japanese in Burma and Malaysia. This chapter introduces another key figure in the story, P.R.S. Mani, the Tamil radio journalist and Nehruvian nationalist who accepted a commission in the Indian Army in 1944 and was posted to the Public Relations division. Tasked with building morale among Indian troops, Mani did far more than that by seeking out the great diversity among the Indians in uniform and introducing them to each other. In Chapter 5, ‘Sharing the Home Front’, I trace how the war looked in Australia. Although fearful of Japanese bombing and invasion (as was India), Australia was also a more cosmopolitan place than it had been at any time in the previous 50 years. The White Australia Policy was, in effect, suspended for the duration of the war, and by 1945 there were many Australians who had built close relationships with people they had never had the chance to meet before. In describing the complexity of the war years, this chapter shows the setting for the later Boycott of Dutch shipping. This Boycott arose out of the turmoil of the war years, and so the characters in Chapter 5 become key players in the shipping Boycott described in Chapter 6. One was Clarrie Campbell, first seen in Chapter 2 while serving in WWI. By the end of the 1930s, he was working closely with the rising number of Indian seamen in Australian waters. With them, he later gathered aid to assist with the 1943 Bengal Famine and, in 1944, to develop an Indian Seamen’s Social Club. There Campbell met Abdul Rehman, a Maharashtrian Muslim seaman from Pune who shipped through Bombay. Rehman’s calm and steady strength drew many Indian seamen to him, and he was to become a leader in the movement for better industrial conditions that finally emerged as the Indian Seamen’s Union in Australia. Some of the most regular volunteers at the Indian Seamen’s Social Club became participants in the Boycott: along with Campbell’s partner Ada Boys, there were also Phyllis and Johnno Johnson and Sylvia Mullins. The nationalist Indonesian seamen, arriving from 1942 onwards, included more petty officers, some of whom formed relationships

Everybody’s Revolution

43

with Australian women like Charlotte Reid (later Lotte Maramis). Other young Australians became involved with the final group of Indonesians, who arrived from the Dutch political prison camps on West Papua. These were people from the broader Left, including students like Molly Warner (later Molly Bondan), who was from a theosophical and Left-leaning family background and just wanted to be involved in building a new future for Australia. It was almost coincidental that this later group of students and others settled on building closer ties for the future with Indonesians. The consequences of this choice were momentous. Parts III and IV consider the focal events of this study, the Boycott of Dutch shipping in Australian waters and the Battle of Surabaya, respectively. Each Part follows the same pattern: first the events themselves are discussed (in Chapter 6 on the Boycott and Chapter 9 on the Battle); then the media in Australia (including the interventions by Indians) before and during the Battle (in Chapters 7 and 10); and finally the media in India before and during the Battle (in Chapters 8 and 11). This structure brings the media into the course of the events, demonstrating how the selective and distorted press representations shaped decision-making. As will be seen in these chapters, some parts of the Australian Boycott events only become visible in the Indian press, and only long after they had occurred. For this reason, it is in Chapter 8 that the story begun in Chapter 6 can be given further detail, and only in Chapter 10 that we see the Indian seamen’s own attempts to intervene in the worsening media coverage by taking strategic actions to present their story in press photographs and film. Some parts of the Battle were never revealed in the Australian press, while there are insights into the experiences of the Indian soldiers in the Battle of Surabaya, discussed partially in Chapter 9, which were not revealed even in the Indian press until a year after the Battle took place, as is recounted in Chapter 13. Part III focuses on the events of the Boycott in Australian waters until late October, events that appear in the Australian and Indian media in very different ways. Chapter 6, ‘Boycotting Colonialism’, describes the early course of the Boycott and suggests the roles taken by various groups within the campaign. An important new arrival in mid-1945 was the seaman Dasrath Singh, who was already highly politicised in Calcutta although his birthplace may have been South Africa. Singh became close to Campell and Rehman, taking an active role in the political campaigns around industrial justice and support of the Indonesian Independence movement. Chapter 7, ‘Seeing the Boycott in Australia’, considers the accounts printed in the Australian mainstream and communist press from August to October 1945, tracing the different representations of the strike and

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the context of its coverage, namely widespread industrial unrest that emerged as workers’ demands that had been held in check during the war burst into view along with frustration at the persistence of wartime restrictions. Chapter 8, ‘Indian Perspectives on the Boycott’, brings the Indian-owned, nationalist (but English-language) press into sight, showing a very different view of the Boycott. The role of Indian seamen in the Boycott was seen far more clearly in the Indian press than it ever was in the Australian coverage, even in articles written by Australian authors, as this chapter will describe. Part IV, ‘Fighting Two Empires’, traces the events of the Battle of Surabaya and its representation in the press in Australia and India. Chapter 9, ‘Surabaya Burns’, describes the course of the Battle itself from P.R.S. Mani’s perspective, embedded in the 123rd Division of the Indian Army, from late October 1945. Mani’s view is close to that of the troops, though he was aware that he saw the events from a different vantage point than they did. Attention then returns to the Surabaya merchant, T.D. Kundan, a supporter of the Indonesian nationalist groups and their key mediator with the British. Kundan is the only Indian portrayed individually and positively in later Indonesian histories of the Battle. This chapter shows how cable and radio became an even more crucial part of this story. Recent statements by Indian nationalist leaders – circulated through radio and cabled news stories – were scrawled across the buildings of Indonesian cities, aimed directly at the incoming Indian troops to remind them that they shared nationalist visions. The new Indonesian Republic used radio to speak to the outside world, while local leaders used it to speak to their supporters at home and abroad. And as more and more Indian troops wavered in their loyalty, crossing the lines to fight on the side of the Indonesians, some defectors began broadcasting too, encouraging the Indians remaining in the army to join them in fighting both the British and Dutch empires. The following two chapters trace the divergent media representations of the Battle in the Australian and Indian press. Chapter 10, ‘Frenzied Fanatics’, follows the Australian press coverage of late 1945, which was drawn largely from the Dutch and British press with only occasional local reporting by war correspondents. This flowed directly into the Australian press’s representation of later events associated with the Boycott campaign in Australia. At the same time, however, a film funded by left-wing unions and activists was being made. While Indonesia Calling! did not address events in Indonesia at all and completely failed to acknowledge the role of Indian strikers or the union they had set up, the Indian seamen who acted in the film took

Everybody’s Revolution

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the opportunity to mount a visual challenge to the denigration they were facing in mainstream Australian media. Chapter 11, ‘The Acid Test’, explores the very different view of the Battle that appeared in the Indian press, drawn from major reports of the Indian war correspondent T.G. Narayanan, Mani’s fellow Tamil journalist who had reported with him in Burma. In Narayanan’s account, which was consis­ tent with that of other Indian-owned presses, the Indonesian Republicans may have had people in their ranks who were frustrated and headstrong, but their grievances were sound and their proposed remedies logical and understandable. Part V, ‘Aftermath’, traces the impact of the Boycott and the Battle. In the short term, it appeared that both had failed. Chapter 12, ‘Breaking the Boycott’, traces how Australian representations of the Battle of Surabaya, which had emphasised irrational violence on the part of the Indonesians, were used to divide Australian unions, undermining the support for the Boycott. At the same time, repatriated Indian seamen faced reprisals from British and Dutch shipping companies through ‘bad nullies’, the powerful weapon provided by the Indian segment of the Asian Articles, which kept most of the seamen out of international shipping for the rest of their lives. Chapter 13, ‘Trading for Freedom’, describes the period in 1946 when the Indonesian Republican leadership, having been forced by the Battle of Surabaya to recognise that the colonisers could not be defeated militarily, began to question the strategic usefulness of the Australian unions’ boycott tactic. This chapter documents the decisions made by Mani and Kundan, encouraged by Prime Minister Sjarhir, to open trade links to send rice between Republican Indonesia and famine-threatened India. While both suffered challenges from the British and the Dutch in their attempts to ensure that this trade would go ahead, the chapter traces the diff icult decisions Mani had to face in another type of trade. He was forced to trade journalistic silence for the safety of Indian soldiers who had decided to fight alongside the Indonesians in a shared anticolonial struggle. By 1947, as described in Chapter 14, ‘Transnational Visions’, Republican leaders were more actively looking to set up trading links with wider networks. While Mani and Kundan had tried to open trade with India in 1946, Campbell – initially working with Fred Wong – tried through 1947 and early 1948 to establish trade across the region and link Indonesia with Australia and China through Singapore. Fred Wong drowned mysteriously in July 1948 and his attempts with Campbell to establish trade failed, caught up in the rising anti-communist fears of the Cold War, and probably sabotaged by the security forces of the British and Dutch with assistance from the

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Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). While Lotte Maramis and Molly Bondan were able to go to Indonesia and work there as journalists, neither the British nor the Dutch would allow Campbell to travel to India or Indonesia. He remained in Singapore under surveillance, but from there he took part in the network of activists, including other Australian exiles, who were arrayed across the region. Campbell continued his contact with old CPA comrades, and met Phyllis Johnson in Singapore in 1971. The hopes they had all shared of new worlds after the war had to be put on hold, but were re-emerging by the early 1970s. Part VI, ‘Reflections’, contains Chapter 15, ‘Remembering Heroes’, which concludes the book by reflecting on the regional effects of the Boycott in Australia and the Battle of Surabaya. The surviving public narratives – already shaped by the media of the day – have since been pared down further by the demands of national and sectional interest in the decades since these events occurred. Nevertheless, while the border-crossing movements of the 1940s were temporarily stalled, the globalisation process could not be stopped. This final chapter sketches the re-emergence of the processes of circulation.

2

Connections and Mobility

Ideas, trade, and empires – including the colonial armies that enforced their power – all drew apparently disparate places together. The flow of ideas had always occurred along trading routes, and intensified as transportation possibilities expanded. Arabic and Indian traders moved cargo around the Indian Ocean for centuries by ship, and after 700 ad their visits fostered the adoption of Islam in the seaports along trading routes. In Southeast Asia, this new religion encountered local ideas and the long influence of Hindu and Buddhist thought. Although Islam became the dominant religion in many places, it had syncretised with more local beliefs. Thus at the same time as it was becoming a global religion, Islam was also diversifying across many cultures and races. The awareness of the Umma, the community of believers, not only spread outwards from Mecca but also returned with the ritual of the Hajj, itself made easier with expanding trade routes and the later cheaper, more rapid steam transport between colonial holdings and the Middle East. From the sixteenth century, European empires had fostered the expansion of Christianity, so new proselytisers of the Western variants of the Christian faith travelled along the old trading routes, where they met the earlier forms of the faith, established in Southern India by the third century ad. The European missionaries, however, brought new ideas and hierarchies. Their impact accelerated with the nineteenth century introduction of new technologies, such as steam power. By the early twentieth century, as steam technologies continued to expand the transport of empire, the visions and hopes of socialism also began to spread along trade routes, circulating alongside and often both embedded within and in conflict with the ideas of organised religions. Like Islam, the ideologies of Western Christianity and socialism were carried by the mobile peoples of the trading routes themselves: the labourers, traders, and seamen. Finally, the rapidity of new modes of transport ensured that where armies were used to enforce imperial control, it was far easier to move colonial troops from their place of origin to more distant colonial holdings, contributing to the mobility of subaltern (non-elite) groups between areas which had not previously been in contact. Thus the Dutch moved African soldiers to the Netherlands East Indies (NEI) in the early nineteenth century, while Britain moved Indian soldiers into Turkey and Europe in World War I.1

1

Kessel 2002, 2003, 2009; Omissi, 1995, 1999.

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Beyond Borders

At the end of the nineteenth century, mobile populations like soldiers and seamen were relatively self-contained; then the crises of World War I, the Great Depression, the rising anticolonial movements of the 1930s, and finally World War II threw them into very different relationships with each other and demanded that they choose sides in the struggles surrounding them. This chapter sketches out these diverse mobile groups up to and through the interwar years and begins the story of the new relationships that began to form as World War II was looming.

Colonial armies Comparing the situation in the Dutch colony of the East Indies and in the British colonies of India and Australia shows that there were many variations in ‘colonial armies’. All produced groups of mobile people who travelled at someone else’s command and often did other people’s dirty work amid complex dilemmas of loyalty and personal integrity. The British and Dutch both recruited army personnel from the peoples they had colonised, and from the mid-nineteenth century drew on the emerging but widely circulating deterministic biological theories of race and gender to do so. Despite these common elements, these three examples produced vastly different outcomes. For much of the long Dutch rule of the East Indies, there were few real threats. Dutch military power was expressed in conventional European strategic formations and its leadership supplied by rotations of Dutch forces, supported by troops from Dutch African colonies and from the Indonesians known collectively as the Ambonese. The Ambonese troops came from a number of islands, quite separate from each other, where significant proportions of the population had converted to Christianity. They were consequently more trusted by the Dutch and were rewarded for their service on Java and other islands with stable careers, higher ranks and higher status as one of the ‘martial races’. On the other hand, the Javanese, who were Muslims, formed the majority of the foot soldiers in the Netherlands Indies army, as they were not regarded as a ‘warriors’ or a ‘martial race’ in either physique or temperament and consequently were allocated no higher ranks. Until the late nineteenth century, the Dutch managed with relatively few troops in the Netherlands East Indies. But then the continuation of the war with Aceh and the concurrent rise of Japan as a modern military power (first victorious over Russia in 1905 and then in alliance with the British) caused the Dutch Government grave anxiety. There were a number of proposals to change the organisation of the Indies army or alter its tactics, including

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providing more independence to Javanese troops and emphasising localised modes of fighting and weaponry, with which the Javanese had been shown to excel. However, the Dutch did not trust the Javanese enough to give them more autonomy, European weapons, or greater use of traditional weaponry. After the Dutch achieved victory over the tenacious Acehnese, the proposals for change lapsed, with the result that there was little military training or weaponry with which to defend Java against the Japanese invasion in 1942. As the Japanese expanded into China, Indonesians themselves, and the Javanese in particular, became gravely concerned at the lack of preparation for the defence of their country and pleaded for the Dutch to begin training local troops, but the Dutch chose not to do so.2 In India, the British were selective about recruitment after the bitter and complex uprising in 1857, called a ‘Mutiny’ by the British but regarded by more recent Indian nationalists as a first war of independence. Shifting their focus to those whom they believed had been least involved, the British began recruiting most troops from the northwestern states like the Punjab, with a principal focus on Sikhs and Hindus with some Muslims, including Pathans, a group originally from Afghanistan and known for their strong collective identity. They were all identified by the British as ‘martial races’ according to the then-emerging Victorian racial theories. These were gendered concepts, as discussed in Chapter 1, portraying a type of masculinity which, though consistent with both British and Indian heroic mythologies, had no biological basis. This idea contributed to the developing self-identification of the troops. The Raj relied on the loyalty of these soldiers, which it buttressed by ensuring they were accorded high prestige and stable incomes that, though low compared to British army salaries, were nevertheless substantial on Indian scales. In return, these troops of the colonial army could be relied upon by the British to keep order not only in British holdings outside India but also inside India itself. This body of troops was called the ‘Indian Army’ but was in fact fully within the British military command. They took their orders from British officers and defended the British Empire in Malaya, Burma, and, at times, inside British India. Northwestern Indians’ loyalty to the British Empire in return for ‘warrior’ status became less reliable after World War I. The Ghadar movement among diasporic Punjabi Sikh communities in North America and the Caliphate movement among Muslims in India and elsewhere offered very new ways to understand colonialism and the role of the British. The horrors of the trench warfare of World War I and the clear British mistrust of Indian troops in Europe 2

Bondan 1992.

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Beyond Borders

and Turkey had all undermined the confidence many Indian soldiers had held towards the Empire. Ravi Ahuja and Gajendra Singh have both pointed to the forces that destabilised the commitment of the ‘martial races’ to the British empire.3 Singh argues that the British themselves had recognised this shift, and that in the interwar period British recruiting practices slowly moved away from reliance on the northwestern states to draw in more of the Bengalis and Madrasis whom they had marginalised after what they called ‘The Mutiny’.4 And yet, when World War II loomed in 1939, the Indian Army (under British command) was still mainly composed of men from the northwestern states. Meanwhile, Australians had convinced themselves that as a ‘Dominion’ they were not a colonial army at all, but were instead fighting on their own behalf. Particularly after 1901, when the separate states federated into one nation, they saw the army as a ‘national’ force. And yet the Australian army obeyed every direction issued by the British metropole until the ignominious defeat at Singapore in 1942. Not only were Australian troops under British control before Federation in the South African and Sudan campaigns, but they were just as tightly under British command after Federation in World War I, most spectacularly in the disastrous Gallipoli invasion of Turkey during 1915. The Australian Army was even called the ‘Australian Imperial Force’, known by its initials as AIF. It was at Gallipoli that the troops of many colonial armies fought side by side, and where the Indian contribution was substantial. However, the usual celebratory Australian account of Gallipoli notes only the Australians, New Zealanders, and British, and sometimes, grudgingly, the Turkish defenders. The Australian forces were not included in the ‘Colonial Armies’ considered by the analysts Hack and Rettig, but they fulfil the defining criteria of being recruited from a periphery and yet being controlled by a distant core or ‘metropolitan’ territory to serve, directly or indirectly, an imperial military system.5 There is only one criterion that is debatable: whether they were ‘for the most part culturally distinct’ from those who issued their orders. In any case, the questions were the same: ‘Why do colonial subjects choose to enlist and to court death under the command of officers who come from thousands of miles away Under what conditions do they stay loyal When, why and with what results do they revolt.’6 3 Ahuja 2006; Singh 2006, 2014; see also Noor 2007 for comparable movement among Pathans and Raza, 2015, on the Punjabi Left in the interwar years. 4 Singh 2006. 5 Hack & Rettig 2011: 5. 6 Ibid.: 3.

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2.1 ‘Good Pals’ Gallipoli

Truth, 21 August 1915 (Sydney)

For Australians, just as for Indians, Indonesians, and the British themselves, military service was a gendered business in which masculinity was defined and contested. This was illustrated at the time, and certainly in the memorialisation, of the Gallipoli invasion of Turkey from April to December 1915, known as ANZAC Day in Australia in reference to the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who fought there. This has been commemorated in Australia as a national ‘baptism of fire’, a test not only of the new nation but of the masculine courage of the many individuals involved in the battle. In Australian commemorations, the British are castigated as poor strategists and worse leaders, pitting the colonial troops in an unwinnable battle against implacable but admirable defenders. Yet there are other ANZAC stories to be told once it is realised that troops from many British colonies took part in the Gallipoli landing and battle.

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Indians were there in great numbers and have their own memorials to the awful slaughter on the beaches and cliffs. Although not recognised in Australian commemorations, there were interactions between the different ‘colonial’ troops, and in particular interactions between Australians and Indians. These were seen and recorded by British officers, who felt the shared ‘colonial’ condition was a powerful bond between the Australians and Indians. A cartoon affectionately satirising this interaction appeared in the Sydney Truth in 1915, titled ‘Good Pals’. It was accompanied by a short article: ‘A British Officer states that he has been much impressed by the camaraderie and good feeling existing between the Australians and Indians at Gallipoli, who are the greatest pals imaginable.’ The article included a brief poem about the Indians and Australians, ending with And so, tho’ born in different climes They brothers are in fighting7

Clarrie Campbell This cartoon and article throw further light on one of the focal actors in this story, Clarence Hart Campbell, the Adelaide-born plumber who was around 25 years of age when he landed at Gallipoli with the AIF. Campbell had been travelling in Europe and India before the war, studying industrial chemistry. From these travels he developed a lifelong interest in oil, bitumen, and shale products, which were to become so crucial to both the world economy and warfare. These products were not only fuel for all internal combustion machines, but were also used to surface the roads that the cars, trucks, and tanks travelled on. Campbell had absorbed the sights during his travels, attending the extravagant Delhi Durbar in India in 1911, when George V was crowned Emperor of India. Returning to Australia, he joined the AIF and went to Gallipoli, where he was wounded in the foot and narrowly escaped its amputation when it became gangrenous. Although he had travelled in India, Campbell came to know Indians best when he was wounded because they staffed the hospitals in Gallipoli and later in London. After recuperation, he returned to Australia, making his views about his wartime experience clear by immediately campaigning against conscription. Moving to Bathurst to follow his interest in shale oil and coal mining, he became active in the 7

Truth 21.8.1915.

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local Labor Party branch, as manager for future Prime Minister Ben Chifley’s successful first campaign for the federal seat of Macquarie in 1928. His Gallipoli experiences did not leave him, however, and when he moved to Sydney in 1930, he took his interest in Indians with him.

Cargoes Compared to imperial armies, cargoes created a more complex set of mobile communities of at least three different types: the traders who sold the goods; the sailors who transported them; and workers (often unfree because enslaved, bonded, indentured, or otherwise constrained) who might produce them.8 Each of these groups had existed in the past, but their numbers and roles were expanding rapidly with the greater volume of cargo being moved during the later nineteenth and early twentieth century. Many of the groups generated by trade in cargo within the British Empire shared an Indian background, but that might be the only thing they had in common. Arabic traders, who had dominated the seafaring trade in the Indian Ocean prior to steam, had often been replaced across the Indian Ocean by Indian traders; these may also have been Muslims but some were Hindu, including the Sindhis who are important in this story. Religious differences had significant effects on mobility. Hinduism discouraged overseas travel, so although many colonial troops who had no choice in their travel were Hindu or followed the closely related Sikh religion, there were few seamen who were Hindu. On the other hand, Islam had no prohibition against seafaring. Consequently, most Indian individuals or communities who chose seafaring were Muslims, although they came from many different areas across India. Islam did prohibit Muslims from handling and eating certain foods, so British ships usually recruited Christian Goans, who had no dietary prohibitions, to staff their catering departments. Goa remained a Portuguese colony until the 1960s, but to be accessible for this work, many working class, Konkani-speaking Goans had moved to Bombay, living in ‘chummeries’ named for their home villages.9 8 Northrup 1995. 9 Pinto 2007. Goa remained a Portuguese colony, despite many protests and challenges, until the Indian Army invaded in December 1961. After this it was annexed, finally becoming an Indian state in 1987. The working class, Konkani-speaking Goan seamen in the catering departments of British shipping (who became members of the Indian Seamen’s Union in Australia) should be distinguished from the elite, Portuguese-speaking Goans who were more often recruited onto

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Interactions between the Indian trade-related groups were variable and most likely to occur between traders and sailors in the port cites of the steamship routes. Labourers, the indentured plantation workers who produced the raw materials for part of the trading cycle, were usually isolated from both traders and seafarers. Within the Dutch empire, there was movement of many peoples: enslaved labourers from the East Indies to Cape Town, African troops to the East Indies, Javanese labourers to the other islands of the Indies. A comparable body of trade-related mobile groups emerged from China during the Manchu dynasty in the nineteenth century. This included many traders, but there were also many labourers who were not enslaved or indentured to European colonial companies but were often bound just as effectively by debt inside China. The settlements of these Chinese labourers expanded far more widely than those of Indian indentured workers. In addition to the Southeast Asian colonies of the British and Dutch, the Chinese had taken up residence in the British settler colonies of Australia and New Zealand as well as on the west coast of the USA. There were substantial bodies of resident citizens of Chinese ancestry, as both workers and traders, in the settler colonies when immigration and citizenship legislation began to change, imposing severe restrictions on new Chinese migration and expelling some who had been long-established residents.10

Coolies, indentured labourers, and unfree workers In two of the focal areas of this study – the NEI and Australia – there were far fewer labourers whose origins were Indian than in for example South Africa. In the East Indies, Indian indentured labourers were only used in the late-developed plantations on Sumatra. On other islands, unfree plantation labour came from either nearby non-elite populations or from another of the many islands of the archipelago, and in particular the heavily populated and first colonised island of Java. Many Chinese had arrived in the eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries – when they had come as labourers they were known as ‘coolies’ and they performed similar agricultural labour as did Indian indentured workers. Those Chinese immigrants who remained British ships as petty officers. See correspondence from Joseph Noronha to Clarrie Campbell, Chapter 5, ‘Sharing the Home Front’. 10 Lake & Reynolds 2008; Beattie 2015.

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in the NEI were eventually known as peranakan and became culturally integrated into colonial NEI society, both marrying into Malay families and speaking local languages and forming relationships with the Dutch colonisers and speaking their language. By the early twentieth century, however, Chinese workers and traders coming into the NEI tended to be more oriented towards the emerging nationalist movements on the Chinese mainland. Coming mostly from Fujien, they continued to speak Cantonese and fostered ‘sinicisation’, the active practice – and indeed expansion – of Chinese cultural expression and contact with mainland China. These newer migrants, known as totok, were more likely to associate with Indonesians than with the Dutch colonisers, who had established bonds with the earlier peranakan families.11 In Australia, many Chinese labourers came to Australia during the mid-nineteenth-century gold rushes, and later established themselves as permanent residents or citizens. Some of these immigrants may have married into British settler families while others married fellow Chinese immigrants. In both cases, their descendants were English-speaking Australian citizens and were largely culturally integrated although they continued to face racial hostility and slurs as ‘coolies’ from citizens with ‘White’ or European backgrounds.12 At the same time, concerted settler political campaigns had blocked the entry of Indian indentured labourers into Australia throughout the nineteenth century. Eventually, settler opposition to both Chinese and Indian workers culminated in the widely known and heavily criticised White Australia Policy of 1901, which was to have a major impact not only on labourers but also on traders and sailors. This exclusionary policy did not produce all of the expected results. First, coerced labourers continued to be brought into Australia from Japan, Indonesia, and French New Caledonia throughout the twentieth century to work on the pearling, fishing, and sugar cane industries of the tropical north.13 Second, the White Australia Policy did not stop Indians from residing in Australia, sometimes legally, by continuing residency after 1901 or because they were seafarers ‘between ships’; at other times illegally, when either informal economies or personal relationships allowed men who had jumped ship to disappear into the already-diverse communities of urban and rural Australia.14 11 Heidhues 1988, 1999, 2012; Cushman & Wang 1998; Yang 1998. The term ‘totok’ was also applied to newly arrived Dutch and other residents. It denotes unfamiliarity rather than race. 12 Rolls 1992, 1996. 13 Martínez & Vickers 2015. 14 Goodall et al. 2008; Goodall 2010.

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Diaspora In both the NEI and Australia, there was little interaction between Chinese and Indian resident minorities, whether merchant or working people. Even when the Chinese – and, less commonly, South Asians – became permanent residents, they tended to circulate within their own minority group rather than making links with members of other cultural minorities. This cultural isolation in both countries was to change dramatically with World War II. In the colonised plantation economies of Malaya, Burma, and Sumatra, like that of the Pacific island of Fiji, three Indian-background groups were to be found. Indian indentured labourers, often from Tamil Nadu, worked the plantation sugar and other crops in each of these countries, but in Burma they also moved into the industrial labour force, particularly on the railways, and took a leading role in unionisation. Indian merchants and professionals such as teachers and lawyers from many different areas in India serviced these communities and managed trade. The frequent British trading ships taking crops to overseas markets shipped through Bombay were crewed by Christian Goans and Muslim Maharashtrians, and those through Calcutta were crewed by Muslim Bengalis and Biharis. In each British colony the relationship between mobile groups and the local people varied, sometimes proceeding with negotiated fluidity and at other times with conflict. Relationships between these mobile groups and with the colonisers were also different at different times. Merchants had to navigate both the changing political climates within each colony and the shifting interactions between colonies and metropoles. They built trading networks across the lines of empires, between the British colony of Australia and the Dutch colony of the East Indies for example, as well as between different colonies of the same empire, like India and Australia. Longer-term residents such as traders and labourers usually dealt with local politics by keeping their heads down and looking after their own collective survival.15 The rising demands of anticolonial movements from the 1920s and then the crisis of World War II were to change this strategy, bringing these long-term residents into contact and communication with each other and with the local people. Merchants, workers, and others who had previously kept to themselves, positioning themselves as outsiders, were challenged to choose their sides and loyalties in the struggles around them, to stand up and be counted on 15 Markovits 2000: 18.

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the side of the colonisers or of the anticolonial movements. The remainder of this chapter sketches out the histories of two of the longer-established cargo-related groups – traders and seamen – until 1940 in the East Indies and Australia.

Traders The mid-twentieth century crises broke open the non-aligned position of traders, particularly in places like the East Indies. While there were mobile traders identified as ‘Arabs’ in Indonesian ports for centuries, at least some of them were Muslims who came from northwestern areas of the Indian subcontinent. Through the nineteenth century in particular, northwestern Indians had been moving around the Indian Ocean as traders, though the British imperial authorities took little notice of them and did not record their presence until, as Markovits has pointed out, their migrations had been going on for 50 years.16 The presence of Indian, African, and Chinese seamen in English and colonial ports had begun to appear as a problem to the British Government from early in the eighteenth century when the Asian Articles were drafted. South Asian merchants, on the other hand, had seldom moved into Britain and had instead moved around the Indian Ocean, into Southeast and then East Asia. For this reason, while the Asian Articles were drafted to severely limit the settlement of seamen from India, Asia, and Africa in Britain, no similar restrictions were placed on merchants by the metropole’s authorities. In fact, it was only when settler colonial authorities, like those in South Africa and Australia, began to impose broader immigration restrictions that the British imperial authorities began to notice the movement of merchants at all.17 One example from Australia is the life of Khawaja Mohammad Bux, a Muslim merchant living in Perth, Western Australia. Bux wrote an autobiography, Events of My Life, that documents his complex movements between India and Australia, and charting the increasing restrictions over his movements into and around Australia as a result of anti-immigrant agitation culminating in the White Australia Policy.18 16 Ibid: 120-39. 17 Ibid. 18 This autobiography has been recently analysed by Samia Khatun, 2012, 2016. This account of Bux’s life is taken from Korvin 2001 and 2003, both based on Syed Haider Hassan’s translation from Urdu to English of Bux, c. 1920.

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The Netherlands East Indies was a vast archipelago where the majority of local people were Muslims, but the South Asian merchants who traded and lived there were often Hindu. One of the largest of these groups were merchants from Sindh in northwestern India. They often traded in textiles, but their core trade products were the handicrafts of Sindh, including metalwork, lacquered wood, enamel, gold and silverwork, and fine embroidery. The Sindhi community in Southeast Asia came from a number of trading families in the Sindh city of Hyderabad, near Karachi, who were linked to the Indian Ocean sea trade through Bombay.19 One major firm was Wassiamul Assomull & Co., originally established in 1866 and setting up a branch in Melbourne by 1876 that was consolidated and expanded in 1892. Like Bux, the Sindhis had to deal with the White Australia immigration restrictions that were being debated ever more aggressively through the 1890s. This ultimately led Assomull’s firm to reduce its presence in Melbourne, but even in 1898 it still employed 80 people there.20 However, Australia and South Africa – the two Indian Ocean countries where immigration restrictions were tightening towards the end of the nineteenth century – were of less economic importance to the Sindhi merchants than their Southeast Asian holdings. Of these, perhaps the most important was the NEI: Batavia (now called Jakarta),21 Bandung, and, in particular, the large port city of Surabaya, where many of the merchants were Sindhis. This largely Hindu community apparently managed to conform to the religious prohibition on overseas travel by not taking their families with them. They were mainly self-employed merchants with small businesses, rather than employers with large numbers of employees. Muslim traders like Mohammad Bux were more likely to bring their wives and families with them, although in Bux’s case this posed great difficulties for his wife, who was in total seclusion, as well as for himself as he was forced to prove to authorities that he was not holding his wife against her will. With their trade centres in the East Indies continuing to flourish, the Sindhi network could continue to have trade links in Australia without being based there, and so there was no need to shut down their contracts after the 1901 imposition of the White Australia Policy. Sindhis and Sikhs from the northwestern states of India were not the only Indians living in the extensive Indonesian archipelago. In the west, traders from the eastern state of Tamil Nadu predominated. The late development of plantation production in Sumatra had brought not only thousands of 19 Markovits 2000: 134; Mani 1993: 102. 20 Markovits 2000: 230; Thapan 2002. 21 Throughout the colonial period, Jakarta was known as Batavia.

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indentured Tamil labourers, but also the Tamil-speaking Chettiar traders: small to middle-level moneylenders living mainly in Sumatra and later Jakarta.22 The Sindhis held more capital than the Chettiars, so Sindhis could set up larger businesses in which they employed others from their community. Markovits and A. Mani both point to the capacity of the Sindhis to negotiate an equitable position in relation to both local and imperial governments, allowing them to secure and expand their businesses.23 Previously a largely self-contained community, the Sindhis were forced to consider their relationship with the British more actively from the 1890s, when passports and residency regulations became more frequently used. The merchants needed to identify themselves as under British protection in order to continue practising their trade. In the NEI, Sindhi community organisations took care to appear to maintain good relations with both the Dutch colonial authorities and the British under whose nominal protection they fell. The Dutch regarded the Sindhis favourably within the overall Indian-origin community, and routinely appointed Sindhis as the Hoofd de Indiers (‘Head of the Indians’), whose role was to approve the entry visas and residence papers of incoming Indians of any affiliation.24

T.D. Kundan In this study, the focal resident Indian in Indonesia is Thakurdas Daryanani Kundandas (1911-1980), who was the principal of Kundandas Brothers, a major Sindhi trading firm.25 In Indonesia, he chose to use the abbreviated form of his name (T.D. Kundan) because he found the simpler name facilitated his relationships there. To his family, however, he continues to be remembered as Kundandas. Like many Sindhi traders, Kundan grew up and received his secondary education in Hyderabad. More unusually, he continued, graduating with a BA with Honours in Philosophy from the University of Bombay in 1931. He had married Gobibai, from a Hyderabadi family in 1926 and once he had finished his degree they moved to Surabaya, the major port city in Eastern Java, to set up his textile-trading business soon after. His brother joined 22 23 24 25

Mahadevan 1978a, 1978b, 2012. Markovits 2000. A. Mani 1993: 102; Bhavnani 2014. Bhavnani: 98-130.

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2.2 T.D. Kundan in Surabaya, c. 1935

Photo from Kundandas family collection, courtesy Manoj Daryanani

him, but moved to establish a branch of the business in the inland city of Malang. Kundan and Gobi had two children before the Japanese invasion: a son, Vashdev, born in 1935; and their first daughter, Shakuntala, born in 1940. As he explained in a resume, written in 1976 and found in his papers, Kundan was interested in social welfare – but he had never shared the details with his family. It was only in the tributes after his death that his own family learned just how many other families he had assisted over his long life in Surabaya. They were aware that Kundan was a leader of the Indian Association in the city and had taken an active role in facilitating communication between all sections of the community. He was particularly known for opening up the family home, located above and behind his fabric and carpet stores on Tunjungan Road in central Surabaya, for community

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festivals like Diwali and to host lectures and dinners with any Indian visitors who could speak on cultural or educational topics. Although a Hindu, Kundan hosted visiting Muslim imams (religious leaders) and Indians of other religions, inviting not only all sections of Surabaya’s Indian community but also non-Indian Indonesians as well. His most notable characteristic was his strength in negotiating the relationships of different groups within the Indian community, as well as between Indians and Indonesians. Among his many Indonesian friends – and long before the Japanese occupation – he counted young nationalists such as Sukarno, who had grown up in Surabaya. Kundan explained that because of his interests in social welfare, ‘from the very beginning of my stay in Surabaya I came into friendly and brotherly contacts with the Indonesian national leaders’, listing Sukarno, Mohammad Hatta, Sutomo (also known as Bung Tomo), and others.26 P.R.S. Mani, who arrived in 1945, described Kundan in this way: ‘Short-statured and well educated, Kundan had some links with the Indian national movement, and broadly sympathised with the struggle for Indonesian freedom. Besides moral support, he [and other Sindhi merchants] also gave generously to Sukarno and his associates’.27

Campbell, oil, and politics There were fewer resident Indians in Australia than in the East Indies, although there were connections between the Surabaya- and Melbournebased Sindhi companies. Yet the connection with cargoes and mobility was wider than those with which the Sindhi merchants were involved. One person who was an important link between Australia, India, and the East Indies was Clarrie Campbell (1894-1972), whose early life as an Adelaide plumber and then as an Australian soldier in Gallipoli alongside Indian troops has already been discussed.28 While Campbell’s political activities in the Australian Labor Party have attracted attention,29 his role in the 26 Kundandas, ‘Some Main Features of My Life in Surabaya’ and ‘Life Sketch of Mr. T.D. Kundan’, stating he arrived in Surabaya in June 1931 and had ‘stayed in Surabaya for about 45 years, with occasional visits to India’, p 3. Original in the possession of Mr Manoj Daryanani. Some Indonesians, including Sukarno and Sutomo, had only one name. 27 Mani 1986: 4-5; Dispatch 27.10.45. 28 W.H. Barnwell, Inquiry Officer, ASIO biographical report on Campbell, 8.7.47, Commonwealth of Australia. Volume 1 Series A6119/79. Important research on Clarrie’s early life has been undertaken by Duncan Waterson. 29 Lockwood 1987.

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commerce of mobility has been less discussed – even though throughout his long life his livelihood was entirely based on oil, petroleum, and bitumen: the fuels and platforms of modern transport. When he moved to Sydney in 1930, Campbell set up a business as a motor mechanic in the inner-city suburb of Glebe. In developing his trading connections, he kept in touch with Tom Barker, the former leader of the Australian chapter of the Industrial Workers of the World who was then living in the Soviet Union – with which Campbell was trading oil and bitumen. Another of Campbell’s small companies, United Lubricants, conducted substantial trade with India in the 1930s.30 It seems to have been during this time that Campbell built links with the Indian seamen who crewed the ships that carried his products. Over the 1930s, Campbell became increasingly involved in the radical activities generated by the Great Depression, like the anti-eviction conflicts in Glebe, where unemployed workers were being thrown out of their homes. In 1933 he was a founding member of the Australian branch of the Movement Against War and Fascism, so his politics as well as his trade with India ensured that he would become closely involved with the maritime unions, particularly the Waterside Workers Federation (WWF) and the Seamen’s Union of Australia (SUA). He continued his Australian Labor Party (ALP) activities, standing in 1934 as an ALP candidate for a federal seat and in 1940 as a Senate candidate, and then in 1941 standing for left-wing Labor (the break-away State Labor Party, or SLP) against the right-wing Labor icon and former Premier J.T. Lang. Among the federal ALP politicians, Campbell remained close to Eddie Ward, the ALP member for East Sydney and later a minister under the wartime Curtin ALP Government. The Australian security services (known as ASIO) could never prove that he was a member of the Communist Party, but they continually accused him of dealing in ‘Moscow gold’ – that is, channelling funds from the Soviet Union to support Australian communist activities. Yet his access to what were undoubtedly substantial funds could also be explained by his involvement in the lucrative technologies of the modern motor vehicles that were proliferating so rapidly through the 1920s and 1930s. Campbell was the only non-Indian member of the Indian Seamen’s Union in Australia, which formed in 1945 and, based on his long relationships with the seamen, elected him as Treasurer. In that role, his bookkeeping and record-keeping – all in his own handwriting – were impeccable and 30 Clarence Hart Campbell to Sir Raghunath Paranjpye, Indian High Commissioner to Australia, Canberra, 26.2.1946, ISUiA Archive, E177/4. See Abbreviations for C.H.C.

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voluminous, suggesting that whatever money he had control of was handled carefully. While he did not trade in the same goods as the Sindhis, his involvement in the commerce of modern transport, from road bitumen and oil to the failed air freight business he attempted in 1948, and his networks between Australia, India, and Indonesia – as well as with Russia and later China – overlapped with those of Indian traders.

Seamen Shipping presented an even more racially structured network than commerce and the industry’s hierarchical racial stratification hardened with the introduction of steam-powered shipping in which there were more clear-cut differences between the heavy work of the engine rooms and the many duties of ‘ordinary’ seamen.31 The origins of the seamen differed with the country of the shipping company, its routes and cargoes. This chapter will focus on Indian and Australian seamen. While there were undoubtedly similarities with conditions for other seamen, like those for the Chinese on British or Dutch ships or Indo-Chinese seamen on French ships, there may also have been significant differences. So there still remains substantial research in this area of comparative industrial conditions. Only at the end of this chapter can we look at the emerging political links between the unions of Indian and Chinese seamen, who were able to take collaborative stands at the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in the mid-1930s. Unlike the merchants in the East Indies, who might be Indian or Chinese, the seamen who transported the cargoes into and around the NEI on vessels owned by Dutch companies like KPM were largely local Malays and other East Indies people. Furthermore, among the East Indies shipping employees there was regional (and religious) specialisation (or discrimination) in shipboard roles. For example, Manadonese men, who were mostly Christian and often well educated, were more likely to be recruited as petty officers, while the workers recruited for labouring work as seamen in engine rooms, the galleys, or on deck were more likely to be Javanese. Australians in the Seamen’s Union of Australia had job protection only on coastal shipping. The crews of cargo vessels sailing into Australia from East Asian ports like Hong Kong or Manila on internationally owned ships were usually either Indian or Chinese, depending on which port the ship was trading from. Most of the British lines shipping cargo into and out of 31 Ewald 2000.

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Australia were crewed by Indians as ‘ordinary seamen’, with Konkanispeaking (or non-elite) Goans in the catering department and sometimes north Africans or ‘seedies’ in the engine rooms. There were similar ethnic and regional class differences demonstrated on these British ships as on the Dutch company vessels. Among Indians, it was the elite Portuguese-speaking Goans who were more likely to be employed as petty officers. These class and ethnic tensions became more apparent in the tense conditions of warfare and decolonisation as the Portuguese were even more reluctant to give up colonies than were the British. There were some similarities between the experiences of Australian and Indian seamen. Each group were isolated from family and social supports when actually on board ships, under what remained a feudal regime of control in which individual seamen had little opportunity for collective action. Both Australians and Indians used non-confrontational strategies ranging from individual resistance to collective action on land, usually at their home ports, to try to gain some industrial advantage before they agreed to contracts that would take them into the hostile conditions at sea.32 They also shared a common experience of union support in their home countries. Australian maritime unions for both seafarers and port workers were strongly active in the 1880s, but by the 1920s, like the Indian unions, they were divided and hemmed in with hostile legislation. In Australia, these unions regained unity and strength through advantageous legislation late in the 1930s. In India, although the two major ports of Bombay and Calcutta operated with very different conventions and practices, by 1928 both had strong seafarers’ unions with rank-and-file leadership.33

Australian perceptions Despite these similarities, the interactions between Australia and India were, in almost every case, hierarchical, competitive, or hostile, arising from their divergent relations to their common coloniser and to the global colonial economies. This meant that people from each side carried expectations and assumptions into their later meetings. Australians, most of whom were settlers of European descent strongly influenced by the working-class Chartist movement and the emergence of British unionism, assumed that they could improve on British working 32 Broeze 1998; Balachandran 2008; Quinlan 1996. 33 Broeze 1981.

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conditions and organisational structures. This was the ‘labour’ variant of settler colonialism, and it demonstrated racial borders as distinctly as other versions. While Australia was largely dependent on shipping based in Calcutta early in its colonial period, after 1850 the rising employment of Indian and Chinese seamen as crews in the expanding steam-shipping industry was seen as direct competition by Australian seafarers. Indian and Chinese crews were signed on by the British companies at rates and conditions far less advantageous than those offered to Australian seamen through the use of what were called ‘Asian Articles of Employment’. Selective and specific racial stereotyping had become critically important as the steamship trade expanded from the 1850s and jobs on steamers diversified and became racially segmented. The ‘Asian Articles’ were, then, not a single set of rules, but a cluster of different rules that were specific to each racial or national group. Both Tabili and Ewald have traced the processes through which jobs became differentiated and restrictive legislation proliferated in Britain and the colonies. The Asian Articles were founded on imagined differences between various racially defined crewmen, ascribing, for example, greater strength for the intolerable engine rooms to African ‘seedies’ (derived from the common North African surname Sayed), while Indian ‘lascars’ were said to be more suited to ‘catering’ or ‘deckhand’ duties and to ships sailing into warmer rather than colder climates. The influence of early gendered stereotypes of ‘hindoo’ men as physically weak, docile, submissive, and effeminate can be strongly seen in this characterisation of lascars, despite the fact that many of them, in Australia and elsewhere, were Muslims. Such stereotypes controlled the movement of Indians and others into and out of the European and colonial ports, limited the potential geographic reach of their employment, and locked them into low wages and poor conditions.34 These racialised and gendered stereotypes, despite confusion over race and religion, biology and culture, paralleled the rise of the colonial conception of ‘martial race’ masculinities that were simultaneously shaping the way the British and Dutch recruited for their colonial armies. Broeze has demonstrated conclusively how stereotypes of behaviour, particularly that about lascars being docile and submissive employees, were continually reinforced despite repeated legal and political challenges by Indian seafarers. The British Government consistently supported the British-owned shipping companies to ensure the failure of each challenge from an Indian union. In 1922, for example, a prolonged strike by Indian seamen’s unions to improve their conditions was defeated when their wages 34 Tabili, 1994: 1-14; Ewald 2000: 42.

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were standardised by a governmental decision at 10 to 15 per cent below the rates paid to British seamen.35 Another example concerned the Continuous Discharge Certificates (CDCs) issued to Indian seamen. These identification documents had to be carried by all seamen throughout their working life, and traced their sequence of employment. But only the Indian version had a section titled ‘Quality of Work’, known as a ‘nully’ among seamen.36 This became a powerful weapon against seamen: shipping masters could punish any Indian seaman who challenged company abuses by recording a negative comment or ‘bad nully’, such as ‘Poor Work’ or ‘Disobedience’. Prospective employers could then use this to refuse employment to the seaman. During the Ghandian non-cooperation campaign of 1921, Mahomed Daud, a Calcutta lawyer, left his practice to work in the Indian Seamen’s Union, becoming its president and spokesperson in Geneva at the International Labour Organisation.37 Early in 1926, Daud attended the Maritime Session of the ILO’s annual International Labour Conference where policy was set and which resolved that this section of the CDC should be removed. In November, the British Government of India formally accepted this ILO resolution in a Bombay meeting chaired by respected union leader N.M. Joshi with the All India Trades Union Congress (AITUC), at which Daud recounted the ILC decision.38 Despite this commitment to the AITUC, the British Government never forced shipping companies to abide by the decision. The ‘nully’ system was used extensively in the 1940s to punish protesting seamen, was still in force in the 1950s, and may have continued as late as the 1980s.39 Rather than recognising Indian seamen’s continuing struggles, observers like the labour unions in Britain and other colonies focused on the results of each industrial challenge which always ended in defeat for the Indian seamen. This confirmed the view that Indian crews had consented to low wages and conditions that undercut those the ‘White’ unions were seeking.40 35 Broeze 1981: 54. 36 Tabili 1994; Balachandran 1996. See Glossary. 37 Fink 2011/2016; Broeze 1981: 55. 38 Narayan Malhar Joshi (1879-1955) was the founder of the All India Trades Union Congress and a towering figure in Indian union and social justice work. This account is based on Broeze 1981: 55, who explains the decision of the International Labour Conference, the policy-setting body of the ILO, which had been attended by Daud, for the Indian Seamen’s Union. Broeze cites the Amrit Bazar Patrika, 2.11.26, the Bengali sister newspaper to the English language Hindusthan Standard, which is used extensively later in this volume: see also Ahuja 2009: 13-48. 39 See Chapters 6 and 12 this volume. Dated CDCs from the 1950s belonging to Calcutta seamen were photographed in their homes by the author during research in 2007. 40 Ahuja 2006, 2009.

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From their side, Indian seamen saw the Asian Articles as an injustice that demonstrated how colonialism worked: British companies were invariably backed by the imperial British Government, however it might promise to follow the rule of its own laws. This racialised power was deeply inscribed into the whole structure of colonial shipping and enabled the profit-making in Britain that sustained colonial control. For this reason, Australian unions supported Australian-owned shipping companies in arguing for the exclusion of non-Australian (mostly British) companies, with their foreign-signed ‘coloured’ crews, from the coastal and Australia–New Zealand routes – a goal eventually won in the Navigation Acts of 1921. 41 Burns Philp, an Australian company trading along the Melanesian islands and on to Singapore, was allowed an exemption to employ ‘coloured’ labour, but the SUA regarded it with suspicion and maintained pressure on it to change its practices and cease employing ‘Asiatic crews’. 42 Australians joined the British seafaring unions in blaming Indian seamen for the exploitative conditions imposed by British shipping companies and supported by the Raj. Constructed as the enemy in the triumphal narrative of Australian maritime union histories, these ‘coloured seamen’ were barely noticed as fellow workers with similar social relationships and industrial interests. 43 This view of Indian seamen developed in the broader context of the Australians’ awareness of British India, especially the episodic famines triggered by a combination of a rising population and the economic dislocations of colonial cash crops and plantations. The colonial management of labour by indenture developed in the mid-nineteenth centuries as a substitute for slavery and remained a widely used strategy for controlling workers.44 In the 1840s there was a major campaign against the introduction of indentured Indian labourers into New South Wales; the use of indenture for the control of Chinese, Japanese, and Melanesian workers was such a prominent concern for Australian unions that it was specifically outlawed in the labour laws of the new Federation after 1901. Australians saw themselves as having won the battle against indentured labour, despite its continuation in the northern Australian pearling industry, the Queensland sugar industry, and in the decades-long controls through ‘indenture’ over the employment of 41 Broeze 1998. 42 Seamen’s Journal IV(4) 1946: 1. ‘Seamen’s Union Crews’ demanded what was in fact a new imposition of bans on ‘Asiatic crews’ now that wartime conditions were ‘returning to normal’: 43 Beasley 1996. 44 This discussion draws particularly on the analysis of indenture by Northrup 1995; and case studies by Martínez 2005; and Goodall 1995.

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Aboriginal children removed as ‘apprentices’ in New South Wales and over adults in Queensland. Despite these other examples, it was Indian workers who carried the lingering stigma of indenture into the twentieth century. As steam travel became the major form of transportation for touring Europeans, the dazzling technology and the increasingly racialised hierarchy of the staffing structure ensured that passengers were unaware of the non-European crews who worked below decks. Australian historians and travel writers have similarly failed to see that a major proportion of the international shipping crews who passed through Australian ports throughout the twentieth century were Indian. 45 It is, however, possible to gain a sense of the large scale of this employment from the scattered figures provided in reports or inquiries. From the British census of the city, for example, Indian seamen embarking from Bombay on all vessels in 1814 and 1816 can be estimated to have been around 70,000. 46 Many worked on British lines sailing in the Indian Ocean, and these numbers increased after 1860 as trade expanded with the introduction of steam. In 1891, 24,000 Indian seamen were believed to make up 10 per cent of all seamen working on British lines in the Indian Ocean; by 1914 the numbers had risen to 52,000 Indians, who formed 17.5 per cent of all British-employed seamen in the Indian Ocean. The 1937 Census of Seamen suggested that the overall labour force had diminished but that the proportion of Indians had risen further. Nearly 44,000 Indian seamen were said to have been employed on British lines in the Indian Ocean that year, making up over 27 per cent of the seamen working on British lines in the region. 47 These seamen were almost as invisible to Australian unions as they were to the ships’ passengers. Of all the Australian maritime unions, only the syndicalist International Workers of the World attempted to organise and incorporate these non-European seamen. 48 Julia Martínez has documented the emergence during the 1920s of some knowledge in the SUA of union activity among Indian seamen, a recognition stimulated through ILO 45 Goodall et al. 2008. Graham Shirley from the National Film and Sound Archive points to similar contemporary films, like Cooee Singapore and This Changing World, which show racial hierarchy on steam liners and the low visibility of Indian crews ‘below decks’: Pers. comm., November 2007. 46 Masselos 1992: 293. 47 These figures drawn from Balachandran 2003; Visram 1986; Jones, 1931; Report P&O Board of Directors, 2.6.1900 and Report on employment of Indian Seamen, both archived at http:// www.lascars.co.uk.It is not clear who the remaining seamen were, although some were certainly English. 48 Burgmann 1995: 90.

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contacts. The SUA’s concern was usually pragmatic, characterising Indians and ‘Asiatic labour’ as a ‘problem’ and demonstrating little of the empathy which Martínez argues could have underpinned a ‘community’ of labour. In general, the Indian unions were depicted as immature and in need of Australian tuition and advice, rather than the solidarity of comradeship. The wharfies or dockside workers, many of whom were members of small unions that were increasingly amalgamated into the WWF, had less direct contact with Indian seamen and so continued to have little awareness of industrial developments in India. 49 The White Australia Policy had by this time effectively isolated Australians, including Australian unionists and the Left, from the political concerns of colonised peoples in the region.

Indian perceptions Indians saw Australia from a very different standpoint. First, their experience of political mobilisation through unions in India was a strong influence, often referred to in seamen’s letters and statements. Broeze has shown how extensively Indian seamen unionised and that their continued challenges to British and European shipping companies made them one of the most effectively unionised groups of workers across India.50 By 1939, the Indian seafarers’ unions had found strong rank-and-file leadership in Ibrahim Serang in Bombay and Aftab Ali in Calcutta. As Muslims, both Serang and Ali shared their religious and community affiliation with a large proportion of their members, but these unions remained culturally mixed organisations, representing Christian, Sikh, Hindu, and Islamic seafarers; they were also organisations that retained a broad syndicalist commitment to secular and socialist politics. Their powerful joint advocacy of Indian seamen’s interests at the 1936 ILO Special Maritime Session in Geneva was a critical factor in reuniting the maritime unions inside India that had been divided on ideological lines, so that by the outbreak of World War II the industry had one of the highest degrees of unionisation in India.51 Gopalan Balachandran has taken Broeze’s work further, acknowledging the high degree of union organisation but pointing out that union-led campaigns carried little weight once seamen were on board ship or in foreign ports. He has therefore investigated the informal strategies that Indian crews 49 Martínez 2001. 50 Broeze 1981. 51 Broeze 1981; Chattopadhyay 2007, 2011.

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undertook, often successfully, in the decades before the unions came into existence, to undermine the control of both the shipping companies and the British and various British colonial governments. Crews often used the withdrawal of their labour from violent or exploitative masters by refusing to contract with them, particularly in their home ports but also in some overseas ports like those in Britain. Balachandran argues that because of their political vulnerability away from home, as colonial subjects, Indians focused on conflicts over contracts, such as demands to transfer between ships or between ports, where they could defend their actions legally in relation to their contracts.52 His depiction of a politically aware and strategically assertive body of seamen is consistent with the findings of Tabili’s research on Indian seafarers who became residents of English port communities.53 Onshore strategic actions Each of these resistance tactics can be traced in Australia as well. Martínez, for example, has identified an important but apparently isolated incident resulting in communication between the SUA and Indian sailors. In 1923 Melbourne, Indian seamen walked off a ship to protest a transfer that they argued was against the terms of their contract. They were jailed not once but twice and received unexpected assistance from the SUA, with which they eventually received their demanded repatriation to India.54 Instead of an isolated incident, as it appears from the Australian records, this example is in exact agreement with the type of strategic collective action framed in terms of contractual legalities that Balachandran has described as widely used by Indian crews, particularly in Britain.55 The events in Australia in 1939 (described in Chapter 3) show that Indian seafarers continued to take collective action on shore, engaging in ever more confrontational strategies. Further, the statements that Indian seamen made in 1945 (given in Chapters 6 and 8) confirm that this tactic was a deliberate strategy to take advantage of the very difficult situation into which the Indians were continually placed.

52 Balachandran 2008. 53 Tabili 1994. 54 Martínez 2001: 306-7. The Indians’ views are recorded in their letter to the Seamen’s Journal, published in December 1923: 15. 55 Balachandran 2003, 2008.

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‘White Australia’ well known in India Second, Indians did not approach Australia as unknown territory. They had decades of knowledge of the Australian policies that racially and religiously discriminated against Indians and the mobile cameleers collectively known as ‘Afghans’. There was a network of print and personal communication between Indian communities and the South Asian diaspora of labourers and traders in Britain, South Africa, and Australia,56 and the discriminatory legislation in both South Africa and Australia against ‘Afghans’ and Indians had provoked widespread comment in the Indian press from the 1890s to the 1920s. This anger towards Australia had not died down after the passage of the restrictive Immigration Act in 1901. In 1903, exporters in Australia were alarmed by threats that Indian importers would refuse to purchase any products from Australia in protest of what they called the ‘harassing legislation by the Commonwealth in relation to the immigration of Indians’. Wassiamull Assomull & Co., the Sindhi traders in Melbourne, expressed concern, as did a range of Australian exporters of cheese, butter, biscuits, wine, and flour, as well as horse traders.57 When it became clear that protests and threats of boycott were not going to do away with the White Australia Policy, the Sindhi firms shifted their staff and operations from Melbourne to Surabaya. The issue of possible boycotts in India resurfaced, however, in 1905 when an Indian woman was denied entry to Australia despite having fulfilled all the usual travel requirements.58 The Indian press, which raised the question of boycotts, did so in relation to both Muslim and Hindu traders; this reflected both the general anger among Indians and the fundamental target of the Immigration Act, which was racial, not cultural or religious. The threats of boycott became reality after World War I, when the White Australia Policy was criticised by Indians at the Commonwealth Conference in 1921. In 1922 alone, four major Indian speakers came to Australia to argue the case against the policy. One particularly influential visitor was Srinivasa Sastri, then a prominent member of the Indian National Congress Party and member of the Indian Parliament, who demanded answers to a number of questions about why Indians were denied equality in mining 56 Reetz 2006; Germain 2007. 57 Western Mail 3.1.1903, letter from Wassiamull Assomull and Co., p. 37; Sunday Times 4.1.1903; Hamilton Spectator 4.1.1903 and 7.2.1903. 58 Advertiser 10.8.1905; Singleton Argus 12.8.1905.

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rights and commercial licences, and why they were refused pensions but still had to pay taxes.59 Sastri believed there were at least 2000 Indians in Australia in 1922; Yarwood has estimated that there were over 3000 and there are likely to have been far more circulating unnoticed, like those living in Aboriginal communities.60 Margaret Allen has made the important point that each of these individuals had lives in both Australia and India, where they had continuing contact with their families and communities and often fulfilled very different social roles than those they were called on to fill in Australia.61 Their views on the conflicts that created the negative Australian stereotypes were seldom recorded, but were an undercurrent in the Indian press at that time. Sastri was supported by at least three high-prof ile speakers from India during 1922, all seeking indirectly to pressure the Australian Government to modify its White Australia stance: Annie Besant, Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa, and Sir Dorajbi Tata.62 At the same time, Australians were made to face very real consequences: a number of Indian institutions, including the Bombay Municipal Corporation, were refusing to deal with any Australian banking and insurance businesses or employ Australians while the restrictive immigration laws were in place.63 The Imperial Conference in 1923 took up the issue of the rights of Indians, as British citizens, to vote anywhere in the Empire. The Australian Prime Minister, Stanley Bruce, was pushed into promising to take action on behalf of Indians in Australia, although he did nothing until an Indian-Australian, Mitta Bullosh from Melbourne, won recognition of his right to vote in federal elections. After much debate and dithering, the Australian Federal Government modified its legislation in 1925 to allow British Indians resident in Australia to vote.64 At the same time, however, this legislation limited the rights of others – not only migrants, but also some groups of Aboriginal people inside Australia. The link between Indian civil rights and Aboriginal 59 West Australian 2.6.1922. 60 Palfreeman 1967; Yarwood 1967; Allen 2008: 41-56; Goodall et al. 2008. 61 Allen 2008: 44-6. 62 Annie Besant was the English journalist who led the Theosophical Society in India and was first President (from 1916) of the Indian Home Rule League; Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa was the Fourth President of the Theosophical Society in India, widely travelled and published; and Sir Darojbi Tata was a very high profile and influential Indian businessman. 63 West Australian 8.12.22; Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate 11.12.22; Age 14.12.22; Age 18.9.25 (describes the amendment to the Act in 1925 and the pressure in the conferences of 1921 and 1923). 64 ‘Indian Residents. Federal Franchise Granted. Amending Electoral Law’, Age 18.9.25; Stretton & Finnimore 1993.

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civil rights was another issue that continued to make itself very clear to Indians and was to re-emerge in 1946. Despite the opposition to the White Australia Policy voiced by people of all faiths in India, the seafaring community was aware that much of the settler hostility in Australia was directed at Muslim Indians and ‘Afghans’ because of conflict over the transport industry. Print journals circulating among the elite Muslim communities in Britain, South Africa, India, and Australia had made sustained attacks on the Australian and South African restrictions. These criticisms about Australia had circulated widely along local and popular religious networks, particularly in cities like Bombay and Calcutta but also in the rural areas from which many indentured and migratory labourers – and seamen – came.65 The seamen thus brought with them a well-formed set of expectations about what Australians’ attitudes towards them would be. Indians, Indonesians, and the Hajj Although there is less available information on the relations between Indian and Indonesian seafarers during the interwar period, there are some indications that a range of interactions may have occurred. Indian seamen had been in increasing contact with Indonesians over the previous decades as Indonesians had begun to travel across the Indian Ocean more frequently to complete the Hajj pilgrimage.66 Strong religious motivation meant that Indonesians of all classes made this journey, sometimes travelling in steerage or working for their passage. Given the large proportion of Muslims among the Indian seamen, and particularly among the members of seafarers’ unions,67 it is likely that unionised Indian seamen were far more familiar with Indonesians than they might have been with other Southeast Asian populations, such as the mainly non-Muslim Thais. While the affiliations generated by Islam may have been bringing Indians and some Indonesians closer together in shipboard environments from the 1870s, the class divisions that divided them were solidifying at the same time. Molly Bondan, an Australian woman married to a Javanese political activist, explained the class tensions between the Indonesian petty officers of the Dutch shipping line KPM, who were mostly Manadonese Christians, and the Javanese who made up the majority of Indonesian ordinary seamen and 65 Germain 2007. 66 Miller 2006. 67 Broeze 1981.

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who had set up the Indonesian Seamen’s Union in Australia. Bondan argued that they were both intensely interested in an end to Dutch colonialism, but they took different routes in their political interactions with the Dutch.68 Where Indians were employed on KPM lines they were invariably placed in the heavier and non-elite roles in the racialised world of shipping.69 In the eastern Indian Ocean, on the shipping lines trading between and around India, Indonesia, and Australia, there appear to have been very few Indians among the upper strata of ships’ officers, while as discussed earlier, Dutch East Indians, particularly the largely Christian Manadonese, were frequently found filling the petty officers’ roles.70

Who were the Indian seamen? Much of what we know about Indian seamen in Australia we owe to the meticulous records kept by Clarrie Campbell when he was Treasurer of the ISUiA.71 As Campbell built his trade with India, he became increasingly involved with Indian seamen in individual support matters, as he and the seamen grappled with the complexities of retrieving unpaid wages, prosecuting violent ship captains, and covering onshore medical and sometimes funeral expenses. The ISUiA records often contain detailed information that allows a glimpse of who those seamen were even before the Union was formed. Unlike virtually all of the voluminous archives on seamen in India, Britain, and the USA, which are either government reports or shipping company records, the ISUiA archives are uniquely valuable because they record the views and voices of the seamen themselves. The Indian seafarers in Australia were overwhelmingly working men, many of whom moved between agriculture and seafaring to support their families;72 there were very few members of any Indian elite groups, whether from the traditional or colonial elite. Many of the seamen were not literate; they joined the Union by ‘making their mark’ with a thumbprint or a cross on forms filled out by other seamen or the Indian organisers. Their later letters to the Union from India were often poorly spelled or translated; sometimes they employed letter writers. When they joined, the men invariably identified 68 69 70 71 72

Hardjono & Warner 1995. Ewald 2000. Interviews with Phyllis Johnson and Sylvia Mullins. Archives of the ISUiA, held NBABL. Balachandran 1996, 2003.

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themselves as working in the engine room, as ordinary deckhands, or as cooks and assistants in the catering departments of English and Dutch ships.73 Some of the seafarers had affiliations with the Communist Party of India (CPI),74 but far more common was union membership in India, and this too was consistent with the relatively high level of unionisation within the shipping industry compared to other industries in India, despite high unemployment.75 There were some regional differences, with Goans, Pathans, Punjabis, and Bengalis forming the major groupings, and with a diversity of religion as well, including the Catholic Goans and the Muslim majority in other groups. This regional variation gave the Indians some similarities to the Indonesians in Australia, who had come from many different islands. But in class terms, the Indonesians and Indians in Australia in the 1940s were very different from each other. Whereas the Indonesians had more educated or elite members among the petty officers and freed political internees, the Indians were almost entirely working people.76 Large numbers of Indians had been passing through Australian ports for at least a century, and yet Australians were almost entirely ignorant about them. Indians remained invisible to all except the few people who began to make contacts through channels like the Indian Social Club in 1944 (Chapter 5).

Working together: Indian and Chinese seamen’s unions On any ship, the recruitment of seamen through overseers ensured racial homogeneity, but the arena of international labour activity did allow interaction between the emerging unions of different groups of ‘Asian’ seamen. As steam technologies revolutionised cargo and later tourist shipping from 1860, the labour of seamen became ever more similar to that of industrial workers; it is therefore no surprise that the seamen of India and China had begun to develop unions by World War I. The ILO was the first international forum where the workers of colonised populations could have a voice, albeit through a tripartite structure of representation that included businesses, government, and unions from each 73 74 75 76

Database developed from ISUiA membership records, ISUiA Archive E 177/10. Broeze 1981: 39. Ibid.: 66. Lockwood 1982: 165.

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participating country. Despite both countries’ colonial relationship with Britain and their employment on British company ships, the seamen’s unions of both China and India were able to gain separate places at the ILO table. Mahomed Daud remained the spokesperson for Indian seamen. By 1929 he was pointing out how disappointing the ILO had been for Indian seamen, as it had failed to resolve British shipping companies’ systematic exploitation under the Asian Articles – exploitation that was backed by the British and colonial governments. He described a ‘desperate situation’ in which 250,000 Indian seamen were forced to compete for 50,000 jobs but had received ‘nothing but disappointment’ despite their hopes in the ILO. Daud demanded that the ILO take more assertive action to end this exploitation and proposed a special study of Asian Sea Labour. He was joined in this demand by Chau Chit Wu, adviser to the Chinese Workers’ Delegation, who stated that 160,000 of his countrymen were employed by foreign ship owners in ‘highly unfavourable conditions’. As Leon Fink has noted, Chau identified not only low wages, but also common breaches of the working and safety conditions accepted as standard for European seamen. Fink continues: ‘Together Wu and Daud urged support for state employment bureaus as well as protection for the “freedom of association” in the conduct of trade unionism.’77 Their campaigning over the following years – separately and together – along with the impact of the Great Depression on the shipping industry ensured that seamen from India and China had a major voice in the Special Maritime Session of the ILO in 1936. Their position had received significant support from the US decision (under Franklin D. Roosevelt) to gain membership of the ILO, which ensured that colonised seamen had a powerful advocate, as the US at that stage positioned itself in opposition to colonial powers. The Special Maritime Session resulted in the passing of Convention 57, the first Hours of Work and Manning (Sea) Convention, with a substantial majority.78 For the first time, all seamen were to be entitled to equal pay. The British unionist and Labour leader Ernest Bevin, who was adviser to the ‘Workers’ delegation from the British Empire’, argued for this Convention, which he claimed would achieve the ‘regulation of hours of labour on terms of equality’ that would ‘narrow the field of competition’. Many national governments and shipping companies remained unconvinced; although the Convention passed, British, Norwegian, and Dutch shipping companies persisted with the twelve-hour working day for seamen, 77 Fink 2016: 22. 78 Ibid.: 25.

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rather than the eight-hour day mandated by Convention 57. While the USA ratified this Convention in 1938, few other member states had ratified it by 1946, when the issue was again debated. The Convention thus never came into force. One of the countries that did ratify Convention 57 was the wartime Australian Labor Government of Ben Chifley. For seamen, the precedents for real change through ILO resolutions were not good. The 1926 failure of the ILO and Indian union’s attempt to change the CDC was an ever-present reminder of the power of the shipping companies because they were backed by the colonial government.79 Nevertheless, winning acceptance of Convention 57 on the floor of the ILO in 1936 was an important expression of the common interests of seamen, and particularly of Indian and Chinese seamen. The collaboration between Daud and Chau was a similarly powerful demonstration of their capacity to work together across racial and cultural lines.

79 Broeze 1981: 55.

3

Dangerous Oceans: Merchant Seamen and War

As war threatened in the late 1930s, the seamen’s campaigns became even more urgent. While Indian merchant seamen needed no reminding of the deaths in the Atlantic during World War I, the British had eventually acknowledged these deaths in 1924 with a 100-foot-high ‘Lascar War Memorial’ in Calcutta dedicated to the memory of the ‘896 merchant seamen from Assam, Bengal and Upper India’ who had died in the war from that port alone. The collaboration between Indian and Chinese seamen’s unions at the ILO meeting in 1936 had shown that there was support across racial lines for consolidated action to protect merchant seamen endangered by the Asian Articles in times of war.1 But what was urgently needed was practical support on the ground, in the port cities where seamen could take political action. Four maritime disputes in Australia were about similar issues which all reflected the growing pressures of war. They involved first Chinese seamen, then Australian waterside workers in 1937 and 1938, then Indian seamen in 1939 and finally Indonesian seamen in 1942. Each one built on the links created by the earlier ones, and fostered support from Australian unions, even though networks across racial lines had been rare before the war. This chapter describes all four disputes, but the 1939 Indian seamen’s strike in eastern Australia is considered in most detail. Security surveillance created an unusually large amount of documentation of this strike, analysis of which provides the best glimpse of the growing, complex networks of support, as well as some of the associated cultural confusion. It was no accident that maritime disputes were highly visible, receiving much press coverage and government attention. Ports, ships, and merchant seamen played central roles in all trade and most communication in the interwar years. Economic interactions were conducted through the waterfront, where there were many workers because mechanisation was still low; if these workers unionised, they could take powerful collective action. Meanwhile, the ILO was attempting to have seamen’s voices heard. In 1936, it had been hoped that the ‘hours of work’ Convention 57 would change the racial disadvantage created by the Asian Articles, but its ratification was

1 No comparable monument was built in Bombay until 2012, but similar losses were sustained there.

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slow in coming – and the looming dangers of war brought the racial injustice of fixed inferior wages and conditions more clearly into view.

The Silksworth dispute, 1937 Death at sea at the hands of the enemy was not the only wartime danger; another was capture and years of captivity in POW camps. Asian seamen were particularly at risk in this situation because they were often poorly identified in British shipping records and, in any case, may have been using aliases.2 Their families were therefore unable to learn whether they had drowned or were imprisoned, and the miserable Asian Articles pay scales meant there was little money to be sent home, even if they were known to have died. In the 1930s, the threat of war was no longer limited to the Atlantic Ocean but intruded into the Indian and Pacific Oceans and the South China Sea – where the numbers of African, Indian, and Chinese seamen were far higher than the numbers of European merchant seamen. The oceans affected by the coming of World War II were far wider, and the number of Asian seamen who were in danger was far greater. And there were yet other dangers besides those of enemy fire and capture.3 Despite these dangers, the outbreak of war also offered an opportunity to challenge this system of racial injustice and overturn the colonial power that held it in place. Based on the terrible toll on the soldiers and economies of the European powers during World War I, it seemed clear that Asian and African seamen were going to be needed as never before to keep the colonial trade flowing, as well as to move the troops and their weapons and supplies to new battlegrounds. This opened the possibility that the seamen who had for so long been trapped in the Asian Articles would gain some new bargaining power. Chinese seamen were the first to face the pressure of war in Australian waters. As the Japanese pushed into China in 1937, the ports from which Chinese ships had disembarked were overrun. Although Japan had not declared war on China, three-quarters of a million Japanese troops were fighting there. British shipping companies were free to make contracts with Japanese clients; once the ships sent to foreign ports had unloaded, they were expected to reload with goods that now would go to the Japanese who 2 3

Balachandran 2012. Broeze 1981.

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controlled the Chinese ports. When the Japanese took over the Chinese seaports there were many Chinese citizen seamen on British ships in Austra­ lian waters. As members of the Chinese Seamen’s Union (CSU), these Chinese seamen were under the direction of the Kuomintang which was the parent body of the CSU. The Kuomintang had, however, repudiated the right to strike in 1932. In the face of the advance of the Japanese the Kuomintang headquarters had retreated to Chungking in China’s hinterland. 4 Although the Chinese seamen stranded outside China did appeal to Chungking, they could not expect any quick advice. Faced with sailing under the command of new Japanese clients or returning to Chinese ports that were now held by the Japanese – the brutalities of whose invasion were becoming increasingly well known – the Chinese seamen in Australia had to make fast, independent decisions about what to do. Chinese seamen on the British cargo ship Silksworth, which docked in the New South Wales port of Newcastle in late September 1937, refused to do such work.5 The British owners had leased the ship to new Japanese clients and ordered the Chinese seamen to sail Australian gypsum – which was used to build weapons! – to a Chinese port now held by the Japanese. All 33 Chinese crewmen walked off the ship early in October, disobeying the Asian Articles under which they had been hired.6 The local Australian Chinese community worked hard to support the seamen with food, money, and political solidarity, and there was sympathy as well from some journalists, some unions, and the Communist Party. As a result, there was extensive press coverage, not only in CPA newspapers but in the mainstream press.7 The Government, however, showed no sympathy. In his role as guarantor of Australia’s international legal commitments, the then-Attorney General Robert Menzies was determined to prevent trade disruptions with Japan and disobedience towards the British shipping companies. The 33 seamen were charged with desertion, jailed, and threatened with deportation if they would not return to the ship. They argued their case and were eventually released, but still refused to work on that voyage. Australian unionists refused to take their place but the shipping company called for non-union labour, and in these Depression years they found that it was not hard to get

4 Kuo & Brett 2013. 5 Edmonds 2015. 6 Jones 2001. 7 Daily Commercial News and Shipping 18.10.37; Daily Mercury 20.10.37; Northern Miner 25.10.37; SMH 25.10.37; Western Argus 26.10.37; Advocate, 27.10.37; Townsville Daily Bulletin, 18.11.37.

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a full crew of local scab labourers. The Silksworth sailed, two weeks’ delayed, on 25 October with a non-union crew. The battle with the British company was not over: the Chinese seamen demanded their pay and repatriation to a port that remained under Chinese control, while the company threatened them and accused them of failure to abide by the Asian Articles. The company relented after appeals from the Chinese Consul, offering partial wages but leaving the local Austra­ lian Chinese community to pay the seamen’s fares back to Chinese-held ports. Some of the striking Chinese seamen left on 17 November, but others remained in Australia.8 The support by the Chinese Australian community in 1937 found strong echoes among left-wing Australian unions. The focus of the Silksworth dispute, which received enormous publicity, was the war in China. The posters the Silksworth crew carried – reading ‘Boycott Japan: Stop the War’, ‘Peace before Profits’, and ‘Boycott Baby Bombers’ – were about the war in China and ending the supply of Australian goods to an army committing atrocities there. The Communist Party in Newcastle strongly supported the Chinese seamen, with a poster that highlighted the tragedies in battlegrounds like Guernica, Madrid, and Nanking.9 None of the campaign slogans in 1937 were about stopping Japan from making weapons with which to attack Australia. There were also links to CPA members in other places through the CPA in Newcastle, since at this stage, before the pact between the USSR and Germany, the CPA was opposed to fascism. A street march took place in evening peak hour through Sydney demanding the boycott of all Japanese goods on Friday, 1 October, a day before the big Labour Day parade and the NSW Housewives Association, closely associated with the CPA, had supported the boycott call, to begin on 1 November to give shopkeepers time to clear their shelves.10 The Chinese community in Sydney were involved too in supporting the strikers, offering food and financial support and then shelter when the striking crew was left in Australia. A large public meeting was held at Glebe on 8 November, after the Silksworth had sailed with its scab crew, to advocate a boycott of all Japanese goods.11 By then, Clarrie Campbell was managing an automobile workshop in Glebe, and was involved with 8 Daily Commercial News and Shipping List 18.10.37 and 19.10.37; SMH 25.10.37; Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate 19.10.37; Northern Miner 25.10.37. 9 Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate 19.10.37. 10 Australian Worker, 6.10.37. 11 Northern Miner 25.10.37.

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both the ALP, of which he was a member, and the CPA, in which he had no membership but was closely associated. He was likely to have been at least aware of this meeting and was probably there.

The Dalfram and Pig-Iron Bob, 1938 By 1938, the support networks were stronger. Australian waterside workers and seamen had become much more assertive in their support for the Chinese people as the brutality of the Japanese invasion became better known. Australian unionists at Wollongong refused to load pig-iron onto the British ship Dalfram for trade with Japan, where they argued it could be made into weapons or ammunition. Robert Menzies, still the Attorney General and in charge of the prosecution of the case against the union, earned himself the enduring nickname of ‘Pig-Iron Bob’ by insisting that Australian trade in iron and steel with Japan should be maintained. This strike is remembered as a stand by White workers, motivated by long-standing and racist fears that the Japanese would arm themselves to invade Australia. In fact, however, this industrial action began because of the hard work of the Chinese community and union activists, who had expanded the support within Australian maritime unions for the Chinese people in their battle against invasion.12 The initial focus of the Australian maritime union statements about the Dalfram was China, not Australia, as the photographs and press coverage show.13 The cause of this confusion can be traced to the major published account of the Dalfram event, Rupert Lockwood’s War on the Waterfront. Although not published till 1987, this book had been written soon after the Japanese turned their guns on the Australians and Americans, so the immediacy of the Japanese threat stole his attention from the strike’s initial focus on China.14 The beginning of the war in Europe in September 1939 brought more changes. Germany had invaded the Netherlands, leaving the NEI technically under German control. Britain – and therefore India – declared war on Germany on 3 September; Australia and the other Dominions followed by 10 September. For cargo ships in the eastern Indian Ocean, it was the 12 Gar-Locke Chang 1999; Cottle 2000. 13 Mallory 1999, for Dalfram’s initial statements. 14 Lockwood 1987. By the time of publication, Lockwood had worked for many years as the editor of The Maritime Worker, journal of the Australian Maritime Union, formed from amalgamation of the WWF and the SUA. See Rowen Cahill’s scholarly biography 2013.

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merchant sailors who were immediately most affected. They were expected to man ships that would be travelling into war zones which, as World War I had shown, posed ever new dangers as submarine and other military technologies proliferated. The declaration of war only increased the need for reliable sea traffic, so it was a strategic time to demand safer conditions, better wages, and better compensation in case of war injuries or death. It was not only Asians and Africans who attempted to negotiate better compensation in the war zones; Norwegian merchant seamen also went on strike in Australia, demanding wartime bonuses before they would return to ships in Mackay in northern Queensland. However, as the most severely discriminated against, it was Asians who had most to gain from the new wartime conditions. Chinese seamen again went on strike in Melbourne in September 1939, demanding better pay and conditions. This was resolved rapidly; their interests were now better supported by both the ­Government – because war had been off icially declared – and unions, and the resulting outcomes offered real wage rises and improvements in their conditions.15 Indian seafarers faced far greater difficulties in their attempts to press for certain demands. In October 1939, Indian crews walked off a number of ships in Fremantle and refused to return. Their demands were very clear: they wanted the right to refuse to sail into war zones, a rise in pay in recognition of the dangers of war, and the guarantee that their families would be paid compensation if they were to be killed or injured by enemy action. The Indians immediately turned to the Western Australian trade unions (which responded by offering them shelter in the iconic Trades Hall) and calling on the ALP to argue their case with the Government and the shipping companies. By 28 October they had won their main demands, thanks to negotiations by J.J. Byrne, the secretary of the Fremantle branch of the SUA. They were, first, guaranteed repatriation to an Indian port and not required to sail outside the Indian Ocean without their agreement (it is ironic that at this time no one expected the Indian Ocean to become a war zone!). They were not to be victimised in any way on account of their Australian strike. And finally, in another major victory, they were given guarantees of compensation for their families if they were to be killed or injured through enemy action.

15 F.W. Buchan to Director General, ASIO, 30.7.42, pp. 45-51. ASIO, Chinese Seamen’s Union file, NAA.

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The Indian strikes of 1939 – Komalam Craig The focus of industrial action then shifted to the east coast. While there were strikes by Indians in Melbourne, Brisbane, and Mackay, from 2 November the major conflict was in Sydney, where at least five British ships were held up: the Peshawar, the City of Canberra, the Clan Buchanan, the Clan MacArthur, and the City of Winchester. The shipping companies said that ‘hundreds of lascars were involved’ with the ships in Melbourne and Brisbane alone.16 The conservative Federal Government, now led by Robert Menzies, banned any mention of the strike in the press, on the grounds that the strikers were ‘hostile agencies’ opposed to the prosecution of the war. Questions were asked in Parliament. ALP member Eddie Ward, a close friend of Clarrie Campbell, pointed out that the Indians in Sydney had already been supported by the SUA, the WWF, the Australian Workers Union, and the NSW Trades and Labor Council (TLC): was the Government implying that Australian unions were also hostile to the prosecution of the war, he asked. The Government stumbled into an explanation that by ‘hostile agencies’ it had meant Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, which were by then linked by a non-aggression pact.17 Public concern continued, with a Daily News editorial on 18 November addressing the Government’s banning of any press mention of the strike with the headline ‘Menace to Open Court System’. The police response to the strike became increasingly aggressive. By early November, the crew of the Peshawar, who had walked off the ship in protest at what they understood as a plan to sail through war zones to Britain, had been imprisoned for desertion. The crew of the City of Canberra joined the other strikers in prison on 9 November, and by 13 November there were 118 Indians in Long Bay Gaol serving sentences of between three and six months’ hard labour.18 Prime Minister Menzies insisted that the causes of the widespread Indian strikes were a ‘mystery’, but – just as in Fremantle – the demands of the crews striking in Sydney were quite clearly stated. Most said they wanted higher pay, whether as a general raise in wages to a level closer to that of non-‘Asiatic’ seamen or through war bonuses for travel into dangerous waters.19 Second, many simply refused under any circumstances to sail ships into vulnerable 16 Canberra Times 9.11.39. See Diane Kirkby on the Australian union role in support of the striking Indian seamen in 1939 and more broadly, on internationalism: Kirkby 2017; Kirkby & Ostpenko 2016. 17 Canberra Times 9.11.39 and 17.11.39. 18 SMH 11.11.39; Mercury 13.11.39; Western Australian 13.11.39. 19 Mercury 14.11.39.

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war zone waters, where submarines and other craft posed threats.20 Finally, a number had specific complaints about bad management on particular ships: the crew of the Peshawar, for example, pointed out that their contract had expired eight months beforehand. This crew had been expressing their concerns with rising anger at each Australian port they visited; by the time they reached Sydney they simply refused to go any further.21 Beside the clarity of their demands, the newspaper coverage of the strike revealed other things. First, although the punishments of imprisonment were severe in Sydney, the walk-off also revealed the safe spaces for Indians in a ‘White Australia’ city. Many of the seamen went to Redfern, a boarding house at 143 Elizabeth Street that was run by an Indian, Fazol Dean – who can be assumed to have had secure citizenship in order to conduct his business. This suggests an established resident Indian population in the city, even though it was not widely known at the time. This Australian-resident Indian community, many of whom were Muslim, were to become more visible in the later years of the war. Second, when confronted by the police, the crews were calm and most offered little resistance to their arrest and imprisonment. They were prepared to use the courts to argue their case, but became vocally and determinedly assertive if the police buses – which they had been told would be taking them to jail – were diverted to the docks. The police reported that the seamen ‘excitedly’ refused point blank to re-embark.22 Third, an additional trial for the Indians was religious. As the list of crew names23 of the City of Canberra showed, around 20 per cent of the crew were from Goa – and could be expected to be Catholics – while the remainder were Muslims who came largely from Bengal. Most of these Muslims were observing Ramadan, a month of fasting in which no food or drink of any kind may be taken between sunrise and sunset, and which ran from 13 October to 14 November in 1939. This was a point of major confusion for the Australians. No matter how many times the Indians patiently explained this practice, both the opponents and the supporters of the Indian seamen argued that the shipping companies were denying them food and drink, and that this was the basis of their strike.24 When the 20 Townsville Daily Bulletin 11.11.39; Hobart Mercury 14.11.39 and 17.11.39. 21 ‘S.S. Peshawar – Lascar Crew Trouble.’ Inspector D.R.B. Mitchell to Director, CIB, 13.11.39. Lascar Strike Trouble ASIO File NAA. 22 Singleton Argus 24.11.39. 23 ‘Lascar Members of Crew of “City of Canberra”’ (attachment), A.G. Bennett, Deputy Crown Solicitor, to Crown Solicitor, 24.11.39. Lascar Strike Trouble ASIO File NAA. 24 Advocate 13.11.39.

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Peshawar crew’s baggage was seized and examined, it was found to contain food for iftar, the daily breaking of the fast after sunset during Ramadan. The police then accused the seamen of stealing the food from the shipping companies and lying about being starved.25 This atmosphere of ignorance even among friends, and of suspicion and outright hostility from others, contributed to the alienation felt by the Indian crewmen in Australia, who expressed it to their two Indian visitors during the strike. One Indian visitor was Hari Sahodar Singh, a shipping agent in Suva, Fiji, who had been granted a one year residence visa in Australia in June 1938 to establish an import/export business. He was a bitter opponent of British rule in India and had written letters to several Sydney newspapers to say so.26 The Australian Intelligence Section of the Military Police had reported on his association with the Communist Party and in mid-1939 had seized a set of documents from his home, that the Intelligence Section stated could have subversive effects if circulated in India. Singh had long had close relations with the SUA and so had been called on to act as interpreter for the Seamen’s Union which had been in close touch with Indian seamen in Sydney since the earlier strike events in Western Australia. Singh’s role with one of the most militant and internationally oriented of Australia’s unions indicated the links that had already been forged between working Australians and the activists of the region. In Fiji, Singh was an ally of A.D. Patel and other opponents of British imperialism who were campaigning for democratic franchise and an end to economic and social discrimination.27 The Australian security forces were deeply suspicious of Singh, branding him an ‘agent’ and maintaining a check on his passport and movements.28 Komalam Craig The other visitor was Komalam Craig, a complex and important figure in the ongoing history of Australian–Indian relations.29 The Security File attributes her with the more active role in supporting the seamen, and her 25 Inspector D.B.R. Mitchell to Director, CIB, 20.11.39. Lascar Strike Trouble ASIO File NAA. 26 H.S. Singh, Daily Telegraph, 11.11.39, Letter to the Editor; Hari Sahodar Singh to Editor, SMH, 28.10.39, complaining that his earlier submitted ‘Letter to the Editor’ had not been published. NAA, Hari Sahodar Singh, C123, 11659. 27 Lal 2011: 82. 28 Komalam Craig ASIO file 39, z.183/679, NAA. 29 Komalam Craig’s story is being further explored by Devleena Ghosh and Heather Goodall in the ARC-funded project Countering the Cold War: Interactions between Australia and India, through the lens of the womens’ movements, 1945-1975.

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presence makes visible the wide networks into which the seamen were beginning to be linked, even beyond the members of the SUA with whom she visited the strikers on a number of occasions. Craig was from Madras, where she and her family had been closely involved with theosophy (see Chapter 1).30 Having set up an organisational base at Adyar, close to central Madras, British theosophists sometimes supported conservative and elite Hindu social conventions in India. Yet a core philosophy of theosophy was equality between races, religions, and genders; as a result, not only in Europe but in India and colonial settings as widely different as Indonesia and Australia, theosophy appealed to many feminists and socialists. Despite the frequent criticisms of communism by theosophical leaders, those who practised theosophy were sometimes close associates of Communist Party members and other activists. Komalam had a strong interest in the nationalist movement and was in contact with Mohandas K. Gandhi, who had taken on the leadership of the anti-imperialist movement and the Indian National Congress after the home rule campaign. Komalam had married an Australian theosophist, Ronald Craig, who had travelled to India to teach in the early 1930s. Not long after the birth of their son, Arjun, Craig died from smallpox and Komalam wanted the child to meet her late husband’s family in Sydney. A graduate of economics at Madras, Komalam was awarded the inaugural Tagore Scholarship intending to undertake a doctorate in economics at Sydney in December 1938. When that course was not available to her, she chose to take a one-year graduate course in Education instead.31 The visa for Australia required a reference and Komalam was recommended by the Reverend C.F. Andrews, a close friend of Gandhi and fellow campaigner, who had in 1916 published an acclaimed book advocating the cessation of indentured labour in the British Empire; he later wrote Gandhi’s biography in 1930. This elicited little comment when Komalam arrived, but the recommendation by Andrews was later held against her by the Australian security services. On her arrival, Komalam was struck by how isolated Australia seemed to be from the rest of the region, particularly from the fierce war then going on in China. She commented that ‘there was little consciousness of the Chinese-Japanese war on her arrival here’. She also found there was little familiarity with Indians, telling The Age a year later that ‘To the average Australian an Indian is a Juggler or a mystic. She is surprised when an Indian behaves like an ordinary human being and cannot profess a knowledge 30 Jayawardina 1995: 114-20. 31 It is not clear why economics was not available.

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of yogi [sic] or fortune telling.’ Komalam set out to engage widely with Australians to try to overturn such misconceptions.32 Her time in Sydney was initially closely involved with the theosophists, but, pursuing her broader contacts, she also corresponded with Katharine Susannah Prichard, a member of the CPA. As well as spending time with Ronald’s family in Manly, Komalam became close to Ronald’s friends, including the theosophist Ula Maddocks, with whom Komalam went to live in Castlecrag – an affluent but alternative artistic suburb where many theosophists lived. Ula, in turn, was close to a number of communists, and was in a relationship with Guido Barrachi, who held long-time (though stormy) membership in the CPA and was the editor of Communist Review. Through this complicated mixture of contacts, Komalam met the striking seamen and began a determined campaign to defend their interests. On 1 November 1939, Komalam spoke on the subject ‘Peace or War’ at a public meeting held by the League for Peace and Democracy, an organisation that the Australian security service believed to be associated with the CPA. In her speech, Komalam set out the case against British rule in India, arguing that discrimination was economic and that the quality of Indians’ lives had deteriorated under the Raj. ‘India is a country of poverty’, she began. ‘There is a bigger Army in India than anywhere else in the world. 1/3 of the population suffer from Malaria while about 2% can read and write.’ She concluded with a defence of the Congress: Congress is working for Indian Independence. Gandhi is trying to make people politically conscious. In 1931, the Government wanted to impose a Salt Tax and Gandhi asked the people to make contraband salt on the seashore. The Indian police were asked, by the Government, to fire on them but they refused. India must be free from Imperialism […] People are put in prison without trial, if there are any complaints lodged against them that they are against the Government. The British are against organization of hill tribes by leaders as they say it breeds trouble.33

After the crew of the Peshawar refused to man their ship and were placed on trial for desertion, Komalam arrived at the Court and talked with Hari Sahodar Singh, the SUA interpreter. By 17 November, Komalam’s movements were being reported to ASIO by Inspector D.R.B. Mitchell of the NSW Special 32 Age 13.12.39. 33 Report of speech by Komalam Craig, 333 George St, Sydney, 1.11.39. Komalam Craig ASIO file, Z183/679, NAA.

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3.1 Komalam Craig in Sydney, 1939 (with unidentified man, possibly Hari Sahodar Singh)

Courtesy of the family of the late Deirdre Morton, from her private collection, interviewed by Devleena Ghosh and Heather Goodall, 24.9.2013

Branch, who then kept a close watch on her. After the City of Canberra crew walked off their ship on Friday, 18 November, Komalam found them in the nearby park at Redfern and talked with them before they went to Dean’s boarding house. In an effort to stem the alarming spread of strikes among its Indian crews, the Calcutta office of Ellerman & Bucknall, a British-based shipping company that had expanded to become one of the largest freight-shipping

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companies in the world, sent to Australia its Marine Superintendent Captain Forsythe and Al-Haj Khan Bahadur Fazlul Karim, who was Ellerman’s Deputy Shipping Master and, according to Inspector Mitchell, a ‘high-class Mohammedan’. Forsythe and Karim went first to Brisbane to try to resolve the strike there, then came to Sydney, where they spoke to the City of Canberra crew on Saturday evening, 19 November and convinced the seamen to go to the wharf to report for work on the following morning. When the seamen gathered on a vacant lot adjacent to the ship in the morning, they again began debating whether or not to board. At that point, Kormalam arrived. Komalam spoke briefly to the seafarers, giving them some funds for food, then insisted she speak at greater length to them without the presence of Forsythe and Karim, who agreed to withdraw. Mitchell, who attended, was confident that he would eventually learn whatever had been said from a ‘loyal’ lascar who remained with the group. This man, Amirul Huq, stated later that when Karim had first spoken with the crew he had given them ‘biscuits, lemonade and cigarettes’ and they had all agreed to rejoin the ship, but then, the next morning, ‘the woman interviewed them and insisted that they should not listen to Khan Badahur Karim’. According to Huq, Komalam had said: ‘You should on no account agree to sail on your ship and you should be all of one word and mind. I shall see and do everything legal or otherwise so that you may go as passenger on another ship to Calcutta. Whatever will be the expenses, I will pay as you have all been badly treated.’ When asked what Komalam had said about Karim, Amirul Huq reported that the seamen had initially been prepared to follow Karim: … the crew said that they will listen to Khan Badahur Karim who is a Musselman like ourselves and who has performed the Haj and is our religious head also and it is our duty and we are willing to give our life to him and he has always looked after us in our country and we will not trust a white man in this country.

Quoting Komalam, Huq went on: Thereupon she said ‘He is paid by the white man and he is not a good Mahommedan but he is under orders and instructions from white men.’

This convinced the seafarers to return to the Redfern boarding house; the following day, 21 November, Komalam again met them in the nearby park,

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bringing further funds and supporting their decision to remain on strike.34 Karim later reported in exasperation to Mitchell that ‘it now appears that this crew has taken the solemn vow on the Koran that they will not go on board the City of Canberra.’ Mitchell continued: ‘Karim says in his long experience, he never saw a more solid, obstinate attitude adopted by any of the Indian crews with which he has been officially associated.’35 The extended Special Branch inquiries about what had ‘caused’ the ‘trouble’ with the lascar crews is instructive because it exposes the broader world in which seamen were embedded in any port city, an unusual element of any official report, which usually concentrate only on the seamen themselves. It was not only Komalam’s presence which had brought into view the possibility of the involvement of both local activists and women in roles other than sex workers. Both these themes are suggested in the elaborate Special Branch reports on the 1939 strikes. For example, the possibility of gendered networks for seamen is suggested in one explanation, that the ‘principal agitators’ on the City of Canberra were two Goan seafarers, C. Robello and A.F. Marauho. Robello was said to be ‘married to a white woman in Liverpool, England’, as if this connection was a cause of his activism. Whatever role this may have had in his industrial decisions, it does suggest the broader social interactions across racial lines in which seafarers moved in port cities. Another explanation was that all the ships involved had crews recruited through Calcutta, and a large proportion of those crews had been members of the Calcutta branch of the Indian Seamen’s Union. This union, the ISU-C, was at that time led by Aftab Ali, a well-known and respected rank-and-file activist who had represented the Indian Seamen’s Union at the ILO.36 The ‘trouble’ in Sydney was explained by the Special Branch as prompted by Ali’s search for revenge for the dismissive attitudes displayed towards him by British shipping officials. Despite the triviality of this explanation, it was a backhanded recognition of the importance of Indian union leadership in large-scale industrial actions in foreign ports, such as the one that was so troubling authorities in Sydney.37 And they were indeed – by November 1939 – thoroughly alarmed. The conservative Menzies Government continued to talk of ‘hostile influences’ 34 Account in Mitchell to Director, Commonwealth Investigation Branch, Canberra, 20.11.39, Z183/679 and enclosed statement by Amirul Juq, 20.11.39 taken by Fazlul Karim. ASIO file on Komalam Craig, NAA. 35 Mitchell to Director, CIB, 20.11.39, Lascar Strike Trouble ASIO File NAA. 36 Broeze 1981. 37 ‘Lascar Crew Trouble’, Mitchell, Special Branch, to Director, CIB, 20.11.39, Z338. Lascar Strike Trouble ASIO File NAA.

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and ‘foreign agents’.38 For anyone casting around for subversive foreigners, Komalam Craig was an obvious target. Mitchell castigated her in report after report, though he believed that rather than a commitment to communism, it was her ‘anti-British and pro-Indian Congress sentiments’ that were the motive for her actions.39 Despite assessing her to be ‘very clever, very well educated, [to] speak well and command various Indian dialects’, Komalam Craig was also described as: violently anti-British. She broadcast on 2GB40 on India and has delivered numerous lectures, all with anti-British tinge, to Women’s societies and other societies here. She corresponds extensively with Communist centres in other parts of Australia. She was personally recommended by Mr Andrews, who is European [Eurasian] who has been intimately associated with the Gandhi Dominion Status campaigns in India and is Gandhi’s biographer. 41

In Mitchell’s view, ‘Mrs Craig’s action certainly constitutes an interference with an essential service […] In my opinion, action should be taken against this woman who is using her Indian birth and language to interfere, in this country where she is only a permissive guest, with the life blood of the Empire.’ 42 None of the hostility expressed to her limited Komalam’s involvement with the strikers. Not only did she meet the striking crew members of the City of Canberra again in Redfern on 21 November, but on the same day she applied for permission to visit the many imprisoned Indians in Long Bay Gaol. Mitchell, who was now involved in all communications about the Indians, informed the Prisons Department that she was not a suitable person to be given permission to visit the prisoners, as ‘she had no standing in this matter and from our experience, any influence she was likely to exercise would not assist towards an amicable settlement’. 43 Komalam persisted, working closely with a Mr Daly, then secretary of the SUA, to visit other striking Indian seamen in Waterloo on 23 November. 38 Attorney General W. Hughes, 9.11.39; Canberra Times 25.11.39, Cairns Post, 25.11.39. 39 Mitchell to Director, CIB, 20.11.39, Lascar Strike Trouble ASIO File NAA. 40 The radio station owned and managed by the Theosophical Society, named after Giordano Bruno. 41 Report Re Komalam Craig, 17.11.39, Z183/679. ASIO file on Komalam Craig, NAA. 42 Account in Mitchell to Director, CIB, Canberra, 20.11.39, Z183/679 and enclosed statement by Amirul Juq, 20.11.39 taken by Fazlul Karim. ASIO file on Komalam Craig, NAA. 43 Mitchell to Director, CIB, 21.11.39. Z183/679, NAA.

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By this time the Special Branch had linked her anti-British sentiments with an association with communism and Australian trade unions, noting her continued involvement with the Australian League for Peace and Democracy, of which Gerald Peel, a communist and the author of a pamphlet on Indian Independence, had become secretary. The League announced it was to host a farewell for Komalam before she returned to India early in December, and on 23 November Komalam addressed the TLC on ‘the Lascar Question’. 44 The mobilisation among seafarers in Sydney was far wider than those with whom Komalam contacted. It reached a crescendo on Wednesday, 23 November, when striking Indian seamen assembled at Railway Square and, carrying a calico banner nailed to long poles, marched through Sydney streets during peak traffic to the Town Hall, ‘jaywalking’ and ‘disregarding all traff ic laws’ for two hours, to demonstrate their determination not to take ships into war zones. When the police tried to take their banner scuffles broke out, and ‘the leaders shouted defiance in their native tongue’. After the march, 53 of the seamen moved to the front of what was then the most visible place in Sydney, the wide entrance of the very fashionable elite society gathering place, the Hotel Australia in Castlereagh St, where they blocked the entrance to the hotel and attempted to close its doors, arguing that they had been denied food. Police and hotel staff struggled with the Indians, the press reported, and pushed them away from the front of the building, injuring two seamen who had to be hospitalised. By now the strikers were demanding that they be paid in Sydney and given passports to return to India. The shipping companies insisted they could only be paid in Calcutta, refusing to give them any wages in Sydney and instead asking that the seamen trust the companies’ guarantees that they would be taken only to India. Karim was again present for these negotiations, offering the men a 100 per cent increase on their (meagre) wages and a guarantee that they would not be taken anywhere except to Calcutta or Colombo in Sri Lanka, but they refused, repeating ‘We do not believe you’. 45 The demonstration broke up, though there was confusion about where the seamen were to be billeted. They chose a disused factory at Waterloo, but at 2.00 in the morning the police arrived and attempted to arrest the whole group. Some of the seamen resisted the police; there were struggles 44 Sadly, the wording on the banner was not described. Mitchell to Director, CIB, 24.11.39, Z183/679; Daily News 24.11.39. ASIO file on Komalam Craig, NAA. 45 Argus 23.11.39; Age 23.11.39 and 24.11.39.

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before the police were able to force 51 of the striking seamen into vans to be taken to city lock-ups. 46 The Government now showed no restraint. The men were immediately given the notorious ‘White Australia’ dictation test, the 1901 law which empowered immigration authorities to exclude anyone if they failed a dictation test ‘in any European language’. The Indians were tested, one by one, in Dutch. As each one failed, they were immediately classified as a prohibited immigrant. Arguing in court the next day that the Indians were trying to stop an ‘essential war service’ by delaying the shipping of food and other goods to Britain, the Government succeeded in implementing the process of rapid deportation, with the convicted men sentenced to six months’ hard labour so that they could be held in jail until ships were available to take them out of the country.47 Some strikers still held out, but Karim now exerted his authority as a Hajji, a Muslim who had completed the pilgrimage to Mecca, which gave him both religious and industrial power over the Islamic seamen. In an extraordinary meeting on Sunday, 27 November, Karim led the crew of one ship, 90 seamen altogether, in a prayer meeting to pledge their loyalty to the British Empire. The seamen agreed not only to take their ship to sea but to obey the will of the ship’s master and owners. The Melbourne Argus, reporting the event, explained that ‘Their pledges made in prayer are irrevocable.’ Karim was jubilant and patronising. The Argus reported him saying: ‘Strong influences have been at work to cause the trouble. In some cases the seeds of communism have been sown, but this discontent is just a phase. There is nothing to worry about.’ 48 Like Karim, the conservative Australian Government was confident that this was the end of what had seemed like an emerging relationship between Indian and Australian workers and activists. The war and its aftermath were to show that this conf idence was misplaced.

The Atlantic Charter, 14 August 1941 Despite these demonstrations of the power of colonial shipping companies to maintain a racially discriminatory structure in the face of challenge, the war had sparked an agreement that shaped all later attempts to demolish colonial power. The Atlantic Charter was signed on 14 August 1941 between 46 Age 24.11.39. 47 SMH 24.11.39 and 25.11.39; Cairns Post 25.11.39. 48 Argus 27.11.39.

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the USA and Britain, before the US had entered the war. The eight points of the Charter were received around the world as a statement of the goals of these two key allied partners in the outcomes of the war. The crucial Point 3, often summarised as affirming that all peoples had the right to self-determination, was regarded, as Mohammed Hatta was to say in 1945, as a solemn assurance that the Allied and Colonising powers ‘respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them.’ 49 Zachariah has pointed out that, while many anticolonial movements drew on the theory and writings of Marx and Lenin, it was not Lenin whose words were quoted in anticolonial manifestos but those of Roosevelt and Churchill in the Atlantic Charter. The reason is not that there was more affiliation to Roosevelt than to Lenin, but because the Atlantic Charter was seen as a promise by Churchill and Britain to withdraw from colonial powerholding. It was this commitment that so many anticolonial movements insisted that the British and other colonisers keep. Churchill was apparently worried that such a reading was possible, because it had not been his intention to commit to any such withdrawal. Many times during the war and its aftermath, the colonising powers like Britain and the Netherlands added qualifications to this clause, arguing, for example, as the Dutch did, that it must be used ‘intelligently’ to bring only a gradual expansion of self-government.50 Nevertheless, the words of the Atlantic Charter were to be repeated, quoted and misquoted in many struggles against colonialism, including those in Indonesia and the Asian region discussed here.

Continued Chinese activism – Fred Wong The Chinese seamen in Australia continued to plan a challenge to the Asian Articles in which the colonial shipping companies had entrapped them. The Atlantic Charter gave them some hope. They had written again to the Kuomintang-controlled CSU in Chungking, asking for advice on setting up a branch of the CSU in Australia.51 No word came back, but the seamen 49 Atlantic Charter, full text provided by The Avalon Project, Yale University. http://avalon. law.yale.edu/wwii/atlantic.asp. 50 Foray 2012: 160-2. 51 F.W. Buchan to Director General, ASIO, 30.7.42: 45-51. ASIO, Chinese Seamen’s Union file, NAA.

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persisted. With the attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941, war with Japan was declared. The ships that normally plied the China trade were all stranded in Australia, and in January 1942 their Chinese crews were told that the ships were to be commandeered to carry weapons and supplies to the battlegrounds in the Pacific. In response, the Chinese seamen walked off ships on both the west and east coasts. In Fremantle, 500 seamen went on strike, demanding an end to the discrimination of the Asian Articles and insisting they be paid at the same rates as White seamen if they were to sail in such dangerous settings. The conflict in Fremantle was bitter: troops were called in, shots were fired, and two Chinese seamen were killed. Further bloodshed was avoided only when the Western Australian branch of the SUA persuaded the seamen to enlist in the army labour corps, which meant they loaded some ships but mainly worked inland in agriculture to produce food for the troops. The ships sailed without them. In Sydney, the same dispute involved the striking of even more Chinese seamen walking off more ships: six ships in all were immobilised, and the seamen conducted a sit-in demonstration to make their point. Their demands were the same as those in Fremantle: they wanted an end to racial discrimination and a recognition of the needs of seamen and their families if they were to work in dangerous war zones. Like the Chinese seamen in 1937, this group of strikers were given strong support from the local Australian Chinese community, through the Chinese Youth League, with Australian citizens of Chinese descent like Fred Wong in a leading role. Australian Chinese like Fred Wong had a long history of civil rights activism, both in support of their own community and more broadly, and they were well-known and highly regarded among the union members.52 With the support of the local Australian Chinese community, the overseas Chinese seamen met with E.V. Eliot and Barney Smith of the SUA, which backed their announcement of the formation of an Australian branch of the CSU on 22 January, 1942.53 The seamen, as ‘overseas Chinese’, were essentially war refugees, but their close connection to the local Chinese activist organisations, particularly the Youth League, allowed them to use local leaders like Fred Wong and Stanley Wei as office bearers in both the Chinese Youth League and the Chinese Seamen’s Union branch. This sympathetic local base of Australians with a strong background knowledge of and interest in Chinese affairs, as well as support from local 52 Lake 2010; Loy-Wilson 2016. 53 Cottle 2000: 138; F.W. Buchan to Director General, ASIO, 30.7.42: 45-51.

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unions, meant that the fledgling Australian branch of the CSU was able to sustain its demand for non-discriminatory conditions and a fair scale of pay. These demands were put to the Maritime Industry Commission, set up by the recently elected ALP Federal Government to meet wartime conditions. As Drew Cottle has pointed out, this Commission’s powers overrode not only existing Australian industrial laws and statutes but ‘any award or determination of any industrial tribunal’.54 The Commission allowed the formation of an Australian branch of the CSU, at least for the duration of the war, that would be allied to the SUA. The Chinese seamen therefore demanded – and won – conditions consistent with those of the SUA, namely a 44-hour week, pay rises of 80 per cent equivalence to the SUA, and a war bonus. This was a major victory over the constraints of the Asian Articles and was consistent with the 1936 ILO Convention 57, which had been so opposed by the British, Norwegians, and Dutch. It was, therefore, a challenge to the whole racialised and discriminatory structure of colonialism. ASIO regarded this decision as ‘an unfortunate error of judgement’.55 At the same time the Chinese seamen – and their local Australian Chinese supporters – were winning at least some of their demands, the war caused a whole new group of Asian seamen to arrive in Australia. And it is here that the increasing links between the seamen themselves can be seen.

Exiled Indonesian seamen – Tuk Subianto After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour in December 1941, their advance across the whole of Southeast Asia was rapid and appeared unstoppable. Many Dutch ships with Indonesian and Chinese-Indonesian crews retreated to open waters or sailed to Australia to get beyond the reach of the invading Japanese. They were joined by the US fleet and troops, who had similarly fled the Japanese advance. After the Dutch surrender to the Japanese in March 1942, it was decided that Dutch-owned ships were to be commandeered to assist the Allies by carrying weapons and supplies to newly opened battle fronts in the Pacific and around the Melanesian and Southeast Asian coastline. Such work exposed civilian seamen to new dangers. According to ASIO reports, members of the CSU – who were already alerting the arriving Chinese crews to the possibility of receiving Exemption Certificates that would enable them to work as ‘Labour’ in ‘essential 54 Cottle 2000: 141. 55 F.W. Buchan to the Director General, 30.7.42: 45-51.

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wartime services’ – began also to alert the incoming Indonesian and ChineseIndonesian crews.56 The newcomers were thereby supported to make their own claims: they immediately demanded compensation for taking risks, including wages and conditions equivalent to those of the Dutch, Australian, and US seamen. Yet again, a challenge to the racialised discrimination on which colonial trade had been built arose.57 ASIO understood this to be a widespread and generalised assertion by ‘coloured’ crews. It titled its memo on the subject, in July 1942, ‘Coloured Crews: Desertion and Refusal to Work’.58 Just like the Chinese and Indian shipping strikes before them, these strikes received massive publicity; though the explanations of the seamen’s demands were often scanty, it was clear that many Indonesians were demanding decent wages and safety in dangerous waters.59 When their demands continued to be refused, the Indonesian seamen challenged the shipping companies by walking off their ships in April. Arrested as they left the ships, the seamen were charged and convicted of the archaic maritime crime of ‘disobeying the directions of the ship’s master’.60 Eventually, close to 2000 Indonesian seamen walked off KPM ships, tying up many vessels. They were initially remanded without bail and then sentenced to jail terms of hard labour, but there were so many imprisoned in this sudden dispute that the already-crowded Long Bay Jail was unable to accommodate them.61 Desperate searches were made to find alternatives and eventually 800 imprisoned seamen were sent to the Cowra Prisoner of War camp, while others were sent to another POW camp at Loveday in South Australia. Thus began the long sentences of these men, who may have initially mobilised around the racial injustice of the shipping industry but whose anger turned into opposition to the whole Dutch colonial system.62 Despite being locked away, their stories got out and began to circulate. Security reports early in 1943 expressed concern that the Cowra townspeople seemed to know a great deal about the internees; there were cases of close friendships developing with guards as 56 Ibid. 57 Described by Fitzpatrick & Cahill 1981: 169. 58 Confidential Memo to Director General, 21.7.42. ASIO, Chinese Seamen’s Union file, NAA. 59 F.W. Buchan to Director General, ASIO, 30.7.42: 45-51. ASIO, Chinese Seamen’s Union file, NAA; Single memo containing collated extracts of reports, 1942, 1943, and 1944, on seamen referred to in some as ‘Chinese seamen’, in others as specifically ‘Chinese and Javanese Seamen’, in others again as ‘these people’ or simply as ‘Coloured Seamen’, A6122, 1848: 26-8 of 146 pages in ASIO, Chinese Seamen’s Union file, NAA. 60 SMH 9.4.42. 61 NAA (Vic) Series MP 508/1 Item 255/714/331. Cited in Lingard 2008: 23. 62 NAA (Vic) Series MP 508/1 Item 115/703/597. Cited in Lingard 2008: 23.

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well as interactions between the Indonesians and the Japanese POWs held there at the same time.63 This fraternisation alarmed both the Australians and the Dutch, who proposed that the seamen be ‘required’ to work in military labour camps where they would be subject ‘to military provisions for punishment, discipline and military law’. In January 1943, they were packed off to camps in Toowoomba and other Queensland towns as the 36th Australian Employment Company.64

Building networks All of these disputes had the same demands. First, the strikers wanted better pay and safe conditions for the civilian seamen who would be going into war zones. This was initially – or was soon expanded into – a demand for equality of pay and conditions for all seamen, regardless of race or country of origin – a demand consistent with the 1936 ILO Convention 57. The strikers also demanded compensatory pay for time lost during the strike and, where possible, repatriation without penalty to safe places in their homeland. Networks were beginning to form between seamen, as the media and ASIO documents show: not only were individual Australian unionists in the SUA supporting the various striking groups, but Chinese seamen and activists, in particular, were in communication with other newly arrived and striking seamen. The war conditions were to bring them even more closely into communication. Over the next few years, continuing industrial demands, rising national movements, and increasing social interaction through wartime ‘social clubs’ led to a strengthening of the links between seamen’s groups. These intensifying links not only included the Australian unionists but also featured more interaction across national, gender, and ethnic lines.

63 NAA (NSW) Series SP 1714/1/0 Item N45633 part 1. Cited in Lingard 2008: 25. 64 NAA (ACT) Series A 472/1. Item W11647. Cited in Lingard 2008: 26.

4

Home and Away: Invaded or Under Arms

World War II was experienced very differently in Asia than it was in Europe. There were parallels: both regions suffered enormous brutality and fearful occupations, devastating destruction and mass displacements. Yet there were also many differences: Asia had long-standing European colonial regimes, resulting in ongoing independence movements, and was in conflict with nonEuropean aggressors. While there are many popular media representations of the war in Europe – films, songs, memoirs, and histories that circulate globally – there are relatively few about how the war was experienced in Asia. This has led to only limited recognition of the parallels and differences between the two. World War II also brought some shared and some different experiences to the three Asian countries considered in this book: India, Indonesia, and Australia. The most important difference was whether the country experienced face-to-face engagements with the Japanese. Indonesia was invaded and occupied; India and Australia were threatened and attacked, but not invaded. Both had troops dying in conflicts with the Japanese. At the same time, India was grappling with the implications of long-term occupation by the British and Australia, with its British-derived settler majority itself divided over the desired attitudes to Britain, vacillated over the future of the region. Powerful feelings were generated in each case, but these varied widely and changed over time. Though each event had roots in earlier periods, World War II reshaped each of the three countries. The war drastically interfered with what had been slower, longer processes: sometimes destroying them, sometimes accelerating them, sometimes holding them up only to release them with greater energy once the war had formally ended. This chapter can give no more than glimpses of the complex histories of these three countries, but it aims to identify both the differences and common themes in the events of this time. Perhaps even more important, this chapter points out why the activists in any one country failed to realise just how differently the same events were viewed in other places nearby. This meant that their transnational interactions in the postwar period – even when in solidarity – were distorted by misunderstandings. The changes brought about by the war in Asia were sometimes felt when people were at home in their own countries, and sometimes when they were

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outside their homes, serving as soldiers, working as forced labourers, or fleeing as refugees. This chapter looks at some of the diverse settings – both ‘at home’ and ‘away’ – in which the people of Asia experienced World War II. While such positioning constituted different memories within national stories, some of the narratives glimpsed here have simply disappeared from the public remembering of these events.

Home: Living in the Japanese-occupied Indies There seem to be few readily available Indonesian accounts of the Japanese occupation of the Netherlands East Indies.1 Indonesians faced the Japanese invasion island by island from January 1942, eventually surrendering on 8 March – two years after the Germans had bombed Rotterdam and then invaded the Netherlands. In the East Indies, the Dutch had selectively recruited for their small colonial army, using Manadonese and Ambonese soldiers, for example, to maintain control on Java and Sumatra, where the greatest commercial, administrative, and plantation structures lay. Many administrators and colonisers left the Indies for Australia before the surrender; at the same time, Dutch ships crewed by Indonesians or Indians also headed for Australia. From early in 1942, then, a large and diverse group of people from the Indies were arriving in Australia. This number increased some months later, when the Dutch brought the political prisoners held in in West New Guinea to Australia. Known collectively as ‘Digulists’, these people had been imprisoned for anticolonial activities beginning in 1926, when the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) had initiated a revolt, through a series of smaller protests and movements in the 1930s. The families and friends of many of those who came to Australia – whether seamen, civil servants, or prisoners – remained in Indonesia and therefore experienced the war very differently. Australians expected that the Indonesians as well as the Dutch would be experiencing severe repression from their Japanese occupiers. Although Australia was not invaded it was bombed and threatened by the Japanese – exacerbating Australians’ long-held racialised anxiety about East Asia.2 In the Netherlands in later years, the dominant narrative of the occupation has become memories of Dutch experiences in internment camps, in which

1 2

Frederick 1999: 16-17, in Raben (ed.) 1999. E.g., Kath Olive, interviewed by author March 2014, a CPA member with an AIF husband.

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starvation and severe treatment were common.3 The fragments of available evidence suggest, however, that the experiences of occupation were far more mixed, not only for Indonesians but also for the Dutch, Chinese, and Indian populations who remained in the occupied territories. 4 Much of the research about Indonesia before the war has focused on Java, a resource-rich island with a large population, which the Japanese could have expected to offer valuable support for their envisioned Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere because so much of the Dutch commercial activity was located there. Sumatra’s plantations and the resources of other islands were also significant for the Netherlands’ colonial economy, but these had been more recently developed. Since 1602 when the Dutch East India Company was founded, it had been Java’s rich production and large labouring population that had been the basis of the Indies’ value to the Dutch. As the source of so many of the Indies’ labourers, Java also became a significant source of heiho (‘troop reinforcements’) and romusha (‘labourers’) for the Japanese. Some Javanese romusha may have initially volunteered, but they were increasingly coerced into intolerable labour conditions, often far removed from Java, as the Japanese accelerated plans for self-sufficiency to try to guarantee their military supply lines. Many Tamil romusha volunteered because of misleading Japanese – and Indian National Army (INA) – information about good conditions that would allow them to escape forced indentured labour on British plantations in Malaya.5 Within Java, each of the regions – and even the cities – had different histories that affected their interactions with the Dutch, Japanese, and Indonesian Republic. The busy port and trading city of Surabaya is a good example. It had a rich agricultural hinterland that nurtured much of the colony’s sugar and tobacco production. This had led to the growth of a major urban industrial economy that included sugar refining, tobacco processing and packing, manufacturing, railway stock construction, and ship building. Before the outbreak of World War II, Surabaya was tightly locked into global markets dominated by the West.6 It could have been expected to be a valuable economic resource for the Japanese but with the onset of war from 1939 and the subsequent departure of the Dutch and their shipping companies from the Indies, there had been a rapid collapse of Surabaya’s economy. 3 Raben 1999. 4 Ibid.; Frederick 1999; Limpach 2014; Fred Henskens, Aust Generations narrator; Heidhues 2012. 5 Kratoska 2005, particularly Kratoska’s introduction and the whole Indonesia section, notably Sato 2005 and, for Tamils, Reynolds 2005; Lucas 1991: 27-54. 6 Frederick 1989; Dick 2002.

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This long established role as a trading port had however shaped a complex social and political structure in Surabaya.7 As an industrial city, Surabaya was physically shaped by its port and the Kali Mas River, and socially and culturally dominated by its large working-class population, rather than by an aristocratic class. Most of the working people lived in kampungs (‘self-contained neighbourhoods’) governed through sinoman (‘local self-help societies’), made up of those considered community members. One exclusion was based on religion: the kampung sinoman admitted only Muslim residents. Another exclusion was based on class and culture: kampung residents, while generally anticolonial and seeking an end to Dutch rule, were suspicious of the priyayi (‘Indonesian elite’) of the city, which included both moneyed and well-educated professional Indonesians whose viewpoint was shaped by Western modernising educations and a tempered respect for Javanese traditions. So the sinoman excluded members of the elite priyayi families who might live in the neighbourhood, and so reflected working-class values and loyalties.8 The kampung residents were even more suspicious of the Indische, whose ancestry was mixed Dutch, Indonesian, and sometimes Chinese. As William Frederick argues, the Indische were believed to despise ordinary kampung resident workers, instead seeking Dutch approval and conducting themselves with the affectations of both the colonisers and the traditional aristocracy.9 However, members of the Indische group had been key activists in generating the early nationalist movement – largely in Bandung and Batavia rather than in the port workers’ city of Surabaya – and they continued to support the independence movements and their leaders.10 By the mid-1900s, there had been a Chinese community in Java for centuries. While some of these families had amassed substantial resources, others had only modest wealth or were even impoverished smallholders and traders. Many of these longstanding Chinese-Indonesians no longer spoke any Chinese language, but instead spoke Dutch or the Malay that later became Bahasa Indonesia. Some of these Indonesian Chinese – known as Peranakan – may not have adopted Islam, but they were otherwise fully acculturated, rejecting any association with mainland China and instead seeing themselves as Indonesians. After 1911, as Mary Heidhues has written, there was a trend towards increasingly ethnically-distinct organisations 7 8 9 10

Dick 2002; Peters 2015. Frederick 1989; Peters 2015. Frederick 1989. Bosma & Raben 2008: 297-338.

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because the Chinese Revolution inspired many members of the Chinesebackground diaspora to intensify their interest in the mainland. ‘An entire mestizo colonial society, in which Chinese and natives had joined the same organizations, gave way to one characterized by racial consciousness and ethnic exclusiveness.’11 She also points out the importance of recognising the diversity within each ethnic group, and changes in dominance over time. For example, the Chinese in some regions of Java made their affiliations to Indonesian nationalism quite clear, such as the nationalist school established by the peranakan Chinese in Pemalang in the 1930s.12 Yet many Chinese had felt fully acculturated in Indonesian society. One example of unease is Kwee Thiam Tjing, a journalist in Malang to the southwest of Surabaya, who published Indonesia Dalem Api dan Bara (‘Indonesia Aflame and on the Coals) in 1947. In James Siegel’s discussion of this book, which covers the history of Malang during the Japanese occupation and the period afterwards, it is clear that Kwee felt that he belonged within Malang society, despite his authorial voice of distanced observation. In Siegel’s reading, Kwee only began to identify as Chinese in the aftermath of a severe conflict between Malay and Chinese Indonesians after the war was over.13 His rising ambivalence is suggested in his adoption of a Indonesian pseudonym, Tjamboek Berdoeri, in 1947 in order to publish this volume of his view of the events. In Surabaya, the Chinese community strengthened its ethnic activist organisation (the Indonesian Chinese Party) but saw its goal as supporting Indonesia as the motherland. The journalist Siauw Giok Tjhan (1914-1981) became the editor of the peranakan Chinese daily newspaper Mata Hari, which championed Indonesian nationalism and was passionately antiJapanese during the Sino-Japanese war of 1937. Siauw founded a militant organisation of young peranakan Chinese who would champion Indonesian Independence by returning to Surabaya and taking up arms alongside the Indonesian pemuda (‘youth’ or young nationalists). Soon after the war, Siauw decided that basing political affiliation on ethnicity was a mistake and joined the Socialist Party, advising others that peranakan Chinese should participate fully in the nationalist movement.14 Contrasted with the perenakan Chinese were the totok (‘newcomer’) Chinese, who were more oriented towards mainland China. Characteristically, 11 12 13 14

Heidhues 1999: 184. Lucas 1991: 85-9. Siegel 2005. Tjwan 1982.

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totok Chinese spoke in Chinese languages rather than in Indonesian ones, their attention remained focused on China, and they tried to Sinicise the peranakan Indonesian-Chinese. It was the totok Chinese who were more likely to identify with the Chinese Revolution in 1911. Siauw wrote that he had little or nothing in common with the totok Chinese, whose interests, he believed, opposed his own desire to concentrate on fostering an independent Indonesia.15 During the Japanese occupation, however, the conquerors turned to the totoks, as the perenakans were suspected to have remained close to the Dutch. So it was through the totoks that the Japanese hoped to communicate with the wider Chinese Indonesian population and, in particular, to draw on their financial resources.16 Like the Chinese, the even older population of Arabs in Indonesia had arisen from trading interactions through merchant shipping. While many members of this Arabic population were wealthy property owners, more distant in class terms from the working people than were many Chinese individuals, the shared Islamic religion led them to be seen as in many ways less alien than the peranakan Chinese.17 The Indonesian population also included Indian merchants – mostly Sindhis from Hyderabad in western India, as discussed in Chapter 2 – who had spread out and developed an active trading network across the Indian Ocean. Forced out of Australia, the Sindhis had flourished in Indonesia in the 1920s and 1930s, when T.D. Kundan had come to establish his trading business in Surabaya.18 He rapidly became fluent in Dutch, so he had translated between Indonesians and Dutch officials during the Depression and been appointed Hoofd der Indiers (‘Head of the Indians’). The Japanese also found him to be a valuable interlocutor and appointed him as a liaison officer between the Indian community and the Japanese administration.19 After the war was over and the British-led SEAC force had arrived, Kundan once again translated on behalf of the Indonesians with the British commander and staff. The position of Indians on Java vis-à-vis the Japanese military was different from that of the Chinese or Dutch, because the Japanese considered Indians to be potential anti-Western allies in the politics of the region. It seems there were Indian Independence Leagues (IILs) in Indonesia that 15 Ibid. 16 Heidhues 1999: 186, on Twang Peck Yang. 17 Frederick 1989. 18 Kundan’s resume. Private collection of Michael Manoj Danayari. 19 Mani 1993: 102.

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were allowed to flourish, as they were in other countries occupied by the Japanese that had Indian populations. The Indonesian IIL sent around 70 volunteers to Malaya join the Indian National Army, which was fighting against the British.20 This indicates that the occupation years were less arduous for Indian residents of Indonesia than they were for the Dutch, Chinese or Indische, many of whom were eventually interned. Many Indonesians welcomed the ignominious surrender of the Dutch forces and the retreat of the whole colonial apparatus to Australia caused by the Japanese occupation.21 Initially, the coming of the Japanese brought the benefits of modernised administrative structures and training in areas that the Dutch had not offered, including military and technological skills like radio. This led to a signif icant increase in Indonesian conf idence and capacities, contributing indirectly to their later challenges to Dutch return.22 Indonesian nationalists grappled with the problem of how to deal with an occupying military authority. Even at the beginning, some people refused to work with the Japanese, choosing exile or, like Sutan Sjarhir, a countryman of Mohammad Hatta from central Sumatra, hiding in order to avoid collaborating. The kampung residents in Surabaya increasingly resisted changes to the outdated Dutch civil administration that seemed like ‘efficiencies’ to the Japanese but were felt by kampung residents to be intrusive.23 On the other hand, the elite priyayi were unquestionably attracted to the modernisation offered by the Japanese administration and economy, while some younger leaders, most notably Sukarno, chose to make strategic alliances with the Japanese with the goal of redirecting what they learned towards the outcome of total Independence.24 As time went on, however, the worsening of the Japanese military position meant that it put heavier and heavier demands on its Indonesian subjects, going far beyond administrative efficiency. The occupying regime became more imperial in its command economy, requiring ever increasing contributions, particularly rice, from farmers, and more volunteers for the romusha labour force from kampung residents in the cities. As food scarcity took hold, the romusha were worked harder than ever and given ever less food. Tan Malaka was a communist who had been in exile after 1926 but who had returned to Indonesia in 1942 after the Dutch surrender, and was taking part 20 21 22 23 24

Ibid.: 105; interview conducted by Mani with one of the volunteers, G.H. Sawlani, on p. 124. Reid 2005; Frederick 2012; Anderson 1972/2006. Reid 2005. Frederick 1989: 1-33, 138-40. Frederick 1999.

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in the structures established by the Japanese. He attempted to intervene in this increasingly exploitative Japanese labour regime and had some success in the central Java provinces.25 In Surabaya to the east, however, deepening privation led to wholesale rejection of the Japanese regime as just another form of exploitative colonialism. The Japanese had hoped that at least some of the Dutch who remained in the Indies might help them sustain the industries they needed to support their expanding economic sphere. As noted earlier, the accounts later publicised in the Netherlands largely concerned privations experienced in internment camps, but most of the Dutch who stayed in Indonesia were not interned. Some remained free for a limited time, while others remained at large for much of the occupation. One account comes from Fred Henskens, who became an Australian citizen and whose story has been recorded for the Australian Generations project.26 Fred was 13 years old when the Japanese occupied his home in Batavia. His father was the captain of a cargo ship and remained free for five months on the condition that he work piloting ships for the Japanese in Tanjung Priok, the port at Batavia. He was then interned in a camp in Batavia, where Fred was allowed to take food for him. Fred’s father was moved to a labour camp in Sumatra and then to Changi to work on the Thai–Burma railway. Food was severely short in both places but, though weakened, his father survived. During his father’s imprisonment, Fred became close friends with an Indonesian farming family and in return for helping them was allowed to use a small plot of land on which he grew food for his mother to feed the younger children. His mother sold jewellery and did some black-market trading, allowing the family a modest living. Eventually Fred was interned at the age of 15, but was kept at a juvenile camp that had better conditions than those in the adult labour camps. Throughout this time, Fred’s mother and younger siblings remained free. This was not an unusual occurrence; many of the Dutch who returned to the Netherlands after the war had not experienced any internment.27 Indonesia, the Netherlands, and Japan have each told the story of the occupation by concentrating on their own victimhood – which is not necessarily the story of the majority of their nationals, or how other groups have seen them. Overall, as Frederick has pointed out, the question of higher-level 25 Lucas 1991; Djojoprajitno, 1962. Unpublished translation and research by Suzan Piper. 26 Available from http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/australian-generations/. 27 Raben 1999.

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cooperation with the Japanese was not of much concern among Indonesians. Even the return of the surviving romusha and heiho was no more than a minor point in the main Indonesian popular narrative of glorious revolution and the struggle against the Dutch.28

Away: The Indian Army in Burma – P.R.S. Mani With the coming of World War II, the British colonial Indian Army began to change in composition. Where the British had been slowly moving away from exclusive recruitment from the northwestern states to include more men from the east and south, this trend accelerated with the beginning of World War II in Europe. More troops were needed urgently, either in India and its colonies or in Europe, so recruitment into the Indian Army increased from 1940 to 1941 and then still further in 1942.29 Indians may have been interested in enlisting for many reasons: some may have been alarmed at the rise of fascism in Europe, while others recognised the advantages of employment in the military service. There were also widespread reservations about joining the British military. The calls for Indian self-government and then complete Independence had been growing. Millions had been inspired to support Congress through the 1930s, often at great personal risk. They had been drawn by the Gandhian strategies of satyagraha, described by Gandhi as ‘the Force which is born of Truth and Love or non-violence’30 (often glossed as non-violent civil disobedience) and the Nehruvian socialist leadership of Congress. One of the individuals drawn to the movement – more by the socialism than the satyagraha – was to become a key actor in the events of this book: P.R. Subrahmanyam from Madras. He was 24 years old in 1939, had recently graduated from Madras University, and had become a journalist broadcasting with All India Radio, where he changed his name to the more easily remembered ‘P.R.S. Mani’. As he read Nehru’s book Whither India in March 1939, Mani wrote – and signed – an impassioned note on its flyleaf, outlining his hopes for change: 28 Frederick 1989, 1999; Reynolds 2005. 29 Raghavan 2016. 30 Gandhi, M.K. Satyagraha in South Africa, originally published 1924 in Gujarati. Extract is from p. 107 English translation by Valji Govindji Desai, revised and prefaced by Gandhi, 1928. Reprinted in Selected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol 2. Available online at the Mahatma Gandhi site, https://www.mkgandhi.org/ebks/satyagraha_in_south_africa.pdf.

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The raping of the Indian peasantry of their wealth and happiness is highly selfish and typical of the British. Those of our own countrymen who were and are abetting this crime stand condemned by their own shame which will come upon them when India becomes energetic […] The vision of Nehru is not far off and those of us who can search their hearts can hear the call even now. It is not by conversion this purpose is going to be achieved but by revolution. Not a revolution in blood but a non-violent and very dynamic one taught to us by a great leader of men, Mahatma Gandhi.

When the European war broke out in September 1939, however, some Indian groups were ready to assist the British and their Allies to fight against fascism. Muslims in general, for example, were more supportive of the war effort than they had been in World War I, when the Islamic Ottoman Empire had been a combatant, while B.R. Ambedkar and his Dalit movement were cautious about pressing for independence from the British at this time. Another example was Theosophy, that had both nurtured cosmopolitanism and supported home rule for India. Although a declining influence globally, Theosophy was still a powerful presence in Tamil Nadu, continuing to draw liberal Europeans interested in Hinduism and India to Adyar, near Madras. In the later 1930s, Mani met a number of these Europeans at Adyar where he was employed as a publicity officer by the theosophist and cultural revivalist Rukmini Devi. At least some theosophical leaders deeply disapproved of the pacifism they associated with Gandhi, and so the organisation supported the British war effort. This mixed and often hesitant support in India for the British war effort shifted dramatically as the Japanese expansion began. Despite the bitter fighting against the Japanese in China since 1937 – to which India’s Congress Party had sent medical aid – Indians were as shocked as the British by the rapid Japanese advance through Southeast Asia. The Japanese took Singapore in February 1942, forcing British troops – including those from its colonial armies, such as the Indians and Australians, into humiliating surrender. Within months, the Japanese had taken Malaya and were dropping bombs on the northern coast of Tamil Nadu at Vizag and Cocanada. Burma had fallen to the Japanese by May, along with the Nicobar and Andaman Islands – cutting off supplies of the rice that for decades had been an essential food source for many Indian states.31 Bengal, although a net rice importer, was not as dependent on imports as some other areas in India, like Travancore and Tamil Nadu. Nevertheless, 31 Tauger 2009: 186

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it was struck by a series of severe environmental calamities, including a cyclone and flooding and then by a widespread and devastating rice plant disease which spread across India causing harvests to fail.32 Supplies of rice in Bengal and elsewhere were already short in 1942, and then the very real danger of invasion from the fall of Singapore led to escalating British military preparations for conflict, including crop diversions and boat destruction.33 The rapid invasion sparked a tide of desperate refugees fleeing north to India before the Japanese advance could overtake them. Rumours spread widely that, despite the belated flurry of military preparations, the British were not able to prepare adequately and would abandon India to the Japanese. In this crisis situation, Congress made the decision to demand that the British ‘Quit India’ as the price for Congress support for the British war effort. Congress refused to support the British against the Japanese or in the wider war against fascism unless the British agreed to leave India. Echoing the Four Freedoms Declaration of the 1941 Atlantic Charter, Congress demanded that the British hand over full and complete Independence. The Raj responded by arresting and jailing all of the Congress leaders, including Gandhi and Nehru, who spent the rest of the war in jail. The leadership of the Quit India movement then passed to activists in the regions where Congress was strongest – which were in fact also the regions where the panic from the intensifying food shortages and the rumours had been most deeply felt. Bombay, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Bengal, and Assam all participated in what had become a violent rebellion.34 The uprising was put down because the British called on its Indian Army. All of the restrictions on the officers and troops of the Indian and British armies were removed, and the army moved against the Quit India campaign with maximum force. Churchill was apparently gratified to confirm that no Indian troops had hesitated to use force in the many confrontations that ensued. Even newly recruited regiments, he reported, had proved their loyalty to the British and had followed orders by firing on their fellow Indians.35 There is no evidence about how P.R.S. Mani saw this major conflict, or whether he saw the Indian troops as countrymen who were abetting the crimes of colonialism against which he had so vehemently railed in his notes on Nehru’s book. 32 33 34 35

Ibid.: 175-181. Mukherjee, J. 2015. Raghavan 2016: 273-4. Ibid.: 274-5.

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But the threat to India was escalating all the time. A Japanese fleet appeared in the Bay of Bengal and in December 1942 the Japanese began bombing the major rail link at Kiddepore in Calcutta. Within months, food shortages were being experienced, arising from the environmental catastrophes, the military preparations and the loss of imports, all exacerbated by the growing numbers of refugees needing care. By mid-1943, a severe famine had set in across not only Bengal but in many other areas like the eastern state of Travancore, distant from Burma but long dependent on imported rice.36 The threat of a Japanese invasion and the severity of the famine pushed many Indians, even those who, like Mani, were deeply committed to Independence, to rethink their opposition to the Allied war effort. Although Nehru, Gandhi, and other Congress leaders still languished in jail, Mani and many others decided to take roles in the British-controlled Indian Army. The outcome was a further expansion of the Army and its incorporation of many for whom India’s Independence remained the ultimate goal of the war effort. The composition of this colonial Indian Army, which was already slowly including more people outside the ‘martial races’ of the northwest, shifted again to bring in more people from the east and south of the country. Mani’s motivation appears to have been his belief in the need to contribute to the creation of a strong and independent India and his antagonism towards fascism. Early in 1944 he received a commission as a captain in the Indian Army and was posted to the Public Relations division in Manipur, on the edge of the conflict with the Japanese in Burma. Over the same period, the armed resistance to the British – the Indian National Army, or INA – was re-forming. While Subhas Chandra Bose (widely known as Netaji, a Hindusthani honorific meaning ‘respected leader’) had earlier proposed the formation of an ‘Indian Legion’ for the Germans, the first armed Indian force formed in February 1942 in Malaya and Burma and led by Mohan Singh after negotiations with the Japanese. Singh demanded 36 Tauger, 2019: 175-81. The generally accepted argument that the famine in Bengal was ‘manmade’ by either the British or by Indian grain merchants is based on readings of the Report of the Famine Inquiry Commission (FIC) (reprint Usha Publications, New Delhi, 1948), the most influential of which has been Amatya Sen’s 1981 Poverty and Famines. The FIC’s and therefore Sen’s data, however, were all forecasts and projections, often unreliable ones, not production estimates of grain actually produced. Later confirmed yield figures have allowed a series of more reliable analyses, reviewed in detail by Tauger, 2009, which demonstrate that Bengal was already facing rice shortages at the end of 1942. So it was a combination of environmental calamities and military conditions (both the Japanese occupation of Burma and the British preparations in the eastern states) which led to the Bengal Famine – and to food shortages across India, in many places including Travancore.

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more independence than a distracted Japanese administration wanted to give, so he resigned in December 1942, leaving the force in disarray. Netaji finally brought a moribund INA back to life in June 1943. It is this second form of the INA that is best known and that Mani encountered when he arrived in Manipur in early 1944.37 When Mani was first commissioned, his journalistic background led to his placement in the Public Relations unit. The British expected Public Relations officers to boost morale for all troops, although Indian journalists in this unit would focus their efforts on building the fighting spirit of the Indian troops.38 The Army Public Relations instruction book for British and Indian PR staff first quoted Dusty Miller, a ‘famous boxer and Army trainer’, and then explained the role expected of its PR officers: You will never get a chap to fight if he has something on his mind: Today YOU officers, British and Indian, are true trainers and YOURS is the task of taking these ‘somethings’ off the mind of each soldier by understanding, by interest, by sympathy and by explanation.39

Mani did not see his role in this way. Instead he saw himself building the identity of Indian troops as members of the diverse Indian nation that he believed would come about. He always signed his despatches as ‘Mani, Indian Army Observer’ rather than ‘Public Relations Officer, Eastern Army’ and clearly felt an intense loyalty to the Indian troops who made up a substantial proportion of the British-controlled forces in Southeast Asia. He was also aware that the British press and military information machine paid little attention to the Indian soldiers who were fighting so bravely in so many different parts of the army. The Imperial War Museum (IWM) film footage from this period makes an instructive comparison. Filmed by British cinematographers, the IWM cameras focused consistently on the British troops, with shots composed so that the troops who were not British were on the edges of the frame or too far away to be individually identified. This marginalisation was observed and resented by the serving Indian troops, as 37 Much has been written on the INA, notably by Bayly & Harper 2004/2007; most recently see Khan 2015 and Raghavan 2016, who both consider military history and Indian Independence politics. 38 Battacharya 2000. 39 Public Relations Department, HQ Eastern Army: ‘Hints … for British and Indian Units’, c. 1943. Middle of title obscured by Mani’s own handwritten label: ‘Mani: Indian Army Observer (20th May 1944-1st Nov 1944) Battle of Manipur Stories’. Held in P.R.S. Mani Papers, Blake Library, UTS. Online Archive, Series 2. https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/handle/10453/28084.

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4.1 P.R.S. Mani with the Maharaja of Cooch-Behar in Burma; Captain Mani (right, with journalist’s notepad) interviewing the Maharajah of Cooch-Behar, another Indian who enlisted in the British-led Indian Army to fight in Burma

Photo held in the P.R.S. Mani Collection, Blake Library, UTS, republished courtesy of the Mani family

Raghavan noted in the reports of serving Indian soldiers and the testimonies of those who joined the INA in Burma. 40 Mani later gathered copies of his despatches into a file titled ‘The Battle of Manipur’. They were very different from the IWM images; each of his 81 despatches contained tightly crafted vignettes, each highlighting the actions and personality of a different Indian soldier or group of fighting men, women who worked as nurses, or refugees. 41 While many of his despatches were about troops from the northwestern states, Mani searched the regiments stationed in Manipur to ensure that he wrote about soldiers from many different places in India, some from as far afield as Bombay and Madras, as well as from different religions: Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims. There were tank drivers, artillerymen, and mule handlers. In the steep, 40 Raghavan 2016. 41 Mani, Despatch 19.9.44 September, 1944, Series 2, P.R.S. Mani Papers, online archive, Blake Library, UTS.

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rain-drenched conditions of Manipur where no vehicles could travel, managing mules was an important role because they were the only way to transport food and ammunition to front-line troops. Many of the profiled men had undertaken courageous attacks against greater numbers of heavily armed Japanese troops. There was, for example, a ‘gallant young Sikh officer leading the Rajputs in a bayonet attack’. 42 There was the reconnaissance party of the 3rd Madras regiment, in which a number of men from the Malabar Coast had encountered and defeated a large, unexpected Japanese patrol and still found a new way to allow their fellow troops to advance43. A mule handler, Risaldar Ghulam Mohideen – a Punjabi Muslim and World War I veteran – had been repeatedly called to carry supplies to the front when his company was f inally caught in crossf ire. Mohideen led them out with great skill, saving all of the men but losing some of the rations and the even more precious mules down a ravine. He brought his men safely back to base, then returned for the rations and delivered them to the front. And then he went back yet again at first light on the next day and rescued the mules. 44 Mani also showed that the battlefield was embedded in a social landscape, and was the home of the Naga people of Assam. Two young Naga women from a nearby village, one of them a trained nurse, had volunteered as nurses to look after wounded troops. Their presence encouraged people from their village to come to the aid post for medical assistance themselves, and Mani wrote movingly about the vigil kept by an Indian doctor and four British troops beside the bedside of a severely ill 12-year-old child who needed constant attention to keep her alive through the night (24 October). Mani was acutely aware not only of the people whose lives continued all around him, but also of the many people displaced by the battle. The flow of refugees threads its way through many of his despatches, such as the following from 19 September: With many an unknown hero or heroine among them, their deeds are equally heroic as that of any frontline soldier. Unarmed, shelled, machine-gunned and bombed, leaving behind their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and friends who are falling dead or wounded next to them either from a direct hit or from a shattering splinter, their one determination has been to reach our lines alive or dead. Aged, infirm, 42 Mani, Ibid., Despatch 4 June 1944, Series 2. 43 Mani, Ibid., Despatch, 28 July 1944, Series 2. 44 Mani, Ibid., Despatch 27 June 1944, Series 2.

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pregnant mothers, little children – all joined in this flight from the heels of an oppressor.

Throughout his despatches Mani profiled each individual, carefully identifying soldiers’ and nurses’ names: in effect, introducing the Indian Army to itself. He sought out the many different origins and affiliations of the Indian soldiers, celebrating their achievements and ensuring they were recognised for their courage, initiative, and resilience. In addition to researching and writing these despatches, Mani was active in attending to the interests – and therefore the morale – of the Indian troops, ensuring, for example, that they had access to radio entertainment and news from home through the modern electronic media with which he was familiar. Mani was doing far more, however, than attending to the men within the army. As an investigative journalist, he continued to see himself as seeking out and learning how to understand the local conditions. He was in close touch with his countryman T.G. Narayanan and found many other South Indians, not only in Manipur but, as the Japanese Army retreated, in Burma and Malaya as well. There were large Tamil and Malayalam-speaking communities in Southeast Asia; some of these people had fled the incoming Japanese and were now in places like Manipur or moving further into the eastern Indian states. Others, such as those who had left India in protest at British rule, refused to leave Burma or Malaya when the Japanese occupied. 45 Instead they remained and often took up roles in the Indian Independence Leagues, which in Malaya were composed mainly of South Indians, both workers and professionals. The IILs articulated the interests of local diasporic Indian communities and expressed their opposition to the continued presence of the British in India. The Japanese tolerated the existence of these bodies, but the relationship between the IILs and the Japanese varied and was often uneasy. Many of the IIL members either supported or joined Netaji’s re-emerging INA. In 1944, Mani was not sympathetic to Netaji or to the military goals of the INA itself, having firmly committed himself to the task of defending India against Japanese fascism. But he was very interested in the local Indian populations in Burma and Malaya, whom he could see were often exploited 45 Accounts of decisions among Indians in Burma are from interview with Dr Padmavarti, P.R.S. Mani’s sister-in-law, interviewed in Delhi, 13.1.2014 by Heather Goodall and Devleena Ghosh; and the transcript of an oral history interview with Gouri Sen, 1923 Rangoon, member of INA Rani of Jhansi Unit, 1996. NMML.

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as industrial workers or rubber tappers and suffering from the same British colonialism that Mani described in 1939 as ‘raping the Indian peasantry of their wealth and happiness’. Others were merchants or professional people, who were articulate and well able to present the facts of their conditions under both the Japanese and the earlier British occupations. Mani assisted Narayanan in writing a detailed report on the INA and the local Indian populations. According to Mani’s later description, Narayanan ‘painfully compiled the account over a period of several months, often seeking contacts in territory beyond the control of the British forces’. Mani’s particular interest lay in how the INA and Netaji had recognised the industrial and civil conditions of the local Indian populations, indicating that the INA leadership held not just military goals but social goals as well. 46 Mani personally delivered this report to Nehru, probably late in 1944 or early in 1945, when he returned to India in his official military PR role to give radio broadcasts about the conditions of the Indian troops in Manipur and Burma fighting in the British-controlled Indian Army. At that stage the existence of the INA was being kept secret by the British Army and so Mani’s despatches never mention it, but the INA itself was broadcasting on short-wave radio to inform people in eastern India about the existence of and rationale for the INA. Mani’s delivery of the INA report to Nehru was apparently successful, but the report itself has not yet been found among the papers held in the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Mani also paid close attention to the relationship between the INA and the Japanese. He came to the conclusion, as discussed in his later book, that the INA under Netaji may have been in alliance with the Japanese but was not dependent on or subservient to Japan either socially or militarily. This conclusion was important for Mani’s later assessment of Indonesian Republicans like Sukarno, who had taken leadership roles under the Japanese and cooperated with the occupation’s civil structure, but still claimed to be independent of Japanese control. In Mani’s view, this claim could be valid; he had seen the same type of retention of independence among the INA leadership despite the need to work with the Japanese. While Mani fulfilled the British expectation of boosting morale, he did so only in accordance with his own strategy of recognising and celebrating the Indian troop achievements that were being routinely ignored by the British. Far more importantly, Mani built up a montage of the Indian Army that, despite its British control, was a diverse, multi-religious, multi-ethnic body in which Indian men worked together in pursuit of common goals. While 46 Mani 1986: 65-6.

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he did not describe the army in so many words, his despatches speak for themselves. Throughout the Burma Campaign in 1944, Mani continued to see himself as an investigative journalist. He operated far beyond the range of British instructions or indeed knowledge, to learn about and evaluate the situation of Indians and local people, both military and civilian, in the difficult conditions of war.

5

Sharing the Home Front: Wartime Australia as Transnational Space

Wartime Australia was a very mixed community. The war brought new people into the country and made its already-existing diversity more visible. After 1942, Australia hosted many exiles from the Netherlands East Indies, both Dutch and Indonesian, but it took some time for an awareness of Indonesian attitudes towards Dutch colonialism to build among Australians across the language and racial barriers. Wartime conditions also led to even more complex transnational interactions, such as those between Indians, Chinese, Indonesians, and Australians. Although poorly publicised at the time and perhaps forgotten since, these interactions offer explanations for the networks that were mobilised at the end of the war. For decades before the war, Australian port cities like Sydney had housed hundreds of Indian crewmen from merchant ships from the British and Dutch fleets as they waited, often for months, ‘between ships’. Despite the illusion created by the White Australia Policy, there were also Indians living as residents in Australia. Many were Australians of the Islamic faith, descendants of the South Asian cameleers and traders who had come to Australia in the nineteenth century and were living dispersed among the general population. In this project, they become visible only when they took part in political activities or joined the visiting Muslim Indian seafarers to celebrate Eid at the end of each year’s Ramadan fast. Australians had some awareness of Indian political demands, particularly after Gandhi’s visit to England in 1931 during which he received wide publicity, including coverage of his visit to British textile workers and their unions. From 1937, there was also a growing awareness of the Chinese struggle against the Japanese, as well as the political differences between different Chinese groups. At this time, Australia was not only familiar with Australians of Chinese descent; there were also some European Australians who had worked or traded in China, and a number of Chinese crewmen who had walked off their ships and refused to return if forced to sail to Japanese-held ports.1 During World War II, however, most Australian attention was claimed by the large numbers of US troops in the country, particularly after the American retreat from the Philippines in May 1942. Many of these troops 1

Loy-Wilson 2016; Fitzgerald 1996.

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were African American, similar to the crews of the American merchant ships that had been entering Australian waters for decades, who had been often in touch with Aboriginal waterside workers like Fred Maynard, a major Aboriginal leader, who drew on their Garveyite approaches to support his campaigns against racism in Australia.2 The presence in Australia during World War II of so many Black soldiers again highlighted the ‘Jim Crow’ segregation in the US Army. Most Australian venues complied with the demands for segregated spaces and created ‘blacks only’ areas, though White Australians liked to think that they did not have such discrimination locally. However, they continued to ignore the systematic segregation of Aboriginal people in many Australian states – a contradiction that was very visible to Indian seamen and other visitors into the port cities.3 Even as Australians were becoming aware – through the press as well as such personal contacts – of the political calls for decolonisation in India and later Indonesia, there were differences in standpoint which arose specifically from Australia’s position in the war. Australia was not invaded but, like India, was bombed by the Japanese from the air in February 1942 and from submarines in Sydney Harbour in June of the same year. Also like India, Australian soldiers were dying in battles with the Japanese, and the fate of those missing in action was for years agonisingly uncertain. When descriptions of the labour camps finally reached Australia, the fates of the romusha were ignored, and Australians heard only about White POWs being starved, ill-treated, and executed. All of these stories increased the anger and bitterness towards Japan, and in Australia exacerbated the longestablished, racialised fear and vilification of East Asians that went back at least as far as the immigration from China to the goldfields starting in 1851. Yet despite retaining a focus on their own countrymen, White Australians were becoming aware of a far wider range of people and national conditions than they had been for many decades. Mobile Indians working as troops or merchant seamen had experienced this same expansion of horizons when they met people from across the world before and during World War I. Australians, on the other hand, had been isolated for decades by a wall of immigration restrictions. Even trade between Australia and India, which had been extensive in the nineteenth century and continued with commercial shipping up to the 1920s, had been crushed during the Depression. This retreat from trading links had led the British Indian Government to establish a Trade Commissioner in Australia, 2 3

Maynard 2007. For the Australian variant, see Clarke 1994; for the US version, see Halsey 1944.

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R.R. Saksena, who spent 1941 pleading with Australians to recognise the potential of trade to build relationships and strengthen ties between the two countries.4 During the war, however, Australians, as soldiers and nurses, were interacting with people they had never before met, with whom they began to build relationships. Such interactions were often regarded with disquiet by Australian authorities, who expressed concerns about such ‘undignified fraternization between white troops and natives’.5 Through the interwar years, India had become a particular interest to many in Australia. Even before Gandhi’s visit to England in 1931, his strategy of civil non-cooperation was well known, if not well understood, from press coverage of the non-cooperation campaigns in the 1920s. His policy of strategic non-violence had been taken up by many peace groups, including the Australians involved in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.6 Another source of Australian awareness of Indian politics was the Communist Party and others on the Left, who were not supporters of Gandhi but considered the nationalist and anticolonial movement to be an important issue. The final source of interest in India came from those who had developed personal relationships with Indians, such as Clarrie Campbell had done during World War I and then the expansion of his commercial activities. Campbell’s story has threaded through earlier chapters and he takes a particularly important role in the war years in building connections between Australia and India as well as with Indonesia. Campbell’s politics had moved to the Left during the 1930s and he was in close association with members of the CPA, but he maintained contact with the ALP and with Ben Chifley, whose successful electoral campaign he had managed in Bathurst in 1929. So Campbell was probably aware of Chifley’s travels through Southeast Asia in 1931 after losing that first seat and may have heard about Chifley’s experiences. Chifley had visited Batavia and, as he told Foreign Affairs head John Burton later, he had been appalled by the arduous and insanitary working and living conditions of workers on the docks and the city’s residents along the canals.7 Chifley was also intensely interested in India, and demonstrated his grasp of the country’s politics during his tenure as Prime Minister, from 1945 to 1949.8 In this he was 4 Newcastle Sun 3.12.41. 5 See, for example, the ‘Photographs withheld by censor’, Items 92-6, ‘Australian troops mix with Malay sailors on HMS Pelandok’. Folio 23 of pa25, 1940, series A11666, NAA. 6 McLeod 2016. 7 Fettling 2013: 524, citing interviews with MacMahon Ball, John Burton, and H.C. Coombs. 8 Ibid.

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perhaps informed by Campbell, who had developed a wider knowledge of the Indian seamen who then formed the majority of the crew members on cargo ships coming in and out of Sydney Harbour. In 1941, Campbell wrote for the labour press explaining that his travels to India and his World War I experiences had helped him to better understand the Indian seamen he was meeting as he pursued his oil and bitumen business.9 Over the 1930s he had become more and more involved in the sailors’ everyday problems, partly because the seamen had so little power against the big shipping companies and partly because they were away from home.10 As the letters that Indian seamen sent to Campbell in the 1940s show, he had been helping to track down wages that had not been paid to families in India and organising medical care for illnesses ranging from broken bones (caused by dangerous workplaces) to chronic trachoma and kidney failure. When all else failed, he had tried to gather money to pay the funeral expenses for the seamen who died lonely deaths in Sydney’s hospitals. While ships had medical officers available for their crews, Indians typically felt that they received poor treatment: shipping officers would tell them that they were lazy or shirking, and the doctors themselves were uninterested or unreliable. Hanging over all of these troubles was the problem of the nully, the ‘Quality of Work’ report whose removal the British Government had failed to enforce in 1926.11 Accommodation was another problem, and only worsened because of the war. After the strikes in 1939, the military was aware of the continuing frustration and anger among seamen caused by a lack of decent conditions. This made the movement of weapons and supplies doubly precarious, threatened by both the enemy and the angry sailors on their own side who demanded safer conditions, danger money, and decent pay. The remaining Indian Ocean shipping lanes of all companies depended heavily on Indian crews, so the question of how to control them as they became more assertive was both a real military security question and one that concerned the profits of the shipping companies. To avoid these difficulties, there had been ready military approval for the shipping companies to expand the existing hostels they called their 9 Progress, 11.4.41. This was the newspaper of the left-wing Socialist Labor Party, which had separated from the NSW Labor Party in 1941 and existed until 1944, when it amalgamated with the CPA. Campbell had joined the SLP and appears to have been a member of both the ALP and SLP during this time. 10 Numerous letters, often referring to long-term problems and past assistance, held in ISUiA files, E177/4, Correspondence 1945-46, NBABL. 11 E177/4 -6, Correspondence 1945-46, NBABL.

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labour ‘pools’ and shuffle crews around to meet the needs of uncertain routes and changing demands. The smaller regional companies like Burns Philp, which traded goods around the nearby Indian Ocean Islands and Melanesia, operated a number of such ‘pools’ – usually miserable, crowded hovels and sometimes hulks anchored just off the docks, rather than safe boarding houses.12 But in White Australia, where there were few resident Indian communities with whom to stay, these labour ‘pools’ meant that Indian crews could be kept closely monitored and then passed rapidly around the colonial shipping lines to meet their cargo needs. It was a form of body hire – a term commonly used among Australian workers during the Depression to describe the day-to-day hire of unemployed workers – a dispiriting way to pass the unpredictable period between ships. Demands for union power These problems demonstrate the vulnerability of maritime workers away from home, but the Indian seamen Clarrie was meeting knew what they wanted. They wanted union power. They had participated in strikes in Australia and elsewhere in 1939, demanding safer conditions, higher pay, and better compensation if they suffered wartime injuries. As discussed earlier, many sailors were in seamen’s unions in India, and some were members of the Communist Party of India.13 They were well versed in industrial action because they were part of the most unionised industry in India and had been battling the major British shipping companies for decades. Yet the same problems they had faced in 1939 persisted. Organising in Australia and communicating with Australian unions continued to be difficult for the seamen because many were not literate in English, even if they had some literacy in an Indian vernacular language. With no permanent body of residents in the country, there were no Indians to fill an ongoing executive role. This disadvantaged them compared to the Chinese seamen, for example, for whom activist Australian citizens of Chinese descent like Fred Wong were available. Campbell began supporting the Indian seamen’s attempts to achieve better industrial conditions. The port of Sydney was the main area where the growing numbers of Indians in wartime Australia were concentrated, with around a thousand estimated in 1944 to be passing through it each 12 Tribune 30.10.45; PW 4.11.45. 13 ISUiA files, NBABL.

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year.14 Campbell described the first attempt to organise union membership of which he was aware, sometime before the war ended: The congregating of so many Indian seamen naturally brought about discussions on the disabilities and complaints they have on the ships, most of these complaints that are very real. Over and over again, they expressed their desire to form a Union that could look after their interests while on the Australian Coasts. I took this matter up with the Australian Trades Unions, and a meeting of about 500 Indian seamen was held. It was pointed out to the seamen that every assistance would be given to them by the Australian Trades Unions but the Indian Seamen would be expected to run their own affairs. Unfortunately, the leadership was not amongst them for such a task in a strange land with themselves constantly on the move. Time went by with nothing more done, except we, as individuals, providing them with defence in the courts and at times, trying to prevail on shipping companies to rectify their grievances, but in these matters, we had very little authority.15

Australian security forces were convinced he was a secret member of the Communist Party, but even the surveillance officer compiling the hostile report on Campbell admitted that Clarrie had given much of himself over the years, not just in funds (which ASIO suspected to have come from the CPA) but also in personal effort: ‘Campbell has been an indefatigable worker for the Indian seamen, and has gained considerable esteem among Indians for his work.’16 Clarrie met many of the seamen on the docks and sometimes at the labour pools, but also at the few social spaces accessible to these sailors, which were mainly in the city’s Seamen’s Mission. These Christian establishments existed in each city and were invariably strictly racially segregated. One of Clarrie’s developing friendships was with Joseph Noronha, a Goanese petty officer, who later sent Clarrie a letter describing the Melbourne Seamen’s Mission. Noronha was one of the few South Asians in a petty officer role; a Portuguese Goan with a Catholic background (and predictable sectarian prejudices), he was fluent in English and more comfortable speaking Portuguese than Konkani, the local language known also as ‘Goanese’.17 He 14 Sydney Mission to Seamen, Annual Report, 1944-45: 16-17; 1945-46: 18-19. 15 CHC to Indian Seamen’s Unions in Bombay and Calcutta, 9.3.46, E177/4. Correspondence 1945-46, NBABL. 16 H.S.S. Hay, Temporary Inquiry Officer, ASIO to Deputy Director, ‘Australia-India Association’, 16.1.47. IAA file, NAA. 17 Goa was a Portugese colony, not part of British India. Nevertheless, many Goans lived in Bombay, and as Catholics, were free of caste and dietary restrictions, so could work in catering

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was, however, intensely political and nationalist. So although sympathetic with ‘ordinary’ Indian seamen, he was separated from them by class and religion. In this he was like many of the KPM petty officers in Australia, who were trusted by the Dutch because they were Manadonese, well educated and Christian, whereas the ‘ordinary’ seamen on KPM lines were predominantly Javanese, less well educated in Dutch terms and Muslim. After his clash with the Melbourne Seamen’s Club organisers, Noronha wrote to Campbell because, he said, ‘I could always depend on you for leaving no stone unturned’. His letter suggests the tensions in his relationship with Indian seamen as well as displaying his intense political sympathy. He ended his letter by pleading with Campbell to organise a social club in Sydney that would not be such an unwelcoming space for Indians: I dropped in at the Seamen’s Mission in Flinders Street which has amalgamated with the Protestant Parasites. I had a conversation with a fellow by the name of Stewart Murray who gave me a very low opinion of himself. When I asked him how the Indian people were trea[t]ed here, the answer I got was ‘Oh we give them supper, but do not allow them to dance with our Ladies, ’cause they come from High and respectable families and [so we] could not allow them to dance with them as they are not educated’. I gave him a nice courteous reply in which I told him to keep his Ladies in glass cases and our seamen were not hungry for his supper. I was invited to one of his Picnic Parties on the 21st, but refused the Invitation when I heard no coloured people were allowed to participate in the function.18

War leads to rising awareness By 1942 it had become clear to Australians that India would be crucial to the Allied war effort. British military leaders like Lord Louis Mountbatten were pointing out the need to develop strategic links between Australia, India, and China. In February 1943, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), the peak federal trade union body, called for a union delegation to travel to India and China to talk with unionists there and learn more about the concerns and conditions in each country, and thereby support the war effort.19 The ACTU on board ships. Upper class Goans spoke Portuguese and while lower class Goans spoke Konkani (known as Goanese) See Pinto 2007. 18 E177/4 Noronha to Campbell, 28.10.45. Correspondence 1945-46, NBABL. 19 Advertiser 15.1.43; SMH 15.1.43.

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argued that such a delegation would strengthen the anti-fascist coalition by ‘direct contact with the peoples involved in the war against the Axis Powers […] There would be discussed between Chinese, Indian, British and Australian Trade Union leaders matters affecting the workers of those countries.’20 The goals were to learn more about conditions of workers during the war itself and to develop a plan of action to take effect at the conclusion of the war. But as the military situation worsened, the delegation plan was abandoned. There had been earlier attempts to build such industrial and educational links. Komalam Craig arrived in Australia in 1939 and became involved in the Indian crewmen’s strikes. In early 1941, P. Vaidyanathan, another Tamil graduate with a master’s degree from the University of Madras, enrolled at the University of Sydney to study Australian farming. He made contact with interested left-wing activists like Clarrie Campbell in Sydney and became a frequent speaker on Indian politics.21 The interest developed among Australians and their unions during the 1939 Indian seamen’s strikes had gone beyond ships and crews to an awareness of broader political battles. There were many Australians of Irish descent who read the Irish Australian press and must have seen the parallels between British colonial repression in Ireland and India.22 Then the Atlantic Charter of 1941 seemed to have signalled British agreement to the ending of its colonial empires. It was this knowledge that formed the context for Australians to hear about the launch of the Quit India campaign in August 1942, the demand by the Indian National Congress Party that Britain must promise to relinquish its rule over India if it wished to receive Congress support for the war effort. The imprisonment of the whole Congress leadership because of the Quit India campaign forced those Australians who had become aware of India – and in particular of Gandhi – into the difficult position of facing the brutality of a colonial regime with which some still identified. And for those who did not, it still posed dilemmas in the context of the war. By August 1942, Japanese expansion seemed unstoppable, with Singapore falling in February and Darwin bombed soon after, the Dutch surrendering the Indies in March and the Americans forced out of the Philippines in April, all with continued bombing of India and Australia. The British decision 20 Australian Worker 3.2.43. 21 For example, Cessnock Eagle and South Maitland Recorder 21.3.44; ASIO 20.5.44, Clarence Campbell file, PF 1721, p. 37. 22 Catholic Press 17.3.21; Southern Cross 12.8.27; Ramnath 2015 for links between Irish and Indian nationalism.

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to imprison the Congress leaders and success in ordering Indian troops to fire on their own people gave the Raj the upper hand in the short term. In fact, however, it simply dispersed the decision-making far more widely across the Congress network of India; local struggles sprang up all over the country, tying up troops and disrupting the war effort. The British refusal to negotiate with Congress left the whole of India in a state of uneasy truce. In Australia, the Communist Party was in a particularly awkward position. Compromised by the earlier non-aggression pact between Germany and the USSR, the CPA was critical of Gandhian strategies. Yet it was appalled at the British Raj’s jailing all of the Congress leaders. Calling in March 1943 for the release of these men, the CPA newspaper Tribune attempted to shift the focus, writing: ‘Gandhi’s politics are not the question. It is true that Gandhi is the spokesman for the Indian capitalist class. The struggle, however, for national liberation is a progressive one. Martyrdom for Gandhi is a joy for the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo set-up, and a disaster for democracy.’23 Despite its misgivings about Gandhi, the CPA argued that the arrests had been a ‘mishandling’ of the Congress anti-imperialist campaign and in any event tied up soldiers who would otherwise be free to ‘battle the fascists’. Like the CPI, the CPA called on the British to release the Congress leaders and get on with the war.24 The Australian trade union movement was more cautious. In the national ACTU conference in June 1943, the majority of affiliated unions from all states voted to recognise ‘the just demands of the Indian people for independence’, but stopped short of calling for the release of the Congress leaders.25 Their resolution, reaffirmed by the ACTU Interstate Executive on 20 October, was important for, first, recognising the demand for full Independence and, second, demanding the reopening of the stalled talks about British withdrawal. Although limited, this debate ensured that trade union delegates were very aware of the large scale and determination of the Indian Independence movement. The counter-views circulating among the broader Australian public – no doubt reflecting British perspectives – were probably also held by the members of right-wing unions within the ACTU. The Barrier Truth, for example, a newspaper from the mining town of Broken Hill, reported the 23 Tribune 3.3.43. 24 Tribune 1.7.43; PW 5.1.44, including reports from Australian CPA journalists. 25 Maritime Worker 17.7.43; Conference resolution quoted and reaffirmed by the ACTU Interstate Executive on 20.10.43; see multiple reports: Advertiser 21.10.43; Canberra Times 21.10.43; Examiner 21.10.43; Kalgoorlie Miner 25.10.43.

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ACTU resolution by recognising the justice of Indian desire for Independence, but arguing it was impractical in the short term because the caste and communal conflicts between Indians required British mediation, so Independence would have to wait until after the war.26 With such internal tensions, the ACTU was careful not to call for the release of the Congress leaders. Nevertheless, concerns about the conflict over colonial control of India were greatly increased with news of the Bengal Famine. As discussed earlier, the causes of this severe food shortage were complex, but there were many suggestions in the Australian press that the famine was ‘man-made’, even though there were many differences over just who was to blame. When the ACTU Executive reaffirmed the June resolution in October, it added an urgent clause indicating it was seeking Indian union advice on the causes of the famine and what Australian unions could do to help.27 The NSW Teachers Federation was one of the most active in seeking information, and in December the Bengal Teachers Association wrote back that the famine continued with epidemics and many deaths, ending with ‘Help essential’.28

The India-Australia Association forms – Clarrie Campbell These political and humanitarian crises were the context for the formation of the India-Australia Association (IAA) on 29 October 1943 in Sydney, with a similar organisation also forming in Melbourne.29 The Sydney organisation was riven with tensions from the start. It included members of the CPA like the journalist Rupert Lockwood, the teacher and author Gerald Peel, and the CSIRO scientist Rachel Makinson; and left-wing activists sympathetic to the Communist Party like Clarrie Campbell, the Indian researcher P. Vaidyanathan, and various New South Wales unionists. But the new Association also included people like Marie Byles, who had come to be interested in India through an entirely different route. Byles’s involvement arose in part from her legal knowledge, but perhaps more from her exploration of Buddhism and, to the extent that it engaged with the Buddhist tradition, Gandhian philosophy and politics. Her legal 26 Barrier Truth 22.10.43. 27 Ibid. 21.10.43. 28 Newcastle Sun 9.12.43; Twomey & May 2012. 29 Known by many names, including the Australia-India League (not only by others but also in some of its own correspondence, e.g. on 3.11.43 and 24.11.43, Reports of Ways and Means committee) and the ‘Friendship with India Movement’ (in the correspondence from the Eureka Youth League 9.2.44). All in Elkin Archives, University of Sydney.

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interests drew her to questions surrounding the White Australia Policy and its discriminatory effects on Indians, but also on women where marriages were involved. She had been particularly impressed by Srinivasa Sastri, who campaigned against the racially discriminatory policy during his 1922 visit. Byles wrote a journal article in support, arguing the need to remove racially discriminatory clauses from immigration policy. It was not until 1939, however, that her interest in the legislative dimensions of the interactions between Australia and India shifted to a stronger appreciation of Indian philosophy. With the onset of the war, Byles had become committed to pacifism and began studying Gandhian satyagraha as a strategy for non-violent opposition to war and injustice. Eventually, she became completely immersed in Buddhism and pointed out the limitations of Gandhi’s philosophy when compared to the Gautama’s teachings, but from 1939 she began to speak in public platforms about Gandhian political philosophy and the strategic use of non-violence, which had roots in Indian philosophies.30 Finally, the IAA counted Sydney’s political, clerical, and intellectual elite as members. It was first chaired by the anthropologist Professor A.P. Elkin, and later by George Cranswick, the Anglican Bishop of Sydney. The former governor Sir Bertram Stevens was its Patron, and took an active role rather than acting as a figurehead. Two middle-class feminists – the conservative Ruby Rich and left-wing Jessie Street – and the Indian Trade Commissioner R.R. Saksena were also members. Despite this varied membership, or perhaps because of it, the IAA firmly stated that it would not canvass any political views at all. As stated in its Aims and Objects, and restated in the introduction to its first newsletter in March 1944: While this Association expresses its sympathies towards India’s political aspirations, it is not the business of this Association to enter into any controversy regarding the political relations between India and Great Britain. This Association considers India as a sister nation and meets her on the same basis as it would meet Canada, New Zealand, America, Russia or China. On this basis of equality this association aims to promote friendly and cultural relations and mutual understanding between Australians and Indians.31

30 McLeod 2016. 31 IAA draft Aims and Objects, n.d. (c. February 1944); editorial, Australia-India Association: Aims and Objects, March 1944.

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Elkin, Stevens, and others saw themselves as political moderates; certainly, like Trade Commissioner Saksena, they wanted to foster both commercial and educational networks. The left-wing members of the committee – Lockwood, Campbell, Street, Makinson, and Vaidyanathan – had a greater interest in supporting the Indian Independence campaign and encouraging improvements in employment and education. It is clear in the letters of Bertram Stevens, for example, that he trusted Elkin, the middle-class professor, far more than he did Clarrie Campbell, the left-wing Socialist Labor Party activist whose long association with Indian seamen in Sydney gave him a comfortable familiarity with the local Indians that Stevens, despite his travels, does not seem to have had.32 There was a significant difference in organisational styles as well. The papers of the first eighteen months of the IAA, held in the Elkin Archives, cover the period when Elkin, Cranswick, Rich, and Stevens were prominent and all proceedings appear to have been extremely formal, with votes taken and counted on all matters. Despite the tensions, the IAA saw itself as having two urgent goals. One was to collect funds to aid the victims of the Bengal Famine. The other, which must have arisen largely from Campbell’s long-established knowledge of the Indian crewmen present in Sydney – as well as from Joseph Noronha’s pleas about the need for a sympathetic place for Indian seamen – was to establish a social club for the many Indian merchant seamen.

The famine Photographs of the famine were circulating in the international press by late 1943 when the IAA was established. People had begun to die of starvation. The photographs showed distressing images of emaciated people collapsed onto Calcutta footpaths and dying where they lay, with their relations too weak to gather their remains, let alone bury them. Rice harvests had failed in Bengal and many other states after cyclones, floods, and rice plant diseases, while wartime measures inside India had disrupted the movement of grain and rapidly inflated prices.33 All rice imports had ceased once the 32 Stevens to Elkin, 14.2.44, 15.2.44, and 22.2.44. Elkin Archives. 33 Sen, 1981; Tauger 2009; Mukherjee 2015. The causes of the Bengal Famine have been debated and the dispute between Tauger and Sen flared in the New York Review of Books (NYRB) in 2011, with bitter letters of defense and accusation. NYRB 24 March 2011 ‘The Truth About Bengal Famine’; 12 May 2011 ‘Bengal Famine’. Mukherjee charts a middle way arguing both factors were significant and, although focusing on Bengal, recognises as does Tauger than severe food shortages occurred simultaneously in many parts of India.

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Japanese had taken over major rice production areas in Burma. Many parts of India had for a long time been food importers, including Bengal but more particularly Bombay, Kerala, and other states.34 At the same time as food imports ceased, thousands of refugees escaping the Japanese had been flowing into Bengal, often after gruelling journeys on foot over mountains, and arriving in an already weakened state. Many Bengalis left Calcutta to try to head west to areas where more food was available, but most refugees had depleted funds and were exhausted after the long journeys on foot, so for the time being, they had nowhere to go.35 The IAA was getting news of the famine first hand, because Clarrie Campbell was in touch with crews coming directly from Bengal. As the chair of the Famine Relief Sub-committee of the IAA, Campbell organised a Button Day held on 11 August 1944 across Sydney and its suburbs, recruiting Boy Scouts, trade unionists, businessmen, and religious ministers to sell buttons or ask for donations.36 Helping to collect funds were 25 Bengali seamen who had arrived directly from Calcutta. As the Tribune reported: Most of these men left families in the hunger-ravaged Calcutta district, where municipal carts were daily forced to pick up hundreds of dead bodies with as little ceremony as our municipal carts collect the garbage. One of the seamen collectors, Mohbabal Hossain, is a member of the Kojalsha Rural Reconstruction Committee. A letter written from the Secretary of this committee in India says: ‘The conditions are very little better than at the depth of the famine. People find almost every day a steady rise in the price of food or clothing. The crops are spoiling because people are suffering from many diseases […] They are in such a plight, they are lying down, too weak to move, praying and waiting for their end to come.’37

The famine was even then believed to arise not only from harvest failures and the loss of international imports but from the policies of the British colonial government, in, for example, forbidding movement of rice across state borders to prevent the hoarding that it believed was occurring.38 This caused the sending of aid to Indian organisations trying to deal with the 34 Tauger, 2009. 35 Greenough 1982; Zook 2000; Mukerjee 2015. 36 Tribune 22.6.44. 37 Ibid. 27.7.44. C.H.C. to IAA Indian Relief Fund, 5.9.44, Elkin Archives, Sydney University. 38 This view continues to have adherents, e.g. Mukherjee 2008, though there is criticism; Zook 2000. See Tauger 2009 for alternative analyses which identify crop failure due to environmental calamities, including plant disease, along with wartime preparations and import obstruction as

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famine, which was seen as an act of defiance against the British colonial regime. From the Indian side, deep distrust of the British meant that Bengali pleas for help were often made through Congress directly to their political allies, rather than through the British Raj.39 Australian donations came from all types of collections: there were direct appeals to individuals of means; ministers were asked to preach about India in sermons and collect from their parishioners; and there were the ubiquitous button days. 40 As the chair of the Famine Sub-committee, Campbell led the fund-raising organisation in what must have been the largely tedious but necessary planning, and the patient, time-consuming management of volunteers. Clarrie’s careful bookkeeping, so evident later in the archives of the Indian Seamen, was useful for the IAA. In all, £8000 was collected Australia-wide. There was some uncertainty about where to send it; in the end, the committee sent it to the Governor of Bengal, but in mid-1946 Clarrie was still asking for confirmation that it had reached its destination. 41

The Indian Seamen’s Social Club – Phyllis Johnson The IAA saw its other urgent goal to be the formation of a social club for Indian seamen. 42 While the meeting place for merchant seamen at the Sydney Seamen’s Mission in the Rocks was more relaxed than the Melbourne Mission that Noronha described, the Sydney Mission was still racially segregated. According to the IAA, ‘The Sub-Committee is of the opinion that the most important activity which we can undertake immediately is the establishment of a club for Indian nationals temporarily resident here. major causes, although administrative blunders contributed additional problems. See, however, Sen’s bitter defence of his work, in NYRB, 24.3.11 and 12.5.11. 39 For example, Renu Chakravartty from the all Bengal Women’s Self-Defence League directed her appeal to fellow communist Dr Rachel Makinson and IAA member. Elkin Archives, University of Sydney. Tauger 2009 points to measures the British Raj did take, however inadequate, to alleviate famine conditions not only in Bengal but across many other states in India. 40 Despite being a widely used strategy for fund raising, there were serious glitches, in this case with confusing radio reports which caused some volunteer sellers to abandon activity and return many unsold buttons; nevertheless, £1000 was raised from Sydney button sales alone. Report by Kapila Khandvala to AIWC, 10.12.46, unabridged (20 pages), AIWC office documents and files, 1930-47. Margaret Cousins Library, AIWC, New Delhi. 41 IAA to Dept External Affairs, 13.2.46, ASIO series A6122, NAA. 42 This account comes from the Minutes of the Ways and Means Committee of the IAA in one of its early meetings on 14.12.43. The seamen’s club is referred to in other meeting minutes and then the story is taken up in the Mission to Seamen’s annual reports (SLNSW) and the papers of the Indian Seamen’s Union in Australia. NBABL.

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Indian seamen at present in Sydney […] have almost no amenities for their leisure time.’ 43 The IAA immediately opened negotiations with the Mission for Seamen and the new Indian Seamen’s Social Club began operating sometime in October 1944, although its official opening was not till December. The Mission had handed over the whole of the top floor to IAA control – a welcomed gesture, except that this floor was difficult to get to and soon became universally known as ‘the black floor’. 44 Staffing this Club was a long-term labour of love. Members of the IAA had to be there each night it was open, making tea and organising activities and chatting; while some of these tasks were taken on by the twenty volunteers who became involved, the most steady and constant of those who attended were Clarrie Campbell and his partner Ada Boys. Almost none of the other executive members of the IAA seem to have attended more than occasionally. Ada Boys was there every night it opened, an active partner in all of Campbell’s work from the earliest days of their relationship. Although so much attention in this study is focused on Campbell and other male activists, women like Ada were crucial to the Social Club and the wider campaign. Ada had met Campbell after he came to Sydney and became involved in shipping through oil and petroleum trading. She had been an entertainer on shipping lines; they began living together in 1935, a second relationship for both of them. The seamen who wrote to Clarrie in later years each asked warmly after Ada, sometimes calling her Miss Boys and sometimes Mrs Campbell, with one writing that she had been ‘like a sister’ to these seamen so far from home. Campbell sent her a message through his radio broadcast from Batavia on his first trip there in 1947, and Ada was to be fully involved in the later work of setting up trading relationships with Indonesia and moved with him to Singapore. 45 From their home there, she visited Sydney at times to see her family and bring reports from Campbell to his political allies, including those in the CPA. She died in Sydney ten years after Clarrie did, having been partners in both work and life for many decades. 43 IAA Ways and Means Sub-Committee Minutes, 14.12.43. The figure of 200 seamen was an underestimate: over 800 joined the Indian Seamen’s Union in Australia within months of its establishment in November 1945, indicating there were far more seamen in port at any one time than the 200 suggested here. 44 Interview with Phyllis Johnson, conducted by Heather Goodall, 10.5.07. 45 Flying Angel 1945-46: 18; ASIO monitoring of Radio Broadcast, May 1947, in ASIO file Clarence Hart Campbell, vol. 1, p. 73; ASIO record of financing of Asian Airlines, note of Ada Boys making $1000 loan to Asian Airlines. Enquiry Officer ASIO to Deputy Director, 13.1.48: ‘this is the strange story of Asian Airlines Ltd’, SMH 14.9.48; various letters to ISUiA from returning seamen, E177/4, NBABL.

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5.1 Clarrie Campbell, Ada Boys, and Phyllis Johnson with unidentified Papuan seaman on picnic, c. 1944

Courtesy the late Phyllis Johnson, interviewed by Heather Goodall in 2008, 2009, and 2010. Photo from her personal collection

The Sydney Mission for Seamen described the Social Club’s operation in its Annual Report, The Flying Angel, for 1944. The Club had opened seven nights a week at first, but as there were ‘talking pictures’ on some nights at another venue, it became clear that three nights per week was more sensible. The Indian attendance has fluctuated by virtue of shipping movements but has maintained an average of 150 a night. Thursdays are considered concert nights which never fail to draw a full house, Mr Guthrie and party being responsible for the entertainment […] Mr C.H. Campbell has shown the utmost devotion in making the Club a success in every way. In addition to attending every evening in the Club himself, he has built up a very reliable and willing team of voluntary workers, to whom the gratitude of the Indians is very pronounced. Some South African Indians, West and East Africans, Noumeans, Fijians, Indonesian, East Indies, American and Papuan coloured seamen have also attended the Club. 46 46 Flying Angel 1944–45: 17.

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The club provided very real benefits to the Indian seamen. Amid the rising tension of the Quit India movement and the famine, the Social Club offered Indian crews an alternative to the miserable conditions of the labour pools. Distanced, at least a bit, from shipping company and military surveillance, the Club allowed a more vivid social life and the creation of new social and political relationships. Seamen found that their wider lives were acknowledged at the club: their politics and cultural interests, their religious and personal lives, their fears for family members in famine or war zones, and their passion, like everyone of the day, for movies and radio broadcasts. 47 Yet around the edges of this alternative space sniffed the security and surveillance officers of the old empires. The Social Club operated smoothly throughout 1944, but by early 1945 the British Government in India had become more alarmed by the rising numbers of Indian seamen in Australia ‘owing to circumstances created by the war’. 48 It appointed a ‘Welfare Officer’, B.K. Sanyal, to ‘look after the interests of the Indian seamen’ and ‘to settle the disputes between them and the shipping companies when they arose’. Sanyal was also called on ‘by cable’ to inform the British and Australian governments about the seamen and their associates, which he did regularly. 49 The Indians with whom Clarrie had been working were like those Komalam Craig had met in 1939: men who might come from across India but who had shipped through either Bombay or Calcutta. The detailed records of the ISUiA from late 1945 indicate that these men had been coming for a long time. In terms of religion, caste, and class, they were a different group from those Clarrie had met on the battlefields at Gallipoli, but by World War II he had been learning about the seamen on cargo ships in Sydney for at least a decade. There were some Indian petty officers, but, like Joseph Noronha, they were invariably Portuguese-speaking Goans, fluent in English, Christian, and well educated. The ordinary seamen did not fit into these categories. The nationalist Noronha had become painfully aware of this when he tried to work with them politically; as he wrote to Clarrie, ‘my people are class conscious and did not trust me’.50

47 Interviews with Sylvia Mullins and Phyllis Johnson about topics of conversation they took part in at the Indian Seamen’s Club. Conducted by Heather Goodall, 13.3.07 and 10.5.07. 48 NAA, Sec of the Commonwealth Dept of Interior to Collector of Customs, Brisbane, 25.6.45. 49 NAA, D.A. Alexander, Inspector to Commonwealth Investigation Branch, 8.11.45, Z.C/63541, re: Indian Seamen’s Union (in Australia). 50 Joseph Noronha to C.H.C., 28.10.45, ISUiA Archives, E177/4. Noronha’s statement reflects the tension between Goan working people and the middle classes discussed in Pinto 2007.

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Among the ordinary seamen, around 10 per cent were Konkani-speaking Goan Christians who, rather than upper-class and well-educated like Noronha, were village people living in ‘chummeries’ or clubs in Bombay named after their villages. As Christians they had no dietary restrictions, so they were invariably employed in the catering departments of the ships.51 The rest of the Indians who were general seamen were working-class or agricultural labourers; most were Muslims from different parts of India. Around 60 per cent of these men shipped through Bombay, with home addresses in the surrounding areas of Maharasthra; around 40 per cent shipped through Calcutta, and gave home addresses from: Calcutta (now in West Bengal); the more easterly areas of Sylhet, Nowakhali, and Chittagong (now in Bangladesh); and Bihar, the state to the west of Bengal. Of these, Bihar accounted for the fewest addresses, while Calcutta and East Bengal accounted for almost equal numbers. Among the seamen, Clarrie became closest to Abdul Rehman, who was to take a leading role in the industrial and political action in Sydney.52 Rehman came from Poona, located southeast of Bombay, and was from one of the communities of coastal Muslim seafarers who had for centuries taken part in trade along India’s west coast and the western Indian Ocean. It was the members of these communities who had been most actively involved in the formation of the National Seamen’s Union of India, which was based in Bombay.53 Rehman had come into the Sydney port sometime before the end of the war on the City of Winston. Like many of the other Indians, Rehman stayed in the cramped labour pools ‘between ships’, allowing him to meet many of the Indians from other ships as well as seamen from other countries, especially when he went to the Indian Social Club. The volunteers Campbell had drawn into the Social Club spent nearly as much time there as Ada and Clarrie did. One was Joan Keiller, who later worked in radio, praised by Joseph Noronha for making ‘my coloured people feel at home’ and to whom Abdul Rehman was to write letters once he had returned to India.54 Other volunteers, though by no means all, were members of the Communist Party. In its hostile report about Clarrie Campbell, ASIO reported in January 1947 that Campbell had ‘taken over’ the IAA in the October election of 1946 by installing ‘nondescript’ people whom ASIO said were ‘probably, in 51 Pinto 2007. 52 ISUiA membership database, compiled from full set of membership records. ISUiA Archive, E177/10, NBABL. 53 Constitution & Rules, National Seamen’s Union of India, Bombay. ISUiA Archive, E177/2, NBABL. 54 Noronha to Campbell, 28.10.45, ISUiA Archives, E177/4; Rehman to Campbell, 14.1.46, 4.46, 25.5.46. ISUiA Archive, E 177/4, NBABL.

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the main stooges of Campbell’.55 Yet the new names on the IAA committee after the 1946 elections were predominantly those who had been frequent volunteers at the Social Club, according to the Flying Angel reports. They may well have also been members of the Communist Party, but their value for the committee may have been their continuous and stalwart support of the Club. Two of the young communists were Sylvia Mullins and Phyllis Johnson, who both remembered the Social Club well.56 They were members of a younger generation than Clarrie Campbell, and both came from economically struggling and highly politicised working-class families in smaller towns. Sylvia came from Kandos near Lithgow. Her father had served in the AIF in France during World War I, suffering gassing and other injuries. He returned home but the war had left him psychologically as well as physically scarred, leaving him erratic and abusive until his death in the 1930s. Sylvia remembered her mother struggling with ‘abject poverty’ to raise their children alone. Despite her father’s violence, Sylvia could at least be proud that he was also ‘very political’ – a ‘Wobbly’, as the International Workers of the World were called. She held strongly to the Wobblies’ internationalist stance, coming to Sydney at the age of 18, joining the Eureka Youth League, speaking in the Domain (Sydney’s public space where competing political speakers gathered large crowds at weekends), and volunteering at the Social Club. One of her close friends was Joan Clarke, who became a radio announcer and writer, and who was just as actively involved in the African-American Servicemen’s Social Club as Sylvia was in the Indian one. Joan’s book All On One Good Dancing Leg (a reference to the effects of polio in her childhood), contains a moving account of Sylvia’s public protest against the return of Dutch troops on British ships to the Indies to try to suppress the Republicans.57 Phyllis had warmer memories of her father than Sylvia did, so she was even prouder of his politics. She was born in 1907 in Perth to Washington Mather, a wharfie who was the Secretary of the maritime Western Australian Coal Lumpers’ Union. Washington was a pacifist who campaigned against the conscription referenda during World War I. Both Sylvia and Phyllis were fired by an intense commitment to social justice and excited by the international perspective that the Communist Party offered them. They saw the Indian Social Club as one of the fulfilments of such visions. 55 HSD Hay, Temporary Inquiry Officer, to Deputy Director ASIO, 16.1.47, p. 169 of India-Australia Association file, ASIO, Series A6122/2095, NAA. 56 Interviews with Mullins and Johnson. Conducted by Heather Goodall, 13.3.07 and 10.5.07. 57 Clarke 1994, about her time in the ‘Negro’ Social Club in Sydney, a segregated social activity provided for African American troops. See photograph of Sylvia’s protest in The Sun, 7.11.45, Chapter 6 this volume.

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Phyllis was one of the regulars in the Indian Club from 1944 onwards. She travelled to Sydney to take up secretarial work and also took up politics, joining the CPA where she met and married Johnno Johnson, a violin-maker. She continued to be an outspoken activist in the CPA, and was jailed in the early years of the war for publicly advocating an end to the fighting.58 She remembers that being in jail for those three months was not so bad because the chief wardress had herself been a spokesperson for the anti-conscription campaign like Phyllis’s father, and after lights out she would open the cell door and bring Phyllis over for tea and cakes. Phyllis and Johnno became friends with Clarrie through his CPA connections and became interested in his friendships with Indians at the time of the Bengal Famine. They both went to the Social Club a few nights each week, serving tea and chatting, and went with Clarrie, Ada, and groups of Indians and other seamen on picnics and trips to the south coast. Phyllis and Sylvia both described how the Indians, as ‘coloured seamen’, were segregated on the top floor of the Seamen’s Mission building while the ‘White’ sailors were allocated the more accessible and pleasant lower floor. Yet both women remembered how relaxed the club was, describing it as a ‘tremendous experience’ to meet seamen from different parts of India and from different cultures as they served tea and biscuits, watched Hindusthani films, and took part in dancing, picnics, and discussions. The club became the hub of the campaign to raise aid for Bengal in the aftermath of the 1943 famine and provided a welcoming place for seamen to observe their religious practices.59 Just as importantly, the Social Club opened its doors to seamen from many different countries, including Vietnamese and Papuan seamen. Although she became friends mainly with the Indian seamen, Phyllis was adamant that she saw the Boycott campaign as a struggle for independence of the ‘coloured seamen, the coloured workers’, with all nationalities participating at all times. Despite this solidarity, there were many layers of confusion. Phyllis joked as she recalled how the highly politicised young people, including herself, engaged in intense conversations with the seamen that were often at cross-purposes: the Indians were trying to practise their skills in spoken 58 Interview with Phyllis Johnson, conducted by Heather Goodall, 10.5.07. While Phyllis was committed to her father’s pacif ism, she also adhered to CPA policy, so this was presumably before the Nazis turned on the Soviet Union in June 1941, leading the USSR to change policies and call for a ‘United Front’ with the Allies. 59 ISUiA Archives, E177/5, flyers for Bengal Famine Relief Fund, 18.7.44. Ramadan is determined by the lunar calendar and fell in October, with Eid taking place in November in both 1945 and 1946. See Tribune 23.11.45 and ISUiA Archives for 1946.

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English with polite questions about jobs and families, while the enthusiastic young communists wanted to quiz them about conditions in India and how long it would be before the British were driven out. ‘We were do-gooders!’ Phyllis laughed.60 While Phyllis mainly had Indian friends at the Social Club, Sylvia spent more time with the Indonesians, particularly with Willie Mandell, a strongly nationalist petty officer she met at the Indian Club and who sometimes invited her out for dinner on the ship he was on. She also spent time with Chinese seamen and the Australian-Chinese left-wing community: ‘The Chinese people got to know about me. The Chinese Young Communists and what not, and if I went up towards the top of Sydney [known as Chinatown] there was always a crowd of people to go for a meal.’61 One of the activities of the Indian Social Club through 1944 and 1945 was holding picnics catered by the volunteers.62 This allowed Indian and Indonesian ordinary seamen (rather than the relatively more elite petty officers) to meet and talk about the things they had in common. One of these picnics, held at Parsley Bay on Sydney Harbour on Sunday, 20 May 1945, apparently included a speech by the Indonesian sailors. The reply by a representative of the Indian seamen was typed up and is held in the archives of the ISUiA. Since this is the only indication of Indian views about the interaction between Indians and Indonesians, it is reproduced here in full, even though it does not identify the speaker. The language of the speech was clearly shaped by the rhetoric of the communist movement of the time, so we can assume it was crafted and probably delivered by one of the seamen who was also an active member of the Indian Communist Party:63 Our Indonesian Brothers: We, like you, wish to thank our Australian friends who did so much to make this picnic possible. For many years, we Indians have been bringing ships to Australia, and, naturally, we have made many friends in this country. In passing, I would like to say on behalf of those thousands of Indians who have come to 60 Interview with Phyllis Johnson. 61 Interview with Sylvia Mullins. 62 Flying Angel, 1944-45: 17; 1945-46: 18. 63 Archives of the ISUiA. Tribune, n.d., but details confirmed in Tribune article 24.5.45. The term ‘United Nations’ was in wide use during the war to mean the Allied armed forces, but the organisation that replaced the League of Nations and became known formally as the United Nations had been in planning since 12.6.41, with the St James Palace Declaration in London; the title of ‘United Nations’ was in use by Roosevelt and Churchill from December 1941.

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Australia, we never had the opportunity of meeting together and organising until our good friend, Mr Campbell, made it possible. We Indians are indeed grateful that you accepted our invitation to join us in this picnic today. We feel that in doing so we have welded a chain of fraternal friendship that no force can break. We Indians are happy in the thought that although many hundreds of our lives have been given in taking the munitions of war to our Allied Soldiers in the Islands, our sacrifices have been directly connected with driving the Japanese aggressors from your lands. The people of my country will have many serious problems to solve when this war is over. Your warm words of friendship and pledge of unity will greatly hearten my people in dealing with their problems. We cannot help but recall that less than three years ago, when the Fascist Beast appeared to have overrun the world and that the cause of Democracy was lost, certain people in certain nations were very busy promising us a New Order when Fascism was destroyed. But with the passing of time, and the success of the United Nations [i.e. Allied armies] supported by the democratic peoples of the world, we unfortunately notice among certain so-called leaders that arrogant note of ‘what was good enough in 1939 will be good enough in 1945’. We Indians join with you Indonesians in doing everything in our power to quickly defeat Japan. And we also join with you in a pledge that an injury to one of us will be an injury to both. We do not know to what extent we Indian Mercantile Marines may be used after the war, but we want to assure our Indonesian friends that if any attempt is made to displace higher-paid seamen with lesser-paid seamen, we will demand the same rates of pay and conditions, or refuse to take the ships to sea. In the past, there have been small conflicts between Indian and Indonesian seamen; unfortunately, we were then without friends who could correctly guide us. We now know that in spite of the urgency of winning the war, certain shipping companies in their greed for profits, and even at the risk of losing the war, were prepared to use the people of one country against another. We now know also that only by the unity of your people, my people and the workers of all lands, will the decisions of the United Nations be given effect to. Therefore, let us be grateful for this opportunity of meeting today where the people of two important countries make a pledge of unity, which, as you good Indonesians have said, will ensure our ultimate emancipation.

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5.2 Fred Wong with Phyllis Johnson. From left: Johnno Johnson, Phyllis Johnson, Fred Wong, his elder daughter Gwen, and two friends, c. 1945

With permission from Helen Wong-Liem

The state of play for Indians in Australia in early 1945 was as follows: there had been an extensive series of strikes for better pay and conditions in 1939, developing alliances with Australian supporters; then a serious attempt to join the SUA during the war years, which was rebuffed; and finally, the establishment of the IAA and, through it, the emergence of a safe social and political space, the Indian Social Club, under sympathetic IAA control, which allowed further planning and networking. The goals Indian seamen expressed in their union records and press statements were to challenge the Asian Articles and achieve better pay and conditions – not just in the dangerous waters of war, but also after the war – and to obtain union protection while in Australian waters.

Indonesians in Australia – then Australians in Indonesia – Mohammad Bondan, Haryono Indonesian exiles were another group with whom Australians were sharing the home front. While only a few Australians were meeting the Indians, who

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were marginalised and kept in the labour pools for much of the time, a far wider range of people met the Indonesians. This expanded the knowledge of many Australians well beyond the European limits to which the White Australia Policy had restricted them. Because the Dutch and Indonesians had been exiled by the Japan invasion, they gained widespread sympathy that even the tumult over shipping strikes in 1942 did not diminish.64 All of these Indonesians formed an unprecedented Asian presence in Australia, where the White Australia restrictions on immigration had created an artificial barrier to Australian awareness of Asia. The industrial conflicts led by Javanese ordinary seamen were largely hidden from the readers of the major Sydney broadsheet, the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH). Instead, during the war readers were most aware of the Dutch role as allies of Britain and the USA in the eventual defeat of the Nazis in Europe. Nevertheless, the general glow of support for the other Allies was tinged by a lack of empathy for the Dutch exiles themselves, who were regarded in Australia as suspiciously like the Germans in culture and language and, in reference to their role in the nearby Netherlands East Indies, as harsh and outdated colonial masters.65 This was in contrast to the view of the Dutch in the NEI who saw themselves as liberalising colonisers, a view presented in the years after the war by some of their supporters, who praised their introduction of universal education in a common language.66 The Indonesian exiles, on the other hand, were welcomed by Australians as allies and friends in need, and extended generous greetings. Only some of the Australians who welcomed the exiles would become active supporters of the Indonesian Revolution, yet all of them had become aware of Indonesians as fellow individuals, family members, and workers, so the decisions taken in Indonesia at the end of the war could not be simply shrugged aside. Instead, events which in other Southeast Asian countries might seem distant and irrelevant became, when they were occurring in Indonesia, to have a much more direct link to the lives of ordinary Australians all over the country. An informal social club for Indonesians had been established by middleclass White Australians in various Sydney homes in 1942, soon after the Dutch surrender to the Japanese brought the first influx of refugees. Some of these Australians had missionary backgrounds, but in general they were liberal in their political orientation and drawn to this task by earlier missionary or social contacts. This social club became known as ‘The Indonesian 64 Lingard 2008: 9-101; Bennett 2003; George 1980. 65 Lockwood 1982; Hardjono & Warner 1995. 66 SMH 26.9.45.

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Club’, and conducted suppers, dances, and musical evenings which were aimed at nurturing social supports for allies in the war. It was later relocated to George Street in the Haymarket near Chinatown. Although there were members from all over the Indies, the majority of the Club’s members were Manadonese petty officers.67 The club was intended to be a comfortable, welcoming space, but in time it inevitably became political as Indonesians and volunteer Australians alike began to focus on the possibilities of Independence after the war. The red-and-white Indonesian flag was first hoisted there on 31 August 1944. An important example of the sponsors and volunteers of this club was Mrs Elsie Reid, who was great friends with Jessie Street, an affluent feminist who brought her liberal interests to the social dimensions of the Indonesian Club. Mrs Reid strongly supported her daughters as they grew closer to young Madadonese petty officers who came to the Club. One of her daughters, Charlotte (Lotte), married Anton Maramis, a Manadonese active nationalist, and later wrote about her experiences in Australia and Indonesia.68 As Lotte and her mother discovered, the marriages of Lotte and her sisters to Indonesians led them into confrontations with both Australian racism and the Dutch military police, who were increasingly suspicious of Indonesian exiles. Many marriages arose from the friendships that began in the Indonesian Club, of which some were successful and others failed in the face of racism, cultural differences, unfamiliarity, and loneliness.69 The relationships that did continue built family networks between the two countries which continue to this day. While hoping to provide social recreation for the Indonesians in Australia, some who sustained this Indonesian club were inspired by the Atlantic Charter announced in August 1941, which had had a major impact on many people; one person who strongly supported its goals was Mrs Eleanor Byrne, known affectionately as Granny Byrne, another of the stalwart middle-class women who were greatly liked by the Indonesian members of the Club. Mrs Byrne argued strongly that the Atlantic Charter showed the way to the future Independence of Indonesia – and, by implication, all other colonised countries.So the social club which had begun as a way to support allies in the war, had moved towards a more nationalist position, responding to nationalist aspirations of many of its middle class, petty officer Indonesian members, as well as the liberal hopes arising from the Atlantic Charter. 67 Maramis 2006: 21-2. 68 Maramis 2005, 2006, 2014. 69 Maramis 2006: 38-47.

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A number of the young Australians had come into contact with Indonesians through rather a different route. Their interest had been in the forward-looking visions of what Australia’s role in the region might be after the war. They were eager to meet people from the countries around Australia to learn about the politics of these emerging nations to Australia’s north. As well as the middle class petty officers in the social club, they were interested in meeting the ‘ordinary’ seamen who were increasingly involved with the nationalist movement. One such person was Molly Warner, an art student who became a secretary in Clarrie Campbell’s company United Lubricants in 1940 and stayed until 1946. Molly’s background laid the groundwork for her transnationalism. Although her family was involved in a number of movements, for many years of Molly’s childhood they were constantly involved in theosophy. Much of Molly’s memory of theosophy in Australia accords with that of P.R.S. Mani, who worked for Rukmini Devi in Adyar before he joined the Indian Army in 1943. Both had met liberal Dutch theosophists who valued cultural diversity and championed decolonisation movements. For Molly, her family’s involvement with theosophy had led to an acute awareness of India and Hindu literature, and generated meetings with Indian and Indonesian visitors.70 The visitors from what was then the NEI were usually either Dutch or Indische. A number of Indische activists had taken high-profile roles in the emerging nationalist movement in the 1910s and 1920s; Molly was aware of this nationalist interest, which echoed the interest among theosophists in Home Rule in India.71 Molly recalled her parents as ‘non-party socialists’ and summed up their influences on her and her brothers thus: We were taught to frown on social snobbery, to accept the basic rights of people as human beings, to detest racial discrimination, to look for ways by which greater economic democracy might be obtained, to think about problems of political representation and of political policies and to oppose imperialism and colonialism.72

Molly did not take on any political roles during the war, but towards its end she was one of a group of art students who had become concerned that Australia should be far more engaged with nearby Asia than with the British and European world. The decision to seek contacts with the NEI 70 Hardjono & Warner 1995: 1-17. 71 Bosma & Raben 2008. 72 Hardjono & Warner 1995: 18.

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seems to have arisen somewhat randomly, without previous involvement with Indonesians. These people did not, for example, go to the Indonesian Social Club before they began to investigate Indonesian contacts. Instead, Molly began asking around to see if some other sort of organisational support in Australia might exist or be established to link with the emerging movement in Indonesia. As an employee of United Lubricants, Molly was already aware of Clarrie Campbell’s existing involvement with Indian seamen, so she raised the possibility of NEI links with him. Campbell was in the process of forming such an organisational link with the Indian seamen as well. As Molly commented, based on her years as his company secretary, ‘his interests were really in India rather than Indonesia’.73 From his experience in the IAA, Campbell suggested some of the organisations that Molly might try to involve, including the Council of Churches, Sydney University, and the Housewives Association. The result was the formation of the Australia-Indonesia Association (AIA) in November 1944. The decision to use ‘Indonesia’ rather than Dutch-preferred ‘East Indies’ suggested the anticolonial stance of the organisation from the very beginning. Only then did Molly begin visiting the established Indonesian Club in which the Reids, Granny Byrne, and others were involved. Molly only slowly then became aware of the substantial class differences in education, religion, and language between the Manadonese petty officers who frequented the Social Club and the mainly Javanese ordinary seamen who constituted another of the major groups of Indonesians in Australia. Her later time in Indonesia, where she lived from 1947 after her 1946 marriage to activist Mohammad Bondan, was to bring home the impact of the Dutch ‘divide and rule’ approach that had long fostered discrimination against the Javanese.74 One of these Javanese ordinary seamen was Tuk Subianto, a 19-yearold who, because of his youth, was known in Australia by the diminutive Tukliwan.75 Trapped outside Indonesia when the Japanese invaded, these Javanese seamen demanded equal wages with Australian seafarers and were immediately jailed when they refused to carry wartime cargoes (see Chapter 4). Ironically, they were imprisoned alongside the political prisoners brought from Boven Digul prison in West Papua (see Chapter 4). Thoroughly politicised by the time of his eventual release, in 1944 Tuk was elected as the General Secretary of SARPELINDO, the new union formed in Australia 73 Ibid.: 20. 74 Ibid.: 26, 31, 60. 75 Goodall 2012.

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by Indonesian seamen with the support of the Digulists. Eliot V. Elliott, the Melbourne seaman and Communist Party member who became the Federal General Secretary of the SUA in 1941, was the SUA representative to SARPELINDO, while Barney Smith, the NSW SUA Secretary, was closely involved with both the Indian and Indonesian seafarers.76 The other major Indies group in Australia during the war were the political prisoners of the Dutch who had been in Boven Digul in West Papua. As discussed in Chapter 4, many had been in this prison since the uprisings against the Dutch in 1926, but others had been jailed later for political dissent. They had been brought to Australia by the Dutch to avoid their capture by the Japanese.77 The Dutch expected them to continue to be incarcerated in Australia, but after a period in which they were kept in prison, the Australian Government released them – allowing a group of articulate, politically insightful, and very angry people to be dispersed across the country. Many remained in far northern Queensland. Haryono was one of these prisoners.78 He had become involved in the revitalised Indonesian Communist Party in his homeland of northern Sumatra before being imprisoned by the Dutch in 1936. Like other Boven Digul prisoners brought to Australia, he was released and sent to work on the sugarcane farms around Mackay. He remained there for some time, drawing very little attention to himself. He appeared to be so cooperative that the Dutch then brought him to Brisbane to work on communications in their government-in-exile at Wacol. While there, however, Haryono became prominent in the leadership of the Indonesian Independence Committee (CENKIM), where he came to know the Australian unionist Mick Healy and his wife Conny.79 Mohamad Bondan was another Digulist and, like Tuk Subianto, a Javanese. He was initially imprisoned in Australia in the Cowra POW prison, but was transferred to work for the Dutch through the station Radio 36AEC in Toowoomba, then released to be employed by the Dutch government-inexile in Melbourne.80 Like most Digulists, Bondan had sustained his active 76 Healy 2005. 77 Lingard 2008: 61-76; Hardjono & Warner 1995: 26. Some Indonesians believed the Dutch had hoped the Digulists would help them to organise a resistance against the Japanese. ‘Teman-Teman from the Start’, a community-based history website, 2006, www.teman-teman.com 78 Leclerc 1995. Haryono (sometimes spelled Harjono) did not use another name. Like Sukarno and Sutomo and many other Indonesians, they only ever used one name. 79 Healy 2005. 80 Lingard 2008: 120-31. Radio stations in Australia are named by a combination of letters and numbers.

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nationalist networks and so, when he became one of the first to learn about the Indonesian Declaration of Independence through this radio work, he began to circulate the news. In retaliation, the Dutch transferred him to an internment camp in Brisbane, but from there he was able to communicate readily with fellow activists in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane, as well as with the group of supportive Australians that had begun to develop – including Molly Warner, who was still in Sydney but soon to become Bondan’s wife. Haryono of course knew his fellow Digulist Bondan, so when Bondan was released, Haryono welcomed him to Brisbane. At this time, Haryono was also a leading member of the illegal, highly secret Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), of which little was known by anyone in Australia.81 It was only later, after his repatriation to the Republican areas of Java, that he revealed his political commitment to both the Revolution and to the labour movement. He later became the Chairman of the peak Indonesian trade union body, Sentral Organisasi Buruh Seluruh Indonesia, known by its acronym as SOBSI. It was in this role that he became known to Australian left-wing activists more widely, when he chaired a major trade union conference in 1947 in which Ted Roach, Mick Healey, and Clarrie Campbell took part.82

81 Letter from Mick Healy to Rupert Lockwood, 1982, discussed in Healy 2005: 3-4. 82 The translation of Sentral Organisasi Buruh Seluruh Indonesia is the Central All-Indonesia Workers’ Organisation and it was known by its acronym, SOBSI; Lockwood 1982: 94, 141; Reid 1974: 146; Healy 2005.

6

Boycotting Colonialism: Supporting Indonesian Independence in Australia

This chapter traces the growth of support networks between unions and ethnic groups during the war until the formation of the ISUiA on 4 November 1945. The following two chapters address, first, how the Boycott of Dutch shipping in support of the Indonesian Republic was represented in the Australian media, and second, the perspective of the Indian participants and media. The social clubs set up in Australia for Indian and Indonesian seamen offered more than a way to pass the time and practise English. It was certainly not only the young Australian volunteers who were ‘do gooders’, as Phyllis Johnson joked. There were also intensely politicised seamen and activists, like the Indonesians who had been imprisoned in Boven Digul, Chinese and Australian activists who opposed the war in China, and Indian members of the Communist Party and unions, who were able to meet in such venues and learn more about each other. The Chinese Seamen’s Union (CSU) had managed to negotiate better wartime conditions for its members than other groups had, largely because of the Chinese Youth League (CYL), a longstanding organisation among Australians of Chinese descent. While many Chinese were heavily involved in the Australian branch of the Kuomintang and the CYL had strong links to the Communist Party, both groups were very active in publicising the war in China and seeking support against the Japanese. The CSU and CYL jointly operated a social club for seamen that drew not only Chinese members but also others, particularly Javanese sailors, a transnational interaction which alarmed the Australian security service.1 The Indonesian Club also drew seamen from other nationalities, but did so largely along class lines, appealing to petty officers rather than ordinary seamen.2 It seems that the Indian Seamen’s Social Club was more successful in drawing together ordinary seamen from equivalent working-class groups: the Javanese in Indonesia, Muslim seamen who shipped through Bombay and Bengal, and Konkani-speaking Goans. What is particularly important is that this

1 F.W. Buchan to Director General ASIO, 30.6.42, ‘Chinese and Javanese Seamen: Chinese Seamen’s Union’, two memos, same date. Chinese Seamen’s Union File, NAA. 2 Maramis 2006: 14-27; Hardjono & Warner 1995: 21-7, 32-5.

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experience brought together people who had not previously been in contact, as the Indian seaman’s picnic speech quoted in Chapter 5 demonstrates.

Visions of new worlds –Abdul Rehman, Dasrath Singh The war in Europe ended with the military defeat and surrender of Germany in May 1945, but the Japanese did not surrender until 15 August after the atomic bomb blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While it was clear to the Japanese emperor and High Command that the war could not continue, the sudden surrender left Japanese armies in place across Asia and Southeast Asia. While for those in Europe the war with Japan seemed to be over in a flash (literally), in practice the war in Asia did not end for months, if not years. Armies stood their ground and sometimes marched, guns and ammunition still circulated, and people continued to die as old hostilities began to merge with those of the immediate past. After 15 August, the Japanese often remained where they had been in the first part of 1945, sometimes in close communication with local people, at times hated and fleeing, and other times as immobilised and bewildered as the locals. At the same time, the old colonisers were still there or coming back: the French, Dutch, and British, war-weary but with some shiny new guns and new names like the South East Asian Command (SEAC), the military body set up under British command, by the Allies, to accept Japanese surrender and restore civilian governance. But whatever words were mouthed from the Atlantic Charter, SEAC rapidly began to restore the old power structures, calling them an orderly ‘return to normality’. At the same time, immediately after the Japanese surrender Sukarno and Hatta declared Indonesia an independent Republic that would never again allow colonisers to take control from the Indonesian people.3 It was in this context that the visions of new worlds and shared hopes for the future among the working peoples of this region gathered momentum. This seemed like an opportunity to take decisive action to bring into being the potential of the last few years. When Indonesian seamen in Brisbane declared that they would refuse to crew any Dutch ships going to Indonesia, the Australian Left and its unions around the country were ready to respond. They did so with unprecedented enthusiasm, having never before expressed such sustained solidarity with non-Europeans or with calls to act against a

3

Reid 1974; Ricklefs 2001 (1981/1993).

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European power. 4 The response was a tactic well known among seamen and dock-workers, and commonly used in Australia: the boycott of shipping in port. This meant that no ships under the ban could be loaded, repaired, refuelled, or crewed to leave. This strategy had been used by Chinese, Indian, and Indonesian seamen between 1937 to 1942 as they tried to achieve safer wartime conditions and equal pay with Australian crews.5 There have been enough accounts of the chronology of the Boycott6 to make another unnecessary; instead, this chapter traces how the Boycott made visible the great increase in communication that had occurred since the earlier wartime strikes. This time, the level of communication and networking between all of these seamen and the Australian unionists was far higher and lasted longer than it had in those earlier actions. And yet, while the activism around the Boycott made the strengthening of these networks more visible, the media representations of the Boycott – and the assumptions and expectations of the activists – also obscured those networks, making some groups and actions almost invisible. Indian seamen played an important part in the 1945 Boycott of Dutch shipping, in collaboration with Chinese, Indonesian, and Australian unionists. Yet their presence is barely registered in the Australian histories, which focus on the roles of Australian unions, particularly the wharfies working on the docks, with some reference to Indonesians but only marginal references to Chinese and Indian seamen. Australian seamen did not crew the Dutch vessels, or any of the other international shipping routes, in any numbers. The SUA only controlled the crews of the local shipping routes around the Australian coast or between Australia and New Zealand; it had no control over crews recruited in other places by foreign-owned shipping companies, which of course accounted for most of the shipping in Australian ports. Ships travelling between Australia and the NEI included those owned by Dutch lines like KPM, by the smaller British-owned fleets of Burns Philp and others, and by the giant British P&O company. Although Indonesian ordinary seamen initiated the Boycott by walking off Dutch ships, with the exception of key activists most Indonesians were quickly repatriated to Republican-held areas on the Esperance Bay and other ships, which left Sydney on 13 October 1945.7 Other than the activists (who 4 Fitzpatrick & Cahill 1981; Beasley 1996; Lockwood 1982. 5 Balachandran 2008; Broeze 1998; Fitzpatrick & Cahill 1981. 6 George 1980; Bondan 1992; Hardjono & Warner 1995; Lockwood 1982; Beasley 1996. 7 Bennett 2003; Bondan 1992; Hardjono & Warner 1995: 38-9. Molly Bondan wrote movingly about her work in Indonesia (see In Love with a Nation), but was largely silent on the personal and even biographical details of her own life and that of her husband, Mohamad Bondan, though she

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had chosen to stay), the Indonesian seamen who remained were mainly petty officers, who were strongly sympathetic to the strike and fraternised with the Indonesian, Indian, and Australian activists, but did not walk off the ships or stop them from sailing.8 The majority of working seamen – the people who could actually stop the ships from sailing – were Indians. It was the Indian seafarers who did the political spadework, talking with Indian crews and persuading them to leave their ships despite the very real risks they all faced both at the time and in the future. As they knew only too well, the particular Indian variant of the Asian Articles meant that their Continuous Discharge Certificates (or nullies) carried the ‘Quality of Work’ section that could be used against them in the future. Many Indians chose to take the risk: over 200 men walked off their ships, and another 1000 remained on board in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane but refused to sail. In doing so, they held up over 180,000 tons of arms and supplies being sent to the Dutch.9 Despite this action, the role of the Indian seamen was largely ignored at the time by Australian union leadership and was denigrated by others, under the assumption that Indians were more likely to break strikes than uphold them.10

Black-banning Dutch ships, 1945-47 The story as Australians have told it The accounts told by the key participants in the Boycott diverge significantly. The story circulating in Australia is mostly told by the Australian unions, who foreground the Australian role in decision-making. The history of the Seamen’s Union of Australia, published in 1981, states that Indonesians and Indians were both interested in industrial issues like wages but then characterises the two groups very differently. The Indonesians were depicted as beginners who needed to be instructed by the Australians about how to run a decent campaign and how to be good unionists. The Indians, on the other hand, were described at best as latecomers to the strike and of offers us the closest glimpse we have so far. Fitzpatrick & Cahill 1981: 170-1; Hardjono & Warner 1995: 34. 8 Hardjono & Warner 1995: 34; Interviews with Phyllis Johnson and Sylvia Mullins. 9 C.H.C. on behalf of ISUiA to Indian Unions, 1.3.46, repeated 3.10.46. ISUiA archive E 177/4. Based on figures per ship, Disbursement of Strike Pay. ISUiA E 177/17. 10 C.H.C. to Phyllis and Johnno Johnson, 6.3.46. ISUiA Archive E 177/4.

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only marginal importance.11 At worst, they were denigrated as scabs and as ‘a motley crew of lascars’ who willingly sailed the Dutch ships that did manage to leave port in early contravention of the bans.12 This SUA history assumes that the Indians’ motives were not political, such as decolonisation or suporting the new Indonesian Republic, but were instead focused only on industrial issues. A more recent account of the strike is presented in Wharfies: The History of the Waterside Workers’ Federation, published in 1996.13 It acknowledges the political nature of the Boycott for everyone involved but argues that the strike was inspired and directed by Australian waterside workers. This is represented as a major shift in Australian union attitudes, but the Indians and Indonesians are depicted as marginal players who had no role in generating this shift. A third analysis is Rupert Lockwood’s Black Armada, written from personal recollection and extensive interviews with participants but published long afterwards in 1982. Lockwood was a journalist with a long association with the maritime unions, and a member of the Communist Party of Australia in 1945.14 As he spent time with Indians in 1945, his recounting acknowledges their presence in the Boycott far more than the union histories do. Furthermore, he recognised the very strong political motives of the Indians and Indonesians, as well as their industrial concerns. However, Lockwood (and certainly the two union histories) may have been influenced by the 1946 film Indonesia Calling!, made by the Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens – himself a member of the Netherlands’ Communist Party.15 Lockwood was a participant in the events that the film dramatises. Both Lockwood and Ivens depict the Indian participants in the Boycott as recently arrived, and describe them as if they were brought to Australia only when needed to replace striking Indonesian crews. While Lockwood’s book recognised the substantial contribution made by Indians, the chapter on them was placed late in the book – suggesting, with the chronological sequencing of the overall book, that their role had been late and of little importance in the campaign. The result was to marginalise the Indian seamen’s contribution.

11 Fitzpatrick & Cahill 1981: 182. Note that this history was written considerably before Julia Martínez published her study of the SUA journal (2001), which showed at least a passing awareness of the rise of Indian unionism in the 1920s. 12 Fitzpatrick & Cahill 1981: 174. 13 Beasley, 1996. 14 Cahill 1998, 2013. 15 Cottle & Keys 2006; Mundell 2005; see Chapters 10 and 12.

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When the Indonesian nationalists in Java declared unilateral Independence on 17 August 1945, the possibilities of a new future seemed within reach. Indonesian seamen in Brisbane called for support on 21 September to declare all Dutch shipping ‘black’, thereby denying any legitimacy or material support to the expected attempt to re-impose Dutch colonial control. Two days later they walked off Dutch ships in Melbourne and Brisbane after finding weapons in the cargo of one ship in Brisbane port.16 The following day, the WWF and the SUA announced their support and declared all Dutch ships in Brisbane and Melbourne, and then later in Sydney and Fremantle, to be ‘black’.17 The Australian unions received immediate support from the New Zealand Seamen’s and Waterside Workers unions, as well as from others overseas. Their goals were to refuse any cooperation with the Dutch through a blanket ban on all shipping. The Australian WWF carried the Australian side of this Boycott. They were the strongest union operating on the wharves at this time, and were in alliances with many of the smaller unions on the docks and the SUA members who controlled the tugboats needed for disembarkation.18 The Boycott was eventually broken by small, unaffiliated waterside unions in Sydney, but in those first months it was the wharfies and their allies who were able to tie up the loading side. What they could not do was stop the ships from sailing. Australian accounts of the Boycott, such as those in the histories of the SUA 19 or the wharfies,20 and even the account of Rupert Lockwood,21 all recount the campaign as if the black ban on loading was enough to stop ships from sailing. Yet Australian unions could not stop the ships from moving, because the seamen on board the ships were not members of those unions. The ships could only be stopped by the crews themselves, and most of those seamen were Indians. The Indian story As discussed earlier, the Indian sailors had substantial union experience and some had been in the thick of the struggles for unionisation in India, as one seaman explained to an Australian reporter: ‘This is not the first time I have 16 17 18 19 20 21

Hardjono & Warner 1995: 39. Lockwood 1982. Lockwood 1982: 209-14. Fitzpatrick & Cahill 1981: 168-78. Beasley 1996: 127-9. Lockwood 1982: 149-59.

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been on strike. During the big strike in Calcutta when the Indian Seamen’s Union was first formed I went days without food. They killed some of the strikers and ever since then I have been true to Union principles.’22 Many of the Indians were active members of the Indian seafarers’ unions in Bombay or Calcutta. Some of them wrote to the key activists in the Calcutta Union during the formation of the ISUiA and sought advice about the outcome of specific decisions that were being voted on by the Indian unions over these months.23 As discussed in Chapter 5, Abdul Rehman was a regular at the Indian Social Club and had come to know Clarrie Campbell well. As the picnic held in May 1945 shows, the Club allowed seamen of many countries to meet up and recognise their common interests. This in turn allowed a rapid response to the Indonesian call, even if the seamen were not involved in any formal organisation. A formal meeting was held at the Sydney Trades Hall around 10 October, in which ‘Hindustani, French, Indonesian, Malay and English were spoken […] when nationals of seven countries decided unanimously to continue support for the Indonesian Provisional Government’.24 Abdul Rehman spoke for the Indian seamen, while Legorio de Costa spoke for the Goan seamen and Campbell chaired the meeting. A photograph taken at the meeting shows Rehman and de Costa with Campbell and three of the Indonesian activists who had spoken at the meeting.25 Sometime in mid-1945, Dasrath Singh arrived in Australia. A charismatic activist and talented linguist, he was closely associated with the Seamen’s Union in Calcutta and the CPI. There are no details in his ISUiA membership card, just his distinctive signature. Rupert Lockwood was with Singh frequently during 1945 and understood that he had been in the catering department on a Dutch ship that had arrived mid-year.26 The British already hated him, and had passed this on to the Australian authorities. ASIO reported that Singh had been born in South Africa around 1922 and entered 22 Tribune 26.10.45. 23 NBAC, ISUiA Archives, E177/4, 16.9.45. In September 1954, Abdul Kadar, then a member of the Indian Seamen’s Union (ISU) in Calcutta and later a union member of ISUiA, wrote to Faiz Ahmed, acting General Secretary of the ISU. There is no record of any reply which Kader may have received from the union in India. 24 Tribune 12.10.45. Clipping held in ISUiA archives, E177, NBABL. 25 Tribune 12.10.45. Goa was a colony of Portugal and was not part of British India, therefore not part of Independent India after 1947. Portugal refused to give up the colony. In December 1961, Indian troops crossed the border to invade Goa, forcing Portugal to withdraw. After a period of military rule, Goans voted to be an independent and autonomous territory and was admitted to Indian statehood in 1987. 26 Lockwood 1982: 152.

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6.1 Abdul Rehman (centre, seated) and Ligorio de Costa in discussion with Indonesian activists and Clarrie Campbell. From Left: Unidentified Indonesian, Ligurio de Costa, Abdul Rehman, two unidentified Indonesians, Clarrie Campbell. 12 Oct 1945, Tribune

Photo courtesy Mitchell Library

employment as a seaman – known as ‘taking Articles’ – in Bombay. He had later shipped to Australia on a British ship from Calcutta, where seamen were strongly unionised under Aftab Ali. Singh arrived in Australia in his early twenties, so he was younger than Rehman, who was then in his forties. The two rapidly became associated with each other in the Indian Social Club. In November 1945, Inspector Alexander of the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) called Singh ‘a troublemaker’; in July 1946, ASIO officer W.H. Barnwell quoted the British Government in India, describing Singh as ‘an ardent communist’ and indicating that ‘great difficulty was experienced by the Dutch and Indian Authorities in handling this man’.27 Fluent in English and an energetic and persuasive advocate for working seamen, it is perhaps no surprise that it was Singh who became close to 27 W.H. Barnwell, Inquiry Off icer, ASIO, to Deputy Director P.G. Gallaghan, 31.7.46, Z.754. ISUiA file, NAA. Singh was identified as Jasrath Singh, son of Mitootila (from his Continuous Discharge Certificate or ‘nully’) with Bombay Shipping Articles number A42859.

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6.2 Dasrath Singh, organizing secretary Indian Seamen’s Union in Australia. Published with the article ‘Dutch Gestapo Trail Indian’ 9 November 1945, Tribune

Photo courtesy Mitchell Library

many of the Australian activists involved in the dispute over the Boycott. They all knew him as ‘Danny’; Rupert Lockwood wrote that he spoke to Singh almost daily, relying heavily on him for knowledge of the Indian seamen.28 Phyllis Johnson recalls him as a small but very active man.29 By all accounts, Singh was an astute, charismatic activist and a gifted interpreter who became the organising secretary of the ISUiA when it was eventually set up on 4 November, but from early October he was already busily involved in drawing together Indian seamen and galvanising activists from all groups. Not only was Singh a powerful speaker, and fluent in English, but literate in English also – as his distinctive signed annotations on SUA membership forms demonstrated. But he was more comfortable giving speeches than dealing with correspondence, characteristically leaving letters unanswered and even unopened. After Singh had gone back to India, Campbell found 28 Lockwood 1982: 152. 29 Interview with Phyllis Johnson.

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a discarded box that Singh had stuffed full of union correspondence and letters he had been asked to give to other seamen. In frustration Clarrie joked to Phyllis about the letters Singh had abandoned, saying ‘he did the Danny Singh act!’30 While Dasrath Singh was a powerful link between seamen and the broader union and activist community, it was Abdul Rehman on whom Clarrie Campbell relied on for advice and guidance, as their correspon­ dence shows. The CIB and ASIO reports describe Rehman as ‘decent and moderate’ in November 1945 and ‘rarely a tool of agitators’ in July 1946. ASIO underestimated him, however (as its analyses of activists often did), when it said ‘he had no driving power in the Union’.31 In fact, Rehman was everywhere. He can be found in photos of the Union’s inauguration; in others, he is shown at a desk recording memberships and collecting the donations new members made to the strike fund. We see him, along with Dasrath Singh, welcoming Mohammad Hasan to be the imam for the Eid al Fitr religious ceremonies held to mark the end of Ramadan in November 1945.32 Rehman’s quiet presence was a major factor in the Union’s rapid capacity to gather members and manage their political strategies as well as to house and feed hundreds of striking men. The NSW Trades and Labor Council (TLC) offered support, and Phyllis Johnson and others helped Dasrath Singh as he tramped from one Australian job site to another, calling on Australian workers to respond with donations. But it was Abdul Rehman who pulled it all together, gathered more members and kept an eye not just on their political interests in the Indonesian conflict, but also on their industrial goals of improving wages, safety, and conditions. When Rehman was deported in December 1945, he took with him an endorsement from the Indian Seamen’s Union in Australia, addressed to the seafarers’ unions in India, authorising him to speak about the work taking place in Australia. The letter opened: The Bearer, Abdul Rehman, has been the Chairman of the Indian Seamen’s Union in Australia since its formation recently. He has proved himself worthy of the confidence placed in him by all the Members of the Union, and we look forward to his return to Australia when he can take up the work he has had to leave off because of his forced return to India.33 30 31 32 33

C.H.C. to Phyllis Johnson, 6.43.46. Clarrie Campbell file, P81/2, NBABL. ASIO file for both CIB and Barnwell’s report. Tribune 12.10.45, 9.11.45, 23.11.45. C.H.C., ‘To Whom it May Concern’, 11.12.45. ISUiA archive, E177/5, NBABL.

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The Indian involvement in the Boycott began late one rainy night when Phyllis Johnson recalled Danny Singh bursting into the Indian Social Club – which she still called ‘the black section of the Seamen’s Mission’ – early in October, just days after the Indonesians called for a general boycott. Singh had three seamen from the Japara with him and came with a message the Australians had not heard before, urging Clarrie Campbell, Barney Smith and Stan Moran from the SUA, and the Johnsons to help him take urgent action. Phyllis remembers him to have said, ‘There’s a ship at Ball’s Head [one of the North Sydney docks]. There are Indian seamen on it and the Dutch are loading munitions! The Indian seamen are very concerned about it but they don’t know what to do. We’ve got to get those men off!’ Phyllis and her husband, Johnno Johnson, went across the harbour with Danny to Ball’s Head, where Phyllis stayed on the dock, waiting for hours, hunched on the pier: Johnno went onto the ship with Danny and it took a long time […] because the Indians had to be sure […] that Johnno was fair dinkum. And John said, ‘My wife is sitting on the wharf in the rain waiting for you to come off!’ And it WAS raining I can tell you! Well, we got them all off… they came up with their prayer mats and they had very very little, but they were the first seamen to walk off [in Sydney] and they were all Indian, all of them!34

This was a grave step for the Indian sailors. While they had resisted transfer in Melbourne in 1923 and had risked much in 1939 when they struck for wartime safety and conditions, they had usually taken such direct action only in Britain, where there was a substantial resident South Asian population to support them.35 In Australia the seamen were risking everything and needed clear assurances that they would be supported both financially and politically. This was the first time Australian activists became aware of an episode in which guns and bullets were loaded onto commercial cargo vessels in Sydney ports. A similar incident had happened in Brisbane just weeks before,36 but there had been no further proof that the Dutch had continued to load weapons. Campbell credited Singh with ‘taking the first active steps 34 Interview with Phyllis Johnson. Phyllis recorded the key elements of this story with Jan Lingard in the mid-1990s, but expanded it in this recent interview. Rupert Lockwood’s account (1982: 151-2) supports Phyllis’s memory, as do the archives of the ISUiA. 35 Martinez, 2001, for 1923 strike; this volume chapter 3 for the 1939 strike and, for the strategic requirement of resident sympathic populations, Tabili 1994: 161-77. 36 Hardjono & Warner 1995: 39; Lockwood 1982: 114-15. Lockwood’s account is confused on when Indians became involved (cf pp. 150-1); as is clear from the ISUiA archives in NBABL,

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to warn the Australian Trades Unions of the impending Dutch plans of running their boats from Australia to Java with munitions of war to be used against the Indonesian people in their fight for Independence.’37 Lockwood recounts how this warning caught the Australians off guard: he explained that they had not expected the Indians to take part in the strike and had not realised that weapons had already been loaded in Sydney by Australian unionists and Dutch scab labour.38 The Dutch merchant ships lying loaded, repaired, fuelled, and ready to depart by this time included not only the Japara but also the General Verspijck, the El Liberatador, the Patras, and the Schwartenhondt. The Indians on a number of these ships were now working under duress, as Dutch troops had been sent to finish the work left undone by striking waterside workers and ensure that the crews sailed. On both the General Vespijck and the Patras, the Indians who remained on board were known to be working at gunpoint, reluctantly going about daily maintenance as the Dutch troops continued the strike-breaking work of preparing the ships for departure. Since the Indonesian Declaration of Independence in August 1945, the Australian Left and Indonesians had been campaigning strongly for the repatriation of all striking Indonesian seamen to independent Republicanheld areas. Most left Sydney on the Esperance Bay on 13 October, eventually reaching Indonesia safely and re-joining the nationalist struggle for Independence. Virtually all of the striking seamen and many Indonesian political activists left Australia at this time.39 For this reason, Indians were the only substantial body of people remaining to crew the Dutch ships. 40 On 20 October the Dutch attempted to sail the Patras out of Sydney, with Dutch guns trained on the Indian engine crew, and Dutch strikebreakers and some newly arrived Indian seamen replacing the striking Indian deckhands. An extraordinary chase down Sydney Harbour ensued, in which a small launch driven at high speed by Australian unionists, including Barney Smith (SUA), with Dasrath Singh and other Indian seamen, pursued Indians were actively involved in the strike long before Lockwood’s account of Indian crews being flown in to replace other striking seamen. 37 C.H.C. to Indian Seamen’s Unions on behalf of Dasrath Singh, 31.1.46, NBABL, ISUiA Archives, E177/5. 38 Lockwood 1982: 152; NBAC, ISUiA E177/4, Campbell for ISUiA to Hon. R.A. King, MLC and Sec., NSW TLC, 29.1.46. 39 Hardjono & Warner 1995; Lockwood 1982: 136-44. 40 There were Vietnamese and Chinese seamen also present and acting in support of the Boycott, although their numbers are not so readily found. Some of the Vietnamese seamen were jailed late in 1945 in the course of the dispute. The Chinese Seamen’s Union in Australia, set up in 1942, was strongly supportive of the Boycott: Lockwood 1982: 170.

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the large Dutch cargo ship. From the launch, Singh addressed the crew by megaphone in Hindusthani. He explained the Dutch attempt to re-arm their colonial forces in Indonesia and argued the case for joining the strike to the receptive crew, but the presence of Dutch troops made it impossible to intervene further and the ship steamed out of the Heads. Yet within hours it had limped humiliated back into port. As the Indian crew poured over the sides into the waiting launches, they described how they had taken the dramatic, confrontational decision to refuse to stoke the engines. The Indians had agreed to go back to work only if the ship returned to port, leaving the Dutch little option but to comply. 41 The case of the General Vespijck was similar, where armed Dutch guards formed an intimidating presence while Singh and others stood off the boat’s stern and addressed the crew. Here too the Indian crew members decided on direct confrontation, letting the steam down in the ship’s engines and then leaving the ship spectacularly en masse in lifeboats lowered over the side. They argued they would not carry armaments for use against their ‘Indonesian brothers’. 42 Only Indian activists could have achieved these results; there appear to have been no Hindusthani language skills at all among the Australian organisers. Neither Clarrie Campbell nor other Australian maritime unionists spoke Hindi, Urdu, Goanese, or Bengali, the major languages of the Indian seamen. The only people who could do this negotiating were the Indian organisers. While Lockwood suggested that the Indonesians were speaking and writing Hindusthani, it seems more likely, given their active presence, that the Indian seamen did this themselves. The Indian activists, still weeks from being able to form their union, began visiting the miserable labour pools located around the port cities, talking to the Indians in their own languages and mobilising them to resist pressure from their contract employers and Dutch troops. In the process they drew more and more Indian seamen into the strike. 43 Dutch alarm increased at the impact the Indian campaign was having and although they had no formal jurisdiction in Australia, the presence of Dutch security officers became more obvious and was seemingly aimed at intimidating the Indian organisers. Their Australian supporters were concerned enough to organise protection for the Indians; on one occasion Sylvia Mullins, one of the volunteers at the Indian Social Club, called her brother Jack to act as a bodyguard for Dasrath Singh. 41 Lockwood 1982: 161-3; Tribune 23.10.45. 42 Tribune 23.10.45. 43 Tribune 23.10.45, 30.10.45.

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On leave from the air force, Jack took on the job for four days, calling on an air force mate, Harry, to help. Jack described the scene as he and Harry moved Dasrath Singh from meeting to meeting, with the Dutch following them threateningly in a car crawling along the curb. 44 And we were shadowed by a couple of big heavy Dutch blokes in a car. I got on the outside, then there was Danny and then there was Harry on the inside because he was the short bloke – although he’s a good wrestler. And at one stage they pulled up alongside us, and one started to get out and said, ‘Singh come here’. And I turned around and I said, ‘Piss off. He’s not going anywhere with you.’ So they decided they’d better not tackle us. We were in air force uniforms. So away they went.

The intimidation continued throughout the four days Jack was on duty. As it became harder to break the ban on ships leaving Sydney that was imposed by the Indian seamen already in Australia, the Dutch began trying to take newly imported replacement Indian crews from their arrival point in Sydney to other ports by train. In November, 60 newly landed Indian seamen from the British ship Chaibassa were hustled through Sydney’s Central Railway Station to a train for Brisbane, where Dutch ships had been left stranded by striking Indian crews. Dasrath Singh was there supported by a large group of Pathan seamen, all of whom were speaking to the replacement crewmen in Urdu or Hindi to explain the black bans they had unknowingly been recruited to break. The Dutch guards recognised Singh and called the police, who intervened violently and ‘punched and manhandled the striking Indian seamen in a forcible attempt to prevent them speaking’. Singh was hurled over luggage barrows and knocked to the ground. Doing this under the clock in the busy main thoroughfare of Central Station opened both the Dutch and the Australian police to the horrified gaze of the public, many of whom expressed their distaste for both the violence of the police and the arrogance of the armed Dutch guards who were trying to coerce British citizens. 45 On 22 October, most of the Indian crews already on the Dutch ships walked off; by 30 October, they had left the last ship, the Pahud.46 From then 44 Both quotes from the transcript of the interview with Jack Mullins recorded by the author, 2.3.2007. Another incident of the harassment of Singh by Dutch security personnel is reported in Tribune 9.11.45. 45 Tribune 27.11.45. 46 Tribune 23.10.45, 30.10.45.

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on, only newly recruited replacement crews were put on the idle ships, but most of them were contacted by the Indian organisers and, ship by ship, they too joined the strike. Campbell estimated that over 200 Indians walked off ships during October and November, while over a thousand remained on Dutch ships but refused to cooperate with NEI-related work. 47 The only Indian crews who sailed were those coerced by Dutch troops, and even those sailing at gunpoint were prepared to mutiny where they knew they had support on shore. Molly Warner moved to Brisbane in 1946, as she was becoming more closely involved with the general support for the Indonesian Republic and had also developed a relationship with Mohamad Bondan, whom she was to marry later that year. She remained in frequent touch with Clarrie Campbell, writing to let him know about the Indian crews on ships arriving in the port at Brisbane from Sydney. Even in December 1946, a year later, the armed intimidation of Indian crews was continuing, as Molly described in her letter to Campbell on 15 December 1946. She and her Indonesian colleagues who were in touch with the crews of two ships estimated that 90 of the Indian crew had tried to join others on strike in Sydney but had been physically stopped. The group of activists believed that trying to get them off in Brisbane now would only lead to more victimisation: ‘we all believe that it is not possible to get the chaps off safely […] it was evident the men came up under Dutch guard.’ 48 By late October 1945, there was a substantial body of Indian strikers in open dispute with the shipping companies, and therefore in urgent need of accommodation and board. The Indian seamen began to contribute and, as Campbell recounted in 1946, they ‘subscribed many times more in cash than did the whole of the Australian Trades Unions combined’ and ‘sacrificed £20,000 in lost pay’ over the period of the strike. The NSW TLC and the Australian maritime unions contributed as well, but it was the Indian seamen who initiated a campaign to force KPM, as the contractor, to fund both board and lodging and repatriation costs. Despite protests from the Dutch, on 23 October – still before the Union was formed – the Indians moved into the now-empty Lido, a boarding house in North Sydney allocated to the Dutch administration by the Australian Government during the war to house NEI exiles and previously used, against protests from KPM, to house the striking Indonesian seamen in preparation for their

47 NBAC, ISUiA Archives, E177/4, Campbell for ISUiA to Indian Unions, 1.3.46. 48 Molly Bondan to Clarrie Campbell, 15.12.46. CHC papers, P81/2, NBABL.

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repatriation.49 Phyllis Johnson and other volunteers from the Indian Social Club continued to help manage the accommodations: ‘Johnno was the providore’, Phyllis remembers, ‘and I was the publicity officer!!’ With Geoff Wills, another activist, Phyllis would go from worksite to worksite with a megaphone, speaking about the Indonesian cause and explaining the stand of the Indian seamen.50 The Indians finally formed a union on 2 November 1945.51 By that time, there was strong backing from Australian unions, particularly the maritime unions; Eliot V. Elliott of the SUA spoke at this inaugural Indian union meeting, which allowed the seamen to feel more confident about receiving sustained support than they had before. As members of the Indian unions for seamen, the Indians in Sydney like Abdul Kadar who became members of the new ISUiA were able to inform both Indian and white Australian seamen about the current campaigns of the Indian union movement. The Indian seamen in Sydney chose to include one white Australian as an official: Clarrie Campbell became the Honorary Treasurer of the Union and took on a record-keeping role. Singh and Rehman began signing members up. Their membership forms give us rich insight into the history of Indians in Australia; the membership lists show significant participation of Muslims (from the areas that were to become Pakistan and Bangladesh), as well as the presence of Goans and some Sikhs and Hindus. The presence of Muslims was important in shaping the political motives of the Indian involvement in the Boycott: shared Islamic faith was a major motivating factor in the solidarity between the Indian seamen and the Indonesians. The Indians pointed out its importance on a number of occasions; in an interview on 30 October 1945, one Indian spokesman stated: ‘The Indonesians are 98% Mohammedan and the Indian seamen in Sydney are 98% Mohammedans. Thus the shipping companies are trying to force us to take part in a war on our brother Mohammedans. This is against our conscience, as well as being against the law.’52 One prominent example of Communist Party support for the Boycott campaign was the demonstration on the Sydney docks in early November against the British ship the Stirling Castle, which was carrying Dutch troops to the East Indies. The troops threw rubbish down from the ship and hosed the demonstrators, who included many Sydney communists 49 Tribune 26.10.45; Daily Telegraph 26.10.45. Clipping held in ISUiA press file. 50 Interview with Phyllis Johnson. 51 Daily Telegraph 3.11.45; Tribune 9.11.45 (clipping), 16.11.45. 52 Tribune 30.10.45. Note its presence in PW in article bylined Lockwood, 4.11.45, in direct quote attributed to Dasrath Singh.

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6.3 Sylvia Mullins being attacked by Dutch troops with a water hose during a demonstration on the Sydney docks against the British ship Stirling Castle, which was then taking Dutch troops to the Netherlands East Indies. 7 November 1945, The Sun

Photo courtesy Mitchell Library

like Phyllis, her husband Johnno Johnson, and the young activist Sylvia Mullins, whose photograph being drenched by the strong spray from the hose was widely publicised as a symbol of Australian opposition to the Dutch colonial return.53 British seamen in Australia were also eager to support the Boycott. Their union in Britain was committed to supporting the British Government partly because a Labour Party was in power, and partly as an outcome of the continuing united front after the war. When a group of British seamen walked off their ship in response to the call of Australian activists, they were instructed by their British union to return to work. Those who disobeyed were supported by the Australian maritime unions, but they had little choice but eventually to obey their British union.54 The next move of the Indian activists was pressing further in their campaign for KPM to accept its funding responsibilities as a contractor. The 53 Interviews with Johnson and Sylvia Mullins; Sydney Sun 7.11.45. Sylvia (by then married to the left-wing teacher Allan Cross) was the secretary of the India Australia Association in 1947. 54 Lockwood 1982: 172-8; Ivens archive, Nijmegen, NL.

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Indians argued that they were prepared to fulfil their side of the contract by doing any other appropriate work, but that they would not crew the ships being used to break the Atlantic Charter by carrying arms and direct material aid to re-establish the NEI. They launched a series of petitions and appeals and eventually held two major demonstrations against KPM at their Sydney office on 12 and 18 December, each of which gained prominence through newspaper coverage complete with dramatic photographs – though the interpretations in these articles severely distorted the seamen’s goals and methods, as discussed in Chapter 10. The second demonstration on Tuesday, 18 December 1945 began with an unprecedented event. The Indians decided to march from the Lido across the Harbour Bridge to the KPM offices in the centre of Sydney’s business district. They were accompanied by a handful of Australian trade unionists, including stalwarts like Barney Smith and Stan Moran and – as there were few Indonesian seamen remaining in Australia – the small number of Indonesian activists from the Indonesian sub-committee of the TLC. Supportive Australian unionists who were soldiers and airmen accompanied the Indians in uniform. The march was extraordinary. It was, as Rupert Lockwood writes, ‘the first great demonstration of Asians ever seen in the streets of Sydney’, though he seems to have been unaware of the 1939 demonstrations. The 1945 march was certainly such a powerful event – as a visual symbol of transnational communication – in the minds of the trade union participants that it was re-enacted for the film Indonesia Calling!55 After occupying the KPM offices for a second time and delivering an ultimatum, they moved to occupy the offices of the Indian High Commissioner in Margaret Street, again accompanied by unionist supporters, including Stan Moran from the Sydney WWF. Moran estimated there were hundreds of Indians involved in the demonstration, and described the peaceful occupation as involving precisely the non-cooperation tactics made famous in Gandhian campaigns in South Africa and India. The first rows of Indian seamen sat or squatted on the floor, only to be carried off by the NSW police – who then returned to find that the demonstrators’ places had been promptly taken by another set of Indians. The process was repeated until the High Commissioner accepted the ten demands the Indian unionists placed before him.56 55 Lockwood 1982: 164 and still photo from Indonesia Calling! on plate opposite p. 184, although the caption states erroneously (and in contradiction to Lockwood’s text p. 164) that only Australian and Indonesian servicemen were involved. 56 Lockwood 1982: 164-5.

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The press coverage of the occupations at KPM is discussed in Chapter 10. As these demonstrations occurred after the Battle of Surabaya, the tone of the Australian press had shifted dramatically. The SMH depicted the KPM occupations very differently from the rational and orderly strategies Stan Moran saw on 18 December. At the time of the occupations, however, the Indians believed they had won. The Dutch shipping company KPM seemed to have capitulated on the funding issues,57 though their eventual implementation was to be deeply unsatisfactory.58 The Indian High Commissioner also proved that his loyalties lay at least in part with the British, agreeing to block the recruitment of further replacement crews in Bombay but failing to stop reprisals against Indian seamen in the repatriation and discharge process by the Dutch shipping company, which flowed into discrimination against them in British-owned shipping as well.59

57 Daily Mirror 19.12.45; SMH 20.12.45. 58 NBAC, ISUiA Archives, E177/4, Campbell for ISUiA to WWF, Ironworkers Union, Seamen’s Union, ALP, Indonesian Seamen’s Union, 8.4.46. 59 Tribune 11.12.45, report of deputation to Indian High Commissioner by ISUiA, supported by WWF, TLC, Boilermakers’ and Seamen’s Unions, to demand repatriation and to protest against harassment and negligence by Indian Welfare Officer; NBAC, ISUiA Archives, E177/5, Campbell for ISUiA to Indian High Commissioner, 13.7.46; to Jawaharlal Nehru and to MA Jinnah, 5.3.46 (to Congress, 3.3.46). See also, letter from a returned Goan seaman, D. Furtado, 28.3.46, back in India, which says he had trusted Campbell when he said that this would not affect seamen on British ships.

7

Seeing the Boycott in the Australian Press

This chapter explores the first Australian newspaper coverage of the Boycott in September and October 1945. This coverage offers some suggestion of how, as we saw at the close of the last chapter, the Waterside Workers Federation found it so easy to ignore the role of Indian seamen in the Boycott. A series of powerful stereotypes informed media representations and popular expectations, which shaped how Indians’ role in the Boycott was presented. The next chapter, Chapter 8, considers the views expressed by Indian-owned newspapers in India. Photographs were not common in Indian papers; although photos were more common in the Australian press, there was little visual coverage of the early months of the Boycott – although that changed once the Battle of Surabaya began. In both countries, the early news about the Boycott was entangled in the news about and attitudes towards the Indonesian Declaration of Independence. In both countries, the journalists who reported on the story and the editors who selected copy and wrote headlines were all themselves influenced by their attitudes towards wider events. In Australia, it was the bitterness towards the Japanese after the long war, as well as disillusionment about Britain and suspicions about the continuation of colonialism, which shaped the newspaper coverage of the Indonesian Declaration and therefore of the Boycott. In India, it was instead anger at the continuation of colonialism despite the end of the war which shaped journalistic writing and editorial selection. In addition, there were grave concerns about the Calcutta trials of the INA survivors captured in Burma and Malaya – instead of reminding the general population about the threat of Japanese invasion, as the British might have hoped these trials would do, in fact the trials fanned anger against Britain for its intransigence in holding on to power over India.

Indonesian Independence in Australia There was widespread awareness in Australia that Indonesians would push for Independence once the war was over. On 21 June 1945, Tribune, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia, printed the letter of an Australian RAAF airman who had been working with the Javanese

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‘somewhere in the South Pacific’. Under the headline ‘Hard as Teak’, his letter was quoted: These people think of nothing, talk of nothing, but freedom […] Politically, the people seem as united in their wish for the destruction of Nip imperialism, and after it, the gaining of real freedom as the bulk of the people are united behind Islam. But the desire for freedom overrides religious difficulties. The Javanese who read their newspaper (published in Melbourne), and take such an interest in world events, are as hard as teak, and full of hope and determination.1

Tribune was not an exception. News of the Indonesian Declaration of Independence came out in the conservative Australian press on 24 September, but the initial reports were very different from the account that emerged within the next few days. In the initial phase, similar reports appeared in the SMH, Sun, and Telegraph, all sourced from the AAP correspondent in Batavia, Harry Plumridge, whose copy appears most directly in the Telegraph, in the first person and with direct quotations from Sukarno. This article is quoted here at some length because it makes clear that it was possible to learn a great deal about the Republican program from the earliest days after the Declaration. The Plumridge report focused on Sukarno: ‘Today I heard Dr Soekarno, leader of the Indonesian nationalist movement, outline the political basis of what he hoped to be the first Republic of the Netherlands East Indies.’2 Plumridge continued with a description of Sukarno: Dr Soekarno, who is short, spare and grave, has a clear, pale complexion and an air of extreme dignity. He said his age is 44. He is the son of a Javanese father and a Balinese Hindu mother. He had undertaken an engineering degree at the Bandoeng University. He said that the aspirations of the Nationalists, who represented 95 percent could be expressed in the phrase ‘complete independence under a Republican government.’ A complete break from Holland was desired, but the Dutch would be free to live side by side with Indonesians. There would be no racial discrimination and no restriction on religious worship […] Dr Soekarno said that a long term political programme provided for an elective form of government which would be composed of representatives of each unit of national life, from the village upwards […] Dr Soekarno 1 2

Tribune 24.6.45; see also 11.9.45, perhaps by the same RAAF correspondent. Telegraph 24.9.45.

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admitted freely that there had been collaboration with the Japanese, but it was a forced collaboration.3

This description of Sukarno as having ‘an air of extreme dignity’ was widely quoted in the coverage on 24 September, not only in metropolitan papers like the Sydney Morning Herald but also in the regional media coverage – all citing AAP as their source. 4 There were also considered background pieces from another journalist, Winston Turner, published in the Sun on Tuesday, 25 September (p. 4, ‘What is behind Java’s Bid for Independence’), and then on the first page on Sunday, 30 September under the headline ‘There’s Still a Peaceful Way Out for the Dutch in Java’. Both journalists’ articles carried the same message that the demands for Indonesian Independence from the Dutch originated long before the Japanese occupation. Turner began his detailed Sunday article by locating the Indonesian Declaration firmly in the context of the regional demand for freedom from colonial control. Although Japan has lost the war, she has lit a fire in East Asia that the white races are going to find hard to quench. In French Indo-China it is being drowned with blood. In Java, only with Dutch intelligence, forbearance and a willingness to make reasonable concessions, can a similar tragedy be avoided. The Indonesian nationalists, armed with clubs, knives lashed to bamboo poles and a sprinkling of Jap-supplied arms, cannot last long against mortars and machine guns. But the Dutch and the British (who have the unhappy task of policing the Indies on behalf of the Dutch) […] know what would be the long range effect of a bitter conflict in awakening Indonesia. The branding of the nationalists as ‘quislings’ is an oversimplification of the picture. Collaborationists in Batavia are involved but the Indonesian seamen who are refusing to take their ships out of Australian ports […] are men whose courage and service in the Allied cause has been lauded by the Dutch. The Dutch know that the Indonesian Independence movement developed long before the war, and that to brand all its supporters as ‘quislings’ is no fairer than to claim that the break up of the East is due to ‘gin-soaked planters’.

3 Ibid. 4 Goulburn Evening Post; Telegraph (Brisbane); SMH.

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These warnings from Plumridge and Turner were however discarded when the Netherlands Government began to intervene in the coverage. A major shift in the story had begun to emerge by the second day. On 25 September, the SMH published an editorial that articulated the line that was then taken up and sustained by most other mainstream newspapers. The SMH may have been relying on its own correspondent in Batavia, C.C. Eager, but it may also have been given advance notice by the Netherlands Government that it would be countering the initial positive accounts of Sukarno by releasing a flood of press accounts on 27 September. These press accounts dated to the period of Japanese occupation, and reported Sukarno travelling to Japan in 1943 and being accorded formal imperial recognition as the Indonesian spokesman.5 The points made by the SMH editorial on 25 September were identical to those made two months later on 25 November; this interpretation of the Indonesian Revolution endured throughout the three years of the Boycott in the mainstream Australian press coverage. First, Sukarno was a ‘collaborator’ and ‘puppet’ of the Japanese who had lied about his association with the Japanese Government in the press conference Plumridge reported on 23 September. Second, the Dutch had been wise, if not always perfect, administrators and should be strongly supported by Australia and the British. Third, the actions by the Australian unions were reprehensible and Communist-inspired: Only mischief can result from the blundering attempt by the Waterside Workers in Sydney to prevent the shipment of medical supplies by Dutch vessels. The Communist inspiration of this move is obvious. There could in any case be no worse way of determining foreign policy than by such impulsive and misguided intervention. The Dutch are our friends and allies, and they have a right to resent irresponsible meddling by any section of Australians with the affairs of the NEI.6

Over the next few days, this editorial was followed by the statements of an Australian RAAF officer, Flying Officer Krome, upon returning from a POW camp to Adelaide, that 45 million Javanese were ‘quite satisfied’ with the Netherlands’ colonial administration.7 Tapping into the highly emotional issue of Australians held in Japanese POW camps, Krome’s accusation that 5 Courier Mail 28.9.45; Morning Bulletin 28.9.45. 6 SMH 25.9.45 and 25.11.45. 7 Daily News 27.9.45; News 27.9.45.

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Sukarno was not to be taken seriously because he was a ‘puppet’ of the Japanese was a powerful addition to the news that the Dutch had collected accounts of Sukarno’s reception in Japan in 1943, which were released the following day. The emotive issue of returning POWs was a key thread in the accusations of the press that the Boycott delayed ‘mercy ships’: while the Dutch claimed that these ships initially carried medical supplies to the Dutch, once they were unloaded they could then be used to bring POWs home. All these mainstream accounts located the Indonesian Independence struggle in the context of the wider calls for freedom from colonial control throughout Southeast Asia, noting that the British and French were facing the same nationalist movements as the Dutch. For some, like Winston Turner, this was a regrettable but understandable outcome of the destabilisation of the war. Rohan Rivett, a journalist imprisoned in the POW camps in Burma and Thailand, was another who saw the Indonesian demands as part of a wave of calls for decolonisation that he believed to be unfortunate and irrational. Rivett blamed India as a major force in the continuation of such demands, blaming it for seeking a return to an imagined past: ‘It would be foolish to imagine that the cry “Asia for the Asiatics” would not be heard again, or that irredentists will not be as powerful in other countries as they have become in India.’8 Others also pointed their finger at nationalists in India, although for different reasons: India, it will be noted, is not satisfied with any form of autonomy short of complete freedom, according to the dominant Congress Party; and this despite the plain fact that the economic trend alone calls for a wider association of nations to get the best of the brave new world […] What India is demanding will be re-echoed in other lands. No doubt the Indian attitude is stimulating the Javanese to seek freedom from Dutch rule instead of asking for self-government within the Dutch hegemony, which would give Java a greater guarantee of protection.9

For yet others, the calls for independence demonstrated malicious and ungrateful hostility from colonised peoples towards the British and Dutch colonial administrators who had tried to uplift them.10 Whether in sorrow or anger, the mainstream Australian media showed little active sympathy towards the Indonesian Republicans. But while after 8 Argus 5.10.45. 9 Advocate 28.9.45. 10 ‘Far East Unrest: Natives Ugly Mood’ Examiner (Launceston) 26.9.45.

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25 September the press became critical of Sukarno himself, it represented the Javanese and Malay people as childlike and easily led astray, either by India or by the Japanese, rather than vengeful or dangerous in themselves. The Karsik Despite such references to regional movements, there was little discussion in the early press reports of support for the Indonesian Republic by seamen from other countries. At times, Indian crews (referred to as ‘lascars’) were noted, along with non-union White crews, as having replaced some striking Javanese crews, but generally without any reported conflict. One exception was the case on 26 September, where a group of Indian seamen who had been between ships were taken by train from Sydney to Melbourne to be replacement crews for the Karsik. This is an important example of how news was shaped by omissions. Some vital facts were simply never mentioned in Australian newspapers. Some facts were delayed so that they became detached from the main story; others were only ever given space in Indian newspapers, although the reports themselves were written by Australian journalists. Most Australian newspapers simply reported that groups of striking Australian and Indonesian unionists had called on the Indians not to join the ship, but that there had been no response from the new Indian crew.11 Only one newspaper, the West Australian – and not until some days later – suggested that the Indians on board the ship had tried to explain that they were under duress.12 The overwhelming impression was that the Indians were prepared to break the strike with little dissent. Further confusion has arisen from Rupert Lockwood’s Black Armada, in which he implied that all of the Indians involved in the Boycott were brought by the British and the Dutch to be replacement crews – suggesting that the overcrowded and insanitary labour pool accommodations were hurriedly organised to house the Indians brought in to replace striking Indonesian, Chinese, or other Indian crews. There is no suggestion in Black Armada that there had been a longer-term Indian presence in Australia or that many Indian seamen spent long periods in port cities when they were between ships. Lockwood may have made decisions to streamline the narrative by ignoring some of these details, but this may also reflect the source of his information: Dasrath Singh, who had arrived only some months before the 11 SMH 26.9.45; Daily News 27.9.45; Advertiser 29.9.45. 12 West Australian 28.9.45.

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Boycott began. Lockwood saw Singh ‘almost every day’ and wrote admiringly about his courage, his organising and linguistic skills, and his passionate oratory, which Lockwood said at times tended towards ‘romance’.13 Singh himself seemed to believe that the grim labour pools had been organised only during the war, to provide labour for the war effort. Lockwood suggested they had an even shorter history.14 Yet this Dickensian accommodation had been of grave concern to the seamen before World War II and during the strikes of 1939. The coverage in Tribune (30 October 1945)15 indicates that the pools had long been in existence, managed by shipping companies such as P&O, KLM, and Burns Philp before the war, taken over by the Commonwealth to coordinate essential wartime labour, and finally handed back to the companies’ control once the war ended. Lockwood’s enthusiastic writing about the Indians, and particularly about Singh, obscures his book’s confusion on the long-established presence of Indians in Australia’s port cities. The Chinese were expected by the Australian security organisation, ASIO, to support the Indonesians. As early as 1942, ASIO staff raised concerns about the potential influence of Chinese seamen on Javanese seamen. Punishment of seamen from all three groups who had challenged the Asian Articles’ discriminatory wages and conditions had already been swift: Indian, Indonesian, and Chinese seamen had all been charged and convicted of desertion, jailed, and subjected to the ‘Dictation Test’ to confirm that they were ‘undesirable aliens’ so they could be deported. But the outcomes had been varied. The Javanese had remained in jail in Cowra and later in Casino.16 In 1941, the Chinese had been able to negotiate land-based work with the NSW Metropolitan Water and Sewage Board at Warragamba Dam under the wartime manpower scheme,17 while the Indians had ultimately been forced by religious pressure to return to their ships in 1939.18 The relative success of the Chinese was seen as a problem: not only did it increase shipping companies’ costs by forcing them pay better wages to the Chinese but more significantly because their effective planning and negotiating 13 Lockwood 1982: 150-8; consistent with D.A. Alexander, Inspector, to Director, ASIO 8.11.45. ISUiA file, ASIO, NAA. 14 PW 4.11.45. 15 Tribune 30.10.45, ‘Indian rights violated by labour pool.’ 16 Lingard 2008: 35-60. 17 18.1.45, Memo, ASIO, in Chinese Seamen’s Union f ile. NAA; C.H.C. to friends of China Association, 4.12.46, E177/20, NBABL (These documents point out the benefits to companies of the later withdrawal of this wartime loading on Chinese seamen’s pay). 18 D.R.B. Mitchell, Inspector, to Director, ASIO, 17.11.39, ‘Mrs Komalam Craig’. Z183/679, NAA.

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skills (described as ‘cunning’) along with alliances with Australian seamen, seemed to pose a threat to the White Australia Policy. At this time, however, Chinese revolutionaries were not in conflict with either the British or the Americans, so they were of less concern than nationalists in Vietnam or India. By 24 September, five weeks after the Declaration of Independence, Indonesian seamen in Brisbane had refused to work on ships going to the NEI and were charged with desertion. Their actions drew support from Australian unionists immediately. From 25 to 27 September, a series of unions and the NSW Trades and Labor Council, citing the Atlantic Charter, announced that they would not load ships going to the NEI, no matter what cargoes they were said to be carrying.19

The available stereotypes in Australian media All three groups – Indonesians, Chinese, and Indians – were represented in racialised terms. While the Indonesians and Chinese were often discussed, the Indian seamen were seldom visible in Australian newspaper coverage of the Boycott. The history of the representation of Indians in Australia suggests why this might have been so. A number of racialised stereotypes – clusters of simplified assumptions about behaviour, character, religion, and physical appearance – had circulated during four earlier conflicts with Indians in Australia. Each of these episodes was racialised, in the sense that the characteristics ascribed to the Indians were believed to be biologically determined. For the governing British, the persistence of characteristics across generations was just as relevant for Irish convicts in Australia as it was for African slaves or Indian indentured workers. Each stereotype also had strongly gendered dimensions, which were often so divergent that they could be contradictory. Coolies In the 1840s, in the aftermath of the Abolition victory that ended Britain’s role in the trade of Africans as slaves, there were heated debates in Australia about pastoralists’ attempts to import indentured labourers from India. All sides – both graziers and their opponents among the ‘free settlers’ and labourers – drew on colonial stereotypes of Indian ‘coolies’ as ‘hindoos’ who 19 Lockwood 1982: 111-17.

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were physically weak and submissive, and therefore ‘effeminate’. At the same time, they were assumed to be unreliable and ‘cunning’, and in this sense they posed a sexual danger to English and settler women.20 Hawkers and ‘martial’ races The question of gender became complicated in the second stereotype that emerged in relation to a very different group who arrived in the middle of the nineteenth century. Often younger sons from families in the northern and western areas of British India, like the Punjab and Sindh, these men came to Australia to enhance their families’ incomes by trading; many became travelling merchants, designated by other Australians as ‘hawkers’ and castigated in both racialised and gendered terms as ‘pests’ and as sexual threats to isolated White pastoral women.21 Afghans and Mussalmen The stereotypes became more divergent still in relation to yet another group of Indians: the cameleers, who were invited to come to Australia in the early nineteenth century. They originally came from among the mobile camel-herding peoples of northwestern India or Afghanistan, and were all called ‘Afghans’ by Australians. Their knowledge of camel use in arid areas enabled transport through the frightening deserts of central Australia. Only camels could traverse these zones of shifting sand dunes and stony deserts to link the southern coastal ports with the northerly pastoral regions and the ports on the northern coast. For much of the nineteenth century there was no direct economic competition between other Australians and the many Afghans who came to manage and breed camels and organise the trade in the goods the animals carried. They were known to be predominantly Muslim, but their cultural and religious differences were not only tolerated but approved because of their essential role.22 In the 1890s, however, as the new gold diggings in the remote Western Australian desert confronted a world economic depression, White miners and aspiring trucking companies came into conflict with the well-established Afghan cameleers who continued to use camels but were also diversifying into trucking themselves. These bitter economic conflicts were displayed 20 Allen 2008. 21 Bux c.1920; Allen 2008. 22 Stevens 1989; Rajdowski 1987.

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in abusive articles about the Afghan community in Western Australian newspapers. The cameleers’ widespread adherence to Islam was used to denigrate them by opportunistically reviving old European – perhaps Crusade-era – stereotypes of Muslims as ‘fanatical’ and ‘frenzied’ ‘Mussalmen’. This stereotype gained even wider circulation in World War I, when the British Government used Australian – and Indian – troops to invade Turkey; the gruelling Gallipoli campaign in 1915 generated vicious anti-Turkish propaganda in Australia, in which all ‘Turks’, including the Indians and Afghans involved in camel transport in Australia, were depicted as bloodthirsty Mussalman fanatics.23 Lascars and Hindoos The final source of stereotypes was directly relevant to the situation in 1945: this was the ‘lascar’, which concerned Indians in the seafaring industry (see Chapter 2). Stereotypes about lascars being docile and submissive employees associated them with the ‘Hindoo’ and ‘Coolie’ stereotype of the 1840s. Such assumptions of weakness and submissiveness were continually reinforced by the exploitative low wages imposed on Indian seamen, despite the repeated challenges, discussed in earlier chapters, by Indian seafarers’ unions.24

The Boycott in Australia To understand how the Boycott of Dutch shipping was seen by everyday Australians, the context in which the news of the event was embedded needs to be recognised. This also allows a glimpse of the vast differences between the perspectives of the Australian right wing and of the left-wing unions and social groups most actively involved with Indians and Indonesians. Indonesians formed an unprecedented Asian presence in Australia since 1942, when the Japanese invaded the NEI and many Indonesians and Dutch were evacuated to Australia. These evacuees were broadly received with sympathy as victims of the war, a view that could be sustained because the 23 See Coolgardie Miner, almost any issue, but 15.4.1897 is representative in its inclusion of phrases like ‘rising fanatics’, and ‘awful horrors that follow even the temporary triumphs of the black man over the white, or the Moslem over the Christian’, cited in Cigler 1986. Australian attitudes towards violent attacks on and parliamentary debates about Afghans and Indians (both ‘Mussalman’ and ‘Hindoo’) in Western Australia, South Australia, and New South Wales from the 1890s are extensively documented in Rajdowski 1987: 149-65. 24 Ahuja 2006, 2009.

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industrial conflicts involving Indonesian seamen were largely hidden from the readers of the major Sydney daily the Sydney Morning Herald. What did rapidly fill the newspaper’s front pages once the war ended were accounts of the rising Australian industrial unrest dating to the time of the Japanese surrender, as the Labor Government continued its wartime controls over the distribution of food, clothing, and other rations, and its censoring of the press. A wave of strikes took place, displayed in the SMH with headlines like ‘Power Cuts Begin in Sydney: 100,000 Workers Idle Today’; this story concerned a strike at Bunnerong power station, which the paper said ‘brought Sydney to its knees’.25 The Australian strikes included those on the waterfront over issues like the use of forklifts for handling goods (an early sign of mechanisation on the wharves), those at the Riverstone meatworks that supplied Sydney, and those among printers, miners, wireworkers, and ironworkers – as well as the strike at the critically important electricity-generating station at Bunnerong. At the same time, there was an ongoing dockworkers’ strike in Britain that threatened all shipping to and from Australia.26 In this context, the Boycott of Dutch shipping, despite being such a prominent event in Lockwood’s book and union histories, was little more than a footnote in the daily mainstream coverage of strikes in Sydney and across Australia and Britain. Yet the war persisted in the imaginations of most Australians, despite a strong desire for the conflict to be over and to be rid of its restrictions and rationing. Australian racism had fuelled anti-Japanese feeling ever since Japan emerged as a major naval power threatening the British in 1905; fears of invasion during World War II only fed that hatred. Now, in the later months of 1945, former prisoners of war and civilian internees brought home accounts of the horrors of Japanese POW camps. As reports of their experiences at the hands of the Japanese spread, there was intensifying anger and distrust of the Japanese Army’s promise to withdraw from Southeast Asia. Many Australians had also lost faith in the British after the fall of Singapore, so the emerging anger against the Japanese did not lead to a desire to reunite with the British. On the contrary, many nationalist Australians saw a peacetime future not only separate from Britain but in greater interactions with the peoples of the region. There was general acceptance of the British role in leading the South East Asian Command to accept the Japanese surrender, repatriate POWs and internees, and oversee a return to ‘order’ in the 25 SMH 15.10.45. 26 A typical SMH headline: ‘Two Strikes End, but 13,340 Employees Still Idle in New South Wales.’

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region. This did not, however, mean that the Labor Government was prepared to offer Australian participation in SEAC, particularly where it was involved in the restoration of earlier French and Dutch empires, in Indo-China and Indonesia respectively, or even of the British one in India.27 Prime Minister Chifley refused repeated requests for troops from Mountbatten, the head of SEAC, and insisted that the Australian position was ‘non-interference’ in the region. Within the armed forces there was certainly sympathy for SEAC and the Dutch empire in the NEI – an unnamed senior officer apparently ‘invited’ ground staff within the RAAF Sydney base to ‘volunteer’ to fight for the Dutch in Java. This ‘invitation’ was quickly disowned, however, first by the RAAF command in Melbourne and later by Chifley, who strongly restated the Government’s policy of non-interference.28 While old hatred of the Japanese continued to motivate some Austra­ lians, new fears were also gaining ground. The importance of socialism and communism to many activists was met with fears of communism fanned by the conservative press. The term ‘extremist’ increasingly occurred in both Australian and Indian newspapers. In Australia – as in Britain and the Netherlands – this term was often used in association with others like ‘bandit’ or ‘hooligan’, and increasingly with ‘communist’ – as if all three were synonyms. In Australia’s mainstream press, the fear of communists was becoming actively entangled with fears about the changes demanded by colonised people around the region, who were calling for the implementation of the promises of the Atlantic Charter through national independence.29 In this broader context, the early depictions of the Boycott in the conservative press portrayed it as a minor event. Wedged between the accounts of the Coalfield and Bunnerong strikes in Sydney and the Dock Strike in Britain, the refusal of a few maritime workers to load or sail ships to Java and the Indonesian islands seemed, at first, inconsequential. To the extent that the Boycott was seen as involving people other than Australians, news about it focused largely on Indonesians because the campaign was in support of Indonesian Independence. Mostly, however, these articles focused on the Australian workers involved through their unions, the WWF and the

27 Fettling 2013: 522-3 argues that Chifley explicitly overruled Herbert (Bert) Evatt (Attorney General and Minister for External Affairs) on the latter’s proposal that Australia take a military role in Indonesia for the British in SEAC. 28 HS 12.11.45. 29 The varying use of this term before and after the Battle of Surabaya is one of the focal themes in Chapters 11 and 12. For uses earlier than 28.10.45, when the Battle broke out, see ‘menace’, SMH 25.9.45 and ‘bandits’ and ‘communists’, SMH 26.9.45.

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SUA – both of which were discussed in terms of the broader activism of communists in Australia as the wartime regulations were contested. The coverage increased only when it became an opportunity to lambast Prime Minister Chifley, who initially accepted the assurances of the Dutch that ‘mercy ships’ travelling through Australian waters to Java would carry only food and medicines, not any arms, or ammunition, or other equipment. The conservative press gleefully presented any industrial action at all as an example of the Labor Prime Minister Chifley’s inability to control the ‘communists’ and militant unions.30 A further reason to notice the Boycott occurred early in 1946, when Mountbatten himself came to Australia – at least partly in an attempt to get the ships moving again. He was also rebuffed, though by then splits between the Labor-led TLCs and the maritime unions were opening up after the Battle of Surabaya. All of this fuelled conservative outcry against the rising power of the communists. The depiction of the Indonesian nationalists, on the other hand, initially veered in the opposite political direction. While Indonesia was under Japanese control, Sukarno, as a spokesperson for Indonesians, had made a series of statements assuring the Japanese that Indonesians would cooperate with the occupation government. The SMH now republished these as confirmation that Sukarno was a ‘quisling’ and Japanese collaborator – who was therefore implied to have sponsored the Independence movement. The Japanese were believed to still hold real power at a local level, arming and training the Indonesian Republicans to fight against the Dutch and the British. Anticolonialism was therefore simultaneously characterised as both fascist and communist. This hostility was compounded by internees like I.R.E. Lambert, an Australian manager of a film company in Batavia who had been interned under the Japanese. His report implied the existence of Indonesian threats to White women: in his view, the Indonesians were ‘pro-Japanese’ because ‘they were delighted with the discomforts of the Europeans’ and ‘joined the Japanese in making fun of European women’.31 The accusation that Sukarno was a fascist and Japanese collaborator was to persist in all of the conservative Australian reports about him.32 But this was almost superseded by the other emerging theme, which was fear of ‘communists’ and ‘extremists’ – with the implication that this ‘extremism’ was militant communism, rather than fascism. Whenever there were 30 SMH 29.9.45. 31 SMH 2.11.45. 32 See cartoon, 6.11.45.

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examples of violent conflict in Indonesia, the charge would be levelled that Sukarno had no control over most of the Republican troops, whether they were ‘hotheads’ or communist extremists.33 Thus when Sutan Sjahrir became Prime Minister in November 1945 he was still accused by the Australian mainstream media of being unable to control the many troops who were nominally a part of the Indonesian revolution, despite his history of refusing to cooperate with the Japanese. The Indonesian revolution was described in the SMH in terms of violence – whether actual or just ‘feared’ – because it threatened Europeans. The rising sense of impending danger was evident throughout the paper’s reporting, as in the headline on 6 October, ‘Fear of Trouble in Indies Grows’, or the one on 12 October, ‘General Uprising in Java Feared: Extremists Hold Up Trains’, or 18 October, ‘Fresh Disorders Imperil Whites in Interior of Java’. An early example of this, on 5 October, read ‘Indonesians Seize Two Cities: Fresh Violence in Java’. In this case, the Indonesians had ‘seized’ the cities Bandung and Surabaya from Japanese control, which should have put paid to the argument that the Indonesians were pro-Japanese, but it fact it did little to lay it to rest. Instead, it perpetuated the image of violence as a general characteristic of the Republicans in Indonesia. Such representations of the Indonesian revolution were in turn embedded amidst accounts of ‘outbreaks’ of violence around Southeast Asia in the SMH. The paper did not see these conflicts as connected to a broader movement of colonised peoples, though it did imply that each was orchestrated by communists. As it presented them, the events in Southeast Asia were episodes of random but deadly violence: irrational and unpredictable, but nevertheless arising from the continuing interference in the region of some form of external communist influence. The paper particularly noted the outbreaks of violence in Indo-China, where Vietnamese nationalists, known in the West as ‘Annamites’, were fighting against the French colonisers.34 India was treated as a special case, not only because it was a colony of the British – unlike Indo-China or the NEI, where other European colonists could be blamed for any poor governance – but because it was portrayed as demonstrating specific kinds of violence. One was the ‘extremist’ type, 33 SMH 3.11.45: ‘Javanese Leader Defied: Broadcasts by Extremists.’ 34 SMH 2.10.45: ‘Annamites Massing: Saigon Attack Feared’; 13.10.45: ‘Annamites Warned’; 15.10.45: ‘Allies Hold Saigon in Bitter Fighting’; and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, e.g., 3.10.45. ‘Rioting ends in Bangkok.’ Annam (a mountain range in eastern Indo-China) was the name used by the French colonial authorities for the province of Central Vietnam.

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associated by the SMH with the campaigns for Independence led by Gandhi, which, ironically, utilised a form of non-violence in satyagraha.35 Another carried the label of ‘socialist’ and was applied consistently to Nehru.36 Congress was represented as moving between these two forms, not only in political challenges to the British but in the fomenting of violent incidents. But the type of violent outburst most frequently described in relation to India was ‘communal violence’, directed by one religiously affiliated group of Indians towards another rather than at the British, which the SMH portrayed with headlines like ‘Bombay Riots Continue: Moslem-Hindu Riots’.37 Many of the themes like violence, irrationality, and ‘extremism’ came together in the SMH’s coverage of the repatriation of the Indonesians, including women and children, who had been in Australia since 1942 and many of whom wished to support the new Republic. They were carried on the Esperance Bay, a ship chartered by the Chifley Government, which had promised that any Indonesians who boarded it, and wished to do so, would be taken to Republican-held territory.38 The Esperance Bay left Australia in mid-October to dock first at Darwin; when it left on 25 October, it was escorted by an Australian Navy destroyer, the Arunta, which had just completed a refit at Darwin. The ship sailed to Kupang in Timor, which was a surprise to the Indonesian passengers, who were told that a small number of people to whom the Dutch had objected were to be disembarked there and placed in Australian custody. There was strong resistance from all the Indonesians on board to any of their number being disembarked in this way, so the captain of the Esperance Bay decided that it was more sensible to continue to Indonesia without forcing anyone to leave at Timor. Most passengers were again reluctant to disembark at Batavia, which was still in Dutch hands, but were forced to do so at gunpoint while a few of the most vocal – all Boven Digul political prisoners – were detained on the Esperance Bay to be returned to Australian custody in Timor. The Chifley Government said its goal had been to get the Indonesians out of the country as quickly as possible without any political fuss in Australia, and that this justified their attempts at secret dealings with the Dutch. Finally, Australian unions intervened in the detentions in Batavia, and eventually all of the Indonesians who wished to do so were taken to Republican territory.39 35 36 37 38 39

SMH 26.9.45; Gandhi 1968, pp. 105-12. SMH 26.9.45, 29.9.45. SMH on ‘Moslem/Hindu’ violence, 2.10.45. SMH 13.10.45. Lockwood 1982: 141-6.

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A British press correspondent in Batavia who was strongly sympathetic to the Dutch filed the initial report, published in London’s Daily Mail on 5 November, that the Indonesians on board the Esperance Bay had produced pistols and other weapons hidden in their voluminous luggage soon after leaving Sydney. They were said to have threatened the crew and then intimidated the captain into sailing on to Indonesia. Chifley dismissed these claims, arguing that most of the conflict had been minor and not unexpected, since the Indonesian passengers had understood that most would disembark only in Republican-held Indonesia. The eventual outcome, Chifley argued, was reasonably satisfactory to most of the Indonesians as well as to the Dutch. This did not, however, stop the conservative press from inflating the story, which allowed them to do three things. First, the SMH criticised Chifley as failing to protect the crew because the Government had been unable to control – or even adequately search – the Indonesian passengers, whom the SMH referred to as ‘undesirable deportees’. It characterised this as an example of Chifley’s capitulation to ‘union lawlessness’ and accused him of being controlled by the Communist Party. Second, it allowed the paper to reassert a racialised hierarchy that aligned the Australians with the Dutch by patronisingly calling the Indonesians ‘natives’ and an ‘undesirable’ and ‘belligerent’ ‘mob’. Third, the SMH used the incident to characterise the Indonesians as treacherous, mutinous, and violent: a particularly dangerous form of unreliable ‘native’. The SMH was therefore making a broader statement about the unrest in the region, rather than a specific criticism that only concerned the Indonesians; it was aligning itself with the racialised structure of power across the entire colonial world. 40 The SMH’s sources for these assertions, like the rest of its news about and from Indonesia throughout 1945, were very few. Apart from occasional despatches from AAP and Reuters, the paper relied on the correspondents of British newspapers, like the Dutch sympathiser for the London Daily Mail, and on C.C. Eager, whose despatches repeatedly demonstrated a clear sympathy for the Dutch in Batavia.

40 6.11.45.

8

Indian Perspectives: The Boycott as Anticolonialism

From the Indian perspective, the events in 1945 looked very different. To realise just how different, we need to think beyond borders. This chapter traces the Indian view of the early days of the Boycott as they appeared in the Indian-owned press in India, which drew the content of their articles mainly from sources in Britain but also from Australia, where some of those correspondents were Indonesian. The Indian owners and editors of these papers could shape opinion, first, by selecting what to report and how much space to give the available news articles. Second, they took strong editorial stances, which were often very different from the content of news articles. Third, they exercised influence by publishing political cartoons. Indian media had few photographic images in 1945 – implementation of the required technologies was slower in India than in Australia – but political cartoons were used to offer a space for dissent and comment. It was such visual material that gained the attention of non-literate audiences.

The press inside India There were many newspapers in India that were edited, owned, and printed by Indians. Although they all drew content from international sources, each was shaped by regional affiliations and the interests of its audience. Four English-language newspapers are discussed here – all nationalist to some degree, but varied because of being in different parts of India and having owners with different political aff iliations in the 1940s. As discussed in Chapter 1, these newspapers are the Free Press Journal of Bombay (FPJB) from the western coast; the Hindusthan Standard (HS) from the eastern city of Calcutta, the capital of Bengal; The Hindu, based in Madras, on the southeast coast; and The People’s War (PW), the Communist Party of India newspaper published in Delhi and aiming to be read throughout India. It is clear from these newspapers that Indians had little idea of what was happening for Australians. There seems to have been no indication, for example, of the length of time it was taking for Australian troops ‘in the islands’ or released prisoners of war to be returned home. Nor was there any awareness of the wave of strikes and loud political protests in Australia

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and Britain against the persistence of wartime regulations months after the enemies’ surrender. Similarly, there were new realities confronting Indians that Australians had no idea about. It had become clear in India that the British were not going to withdraw willingly, despite the decision of many Indians to take up arms against fascism – a decision that placed them in an uneasy alliance with their colonisers. This had only occurred because the threat of Japanese invasion was so real that it temporarily overcame widespread Indian anger at the jailing of nationalists and socialists during the Quit India campaigns after 1942. Once the threat of invasion receded in early 1945, Indian anger returned. Britain was considered to be betraying the promises it had made in the Atlantic Charter – particularly the two most repeated of the eight key principles: that all people would have a right to self-determination, and that all signatories would work towards a world free from want and fear. Underlining this British betrayal was its treatment of the captured survivors of the Indian National Army. Indians were just beginning to hear the story of the INA in detail. Many had known of its existence through its radio broadcasts into India and by their communication with Indians remaining in Malaya and Burma. By mid-1945, with the capture and impending trial of many of the INA commanders, word spread far more widely about the existence of the nationalist army, its pledge to fight against British colonial power and its disciplined attempts to do so. The decision to pursue treason charges against the surviving INA leaders that was made by the British in November further inflamed the situation. Indians had generally distrusted or feared the Japanese and had been reluctant to support an armed force that allied itself with them, but their anger rose as they saw at close hand the staged show trials, whose only aim seemed to be allowing Britain to execute the men and women who had taken up arms, however misguidedly, to free their homeland. Awareness of the INA prisoners and alarm at the farce of their show trials was highest in the East, so the HS was the most strident in its defence of the INA leaders and troops. Yet all the newspapers – from the militant nationalist FPJB to the more moderate Hindu – gave a large amount of space on their front pages to coverage of the INA prisoners and their trials. The CPI had put itself in a very uncomfortable position since 1941, when it agreed to promote the Soviet-determined ‘united front’ policy with Britain and its allies. This had alienated it from the broad nationalist movement across the rest of India, and meant that the CPI never endorsed the INA. Despite this, even the communist newspaper carried images of heroic INA leaders trapped in British jails and editorialised that however misguided the INA

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leaders may have been, they should not be submitted to mock justice at the hands of their colonisers.1 Indians were even more shocked at the continued use of Indian troops under British command in the South East Asian Command, which was tasked with disarming the Japanese and ‘restoring order’ in the region. It appeared at first that the Indian troops would be used largely for policing duties while new civic institutions were being established to take over from the Japanese occupation. As late as 24 October, SEAC authorities were assuring Indians that their troops would never be used in combat against the nationalist uprisings in Vietnam and the Indies.2 Yet it had become clear long before, by early September in fact, that the ‘law and order’ that SEAC would restore would be the old colonial order, despite the swelling nationalist campaigns in Indo-China against the French and in Indonesia against the Dutch.3 Such nationalist movements were presented in the Indian press as a sweeping wave of demands for change and independence across the whole of the colonised world. The armed attacks by such nationalists on the incoming SEAC forces were not seen as random and disconnected events as they were in the Australian press; instead, they appeared in the Indian press as a continuous front along which committed nationalists were challenging their European colonisers. The nationalists of Vietnam, who were struggling to remove the French from their Indo-China colonies, were outspoken allies of the Indian nationalists. So too were the leaders of the newly declared Indonesian Republic, particularly people like Mohammad Hatta who had known Jawaharlal Nehru in many anticolonial networks across Europe during the 1920s and 1930s. Indian nationalists were excluded from power in India and felt their impotence keenly as the British ordered Indian troops into Southeast Asia to hold the line until the old colonisers could return to take up power. Each of the Indian-owned newspapers reviewed here constantly discussed the Indonesian Independence campaign as part of the regional struggle for an end to colonialism. Indian Independence from Britain was central, but, as Indian commentators saw it, this was a broader conflict in which India shared motives and demands with fighters in Vietnam and Indonesia. Each of these groups of freedom fighters called on India directly, either in public 1 HS, any date in September, e.g. 5.9.45, 8.9.45, 11.9.45, 12.9.45, etc.; only marginally more moderate coverage in Hindu and FPJB; much more restrained coverage in PW 28.10.45. 2 Hindu 24.10.45. 3 HS 14.9.45; FPBJ 27.9.45, 29.9.45.

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messages addressed to Nehru4 as the leader of the nationalist movement or in demands that Indian soldiers refuse to fire on fellow nationalists who were simply doing what Indians at home were doing: fighting for their freedom.5 The Atlantic Charter was quoted in relation to these conflicts by all the Indian newspapers – not only the four English-language papers examined here, but also the Hindi-language newspapers that were occasionally surveyed by the FPJB.6 This included the Sansar of Benares, which made the common argument that the struggle against colonialism was the same as the one the Allies had undertaken in World War II. The FPJB supported the Indo-Chinese nationalists, when they equated colonialism with ‘fascists and nazis and the enemies of mankind’.7 The common cause between Indian Independence and the independence of all colonised countries was argued repeatedly by Congress leaders, most clearly by Rajendra Prasad, who stated it bluntly: ‘Quit India means Quit Asia.’8 When the Boycott of Dutch shipping was first announced in Australia, the Vietnamese conflicts against the French were considered the most pressing in the Indian media. As the Sansar said in early November, ‘Indians want to see Annamite freedom as much as our own’; in the FPJB, an admiring front-page article was headlined ‘Annamites Bravely Batter at Saigon’s French’.9 In turn, the Vietnamese nationalists used international venues to appeal to Indians not to take part, as they did at the Women’s International Democratic Forum in late November 1945, and to send public letters to the British Labour Government to withdraw support from the French.10 On behalf of Congress, Rajendra Prasad called for a South East Asia Day on 28 October 1945, which turned out to be the day before news of the Surabaya conflict reached India. This event was celebrated in all cities across India, where the same message was repeated by Hindu and Muslim speakers alike. At a meeting in Delhi, N.M. Nurie, leader of the nationalist Muslims of Maharasthra, insisted that there was a common cause between all indepen­ dence movements. Using a widely held racial definition of colonialism, he 4 Sukarno to Nehru, 2.10.45, 8.10.45, 19.10.46. P.R.S. Mani Papers, Series 14, Blake Library, UTS. 5 Both the Vietnamese nationalists (known as Annamites after the central province of Colonial Indo-China, making the point in conference speeches and letters) and the Indonesian nationalists (in wall posters and graffiti) made this call. See, for example, FPJB 1.11.45: ‘Indo-China calls on UK to withdraw British troops.’ 6 See 1.11.45. 7 Ibid. 8 HS 5.10.45 9 FPJB 26.10.45; 1.11.45, citing Sansar. 10 FPJB 1.11.45: ‘Withdraw British Troops: Indo-Chinese appeal to Britain.’

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said that ‘this day would mark a turning point in the history of the Asiatic struggles to overthrow white domination’. At the same meeting, N.T. Master, a Hindu, reassured visitors from Sumatra and Java that India’s struggle for independence could not be separated from the struggles of other subject peoples. Another common theme at these meetings was the shame that India felt about the use of Indian troops against anticolonial fighters across Southeast Asia. In a meeting in Bombay, M.Y. Nurie argued that the British were treating Indian troops like ‘mercenaries’.11 The international anticolonial struggles were diverse and not all were so clear cut as the conflicts between European settlers and nationalists in IndoChina. One example was that between the Arabs and Jewish immigrants over Palestine, where both sides claimed to be oppressed by colonisers. There were many peoples emerging into independence who were just as determined to divest themselves of all external intervention. Just as complex were the cases where colonised people saw the entry of minority groups to have been facilitated by colonisers, with claims that they were citizens of the same empire. In the cases of South Africa, Burma, and Malaya, full independence from the British would mean challenging the unrestricted entry of diasporic Indians as either the indentured labourers of British plantations or factory owners, or as merchants and professionals. Nationalist India was uneasily placed in relation to such demands, which made all the stronger its determination to champion those nationalist campaigns like that in Indonesia where calls for independence seemed less problematic. In Calcutta, South East Asia Day had already become Indonesia Day. Under the headline ‘Support to East Indies People in Their Struggle for Freedom: Use of Indians in Quelling Movement Resented’, the HS reported the passing of a resolution that supported ‘the national struggle for freedom of the Indonesian and other peoples in South-East Asia and protesting against the employment of Indian soldiers against the Indonesians’. Dr Prafulla Chandra Ghose argued on behalf of Congress that because India remained unfree, it was ‘feeling the pangs of slavery’ and bitterly lamented that because Indians ‘were not masters of their country, Indian soldiers were being employed in suppressing the freedom movement[s] of other countries’.12 This was the context in which Indians received the news about the strike by Australian waterside workers and Indonesian, Chinese, Indian, and Vietnamese seamen to halt all shipping in Australian waters, whether 11 FPJB 29.10.45. 12 HS 29.10.45.

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8.1 ‘When Gulliver Awakes’, 3 November 1945, Free Press Journal of Bombay. The cartoonist’s signature is illegible, but could have been RK Laxman

Reproduced courtesy of Free Press Journal, Mumbai

Dutch or British, that attempted to take troops, arms, weapons, or indeed any type of support to aid the Dutch in reclaiming the NEI. The Calcutta meeting also linked the Australian labour movement to the struggle for independence. Dr Maitreyee Bose said that ‘the Australian mazdoors (labourers) had shown their active sympathy with the Indonesian people by refusing to carry ammunition. Indian Labour had of late shown political consciousness and the speaker hoped that it would be possible for them to show their active sympathy in like manner.’13 Up till then, Australia had been notorious in India because of its White Australia restrictions, but had never been known for any solidarity with the rest of the colonised world. Instead, Australia had been the target of furious Indian newspaper attacks because of its immigration restrictions from the 1890s.14 Although Australians flattered themselves that it was their sporting prowess in cricket that attracted Indian attention in the interwar period, it was best known because of its insistence on being a racially defined nation.15 The Indian accounts of the Australian Boycott in 13 Ibid. 14 Germain 2007. 15 Goodall & Ghosh 2015; Allen 2008.

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1945 were therefore commenting on what they saw as a radical – although welcomed – departure from previous coverage. Australians seem never to have been aware of this Indian coverage, nor of Indian interest in the role that Australia was therefore seen to be playing in the movement against colonialism. This Indian perspective was never reported in the Australian mainstream press, nor was it visible even in a left-wing paper like Tribune, despite the fact that its journalists sent copy to the Indian press. Among the four Indian papers analysed here, the Australian dock strike was first noted by the Calcutta-based Hindusthan Standard on 26 September, just two days after the news broke in Australia. The HS drew on the London press report that the Australian Federal Executive of the WWF had decided to call all branches to observe the Boycott.16 This gave the full backing of the national union to the series of small actions that had already been initiated by Indonesian seamen and their Australian allies. The HS took the literal view that all of the WWF members were on strike in support of the Boycott, its headline reading ‘30,000 Workers Striking in New South Wales’ – although most were in other industries and on strike for different reasons.17 The FPJB picked up the London report of the Australian Boycott on 27 September, but expanded it with reports from Reuters in Sydney. This source offered additional facts: the WWF had also adopted a resolution protesting the British use of Japanese forces against the nationalists in Indonesia. This was an important corrective to the steady stream of abuse of Sukarno as a quisling and collaborator that was flowing at the same time from the conservative Australian SMH. As many reports in both Austra­ lian and Indian media suggest, SEAC was in fact using the Japanese forces for policing in the period before any other civil administration could be established; this became another reason that its presence was resented by local populations.18 However, both sides accused the other of drawing on the Japanese: it was regularly reported in the Australian press, for example, that the Republicans were using Japanese weapons and/or Japanese training to attack the British, and even that the Japanese were still effectively in power and were using Indonesian ‘extremists’ as puppet troops against SEAC. The CPI newspaper PW was getting its news directly from Sydney and most of the copy probably came from journalists in the CPA. The article sent from 16 HS 26.9.45; SMH 25.9.45. 17 Argus 25.9.45. 18 FPJB 27.9.45; Hindu 17.11.45, 18.11.45.

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Sydney on 29 September brought together reports from both Melbourne and Sydney and from unnamed Australian foreign correspondents in Java. This report depicted the struggle over the Dutch ship Karsik in Port Melbourne, discussed in Chapter 7, in which the Indians played a crucial role. The PW coverage detailed the efforts that the Indian crew had made to get off the ship, and reported that some had eventually succeeded in leaving in Melbourne, while others were forced to continue on board until the ship reached Sydney, where more hoped to disembark.19 This was never reported in the Australian newspapers – an omission which left the impression that the Indians had been compliant in breaking the strike. By 3 October the Madras-based Hindu had gathered similar reports not only from London, but also from the Indonesian support groups in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane.20 For The Hindu, it was notable that it was not only trade unions that were supporting the new Indonesian Republic, but also the Australian Government. It reported an annual Labour Day march on 2 October, in which 2000 Indonesian and other seamen, including Australians and Indians, marched through Sydney streets ‘led by Mr F.M. Forde, Deputy Prime Minister, and other members of the Australian Government’, with marchers carrying banners that read ‘End Colonial Exploitation’ and ‘Independence for Indonesia’.21 Newspapers in India did report that Prime Minister Chifley had promised the Dutch that striking workers would be deported, but they pointed out far more often that the Australian Government had supported Indonesian Independence by refusing to be involved in the SEAC force.22 The actions taken in Australia by not only workers but also the Government were therefore presented to Indian audiences as contributions to the decolonisation struggle that was being waged around Southeast Asia. Indians were furious that the Indian troops under SEAC command were to be deployed in armed confrontations with nationalists if the British deemed it necessary to ‘restore order’. This exposed the powerlessness of the Indian leadership. Congress spokespeople began to express their concerns almost immediately. Krishna Menon, then the London Foreign Representative of Congress, protested on 28 September and was reported in the FPJB under the page 1 heading: ‘Why Use Indians for this Dirty Job’23 19 20 21 22 23

PW 5.10.45, received ‘by cable from Sydney, filed: 29 September’. Hindu 3.10.45, 5.10.45. Hindu 3.10.45. Indian Reports that Chifley promised to deport strikers, cf. SMH 6.10.45. FPJB 29.9.45.

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The HS described the situation on the same date, quoting Menon: Indian troops are being used against the people of Indo-China, Malaya and other Asiatic territories recently liberated from Japanese rule and in the suppression of endeavours for national independence by these people. The role assigned to the Indian army in the present context does not appear to be that of a force fighting either for the defence of their homeland or against Japanese Fascism and militarism but that of an interventionist force to regain a dominion for the French, Dutch or other imperialist and occupying powers. Mr. Menon says, ‘India of the future as an independent country must live in terms of amity and good neighbourliness with people of Indonesia and Indo-China with whom we have a great deal in common and whose national freedom is a matter of vital concern to us.’24

On 30 September, the HS quoted nationalist leader Sarat Chandra Bose (the older brother of Subhas Chandra Bose who had led the INA), who spoke in Bombay: ‘India has never dipped her hand in her neighbour’s blood. But the Western Imperialists, who claimed they were fighting this war to save democracy, were compelling India to do so.’ Pandit Nehru was quoted from the same date: It is monstrous that our people and our armed forces should be employed to suppress those for whom we have the fullest sympathy. Only a few days ago, the All-India Congress Committee declared that Indian troops must not be used for keeping down people in colonial territories […] and now almost immediately after, has come the news of Independence movements taking an active and aggressive shape in Indo-China and Java and of Indian troops being employed to suppress them.25

Initially, Indians were most concerned about the use of Indian troops against the Vietnamese (or Annamites). This concern continued through the following weeks in each of the newspapers, with the HS reporting that the Indian troops themselves resented being used against the Vietnamese.26 The Hindu drew on the Australian sources of the Manchester Guardian’s special correspondent in Melbourne to report the disquiet of many Indian troops who ‘are protesting against their use in putting down the Annamese 24 HS 29.9.45. 25 HS 30.9.45. 26 HS 1.10.45, 18.10.45.

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[sic] who they regard as civilians’.27 On 23 October, The Hindu reported the direct nationalist appeal from Saigon to the Indian troops who were attacking them: Our Ideals are the Same. Saigon, Oct 22. A direct appeal to Indian troops to desist from fighting the Nationalists in Indo-China was issued here today by the ‘Fighting Committee of Revolutionary People’, one of the many nationalist groups directing the agitation in Southern Indo-China. The insurrectionists’ appeal, in the form of leaflets and posters and addressed to Indian officers and men, stated: ‘For many years, you have been fighting the Fascists and you are now in our country, disarming the Fascist Japanese. It is your only duty here; do not go further. We recall that everywhere in your country, your fellow countrymen are fighting for liberty as we are; so our ideals are the same and we must love each other and fight side by side and hand in hand. We must not be divided by anybody.’

The leaflets further stated: ‘The people of India are turning towards the Annamite Nationalists because it is the logical and natural attitude.’28 By October 1945, it was clear that Indian troops would also be forced to confront Indonesian nationalists. Australia’s role in the statements of Indian Congress leaders and press reports shifted from being a fellow contributor to the broader anticolonial struggle to being an example for Indians, both to the troops in the field and to the workers employed on Indian docks and ships. Pandit Nehru’s statement on 13 October 1945 was widely reported:29 Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, in a statement to the Press, says that no Indian troops should be used against the Indonesian Republican Government and that no material for war should be sent from India to help the Dutch Government. ‘On my return from my brief visit […] to Uttar Pradesh, my first thought is of the gallant struggle for freedom that is being waged in Indonesia that has reached a critical stage. All of us in India have expressed our wholehearted sympathy with the Indonesian peoples and the new government 27 Hindu 18.10.45; the Melbourne correspondent was reporting through the agency UPI (United Press International). 28 Hindu 23.10.45. 29 Hindu 17.10.45.

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they have formed. That is a welcome sign of our solidarity, but I hope we shall not leave it at that, for big issues are involved in this Indonesian struggle. We must watch and help wherever we can. Especially we must insist that no Indian troops be used against the Indonesian Republican Government and that no material for war should be sent from India to help the Dutch Government. ‘Australian, Chinese and other seamen have refused to load war materials meant for the suppression of the Indonesian Republic. That example of solidarity and effective action should be followed in India. It is for the Congress Committees and the Trade Union movement to take steps in this direction for it must always be remembered that Indonesian freedom is vitally important to India and Asia.’

Such statements were echoed by other Congress leaders, including the President, Maulana Azad, whose call for Congress to decide how to stop this use of Indian troops was supported by The Hindu: Indians who are fighting for their own freedom and democracy cannot but sympathise and fall in line with the struggles of the Indonesian and Annamite nationalists. The character of this true people’s war has been instinctively recognized both by the workers and the exploited classes of the world and their imperialist masters and exploiters. We therefore find on the one hand the dock and port workers of China and Australia refusing to load munitions and other war materials for use against these East Asiatic Nationalists and on the other hand, the British, French and Dutch Imperialists joining forces for restoring the status ante bellum. The events in Java and Indo-China have caused no surprise to Indian Nationalists, but the use of Indian troops to suppress the aspirations of the Nationalists there have caused deep resentment. Things have now come to a point when the Indian National Congress will have to consider seriously what steps to adopt to prevent the use of Indian men and materials against Asiatic peoples fighting for their freedom. The dock workers of China and Australia have set an example which Indian port workers and seamen can well emulate.30

Maulana Azad’s continuing recognition of the conditions of Indians in Australia was particularly important; as a senior Muslim leader, Azad’s position as President of Congress reflected the significant proportion of 30 Hindu 20.10.45.

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Congress members who were Muslims. The FPJB reported on 5 November that Azad had been cabled by two spokespeople of the striking seamen in Sydney. One was Mr Raden, the leader of the Indonesian Independence Committee in Sydney; the other was Dasrath Singh, the charismatic Indian secretary of the new ISUiA. Both had told Azad, as he recounted to Congress members, of the role of Indian seamen in immobilising four Dutch ships to stop them from taking arms to Indonesia. Each wanted Azad to tell him what India was doing in turn to support the new Indonesian Republic. Azad specif ically congratulated the Indian seamen and assured them that Congress would do all in its power to assist them and to support the Indonesian Republic.31 From the Indian side, it was important that it was both the Austra­lian Government and Australian workers taking a stand to support the Indonesian Republic. As the FPJB editorialised on 29 September, under the headline ‘Bolstering Imperialisms’: India is being turned into the arsenal of imperialism. Whatever the peoples of Indo-China and Indonesia might feel about the Japanese who had exploited them, their detestation of Indians must surpass that feeling. The Indian army cannot be utilised for fighting freedom movements in Asia. The [British] Labour Government has no right to exact from it service which Australia and New Zealand refuse to render.

Not only were the Australian strikers and the Boycott strategy itself seen as a valuable contribution to the anticolonial struggle, but the sources for information on the Indonesian Republicans and their organisation were, as outlined earlier, drawn from Australia, both from Indonesian exiles in Australia and from Australian political activists. The Hindu, in particular, drew on a wide range of Australian sources, from ‘the committee of Indonesian Political Exiles in Australia’, based in Sydney, for information on the nature of the Republican movement, to ‘the Melbourne Radio’,32 to Australian soldiers quoted in the British Communist Party newspaper the Daily Worker or the Manchester Guardian,33 to Sydney newspapers like the Daily Telegraph,34 to frequently unidentified journalists 31 32 33 34

FPJB 5.11.45; Hindu 5.11.45. Hindu 9.10.45, 24.10.45. Hindu 24.10.45. Hindu 28.10.45.

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writing simply from Sydney35 or another Australian city like Canberra.36 For both Indo-China and Indonesia, Australia offered an alternative source of news that at times was directly from the mouths of Indonesians or could otherwise be expected to have close links with Indonesia through radio and other forms of communication with the Republican forces. The Australian media frequently underestimated Indian seamen’s agency because of the persistent racialised stereotyping that characterised Indians as compliant, passive, and politically inactive. But how did those Indian seamen appear in the Indian media that discussed the Boycott? The role of White Australian workers was emphasised for good reasons. There was clearly value in identifying the broad-based support for the Indonesian and Vietnamese nationalist struggles, so the active contribution of as many people as possible was important. There was also a strategic attempt to put pressure on British unions and the British Labour Government by pointing out the role of Australians and New Zealanders among the strikers, of Australian and New Zealand unions as key institutional players, and finally of the explicit and implicit support of the Australian Government. This on the one hand confirmed the value of the Atlantic Charter as a goal for all countries, whether they had European or non-European populations, but at the same time it positioned Australia as an active proponent of decolonisation, splitting it from its British colonial background and aligning it more closely with the non-European populations of the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia. This was indeed the new world envisioned by the Australian trade unionists and socialists who were supporting the strikers. But the Indian press also far more actively discussed the early role and agency of the Indian seamen involved in the Boycott, in a way that not even the CPA newspaper Tribune or the WWF-backed film Indonesia Calling! was to do. Even Rupert Lockwood, the journalist who was then a member of the CPA and most closely associated with the strikers, both Indonesian and Indian, and with Tribune, had to struggle for space in the CPA newspaper because there were so many industrial issues crowding the newspapers, while at the same time the anti-communist pressure against the Communist Party was rising rapidly. Consequently, much of the narrative force of Lockwood’s articles, along with his later book Black Armada, was focused on the Australians and Indonesians. More detail was recorded in his book, but little about the Indian seamen and Chinese supporters appeared in the pages of Tribune at the time it was happening. 35 Hindu: 2.10.45, 23.10.45, 28.10.45; 3.11.45, 5.11.45 (Reuters), 7.11.45. 36 Hindu 16.11.45.

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In the film Indonesia Calling! the recognition of the Indian role in these events was even further reduced, as its director focused intensively on Indonesians even though so few of them remained in Australia over the months when the film was being made. Although many Indians took part in the making of the film, the parts they were asked to play created the impression that viewers were watching Indonesians rather than Indians. Further, the presence and strategic action of the Indian crews, visible in the pages of the Indian newspapers from the very first days of the strike, is absent from the film’s scripted voiceover or the text of its credits despite its facade as a documentary. In contrast, the Indian media did carry the Indian seamen’s story. In a series of articles, the People’s War reported an account of the Indian seamen’s strategies that did not appear at all in Australia. The account in the Australian press was that between 25 and 29 September, twelve ships were immobilised by Indonesian and Australian unionists in Brisbane, while a Chinese crew had walked off the Dutch ship Karsik berthed in Melbourne. At this point, as the Australian press reported, the Dutch brought an Indian crew, then between ships, from Sydney to Melbourne, but at first the Melbourne bus drivers refused to transport them. The Indians were then taken on board the Karsik guarded by the military, but in the meantime they were contacted by Indonesian and Australian activists speaking by loudspeaker from the wharf. The Australian newspapers stated simply that the crew had ‘refused’ or ‘failed’ to disembark, leaving the impression that they had spurned the activists’ calls to strike. Only one Australian report indicated that the crew on board had tried to explain their belief that they were under duress. This Karsik account was greatly expanded in the Indian newspaper accounts, which pointed out that the Indian seamen had clearly stated from the ship’s deck that they wished to join the strike but were being prevented by armed Dutch troops on board. Furthermore, they believed they would be punished by the British Government of India if they acted against the British goals in SEAC, which the Dutch were telling them was to restore Dutch control.37 The People’s War reported the decision of the Indian crews of all blackbanned ships in Brisbane to walk off and formally join the other striking seamen and dockworkers on shore. ‘Despite the threat to their families, over 6000 Indian seamen have pledged support to the strike.’ The paper went on to describe the meeting of 4 October, when Abdul Rehman and Ligorio de Costa met with Indonesians, and continued with an extended quote from an unnamed Indian striking seaman: ‘We Indians are 100 per cent behind the 37 PW 7.10.45, ‘by cable from Sydney, filed 29 September’.

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Indonesians. No Indian will take a Dutch ship from Australia for use against the new Republic. If we help the Indonesians, we look to Indonesians to help India later in our struggle for independence.’ Clarrie Campbell was also quoted, speaking on behalf of the India-Australia Association. He pointed out the severe burden placed on Indian seamen because of the unique threat of a bad nully, the Indian-specific form of the Asian Articles where the CDC included the ‘Quality of Work’ clause. ‘We know,’ Campbell said, ‘that the burden falls much more heavily on Indians than on workers of other lands who are on strike and their actions have earned our respect and esteem. The stand taken by Indonesian, Indian and Australian workers here has been a delaying action which has strengthened the Indonesian Revolution.’38

Forging a union The Indian Seamen’s Union in Australia was finally formed on 2 November, to offer union support to Indians for the time their ships were in Australian waters. The PW named its reporter as Rupert Lockwood, in the byline for his paired articles, one cabled before and one after the ISUiA was established.39 These articles explain the Indians’ strategies: they were either walking off or – when confronted by armed troops on board ship in the Harbour – refusing to obey orders once the ships were outside the Heads. The articles demonstrate a widening strategy of shipboard disputes and repeated refusals to cooperate. The most visible example had been the dramatic full-scale mutiny on the Patras, which left Sydney Harbour on 26 October; this was re-enacted in Indonesia Calling! and Lockwood later wrote about it in his book. 40 Due to the widespread sympathy for the Indonesian Declaration and the Government’s tacit support for the strike, the Indian protest on the Patras was not treated with the gravity with which a mutiny at sea was normally treated, so the mutineers were not punished. Significantly, the PW published a substantial section of the speech made by Dasrath Singh to the 2 November meeting that formed the Union. This speech was mentioned only briefly in Australia in Tribune, and does not appear in Lockwood’s book. 41 Yet this speech explains a great deal about 38 PW 14.10.45, ‘by cable from Sydney, filed 5 October’. 39 PW 4.11.45, ‘by cable from Sydney, filed 26 October’. 40 Lockwood 1982: 159-67. 41 Tribune articles addressing these issues, although more briefly and without attributing quotations to any named Indian speaker, were published on 30.10.45, p. 5 (ISUiA established), p. 6 (labour pool conditions); 16.11.45 (industrial demands of ISUiA), p. 6.

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the seamen’s strategies. Singh addressed two important points. First, he stressed the common religious affiliation between so many of the Islamic Indian sailors and the Indonesians. Second, he addressed the conditions of transfers between ships and indeed between shipping companies. This question of transfers has been identified by Balachandran as an important theme for collective but informal Indian industrial action in ports around the seafaring world during the twentieth century. While Indian crews generally found the Asian Articles to be a constant frustration of their attempts to get decent working conditions, they used this particular regulation strategically. They would tolerate transfers where it suited their collective interests, but as soon as they were aimed at exploiting them or limiting their own collective goals, they could invoke the Asian Articles prohibition on forcible transfers and demand that the British or colonial courts uphold the regulations. 42 This strategic use of the much-hated Asian Articles was demonstrated by Indian seamen in 1923, as Julia Martínez has documented, and was precisely the approach explained in the November 1945 speech by Singh, so recently arrived from Calcutta, then the hotbed of Indian seafaring unionism. 43 Lockwood, in the Indian PW article, quotes Singh at length: Although the Indians are officially British subjects, some were handed over to the foreign Dutch power to assist them in the war against the Indonesian people. This is a breach of our articles of contract and of Indian laws. We also point out to the Dutch that 90 per cent of Indian seamen in Sydney are Mohammedans like 98 per cent Indonesians. It is an affront to the Indians’ conscience and a violation of the principles of the Atlantic charter of religious freedom to attempt to conscript us for war against our fellow-religionists. Also, one Anglo-Australian company, Burns Philips [sic] has loaned the Indians from its Labour Pool to the Dutch. This opens up dangerous possibilities – that Indians can be switched from one shipping company to another as strike-breakers. We are now being asked to act as strike-breakers against Australian, Indonesian and Chinese workers. This we refuse to do. 44 42 Balachandran 2012. 43 Inspector Alexander to Director, Commonwealth Investigation Branch, 8.11.45. NAA, Z.C/63541 44 PW 4.11.45, ‘by cable from Sydney, filed 26 October’.

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Although Singh himself had arrived only in the early months of 1945, and so was poorly informed on the long history of the exploitative labour pools in Sydney, he was very clear about the power these pools gave the shipping companies, who could control Indian crews because they had nowhere else to live during their lay-off periods. With no residency status, the seamen were vulnerable to immediate punishment by Australian authorities for simply being in Australia, let alone failing the White Australia dictation test that defined them as ‘undesirable aliens’. To this short-term Australian punishment of deportation was added the longer-term danger of a ‘bad character’ notation on one’s nully or CDC, which jeopardised the possibility of a seaman’s future employment. Because the shipping companies controlled Indians’ accommodation in port, they could indeed ‘loan’ seamen like commodities, except for the strategic use of the Asian Articles to oppose ‘transfers’, which gave the seamen some power to argue their case. Only the Indian press, and in this case the CPI press, printed enough of Singh’s speech to see the strategic planning involved in his approach. This allows at least a glimpse of how these seamen tried to exert some control over their situation. Their story is well buried, and it takes careful analysis of both the Australian and Indian press to discover many details of the story from their perspective.

9

‘Surabaya Burns’: Assault on a Republican City

In late October 1945, the Boycott of Dutch shipping in Australian waters seemed to be holding. There was support from many of the Australian unions and widespread sympathy among the public. Prime Minister Ben Chifley had refused to take a role in SEAC and was tacitly supporting the Boycott.1 The situation in Indonesia seemed to be static; most news coming to the Australian Government and press was through British military reports from Batavia, and the British were getting most of their views directly from the Dutch.2 While Indonesian organisations in Australia – such as CENKIM – were beginning to receive more accurate information, the news was still scattered. Foreign Minister Bert Evatt was not following Indonesian events, but instead concentrating on what appeared to him to be the more pressing issues of the peace conference, the formation of the United Nations, and the bargaining with the United States over whose military forces would occupy Japan.3 The Battle of Surabaya changed all that. The first shots were fired on 28 October 1945, and over the next month, Surabaya was the site of brutal fighting and massive bombardments, resulting in thousands of fleeing refugees and many deaths. The Battle came to be a symbol of the whole revolution and the struggle to free Indonesia from Dutch colonialism, but the combatants were Indonesian, British, and Indian. The united Indonesian rejection of the British ultimatum on 10 November, which lead to a relentless bombardment, is commemorated in Indonesia each year as Heroes Day. The story of the Battle rapidly became mythology, first by Sukarno and then by Suharto to serve their own regimes, and later through the scattered memoirs of Indonesian participants published since the fall of Suharto.4 We have only one detailed account of how it was seen by 1 Fettling 2013. 2 Ball to Dept External Affairs, 385, 11.11.45, AA:A1838/2, 401/1/2/1, NAA. 3 Department of Foreign Affairs Archives: Evatt to Commonwealth Government, 273, 28.9.45, AA:A1838/2, 401/3/6/1/3, I; Evatt to Burton, 381, 9.11.45 Re McMahon Ball Deployment to NEI, AA:A3300/2, 45/32; Ball to Dept External Affairs, 385, 11.11.45, AA:A1838/2, 401/1/2/1; Ball To Dept Ext Affairs, 387, 12.11.45, AA: A1838/2, 401/1/2/1. All in NAA. 4 Apart from the P.R.S. Mani Papers cited throughout, I am relying on the early scholarly political research, undertaken between the 1940s and 1965 and published later, such as: Smail 1964; Frederick 1989; Anderson 1972/2006; and more recent Indonesian memoirs: Abdulgani 1964, 1995; Soewito 1994; Alwi 2012. The Indonesian Armed Forces History Unit’s volume (ABRI 1998) – though coloured by Suharto’s New Order triumphalism – arose from extensive research

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Indian troops, through the eyes of P.R.S. Mani. There were many civilians, too: representing their story are fragments of writing, photos, and family stories from T.D. Kundan. It is only with the emerging Indonesian and Chinese writings that it will be able to gain a more complete account of the complex events at Surabaya. While these Indian voices cannot tell the whole story, they do show how a regional perspective developed. In Chapter 4, we left Mani in Burma, where the Indian Army was fighting south in pursuit of the Japanese. Mani described the Indian troops arriving in Singapore as liberating heroes, who felt that their part in the war was over. But then the British took on the leadership of SEAC, and troops who expected to be going home instead found themselves on ships bound for either Indo-China or – in the case of the 49th Infantry and Mani – Indonesia. In Chapter 8, we saw a storm breaking among nationalists in India, who were furious that Indian troops were going to be used against other nationalists, but Mani and the troops were insulated from these controversies on the ship bound for Batavia. Poignantly, the Indian troops were hoping that their stay in Indonesia would refresh the ancient cultural bonds between the two countries.5

Indian troops arrive in Indonesia – P.R.S. Mani They did not receive the welcome they had expected. Mani reported that at the first Indian landing at Batavia on 29 September the troops met with only a ‘lukewarm’ reception ‘owing to strong nationalist feelings in Indonesia’. Indonesian leaders had made it clear they were prepared to have the British accept the Japanese surrender and then police the orderly transfer to Indonesian Independence. They had also made it clear from the very beginning that they did not want the British, or the Indian troops under British command, to assist in the return of the Dutch. The troops arriving in Batavia were met with a cold welcome and extensive pro-Republican and anticolonial graffiti, written in English so the message would be clear to the arriving forces.6 and interviews, but did not identify narrators. British accounts are: Doulton 1950; Marston 2014; and, by far the most scholarly history, McMillan 2005. Francis Palmos has gathered and translated Indonesian memoirs and autobiographies for his 2012 PhD thesis, History, University of Western Australia. 5 Despatches, Series 6, 29.9.45, from Batavia.Series 6, P.R.S. Mani papers, Online archive, Blake Library, UTS. 6 Imperial War Museum Archives SEAC photographs, SE 5639, Street scene in Surabaya (Soerabaja) lull in the fighting. Nationalist graffiti visible; Films: SEAC Film Unit, JFU 437, 447.

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Radio was the major medium of political communication in Indonesia during this revolutionary period: beyond the control of the Dutch, it was cheap and easy for many small movements and community groups to use. All of the Indonesian nationalist leaders used radio to communicate about big public issues, and some of the broadcasts were transcribed, published, and occasionally translated. So it was no surprise that the grass-roots nationalist activists were also using radio to target the Indian troops. Mani wrote that radio broadcasts were even more disturbing for the troops than the painted slogans had been – and in Batavia they began to hear radio most evenings not only in English but also in Hindustani, broadcast from somewhere near Bandung.7 British war diaries – officers’ formal daily summaries – documented these broadcasts and attributed them to Indian ‘deserters’, by which they meant former Indian troops or resident Indians who had joined the Indonesian cause.8 One of the great strengths of short-wave radio for Republican leaders was that it was effective in getting their message out, not only to their Republican supporters on the many islands in the Indonesian archipelago but also internationally. Their broadcasts were monitored in Australia, for example, where supporters like Mohamad Bondan in Melbourne and Brisbane translated them into English and relayed them as articles for the press in India during the period when Mani himself was still in the British Army and could not comment publicly.9 Mani was stationed in Batavia for one month, from 29 September to 25 October. During this time he began to contact Indians living in Indonesia and – despite his continued position inside the British Army – foreign correspondents living in the city, including Graham Jenkins, an Australian journalist who published in both Australian newspapers and the local and Singaporean press. Mani also made a point of meeting with the Indonesian nationalist leaders, including the best-known internationally, Sukarno and 7 ‘Hindustani’ was the name in common use during the 1940s for the languages of the northern areas of India and was intelligible to speakers of Hindi and of Urdu. P.R.S. Mani used this term throughout his 1945 despatches and diary to describe the language/s of Indian troops both from the northwest and the northeastern states of India. The term was incorporated, with its alternative anglicised spelling, into the name of the Calcutta newspaper, the Hindusthan Standard, published in English, during the 1940s. Its sister newspaper Ananda Bazaar Patrika was published in Bengali. The four languages offered to the Indian seamen in the ISUiA for their union rule book and newsletters did not include Hindustani, but rather Urdu, Goanese (Konkani), Bengali, and English. 8 McMillan 2005: 158, citing WO 172/9878, War Diaries of 23rd Indian Division, 6.3.46; Doulton 1950: 249-67. 9 PW: see, for example, Australian cabled reports on 7.10.45, 27.10.45, 25.11.45.

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Hatta. He became good friends with Amir Sjarifuddin, with whom he shared a theosophical background, and became particularly close to Sutan Sjahrir, who was later to become the Republican Prime Minister. Sjahrir was not aligned with the PKI but was a strong socialist, avoiding, in Mani’s view, the populist politics that had won wide support for Sukarno. Mani remained close friends with Sjahrir throughout his time in Indonesia, while also retaining close contact with Sukarno and Hatta.

Surabaya, the Republican port city – T.D. Kundan In late October 1945, 4000 Indian troops of the 49th Indian Infantry Brigade, with whom Mani was embedded, were sent to Surabaya, the major port city on the northern coast of Java and the only city in the country that was completely under Republican control. The British had intended to enter Surabaya soon after their initial landing at Batavia, but had been delayed by sporadic fighting around Batavia, Jogjakarta, and Bandung. Through these early weeks of October, they had released around 6000 European internees and sent them to the port city of Surabaya, which had at that time seemed stable. So by the time the British Army arrived in Surabaya, nearly a month had passed. Frederick has pointed out that although the British saw their arrival on 25 October as the beginning of the Battle of Surabaya, this was in fact a late stage in the development of independent Indonesian control over the city.10 There were a number of political and social positions among the Indonesians in the city, ranging from the moderate elites or priyayi who took on the responsibility of managing civil order, to the youth organisations, often called collectively pemuda but within which there were factions, related to class and political stance. The priyayi and pemuda differed from the broader population, such as the trade unionists and workers of this big port city: people who called themselves in the old Javanese phrase as arek Suroboyo (or the real Surabayans), which proudly asserted their identity as workers who genuinely belonged to the city.11 10 Frederick 1989: ix-xiv. 11 Frederick 1989; Anderson 1972/2006; Dick 2002; Palmos 2012. This phrase was used widely among people in the kampungs to emphasise the difference between themselves, as workers and genuine ‘children of Surabaya’, and the elites, particularly the old Javanese aristocracy, who used a very different form of the Javanese language. My thanks to linguist Dwi Noverini Djenar, formerly a Surabaya resident herself, for providing the translation and significance of this colloquial phrase.

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The major ethnic and cultural minority in Surabaya was the Chinese, many of whom had been in Indonesia for generations. Some of this group actively supported the Republicans – there were, after all, Chinese members of Sukarno’s Government – and many young Chinese men went to fight in defence of the Indonesian Republic.12 Others were undoubtedly more cautious: some were still aligned with the old Dutch colonial business structure, while others had forged new business links with the Japanese.13 A smaller but significant minority in Surabaya, especially given the British use of Indian troops, were Indian civilians, particularly T.D. Kundan, on whose advice and local knowledge Mani came to rely.14 We know from Kundan’s brief résumé and the memories of his family members15 that Kundan was in close contact with the emerging Indonesian nationalist leaders before the war and certainly once it began, when his facility with Dutch and English was found to be useful for the Japanese just as it had been for other colonisers. While not all Sindhis or other civilian Indians may have agreed with Kundan’s close affiliation with the nationalists, they nevertheless chose to endorse his leadership role among the Indian community on many occasions.16 Long before the British arrived, Kundan had consolidated his leadership by mediating between the Indian community and the various groups in broader Surabayan society. Bambang Kaslan (a close friend of Abdulgani and a ‘true arek Suroboyo’) remembered that Kundan, ‘a prominent member of the city’s Indian community’, had good relationships with all groups. Kundan was one of the initiators, with two ‘Eurasians’, of a meeting held on 10 October between the representatives of all ‘foreign groups in Surabaya’ and pemuda and priyayi leaders on the theme of ‘mutual understanding’.17 Mani met Kundan very soon after the arrival in Surabaya of the 49th Infantry, but he knew little of Kundan’s activities. It is much more helpful to turn to Indonesian writing to see Kundan’s longer-term role in Surabaya. Ruslan Abdulgani remembered Kundan in the early period before the British arrived. Ruslan was a Surabayan who, although from a priyayi family, 12 Lucas 1991. 13 Yang 1998; Ying & Ngo 2013. 14 Mani 1993: 98-130. 15 As well as Indonesian-authored memoirs of the Battle, information on T.D. Kundan comes from his own archives and from interviews with his younger daughter, Priya (born 1947) and son-in-law Vashdev Lachmandas (born 1942) (Interview 18.6.2014); Kundan’s granddaughter and Priya and Vashdev’s daughter, Simran Punjabi, and her father-in-law, Gobind Punjabi (born in 1943 on the day the Japanese occupation began). Kundan was a close friend of Gobind’s father and assisted the family for many years after the father’s early death from illness (Interview 17.6.2014). 16 Chatterji & Washbrook 2013: 1-10; Safran 1991: 83-99; Mani 1993. 17 Frederick 1989: 232.

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was regarded with confidence by the non-elite kampung dwellers and was an active participant in the new Republican city administration, often acting as an emissary for Governor Surio of East Java. Ruslan later became the secretary-general of the 1955 Non-Aligned Nations Conference in Bandung, and then a senior Indonesian diplomat.18 In his memoir, One Hundred Days in Surabaya that Shook Indonesia, Ruslan recalled that Kundan was already acting as an interpreter for the Indonesian Governor and other senior civil leaders when the British arrived.19 There are also references to Kundan by many Indonesian eye witnesses in Surabaya during the conflict, recorded in Pertempuran Surabaya, researched by the Armed Forces History Unit, which show that Kundan was far more closely involved with the Republicans than Mani understood him to be.20 Kundan’s appearance of caution may even have been for Mani’s benefit, as a form of protection against the distrust of the British Army; by the time Mani met him, Kundan was taking an active role in support of the Indonesian civil authorities who were in charge of the city. Aside from the merchants, there were other civilian Indians in the big port city of Surabaya, including professional people associated with the merchant community. None of Surabaya’s Indians were indentured labourers. The Dutch had used Javanese labourers on their plantations, shipping Javanese workers around their territories. Some Indians in Surabaya filled the uneasy space between civilian and military; this is the case for Mani, who often preferred to see himself as a civilian investigative journalist.21

The 49th Infantry arrives When Indian troops arrived on the evening of 25 October, Indonesian Republican forces had been in formal control of Surabaya since the Japanese surrender. Stationed in the city were 20,000 trained Indonesian troops of the regular army, which had come into existence largely under the Japanese and, with the declaration of Independence, had formally come under the command of the new Republic. There were also around 140,000 civilian militia members, many of them highly politicised pemuda.22 The young 18 Abdulgani 1995. Old spelling: ‘Roeslan’. 19 Abdulgani 1995: 23. 20 ABRI 1998. This volume is an extensive and useful collection of many detailed eye witness accounts of the conflict over the whole duration of the Battle of Surabaya, but frustratingly it does not identify the speakers. 21 Mani Papers, Obituary, 2011. 22 Anderson 1972/2006; Frederick 1989; Dick 2002; Palmos 2012.

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9.1 Street scene in Surabaya during a lull in the fighting, showing the Nationalist graffiti commonly written in English and Hindustani on the walls of buildings. Indian troops guard the inside of the building while, out in the street, Indonesian workers sweep away debris from the SEAC bombing

Photograph courtesy Imperial War Museum, SE_005639 (c) IWM

Republic was, in Surabaya, in full civil control of one of its major cities, and the Indonesians made it clear that the British were neither needed nor welcome in anything other than a nominal role. Mani wrote in his first despatch from Surabaya on 26 October: ‘this appears to be a stronger centre of nationalism than Batavia and control is mostly in the hands of the Youth Party.’ Mani met Kundan on the day of the landing in Surabaya, when Kundan had to intervene to stop the British from marching their troops into the centre of the city at dusk. Kundan persuaded the commanding officer, Brigadier A.W.S. Mallaby, to keep all troop movements limited to the docks area until proper negotiations could take place next day. From then on,

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Mani often turned to Kundan to find out how the local people saw the situation and gain insights into the developing tensions. While Britain eventually offered Kundan formal recognition for his tireless attempts to save lives – everyone’s lives – in Surabaya, the British distrusted all local Indian communities in Indonesian cities, suspecting them of sympathising with the Indonesian Revolution against the Dutch and the nationalist movement against the British in India.23 Mani was billeted in a hotel separate from the British HQ, where he stayed with other members of the Public Relations staff and members of Recovery of Allied Prisoners of War and Internees (RAPWI), the group overseeing the repatriation of Allied war prisoners. He went out as soon as he could to get a sense of the mood in the city. In that first despatch from the city, Mani noted the extensive wall posters and graffiti around the city, which all carried pro-Independence slogans – but now they were not only in English, as they had been in Batavia, but in English and Hindustani. This was even more unsettling for the Indian soldiers than the radio broadcasts had been. Mani recorded in his diary entry for October 25 one slogan which read: Merdeka! (Independence!). He continued: ‘and for the first time in Java, slogans have appeared in Hindustani: “Azadi ya Khunrezi” – freedom or bloodshed – its effect on the Indian troops is remarkable […] they are already starting to ask their officers if they have to fight the Indonesians.’ British officers interviewed by Robert McMillan remembered posters in English along the same lines, saying: ‘Remember the Atlantic Charter’ and ‘We Will Purchase Our Freedom With Our Blood’.24 Many others were photographed or filmed, including: Don’t hinder the Indonesian republic Up! Indonesian Republic Death with colonisation. For the Defence of Republic Indonesia we are Prepared to Loose [sic] our Blood Our Government is based on Democracy Indonesian Self-determination is the Only Way to Establish World Peace.25 23 McMillan 2005; Frederick 1989. 24 McMillan 2005: 37. 25 PW: see, for example, Australian cabled reports on 7.10.45, 27.10.45, and 25.11.45. Imperial War Museum Archives SEAC photographs, SE 5639, Street scene in Surabaya (Soerabaja) lull in the fighting. Nationalist graffiti visible; Films: SEAC Film Unit, JFU 437, 447.

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These Surabaya notices were aimed specifically at Indian troops and carried up-to-date information from India on the statements of Congress leaders, like this one from Jawaharlal Nehru: The Indonesians are fighting for freedom like you. Alahabad, September 30, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, leader of the Indian National Congress declared today that Indian troops must not be used to suppress the uprising of the Indonesian or other colonial peoples. We are interested in the freedom of subject countries and we would like to help them to achieve it, Nehru said. It is monstrous that our armed forces should be employed to suppress those for whom we have the greatest sympathy. NOTE: The Indonesian people has declared her independence and is now struggling to protect it.26

The troops who landed on the evening of 25 October were deployed close to the docks as Kundan had advised, but Brigadier Mallaby immediately began negotiations with the priyayi civil authorities of Surabaya to assert British control. Mani attended this first conference and described it in his official army despatch of 26 October, maintaining an even tone while suggesting some unease. It read: ‘occupation proceeding peacefully’; the commander (Mallaby) ‘has conferred with Indonesian leaders’ who are ‘cooperating well with our troops’.27 But his diary entry told a different story. After the very first conference on the evening of 25 October, Mani noted that he felt Mallaby had handled the meeting badly. Mallaby had been insensitive and rude and had apparently completely failed to appreciate the position of the Indonesian authorities who were trying to allay the anxieties of the various groups of nationalists in the city. Mani feared ‘they are beginning to regard us [the Indian troops] as the vanguard of Dutch Imperialism […] The pity is we are all Indians here and appreciate like their leaders in Batavia that we have not come to Java of our own volition.’ By the following day, 26 October, Mani was seriously alarmed. His diary entry included an account of Mallaby’s press conference, which he again felt had gone badly: the commander had appeared to be contemptuous of Indonesian armed strength. Here Mani’s entry became an agonised cry: ‘A 26 IWM photograph SE 5979 Surabaya, 1945. Pointed out by Dr Frank Palmos. 27 All quoted documents are available online at P.R.S. Mani Papers, https://epress.lib.uts.edu. au/research/handle/10453/28084.

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thousand Regrets I am not a free correspondent to report what I observe. Anyway, duty by troops from my own country and cannot leave them’. He went to bed that night ‘with a vague suspicion there may be a bloodbath in store for us.’ Worse was to come the following morning, 27 October. The British command in Batavia had ordered aircraft to drop leaflets printed in Bahasa Indonesia over Surabaya, which demanded that the Indonesian forces give up their arms. This was explicitly contrary to the commitments Mani had witnessed Mallaby giving to the Indonesian civil authorities the previous day. Mani wrote apprehensively: ‘I feel that the proud Indonesians would not give up their arms until the Dutch menace is removed.’ Mallaby was displaying what Mani believed to be ‘sheer arrogance’, telling the Indonesians that ‘he is the ruler of the place’. In the press briefing afterwards, the Brigadier told the journalists they should not report how serious the situation was. Mani noted in his diary entry, ‘He wants to vet our copies and most correspondents unwillingly agree. I am furious that truth is being suppressed but can do little.’ Trying to learn how Surabayan Indonesians really felt, Mani had gone out to find Kundan, knowing that the well-informed Sindhi merchant was trusted by Indonesian nationalists. Kundan gave Mani, he wrote, ‘plenty of dope on the local situation’. Mani wrote of his own feelings of sadness ‘for the Indian troops who are weary of war and are longing to be back home. These famous warriors seem to be forever trapped in the web of destiny to which they so pathetically cling.’ What Mani did not know was that Mallaby had ordered that the Indian troops be deployed across the city, far beyond the port area, the next day, 28 October. They set up as small units, referred to as ‘penny packets’, within the kampungs. Since the Indian troops were far outnumbered, this could be no more than a symbolic occupation of the city.28 Unaware of these deployment orders, Mani, along with a number of his colleagues, went to have lunch with Kundan who had already heard the news, so it was hardly surprising that Mani was able to learn so much from him. Kundan must have been eager to speak to another Indian who shared his nationalist sympathies. Mani also did not know until much later that he had been fortunate to make it back to the hotel that day. After the new deployment of troops, anger spread across Surabaya about the British failure to abide by their promises. It spilled over into an attack by both regular and irregular (militia 28 See detailed account in Palmos 2012.

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and pemuda) Indonesian forces that began late in the afternoon. According to the memoir of Des Alwi, then a young nationalist fighter in the Battle, Mani had been lucky when Honavar and other journalists returned to their hotel after lunch with Kundan. They escaped ambush only because Alwi recognised the journalists, including Mani and the Australian Graham Jenkins, and called off the hidden fighters.29 Des Alwi, who later became a prominent journalist and speech writer, published his diaries of the Battle in 2012 as Pertempuran Surabaya November 1945.30 He wrote: We were secretly preparing a city-wide attack on the British at 5pm on Sunday 28 October, because they had broken both promises to (a) keep within 800 metres of the harbour – they had now occupied the city with 22 outposts – and (b) not to bring in Dutch military personnel – we had proof several had come in as part of the British landing party. From a distance I felt the truck looked familiar. I had frequently seen it in the British (Command) Headquarters. It seems I was not mistaken. As the truck approached I recognized Jenkins, the Daily Mail journalist, and Shri Mani, the public affairs officer for the British forces, and a few other foreign journalists whose name I now cannot recall. I jumped onto the road shouting, Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! They’re not British, they’re journalists! I kept running hither and thither waving my arms up and down to indicate they should hold their fire. Whew! They held fire. Saved by the bell! Later that afternoon, at 5 pm, 28 October, the first phase of the Battle for Surabaya took place […] by the end of three days fighting more than 600 British and British-Indian troops had been killed.

Mani heard the first shots ring out not long after he returned to the hotel. The scattered ‘packets’ of Indian troops were being attacked simultaneously by Indonesian forces. Mani’s hotel was soon besieged and all outward radio communication was cut off. Mani, as a captain, was second in command as the Indian troops in the hotel tried to defend the post and themselves. He moved from position to position to support the soldiers but also tried to monitor the radio, as he mentioned in the diary entry he was able to dash off later in the evening: ‘telephone communication with command HQ was 29 Alwi 2012. 30 The section relating to Mani has recently been translated by Dr Frank Palmos; see his as yet unpublished 2012 PhD dissertation.

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cut […] We could not speak with HQ or any of our other troops outside but we were able to listen to all that the other units were saying. Each unit was sending out an SOS and the HQ was replying that they themselves were cut off and surrounded and that fierce battles were raging’. Although he could not get messages out, Mani could hear the harrowing May Day calls from the many isolated units of Indian troops, which were now all under attack. Then he heard their screams as their posts were overrun and they were killed, one by one.31 Mani did not learn until later that other Indian soldiers had been burned alive when their post in a cinema was set on fire. He was finally able to speak by radio to Kundan, who was trying without success to get a message through to Mallaby at the British HQ, pleading with him to make contact with the Indonesians to negotiate a truce. Mani explained that all communications were disrupted and begged Kundan to get the message through. We know more about what happened based on Indonesian accounts. Sungkono, the leader of the Surabaya forces, related a story about the desperate hours in the early evening of 28 October. He knew that Kundan could not get through to the British HQ to stop the fighting, and he helped Kundan call Sukarno to ask him to intervene directly. Kundan’s call was put through Sujono, an operator in Jalan Darmo, the local telephone exchange in Surabaya, who tried to reach Sukarno where he was attending a Youth Congress. The Chairman of the Congress was dismissive, at which Sujono told the Chairman: ‘You don’t know who you are talking to do you There is outright war in Surabaya! I’ll give you three minutes to call His Excellency. If not I’ll brand you a traitor. I’ll have my boys here take care of you!’ The bluff worked. Kundan was put through to Sukarno. In the sombre half-hour conversation that followed, Sujono recalled that he heard frequent descriptions of the fighting in Surabaya. It was perhaps this call to Sukarno – rather than Mani’s assumption that it was Kundan’s dash through the night with a white flag to contact the British HQ – that finally stilled the guns for a few hours.32 Bunkered down in the middle of this terrifying attack on 29 October 1945, Mani witnessed the death of a Rajput soldier, one of those who had been trying to defend the hotel. The Rajputs, from northwestern India, were one of the groups the British believed to be ‘martial’ and innate warriors. They had been heavily recruited and formed a substantial proportion of the colonial Indian army formed by the British. They had been renowned for 31 McMillan 2005: 45. 32 Soewito 1994. Sections on T.D. Kundan transl. Dr Frank Palmos.

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their courage and military skills in Burma. Yet Mani makes clear the deeply disturbed state of mind in which this soldier faced the battle in Surabaya. Mani was only able to write about this experience a year later, when, as a foreign correspondent for the FPJB, he was trying to protect the hundreds of Indian soldiers who had joined the Indonesian Revolution. In an article published on 30 October 1946, Mani wrote: In the raging battle of Sourabaya, a ribboned Rajput hero of Burma who lay dying with an Indonesian bullet in his heart exclaimed to me:  ‘Ham Dutch ke liye kion marna hai, Sab’  – ‘Why should we die for the Dutch, sir’

For Mani, this was the key question of the whole experience. Mani described what happened next in a sombre and detailed despatch, dated 6 November, which was very different in tone from all his other official despatches before or after. It described the rest of that harrowing night of 28 October, the earlier part of which had been recorded in his diary. The journalists and troops at the hotel came under increasing pressure. With casualties rising, and knowing from the radio that the situation was extreme for others all over the city, they realised there was no help coming. They surrendered to the Indonesians later in the night. In his official despatch, Mani wrote that they were driven through the streets, with Surabayan crowds lining the road jeering and abusing them. Eventually, they reached an Indonesian jail where they were kept for four hours. Next morning, Amir Sjarifuddin came to visit them in the cells. He, Sukarno, and Hatta had flown into the city early in the day to try to organise a truce. Sjarifuddin arranged for the journalists to be moved into ‘protective’ internment where they were held by members of the pemuda. The continued fighting meant they could not be returned to British lines for some days. For four days, Mani lived closely with a group of young freedom fighters, the pemuda members who had taken them captive, led by Rustom Zain. He realised that he had earlier met the Zain family among other nationalists in Batavia. Mani got to know Rustom better and met his sister, Yetty, who was assigned to inform and manage the journalists. Mani learned a great deal from them both about the young fighters and their hopes for a new Republic. Yetty in particular offered them patient explanations and answered all of their questions. Mani felt she had shown them not only hospitality but kindness in finding and returning their cameras, typewriters, and

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clothes.33 He was torn between his admiration for the young Indonesian nationalists and his sense of duty towards the Indian troops whose stories he had been trying to publicise. While they were in protective custody the situation had worsened dramatically, although, again, Mani did not become aware of this until days later. Sjarifuddin had come from the capital with Sukarno and Major General Hawthorn, the commander of 23rd Indian Division, to negotiate a formal ceasefire. Sukarno and the British commander, Brigadier Mallaby, drove through the streets to confirm the truce, and a Kontak Biro (‘Contact Committee’) was set up, including senior members from both sides. Mallaby was on the British side, along with Captain Shaw and other officers. The Indonesian members included Ruslan Abdulgani, Sungkono, and Muhammad Mangundiprojo. The Indonesians chose Kundan as their interpreter. The Contact Committee members were to be in continuous communication with each other and between the two sides, setting up a structure that they hoped would forestall any further fighting. During the tense period immediately after Sukarno and Sjarifuddin’s visit, Kundan was again central to the communication between the British and the Indonesian leadership as the truce broke down. At the Internatio Building at the ‘Red Bridge’, the British Indian troops were surrounded but refused to surrender. The resulting incident was the subject of many British investigations based on British participants’ accounts, but it has also been described in detail from the Indonesian side in the ABRI book Pertempuran Surabaya (The Battle of Surabaya, 1998) based on veterans’ memories recorded in the 1970s and 1980s. Its second chapter, ‘Terbunuhnya Brigadir Jenderal Mallaby’ (The Killing of Brigadier Mallaby), was based in part on an interview with Kundan recorded on 4 November 1974 by R.H. Muhammad Mangundiprojo, a fellow member of the contact committee. The ABRI volume reports that within an hour of Sukarno’s departure, the truce was breaking down: After the ceasefire was proclaimed by the government the people of Surabaya obeyed. However, the British were always looking for a quarrel. British troops continued to fire at fighter posts. In fact when the deliberations had only just finished on 30 October in the late morning/ early afternoon and the Contact Bureau had announced the edict of the negotiation results, British troops that had been holding on in the Madrasah Al Irsyad (Jalan Pekulen) held an attack on the inhabitants. As a result many village inhabitants became casualties.34 33 Mani 1986: 8-11. 34 ABRI 1998: 60, 65-66.

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By early afternoon, the Internatio Building standoff had worsened and the whole Contact Committee set out in eight cars to negotiate with the British troops inside. After various negotiations, it was decided that Shaw would go inside the building for the British side, accompanied by Mangundiprojo for the Indonesian side, with Kundan interpreting. The three of them entered, but Kundan was already suspicious and passed his concerns on to Mangundiprojo. In the 1974 interview, Kundan stated that he had heard Mallaby give Shaw muttered orders to have the troops inside wait only for ten minutes and then, if the crowd had not calmed down, they were to open fire. Kundan said that Mallaby’s explanation was that the people and the youths would then become disordered and run away, giving the British troops the opportunity to break out of the building and then head straight for the docks which they controlled. Shaw reacted by saying that this would be very dangerous for General Mallaby. But Mallaby considered that as a military man he could not accept the people’s demands for his troop to surrender just like that. Apparently Mallaby was no longer patient.35

When the ten minutes were nearly up, Kundan decided to go back outside to ask Mallaby to order more time. As Mangundiprojo tried to follow him, he found he was blocked by two Indian soldiers and taken prisoner. Kundan then emerged from the building alone, calling out to the Contact Committee that Shaw and Mangundiprojo needed more time – but at that point, the shooting started. Muhammad, in his captive state could see from the doorway of the room that remained open that the muzzle of the [British] mortar that was in front of the window was aimed at the row of cars close to Jembatan Merah. In fact the hunch was correct. Not long after from the building the sounds of explosions were followed by an onslaught of shots from the bottom and upper floors. The shots were aimed at the people and the youths that were scattered in the triangular space in front of the Internatio building and also at the cars of the Contact Bureau. Hence it was from the British side that the shots were first released, not from the people.36

35 Ibid. 36 Ibid.: 127-9.

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A hail of answering gunfire met the British, and in the crossfire Mallaby was killed. No British inquiry was ever able to satisfactorily apportion responsibility: the British asserted that Mallaby had been ‘foully murdered’ by the Indonesians,37 while the Indonesians believed he had been killed in crossfire after the British had broken the truce.38 Kundan, who had just reached Mallaby’s position, was slightly injured but survived. In the tense days after Mallaby’s death, the British Indian troops worked together with the regular Indonesian army personnel to evacuate the 6000odd European internees whom the British had rescued and moved into Surabaya. The British did not, however, evacuate the far greater number of Eurasian and Chinese residents of the city who had been either interned by the Japanese or held by the Indonesians.39 When Mani and the other journalists were finally released, they spent a day or two gathering their belongings in Surabaya before being evacuated on 5 November to Singapore. The surviving troops of the 49th, who had lost more than 500 comrades, retreated into the port area of Surabaya to regroup. There they were reinforced by two brigades of the Fifth Indian Division. After a week there was an unmistakable massing of troops around the docks. Mani returned on 10 November. As well as finding the number of troops greatly increased, he also found that there was a new commander, Major General Mansergh, whom many believed was determined to take revenge for the humiliation of the British forces.

The unacceptable British ultimatum One image provides a striking illustration of the failure of the British commanders to understand the depth of Indonesian commitment to the nationalist revolution. This is a photograph of the car in which Mallaby died in the evening of 30 October 1945. Behind it are the buildings that the British tried to hold despite promising to retreat to the docks. The sign behind Mallaby’s car read: ‘Once and Forever. The Indonesian Republic.’ This was a clear message that Indonesians would fight to the 37 Major General Mansergh, quoting Lt-Col Philip Christison, in the ultimatum to the people of Surabaya, 9.11.45. 38 ABRI 1998; Alwi 2012; McMillan 2005: 46-52; Frederick 1989; Anderson 1972/2006; Reid 1974; Doulton 1950: 249-67. 39 McMillan 2005: 56; Cribb 2008.

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death against the British attempt to take the city out of their control. The British command ignored it. Mani wrote only one despatch before he was evacuated from Surabaya on 5 November. It was only when he arrived safely in Singapore that he typed out the long despatch of 6 November, describing their surrender on 28 October. The one despatch he wrote before he left Surabaya, dated 5 November, was entirely about T.D. Kundan’s role during the conflict. It reflected Mani’s deep respect for Kundan and his recognition of the courage Kundan had shown over the whole difficult period since the British landing. There are barely any references to Kundan in the British sources: only a passing note on his alignment with Indonesian leaders who the British regarded as ‘moderate’, which included Abdulgani and Sungkono.40However, there are other fragments in the Indonesian accounts indicating that, far from having limited involvement with only the civil leadership, Kundan was much more widely connected. Along with the Swiss and Turkish consuls, he was ‘one of several foreigners sympathetic to the cause’ who broadcast on Radio Pembereontakan, Bung Tomo’s ‘Rebellion Radio’, to explain Indonesia’s struggle to the world. 41 Both Bung Tomo and the radio station provided inspiration for many of the Indonesians fighting in Surabaya, and Kundan’s presence must have reflected his own involvement with the broad sweep of the city’s people. Although the British sources hold no record of his presence, Kundan remained involved with the Contact Committee in the tense negotiations after Mallaby’s death and the temporary evacuation of journalists like Mani. Then, on 9 November, Kundan was part of the emissary group sent by Governor Surio of East Java to the British headquarters to carry his written demand for more civil and respectful negotiations from Major General Mansergh, the commander replacing Mallaby. 42 Kundan’s heavy involvement in these negotiations and his radio broadcast as President of the Indian Association for Bung Tomo’s Radio Merdeka! (‘Rebellion Radio’) suggests the revolution’s support from the Sindhi community in Surabaya and perhaps from other Indians. He was closely supported by his extended family; one of his relatives, Bheromall, was deputed as the formal witness in the identification and return of Mallaby’s body to the British. 43 The Indian press was following the events in Surabaya. It is unlikely that Mani was able to communicate with colleagues in the media back in 40 41 42 43

Springhall 1996. ABRI 1998: 129. ABRI 1998: 86. ABRI 1998: 71, fn. 54

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India during this time, but there were enough foreign correspondents in Batavia to keep the stories flowing. One article, for example, was published prominently in the FPJB on 4 November, just days after Mani’s release from internment. This article details the long shared cultural history of India and Indonesia, and clearly states the obligation that India was under to assist the nationalists. The call for India to recognise its responsibilities to Indonesia was certainly in accord with the spirit of Mani’s diary entries. Mansergh responded to the Governor’s request for more respectful communication by demanding that the Indonesians disarm and hand over control of Surabaya. The nationalists refused, seeing Surabaya as the place where they had to make a stand against Dutch return. They vowed to fight to the death – and burn Surabaya to the ground, if necessary – rather than surrender. Mansergh’s response was to issue an uncompromising ultimatum demanding that all Surabayans surrender to him immediately. The combined Indonesian fighting forces of the city, regulars and militia, priyayi and pemuda, took the grave decision not to surrender. Embodying this unified commitment, Surabaya’s Governor Surio announced over the radio that ‘the city would resist to the last’.44 Within a day, a massive British bombardment of the city had begun, following which Indian troops were sent in to retake it. The Dutch perspective was shown in the Australian press by 11 November in an article by Graham Jenkins published in the Melbourne Argus, 45 British Assault on Sourabaya Dutch sources report that by nightfall British and Indian forces had occupied nearly two-thirds of Sourabaya […] Most armed Indonesians fled to the hills […] British and Indian troops are making a thorough clean-up to ensure that no ne[s]ts of snipers are left behind.

While the Dutch military sources Jenkins quoted implied that most of the Indonesian nationalist fighters had retreated, the nationalist accounts point out that it took one hundred days before the British completely secured movement across the whole city. Mani reflected sadly on the death rate among Indonesians in the battles that lasted all through November. On 13 November he described the assault on the city and the fires that marked the retreat – street by street – of the Republicans: ‘Our troops regard these operations more as an uprising that 44 Reid 1974: 52. 45 Argus 12.11.45.

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9.2 Indian gunners with 3.7 inch guns near Surabaya

Photograph courtesy Imperial War Museum, SE_006735 (c) IWM

has to be suppressed than as a war with Indonesians […] But Soerabaya burns and the clouded sky each night glows red.’ The Indians from the 5th division who were brought into Surabaya as reinforcements heard the stories of the Battle from survivors of the 49th Brigade. Major Dube, for example, a commander of the Rajputna Rifles, had surrendered with his troops just as Mani had. But Dube and his company were not so lucky: the troops were all killed, leaving Dube as the only survivor.46 Such terrible events of 28-31 October left much bitterness and anger among the survivors and the incoming Indian troops, though at least some retained their fundamental sympathy for the Indonesian nationalist cause.

46 McMillan 2005: 53.

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This ambivalence was resolved , as it was in Mani’s despatches, by defining only a section of the Indonesian nationalist fighting force in Surabaya as ‘fanatical’ or ‘fascist-inspired’. These ‘fanatics’ could be hated, while still supporting the other Indonesian forces. This does not match the perspective of the Indonesian side, whose fighters had a broad sense of common commitment, as shown in all their memoirs quoted earlier. However, this distinction between ‘fanatics’ and ‘nationalists’ allowed Indians like Mani to come to terms with the severe casualties the Indians had suffered at the end of October and still support those fighting for Indonesian national Independence. The battle to retake Surabaya was slow, in part because the Indians and British were trying to avoid further casualties, but equally because the Indonesians were fighting on their own soil and had vowed to fight to the end. Some engagements in the town itself were cautious, as photographs show. Other engagements were far more heavy-handed: many Indonesian positions in and around Surabaya were pounded by heavy artillery, for example. 47 Such heavy weaponry allowed the Indian and British troops to dismantle the Republican barricades and advance into the city. In the days after Mallaby’s death, the British forces evacuated the last of the European internees, but the resident Indians were then interned by the Indonesians. One of the few exceptions was Kundan, who took his family to the hills, from where he remained in communication with the Indonesian nationalists. The resident Indians who were interned during the bombardment by the Republicans were released later in November, and stressed that they had been treated well and sympathetically at all times by the Indonesians, many of whom they personally knew. There were, however, many other Asian civilians held by the Indonesian nationalists who were treated with far less sympathy than the resident Indians. Some were in grave danger. From 31 October to 6 November the British concentrated on evacuating only the internees of the Japanese who were identified as ‘European’, numbering just over 6000. Despite the fact that revenge was the most apparent motive for his uncompromising 9 November ultimatum, Mansergh had in fact been correct in one thing: many more people were still being detained in harsh conditions. 48 The British had evacuated only a few ‘Eurasians’ and had not evacuated any whom they classified as ‘Asians’ at all. After 10 November, Indian troops were called on to rescue many such abandoned internees: ‘Magnificent 47 IWM SE 6735. ‘Gunners of the 24th Indian Mountain Battery (5th Indian Division).’ 48 Frederick 1989: 264.

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work daily rescuing hundreds of Chinese, Dutch and Eurasian women and children […] in the face of sniper and mortar fire […] in this humanitarian work, these soldiers from the Punjab have displayed the same courage and sacrifice as they did in war’. It was the Chinese, Chinese-Dutch, and Chinese-Indonesian residents who bore the brunt of the hostility of the Japanese and, eventually, the Indonesians.49 Interned Eurasian women and children were abandoned by the British and left in Indonesian hands, despite the British self-congratulations for the effective evacuation of British and Dutch – that is, European – internees before November. The Eurasians remained in dangerous conditions until the Indian troops, often at great risk to their own lives, rescued over 4000 of them during the course of November.50 From Mani’s brief notes on these rescues, they were deeply disturbing experiences for the Indian troops. They – or at least Mani – had ignored the Chinese and Eurasian populations up to that point, accepting the relative tolerance shown to Indians by Indonesians. The horrifying conditions in which the Eurasians and Chinese they freed had been kept left the Indians shaken and disturbed. Mani questioned his sympathies with the nationalists and suggested that these rescues left the troops uneasy and reminded of their own vulnerability, so recently demonstrated in the first attacks of 27 and 28 October. The fighting was still being conducted street by street, house by house. As the Republicans counted, it took close to a hundred days before the British could say they had the city under their complete control. The British, however, were eager to report victory: on 26 November, Major General Mansergh judged the campaign a success. Mani had had enough. He wrote just a few years later that he was ‘much grieved with events in Indonesia’. In December, he asked to be transferred back to India and arrived there soon after, after meeting with Hatta and other Indonesian leaders to discuss his decision with them.51 The army posted him to the General Headquarters in Delhi to cover the INA trials, and by February 1946 he had lodged his final resignation. He wanted to return to Indonesia as an independent reporter to focus on investigating the Indonesian drive for freedom and national independence.

49 Mani 1993: 98-130; Heidhues 1988, 1999, 2012; Frederick 1999, 2012; Lucas 1991; Luttikhuis & Moses 2014. 50 Mani, Despatches, 11.11.45, 21.11.45, 25.11.45, 26.11.45. 51 Mani, in ‘Supplement’ to his application to the Indian Foreign Service, October 1947.

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He was immediately employed by the FPJB, a crusading nationalist newspaper, to be their foreign correspondent in Indonesia.52 In the meantime, Kundan, along with ‘several more Indians’ had ‘evacuated to the interior with their families’.53 Their destination was Lawang, to the south of Surabaya, a high-country retreat regularly used by Kundan’s family. Despite Mansergh’s bombardment, the British only ever retook the inner part of the city. The outer districts and hinterland around the city continued to be Republican territory.54 There are indications in his resume that once Kundan had ensured his family was safe, the British bombardment left him with little choice. Ruslan Abdulgani, speaking at Kundan’s funeral in 1980, confirmed that Kundan had reluctantly felt that he had to take action against the British attack: ‘During the clash against the British troops in East Java, Mr Kundan joined other Indonesian fighters in the battle front. I and Suryo had tried to hold him not to go to war, but he went on marching to the front.’55 Kundan was later awarded a medal by the British for his services in interpretation. The absence of any awareness of his role in the Battle of 1945 in so many of the British reports from Surabaya may suggest how little the British understood the views of resident Indians, or perhaps it reflects the pervasive distrust with which the British viewed resident Indian populations.56 Even Mani, sympathetic as he was, had only a glimpse of Kundan’s role; it is only when the Indonesian accounts are gathered that it becomes clear. The significance of Kundan’s role was, however, recognised by the Indonesian Government, which accorded Kundan a rare honour among non-Indonesians by awarding him the Ana Ra Ria in recognition of his role in this key Independence battle. When Kundan died in 1980, the Indonesian Government sought and gained his family’s consent to inter some of his ashes in the Memorial Cemetery of Heroes at Surabaya.57 The work of both Kundan and Mani was to continue into 1946, when conditions had changed for both of them and for Surabaya itself. The city was devastated. The heavy bombardment by the British from their warships 52 Mani, 1986: 65-6. The next part of Mani’s story in Indonesia as a Foreign Correspondent for the FPJB is told in later chapters. In October 1947, he became the Press Attaché to the Indian Consul General in Djakarta, and soon after he applied for a position himself in the Indian Foreign Service. 53 Mani, Despatches, 27.11.45. 54 Palmos 2012. 55 Indonesia Times 12.4.80. 56 Mani 1993: 98-130. 57 Mani 1993: 102; interview by author with Priya and Vashdev Lachmandas, Surabaya, 18.6.2014.

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in the harbour was relentless, and had pounded much of the city into dust. Howard Dick, surveying the economic history of the city over the twentieth century, has written movingly of the enormity of the destruction. Outside of Japan itself, it had only been Manila in the Philippines, bombed by the Allies before the war ended, that had suffered such damage. The economy, already undermined by the collapse of the sugar trade and the loss of international commerce during the war, was further battered by Dutch boycotts and then withdrawal. This was, Dick writes, ‘utter stupidity – it was an outcome no-one had intended and no-one wanted’.58 The city emptied during the British bombardment; Dick estimates that 80 per cent of its residents had fled to the hinterland, and that only some began to filter back after the British left. The city did not return to its pre-1945 population until 1950. It remained effectively cut off from international trade and, as its sugar industry languished, its economy was in grave difficulties. It was left to those who had stayed, or who came slowly back, to try to revive their city. In this situation, trade began to seem to Kundan, to Mani, and to the Indonesian nationalist leadership, as if it might offer an answer.

58 Dick 2002: 83-4.

10 Frenzied Fanatics: Seeing Battle and Boycott in Australia The Battle of Surabaya was the most ferocious fighting of Indonesia’s war against colonisation. There was wide press coverage of this event in both Australia and India, but the tone and content of the reports diverged markedly. This chapter investigates how the Battle was recorded in the press in Australia, which followed the conflict closely, and considers how it reshaped political and union attitudes to the shipping Boycott through November and into the following months. There were also Indian seamen in Australia, who were participating in the Boycott and trying to intervene in newspapers’ reporting. As most seamen were not literate in English, they relied on images to follow the press coverage – and it was through images – press photographs and later film – that they were to try to make their voices heard. Chapter 11 looks at the coverage of Surabaya in the English-language press in India, where the part played by Indian troops meant that the Battle was followed even more urgently than any of the concurrent independence conflicts in other places. Australia was mentioned frequently in the Indian coverage, both because of its ongoing Boycott and because Australia was often the source of news about Indonesians’ views on Surabaya, through CENKIM or Australian journalists. There seems to have been some common ground between the reports in the two countries. Both countries focused their attention on the British – not surprisingly given each had a colonial relationship with Britain and the British were leading SEAC and conducting most of the fighting with the Indonesians. Yet both India and Australia were alert to the attitude of the United States, which had not yet become directly involved in Indo-China or elsewhere in Asia, although its rising anti-communism was evident. Indians, like many colonised people, saw the US role in nurturing the Atlantic Charter as a guarantee that decolonisation movements would be respected. Australians were disillusioned with Britain after Singapore, and had looked on the USA as a crucial ally against the Japanese expansion in the Pacific War. So newspaper reports of both countries kept readers updated on US positions on this conflict even while they focused attention on the British and SEAC. There was other common ground. The reports in both countries used some similar terms, particularly, for example, ‘extremists’ – and yet the meaning of this term differed so much between countries that its analysis offers a path to understanding why the representations of the Battle differed. The media

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in each country associated this term with evocative, symbolic, and powerful meanings but, as these chapters will show, those meanings were different. Such differences make visible the assumptions – the ‘frames’ – that shaped each media group’s approach to the Indonesian Independence movement.

Sources of news in the Australian press Where did the Australian press gain information on Surabaya? In the month preceding the Battle, most published reports came from correspondents in Batavia, notably Harry Plumridge for AAP and an unnamed Reuters correspondent, from the British press, and from Dutch spokespeople who addressed an English-speaking audience. The main pages of all1 Australian newspapers – not only the large urban papers like the Argus and Sydney Morning Herald but also the independently-owned regional papers, like the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin, the Newcastle Morning Herald, and the Burnie Advocate – focused on the attempts to bring home the Australian troops and former POWs who were still in Southeast Asia. Issues concerning the RAPWI teams were commonly featured; as these teams became entangled in the Indonesian conflict, the future of Indonesia also increasingly figured in the Australian press.2 Meanwhile, the Dutch were bitter that their former war allies were now solely concerned with the return of their own men, rather than recognising a longer-term responsibility to restore Southeast Asia to its pre-war condition.3 Overall, the Australian press was pessimistic about the Indonesian conflict, repeatedly stressing the deteriorating conditions, with more fighting and little communication between the Indonesian Republicans and the Dutch. 4 Their sources, as far as they were in the East Indies at all, were the AAP and Reuters correspondents who stayed in the city of Batavia. In addition to the denigration of Sukarno as a collaborator with the Japanese, there were increasing accusations that he had little control over the fighters demanding Independence. The phrases ‘out of hand’ and ‘out of control’ were repeated frequently.5 The term ‘extremists’ was used 1 That is, those digitised by Trove and available for this research. 2 Examples are the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin 11.11.45 and the Courier Mail 18.10.45. 3 Northern Star 8.10.45. 4 Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate 3.10.45: ‘Ugly Situation in East Indies’; Advocate 8.10.45: ‘Java Situation Takes Grave Turn’. 5 North Star (Lismore) 8.10.45; Rockhampton Morning Bulletin and Advertiser (Adelaide) 11.10.45.

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widely, as early as 26 September in the case of the SMH correspondent C.C. Eager, who was located in Batavia and close to the Dutch. He argued that the Republicans were associated with ‘extreme western movements’ such as communism.6 These ‘out of control’ popular movement might be associated with hooliganism or banditry,7 but there seemed to be growing support for the SMH statements that the ‘extremists’ were communists.8 By 19 October, the Northern Star was asserting that there was a religious motivation to the ‘extremist’ violence, reporting that Christian Indonesians were being targeted in Bandung in an ‘Orgy of Killing, Looting and Destruction in Java’.9 In the coming days, the Dutch news agency was quoted in the Australian press accusing ‘extremists’ of racial motives in ‘massacring’ Eurasians in coastal and inland Java. This alarmism was, however, at odds with the official American position which viewed Sukarno and the Republican movement with sympathy and respect.10 The Australian press was drawing on the many pre-existing stereotypes with a common theme of irrationality, which now became entangled with fears of ‘communism’. The mainstream press saw Java as the seat of the Indonesian republican movement, so it was not interested in Indians as actors, though it was aware of their presence as troops. However, a frequent theme was that the long campaign for Indian Independence had inspired the Indonesians’ demands. As one Queensland paper summed it up, ‘the aspirations of the Hindu millions who clamour for independence in British India have spread to the Indies’.11 The earliest fighting in Surabaya on 29 October seemed to fit the media’s vision of a deteriorating and ever more irrational situation emerging in the Netherlands East Indies. When Sukarno travelled to Surabaya to appeal for calm, the headline of the Newcastle paper suggested just this mix of greater violence and greater irrationality: ‘Sourabaya Tense But No Firing: Soekarno Faced Howling Mob’ – a wording that suggests at first glance that he had been opposed, although the article text goes on to show that this ‘mob’ were Sukarno’s supporters. The mood across the Australian mainstream press changed abruptly from resigned pessimism to strident urgency when the conflict worsened in the immediate aftermath of Sukarno’s visit when Brigadier Mallaby was 6 SMH 26.9.45. 7 Ibid.; Advertiser 11.10.45; Argus 19.10.45. 8 Telegraph 25.9.45; SMH 26.9.45. 9 Northern Star 19.10.45. 10 Canberra Times 22.10.45. 11 Sun 30.9.45; Pittsworth Sentinel 14.11.45; Sun 7.10.45.

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killed. The SMH drew on Eager and set the tone for most later reports with the beginning of its lead story: ‘Brigadier A.W.F. Mallaby […] was murdered by a mob of Indonesian extremists in Sourabaya […] And shortly after a heavy attack was launched on British headquarters.’ Over the coming days, all of the urban and rural press drew heavily on Dutch sources. Where non-Dutch correspondents were used, the reporters stayed in Batavia, close to the Dutch, from where they filed their copy. The Australian press never questioned the cause of the Brigadier’s death, the identity of his killers, or the justice of the threat made immediately by the Commander in Chief, Lt-Gen Christison, ‘to bring the whole weight […] of all the weapons of modern war against them until they were crushed’.12 Mansergh’s ultimatum repeated this threat by demanding full disarmament by 10 November. The British continued to maintain that Mallaby had been ‘foully murdered’ by a small group of Indonesians, while the Indonesians argued that he had been killed in the crossfire between the British and Indian troops inside the nearby building and the Indonesian fighters outside. The many inquiries into Mallaby’s death were inconclusive, so the convictions of neither side could be confirmed. After Mallaby’s death there were no more Australian press investigations of the underlying factors for the Indonesian calls for freedom from the Dutch.13 Over the next few days, the SMH wrote as if the Surabaya population were all ‘extremists’ – or ‘looters, rioters and uncontrolled masses’ – and concentrated its front-page stories on British accounts of Mallaby’s death.14 It quoted Christison’s statement that the assault on Surabaya ‘does not concern the rest of Indonesia. It is the extremists in Sourabaya who are guilty, and the guilty must suffer.’15 No shock was expressed at the scale of the British bombardment, which levelled large parts of Surabaya. The impression from the Australian press was that although the city suffered some damage from the British attack, the greater impact was from the ‘scorched earth’ policy of the Republicans as they retreated.16 The devastation of the city was blamed squarely on the Indonesians. The Dutch sources influenced many Australian papers to carry repeated descriptions of the Javanese as ‘excited’ and in a ‘frenzy’ as they decided how 12 SMH 1.11.45; 3.11.45. 13 Sun 23.11.45, 25.11.35, 30.11.45. 14 SMH 2.11.45, 3.11.45, 10.11.45. 15 SMH 12.11.45. 16 Ibid.

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to respond to Mansergh’s ultimatum.17 The irrationality of all Indonesians, of whatever religion, was also repeatedly stressed, though the larger urban broadsheets were relatively restrained in their accounts. Not so with the rural press. The Narromine News and Trangie Advocate is quoted here not because it had a wide circulation, but because it may have reflected broadly held views that did not find such blunt expression in the more sophisticated metropolitan press. The Narromine paper was in no doubt that the conflict was race-based, nor that support for the Indonesian Republic was a ploy by those within Australia who were seeking to destroy the White Australia Policy. Under the headline ‘Jumping off the Wagon’, it reported on what it saw as disarray, due to the Surabaya violence, among the unions, which had previously all supported the shipping Boycott. Australia was threatened, it argued, by ‘a white-hating, power-mad clique of bhoongs’: The Indonesian trouble has been revealed for what it is: a battle which goes back far beyond any mere squabble over political rights. It is a battle for the survival of the white race in the Pacific, and with our White Australia policy, and a mere seven million people to back it up, we certainly cannot afford to sit on the sidelines. It is not enough for the ‘parlour pinks’ to jump off the Indonesian band wagon. The people of this country should demand that we take positive steps to strike a blow for White Australia now.18

The Australian press had not previously linked the Boycott of Dutch shipping with the changing events in Indonesia, but the details of Mallaby’s death and the conflict in Surabaya were widely reported in Australia as front-page news for weeks – certainly shaping the Australian representation of the Indonesian Republican campaigns as well as how the Boycott was viewed. It seems likely that the growing conflict between left-wing unions, who were aligned with the socialists or communists, and the anti-communist right wing of the union movement was also influenced by the Surabaya fighting, thus shaping the course of the Boycott itself. Sympathy for Mallaby and the British-led SEAC force was evident through all of the Australian newspapers. There was no criticism at all of Mallaby’s role or strategies. Instead, reports concentrated on the details of the particularly gruesome means of killing employed by the attacking 17 Burnie Advocate 8.11.45. 18 Narromine News and Trangie Advocate 23.11.45.

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Indonesian forces.19 This led to even more anxiety about bringing the POWs home quickly – and therefore assisting RAPWI – and so to more criticism of the shipping Boycott, which was considered to be holding up ‘mercy ships’ that could bring the POWs home and give non-weapon supplies to the Dutch. Those for and against the strike became more visibly identified in the press as those who did or did not support the CPA.20 The Grafton Daily Examiner reflected all of these tendencies, including uneasiness about US sympathy with the Indonesian Republicans and the linking of the Boycott and the violence in Indonesia. The Indonesian situation is becoming increasingly grave. It is loaded with explosives. While it is recognized that there is a case for the Indonesians, the methods used by radical natives in Java are to be condemned. Leftists in Australia, at any rate, should keep out of the conflict […] The Atlantic Charter accords peoples the right to govern themselves. This right also applies to the Indonesians. Yet many people who felt sympathetic towards the cause of the natives of Java, Sumatra, Borneo and the Celebes are now asking themselves whether these natives are capable of governing themselves. Mob rule is not our idea of democratic government, and beating and stabbing not our yardstick of responsible citizenship. Javanese who are seriously working for the independence of their country will discover that the radicals now in power have done great damage to their cause.21

Throughout November the mainstream press published far more accounts of the Boycott being run by communists, fewer articles sympathising with the Boycott’s goals, and more accounts of the irrationality or ‘savagery’ of the Indonesians. The prevailing mood in the press became ever more pessimistic. The focus on Indonesia remained in the coverage of the Boycott, which was seen only in terms of its attempt to intervene in the NEI. This may explain why there was so little attention on the striking Indian and Chinese seamen, despite their significant proportions of those refusing to sail ships taking goods, weapons, or troops to the Dutch. The Argus in Melbourne exemplified this deepening pessimism. On 24 November it published a report by Harry Plumridge in a page 4 article headlined ‘Baffling Problem of Java: No Solution in Sight’: 19 SMH for whole period 31.10.45 to 14.11.45. Headlines repeat references to Mallaby’s murder in ‘Truce Parley’ (1.11.45); and to methods of killing such as ‘Savage Warfare’ (10.11.45). 20 SMH 14.11.45: ‘Unions Divided on Indonesians: Moderates Suspicion of Communists’. 21 Daily Examiner 14.11.45.

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Sourabaya is slow[ly] being brought under British control, but even when the whole town is captured the question will be what has been gained. The British will hold a town that is short of food and water and practically uninhabitable except by the military garrison. Outside its limits there will still be 100,000 internees scattered throughout Java. The Indonesians will control the railway system, and extremists throughout the island will still be in a state of armed excitement, ready to cut the throat of any European who steps outside the garrisoned towns.22

This is a revealing passage. In fact, as we have seen in the previous chapters, most of the population had left the city; rather than the hostile force arrayed against Europeans that Plumridge imaged, the refugees were themselves frightened after the massive bombardment, hopelessly impoverished after the destruction of their homes, and despairing of getting their city back. There was general relief, according to the Australian press, with the appointment of Sutan Sjahrir as Prime Minister on 14 November; he was regarded as a rational moderate who was not compromised by any dealings with the Japanese during the Occupation. Sjahrir tried to build on this goodwill by a broadcast on the ABC Radio Australia network, in which he reassured the Australian public that the new Republic wanted ‘a world where freedom of the people and freedom of men are really safeguarded. With you, we want to stand to together against all enemies of freedom.’23 This attempt at communication provided only limited benefits. Much of the pressure calling for urgent action by the British in Indonesia did subside in the Australian press reports from later in November, but their attention shifted instead to an outbreak of violence in India that was directed against Britain. All of the themes developing during the Battle of Surabaya were brought together on a single front-page spread of the Sydney Morning Herald on 24 November 1945. The articles across this page attacked Indians, Indonesians, Australian unionists, and Australian communists. The lead article carried the headline ‘Riots Spreading in Calcutta’. There had been demonstrations in Calcutta in protest at the British prosecution of officers of what the SMH called the ‘Japanese-sponsored’ Indian National Army. Then, urged on by ‘Communist agitators’, the demonstrators had become 22 Argus 24.11.45. 23 National Maritime Museum, https://anmm.blog/2015/11/26/you-are-all-my-friendsindonesias-first-prime-ministers-address-to-the-australian-people-in-1945/.

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a ‘frenzied mob’ who attacked British troops, invaded the pitch to stop an Australian cricket team, and colluded with cunning ‘hooligans’ and criminals who ‘crawl along walls, hiding in the shadows’ before rushing out to attack British soldiers. It was hard to imagine a slur that had arisen during the Surabaya reports that was not now directed at Indians. A second article decried the demonstrators’ disruption of a Calcutta cricket match in which Australia was playing India. A third article gave the British Government many column inches to complain about opposition from the nationalists in Indonesia. The British Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, insisted ingenuously that: ‘Britain had had no indication that her forces in Java would be opposed […] We do not want to fight the Indonesians […] Our efforts to avoid bloodshed have resulted in our being accused of weakness […] The sooner the Indonesians drop the fighting and begin talking with both the Dutch Government and us the better it will be for their country.’ A fourth article headed ‘Union Leader Arrested: trouble at station’ detailed the arrest of Mick Healy, secretary of the Trades and Labour Council, at South Brisbane station as he tried to talk to a group of 40 ‘lascars’ sent by train from Sydney to break the Boycott. Finally, down the full right-hand columns of the same front page was a large article about clashes between communists and anti-communist groups on the picket line of a steelworkers’ strike, resulting in the injury of an anti-communist union official. The lesson from the explicit content of each of the articles, the values implied by their style and the use of the page layout to gather the articles together, was that when colonised people demanded an end to colonial controls – whether Indonesians or Indians – they were irrational, influenced by communists, should be blamed for any resulting violence, and overall were a threat to Australians. By the beginning of December, the descriptions of ‘extremists in a state of armed excitement’ and ‘frenzy’ that characterised the early November press reports of Surabaya and recurred in the articles about Calcutta had been extended with a new term from the emerging discipline of psychology: ‘mass neurosis’. This came from a speculative report from AAP, which suggested that because the declaration of the Republic had ‘destroyed the authority of the regents’ and destabilised the previously feudal society, the ‘temperamental Javanese, Madurese and Sundanese’ were experiencing ‘a state of mass neurosis which, according to psychiatrists, was never far below the surface in East Indians’.24 The implication of biologically determined characteristics was widely held and certainly reflected in many mainstream 24 West Australian and Advocate 1.12.45.

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Australian papers. The evidence in British and Indian newspapers that members of the old Javanese aristocracy supported the new Republic was ignored.25

Narrowing the focus This racialised stereotyping, paraded as psychiatric assessment, used by the Australian press to represent the Battle of Surabaya in November then shaped how the shipping Boycott was treated in December. The role of Indians in the Boycott was further marginalised, drawing on the diverging stereotypes between different Asians: although irrational, Indians were generally assumed to be ‘docile’ ‘Hindoos’; Indonesians were expected not only to be present but dominant, as ‘fanatical Mussalmen’; and in general the striking Asian seamen were depicted as irrational and ‘frenzied’. The best examples are the reports of two major demonstrations at the Sydney offices of KPM, the Dutch shipping line, that occurred in early December 1945. These help explain why the Indian role in the Boycott has been so poorly remembered. These demonstrations used the same strategy: the occupation of the offices of the KPM in George Street, Sydney. On 12 December 1945, 125 Indian seamen occupied the KPM offices; on 18 December over 200 protesters, most of them Indian with a small number of Indonesians, carried out another occupation. Each incident was reported by the afternoon newspapers, the Daily Mirror (known to have working-class sympathies) and The Sun, and then the same incident was covered by the ‘quality’ broadsheet the SMH, owned like The Sun by the elite Fairfax family.26 After the occupation on the 18th, the Indians marched to the Indian High Commission and conducted another occupation that was not reported by the newspapers but observed and recorded by Stan Moran, the sympathetic WWF member, as a peaceful sit-down protest sustained until the High Commissioner agreed to support their demands against British shipping companies.27 The afternoon headlines described each event as involving Indians, but led by Indonesians.28 The demonstrators were described as rowdy but with 25 FPJB 29.10.45, interview with Sultan of Jogjakarta by Express Service Correspondent. 26 For full analysis of these articles, see Goodall 2009. 27 Lockwood 1982: 164-5; see Chapter 6. 28 All quotes from Daily Mirror 12.12.45, 18.12.45; additional coverage in Sydney Sun 18.12.45. These articles clipped and kept in file of ISUiA, NBABL, E177.

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clear goals – demanding that KPM pay full wages to the seamen and that it contribute to the cost of their food when company decisions prevented them from working. The Mirror mentions that some men were wearing the badges of the Indian Seamen’s Union in Australia while others wore ‘the Red Russian star’. The text indicates that the seamen entered the offices in an orderly manner but then sat down on the floors and counters, completely obstructing further work and distressing the office staff by refusing to leave. They were said to leave the offices again in an orderly manner once their demands were met. On both occasions, the morning SMH significantly altered these descriptions.29 The demonstrators in both cases were said to be predominantly Indonesians and were described in emotive terminology as causing ‘wild scenes’ and ‘creating a bedlam’ which terrified the office staff. They were reported as alien and threatening, having ‘yelled and gesticulated as if they intended to wreck the office […] Jabbering in their native tongue and throwing their arms about, the men invaded every part of the office […] Girl clerks screamed and attempted to escape as wooden partitions were smashed down […] The scene was so ugly […] It resolved itself into a babel of foreign tongues, during which the coloured men were in a state of hysteria.’ In keeping with the ‘wild scenes’ described, the SMH said the men were ‘wearing all types of clothes and head covering’, and it emphasised their ‘Communist emblems’. This description was in direct contrast to the photograph the SMH carried with the article. The Mirror photograph printed the previous day showed the scene outside the KPM office but had been taken from a long distance, showing an orderly scene but making the neatly dressed actors hard to identify. The SMH photograph was a close-up of the demonstrating men, most of whom were clearly Indian and who seemed to be conducting orderly – but heated and very angry – discussions with a group of New South Wales policemen.30 The demonstrators were all neatly dressed in what seem to have been pressed uniform shirts or blazers. From a close reading of the newspapers’ texts, the press photographs, and Moran’s account of the events at the High Commission as given to Lockwood, it appears that the Indians, with their Indonesian and Australian allies, created pieces of performative politics in these three occupations, undertaking non-violent non-cooperation demonstrations showing their rational goals and negotiating through most of the events to achieve their aims. Such 29 All quotes from SMH 13.12.45, 19.12.45. Clipped by ISUiA, in NBABL, E177 30 Photographs outside KPM offices in Mirror 18.12.45 (long shot); SMH 19.12.45 (close-up).

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10.1 ‘Seamen Demonstrate at Dutch Shipping Company office’, 19 December 1945, SMH p. 4

Photograph courtesy Mitchell Library

strategies were a highly developed tactic used in Gandhian campaigns in India from 1919, and of which these Indian demonstrators would certainly have been aware. They were seeking to show, by their behaviour, words, uniforms, and badges, that they were responsible unionised workers with just demands. Yet these complex intentions were only partially recognised by the Australian media. The SMH in particular selectively used or actively distorted some of these items – and invented others – to leave a consistent and powerful impression on readers. This was, first, that the demonstrations were largely the work of Indonesians, who were the initiating and organising force behind them. The Indian presence virtually disappeared from the headlines and was minimal in the text of all coverage. Second, the demonstrators were characterised as alien and distasteful to the SMH’s assumed middle class readership. Finally, the strongest narrative created was of irrationality, frenzy, and violence threatened and enacted by these ‘Indonesian’ demonstrators. There had been a shift in the characterisation of the opponents of colonialism. The term ‘extremist’ became the ‘dog whistle’ that called up a number of different ideas that were all similarly menacing. The common theme of all these ideas was the irrationality of the activists, whatever the source of their actions. The idea of ‘communist’ merged with that of

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irrational fanatic, despite the contradictions in these two stereotypes. The irrationality – and indeed the hysterical frenzy that was conjured up by the mainstream media coverage – were all framed as reasons to distrust the leadership of the Republic.

Indians challenge this imagery: Filming the Boycott The Indian seamen in Sydney had been following the press coverage about Surabaya and the way their Boycott was being represented. Given their limited confidence in written English, photos were particularly important to them. In January 1946, the Indian seamen being repatriated on the Mooltan reached Fremantle only to discover that KPM was only going to give them a fraction of the pay it had promised during the demonstrations. Furious, the seamen wrote back to the ISUiA asking that the press clippings be sent. They particularly wanted the photos, showing them neatly dressed and in uniform – this would confirm their orderly, calm and rational demeanour, their employment, and their collective organisation. One seaman wrote: ‘please you will send this news on 18th December what we done in the K.P.M. company office that matter wrought in the news paper with picher that pice will be please sent to me.’31 In this context, it was welcome news to the Indians that the Australian maritime unions in Sydney were going to make a film showing the Boycott from the workers’ point of view.32 The WWF was one of the funders for Indonesia Calling!, a film to be directed by Joris Ivens, a left-wing Dutch filmmaker, and shot in Sydney in November and December 1945. Ivens had been brought to Australia by the Dutch Government, which had commissioned him to record what they expected to be a triumphant re-entry into the NEI. Realising that the Indonesians had already declared a Republic and were resisting Dutch plans, Ivens worked in secret with the unionists to re-enact the dramatic events of the Boycott. He was still being paid by the Dutch, so the production and day-to-day management of the Boycott film was done by Marion Michelle, an American photographer and Ivens’ partner at the time, who had arrived in Australia after Ivens did. The re-enacted segments of the film were edited sometime in early 1946, carefully scripted 31 Abul Kasim, on behalf of the Indian seamen on the Mooltan, to ISUiA, 12.1.46. ISUiA file, E177/5, NBABL. 32 ISUiA Archives, NBABL, E177; Goodall 2008: 43-68; Goodall 2009: 158-96; Stufkens, 2002; Hughes 2009.

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by Catherine Duncan, (actor, playwright, and documentary film-maker), and then spoken in voiceover by actor Peter Finch.33 Ivens eventually resigned from his government post with great fanfare in late November, but then fell ill almost immediately – leaving the editing and eventual completion of the film in the hands of Michelle and her team.34 Apart from the need for secrecy, a serious problem confronting Ivens was that most of the Indonesians had left Australia on 13 October, when they were repatriated on the Esperance Bay.35 By the time he had gathered the team to undertake the filming, only a few Indonesian activists remained in Sydney, of whom at least one had been a seaman – the young Tuk Subianto, by then leader of SARPELINDO, the Indonesian Seamen’s Union. An even greater problem for Ivens was that the Indonesians had only ever formed a small proportion of the crews on the ships that the Dutch had hoped would take supplies, guns, and ammunition to the re-entering Dutch force. The majority of the crews on the Dutch KPM ships – and on the British ships that were also carrying supplies and weapons for the NEI – had always been British Indians.36 While the dramatic events of the Boycott were ideal for his cinematic vision, Ivens was faced with the dilemmas of filming re-enactments in the absence of Indonesians. Ivens remained committed to the simple narrative approach that would concentrate on the Indonesians and the Australian unionists, filming many scenes valorising the Australian dockworkers’ collective decisions to refuse to load the ships. There were only a few Indonesians visible in the film, but they are each named and given active leadership roles. To replace the missing Indonesians, Ivens – and Michelle – drew in Indian seamen. There is, however, no mention of the ISUiA anywhere in the film, either in the voiceover or in the credits. In fact, the film does not mention any longer-term resident Indian population at all. There are a number of key scenes in the film that hinge on Indians being present, but Ivens edited the storyline and the script so that the only acknowledged Indians were cast as bewildered crewmen, newly arrived from India, who had been recruited by the British and Dutch to break the strike. To play these roles, Ivens recruited the activists in the ISUiA, who had been in Australia for months or years and had been involved in the original events from the other side of the megaphone. 33 34 35 36

Cottle & Keys 2006. Ivens: Resignation Press Statement, 21.11.45. Ivens Archive, Nijmegen. Lingard 2008: 162-81. The Esperance Bay departed Sydney on 13.10.45: Lockwood 1982: 138-44. Lockwood restates these figures repeatedly in Black Armada, but not until Chapter 16.

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In one memorable section, there is a dramatised version of the events leading up to and following the revolt on the Patras. This Dutch ship had left Sydney on 26 October with a newly imported Indian crew who had been forced unknowingly into a strike-breaking role, but who then challenged the Dutch guards by surreptitiously ‘letting down steam’ once outside the Sydney Heads (see Chapter 6). The dramatisation is shown in two parts: first, the chase by activists down the Harbour, calling out to the Indian crew as the Patras steams out of Sydney. Second is the return of the mutinying seamen who have forced the ship to turn back to Sydney, where they have left it and returned to the Union headquarters in a small ferryboat, where they gather in a celebratory rally at which the representative of each group speaks. All of these episodes are re-enactments, though they have the authenticity and immediacy of documentary. The Joris Ivens Archive in Nijmegen holds Marion Michelle’s shooting diary for 6 December 1945, the day of the re-enactment of the activists’ small motorboat chasing the Patras down Sydney Harbour and calling to its crew until the ship disappears out to sea. Michelle’s notes show that she did not know any of the people she gathered to play these roles by name. Up at 6.30 and breakfast with Ken and Grant and to pick up two Indians […] Finally out in two launches and off after the Fort Wrangle which is surrounded by weird-looking US ships. Anyhow we chase it and the little launch gets motor trouble. Onto ours come one Indian and one Indonesian and off we go to the Heads. One shot of the two in the foreground and back we turn, towing our little launch and then loosening it to putter round and get shots. Our two I.’s want to go home, but we Shanghai them and close in to a ship in port with Lascars on it, loosen their launch and putter around shooting until the cops come and stop it. Then on shore […] A reporter waits, so off to a Chinese lunch. Shooting at G. until grey skies. Sunburned and tired.37

In the film, the footage is jumpy, but five people can be made out in the small boat: possibly one is an Indonesian, two are White Australians, and two are Indians. None of them are identified. Then a close-up shot shows one of these Indians as he calls out to the Indians on board the Patras in Hindi or Urdu – ‘Indian brothers’ – and urges them to not sail the ship. He is accompanied in this close-up by a White Australian, also unidentified, calling out similar pleas in English. Seeing the film today, Australian 37 Marion Michelle, Shooting Diary, from first day, 28.10.45.

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audiences assume they are seeing a White Australian unionist supporting an Indonesian activist. In fact, the Indian in these close-ups is Abdul Rehman, the Indian seaman from Pune who was the chairman of the ISUiA, who is identified in many other photographs.38 Rehman came from the Konkan coast, where Indian seafaring people commonly had some Arab ancestry, making his apparent racial affiliation ambiguous. Despite playing a leadership role both in the film and in real life, his presence did not alert Australian viewers at the time, or since, to his Indian nationality. His White Australian companion, again unidentified in any way in the film, is Clarrie Campbell. At no time on film or in the credits are Rehman or Campbell named, nor is it suggested that it was the ISUiA that had carried out the negotiations with these incoming Indian crews. This sequence closes with footage of the Indians who had been acting the parts of the new crew who mutinied outside the Heads and successfully ensured the return of the ship to port. They are shown arriving back at the docks in a small tugboat, disembarking and marching three and four abreast up the stairs to the street. They are represented as newly arrived and naïve Indians who only learned of the strike from the activists in the small pursuing boat. The director and film crew would not have expected them to be recognised by audiences as having already been in the country for some time, on strike and living in the striking camp. As if anticipating this, the Indians taking part in the film had taken a collective step that visually contradicted the director’s imposed narrative. Each of these Indians, all dressed neatly in jackets and many with ties, also wore a badge in their lapel; from the archival records of the ISUiA, newspaper coverage, and recorded memories, we know these to have been the newly minted badge of the ISUiA.39 There can be only one message from this: all of the Indian seamen who took part in this sequence of the film were actually members of the militant ISUiA. The badges were intensely important as a way to show their legitimacy as a real union and as a testament to their collective solidarity. For the period before the badges could be made, the union members wore 38 As well as the named newspaper photographs of Abdul Rehman, Dasrath Singh, and Clarrie Campbell in press reports of the ISUiA from 1945, both Singh and Campbell have been identified in this footage by the Australians interviewed for this project: Phyllis Johnson, Sylvia Mullins, and her brother, Jack Mullins. 39 ISUiA archives, Noel Butlin Archives, E177; Mirror, 12.12.45, 18.12.45; Interviews with Jack Mullins, Sylvia Mullins, and Phyllis Johnson; photographs in Tribune 12.10.45, 6.11.45, 9.11.45, 23.11.45.

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10.2 Abdul Rehman and Clarrie Campbell taking part in the re-enactment of the activist pursuit of the Dutch ship Patras as it attempted to leave Sydney Harbour manned by a strike-breaking Indian crew

Film still from Joris Ivens’ 1946 film Indonesia Calling!, published with permission from the Joris Ivens Foundation, Nijmegen, the Netherlands

cardboard mock-ups as a sign that they were a real union. Just like the Union membership books and book of rules that the Union members asked to be sent to them in India, the badges were important symbols of their collective commitment and the Union’s power to defend their interests. The members’ decisions to wear those badges during filming therefore carried enormous significance. The filmmaker directed them to act out the parts of the strike-breakers, and it was the clear intention of the film’s editing to stress Indian subservience to the Dutch until mobilised by Australian and Indonesian activists. But this imposed narrative was directly challenged by the undeniable presence of those badges. The next sequence of the film shows the big strike meeting in the aftermath of the Patras mutiny, chaired by Tuk Subianto. The Indians, represented in the film to be those who had just been released from their servitude to the Dutch bosses, gathered with Chinese and Australian unionists to express

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10.3 Indian unionists re-enacting the return of the Indian crew to Sydney Harbour after they mutinied on the Dutch ship Patras, convinced by the pursuing activists to join the strike. Although acting the parts of naïve, newly arrived Indians who were prepared to break the boycott, the men had all chosen to show their union membership by wearing the badge of the Indian Seamen’s Union in Australia

Film still from Joris Ivens’ 1946 film, Indonesia Calling! published with permission from the Joris Ivens Foundation, Nijmegen, the Netherlands

their solidarity with the Boycott and to rally around the secretary of the Australian WWF, ‘Big Jim’ Healey, who is the climactic speaker. The Chinese seamen are recognised in this victory celebration, with a specific reference to the enormous fund-raising effort they had undertaken among poorly paid seamen and members of the wider Chinese community, who were still marginal in Australia. There is also with a speech from Arthur Gar Locke Chang who delivers a rousing address to the crowd, calling on them to recognise not only the importance of Indonesian Independence from the Dutch, but everyone’s independence struggles. Locke is not named, but he quotes Sun Yat Sen as an inspiration, ending with a call for the independence of all peoples and a raising of the flag of the Chinese Republic. 40 40 Gar-Locke Chang 2015; Gapps 2016.

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Tuk Subianto calls on an Indian speaker whom he introduces as if he were one of the newly arrived Indians who had decided to mutiny. In fact, this speaker is another key activist in the ISUiA, Dasrath Singh, who had been in Australia since at least September and whose role as the Union’s organiser and translator has been discussed earlier. His working-class principles, astute political judgments, and skilful translations and negotiations with all comers made him well known and greatly admired among White Australian activists and journalists. 41 Knowing this from the written sources and from the memories of his friends, his physical presence in the film is at first a shock: he is a small man with a high-pitched voice, not at all a striking presence. And he is initially reading from a script, which he glances down at, as he acts the part of spokesman for the duped Indian crewmen. He starts hesitantly, delivering his speech by reading from the piece of paper in his hand: Friends, we were informed that we were to take a light ship to take wood to Banyu […] But we found ourselves put on a Dutch ship carrying arms and munitions to Indonesia. But we refused to sail with them.

But then he throws the paper aside. His voice strengthens and he looks up to engage directly with the audience – and the camera – as he slips into the assertive, passionate speeches that friends like Lockwood and Campbell remember he had in fact been giving over the months to rally the seamen in the Boycott: The Dutch threatened us with their guns but still we refused. And now we will not sail with the ship! Their Struggle is Our Struggle! Their Victory is Our Victory!

This sequence visually echoes the earlier sequence of the returning crewmen: every Indian in the audience listening to Dasrath Singh is wearing the badge of the ISUiA.

41 There are many warm memories of Danny Singh, including that in Lockwood 1982: 151-7 and interviews with Sylvia Mullins, Jack Mullins, and Phyllis Johnson.

11

‘The Acid Test’: Seeing Surabaya in India

While newspapers in India and Australia were reporting on the same incidents, there were significant differences in how they represented Indonesians, Indians, and Surabaya itself over the course of the conflict. Indian seamen in Australia tried to intervene through the imagery in newspaper photos and films to demonstrate their rational demands, but they were ignored at the time. Indian-owned newspapers in India addressed some of the same themes as the Indian seamen in Australia, eventually identifying and expanding upon at least some of the issues the seamen were trying to raise. This chapter pays attention to the same Indian-owned, English language newspapers, focusing on the three dailies: the Free Press Journal of Bombay, the Madras-based Hindu, and the Calcutta-based Hindusthan Standard. The Delhi-based Indian Communist Party paper, The People’s War, had less access to news of the particular battles and addressed the overall Indonesian campaign for Independence rather than localised struggles. In the three dailies, shifts in the narrative are clearly correlated with specific day-to-day events on the front lines. As a comparison with the Australian papers, this chapter considers the sources from which these Indian papers gained their copy, the context they gave to the Indonesian conflict, and their reactions to the course of the Battle. Another focal question concerns the meanings embodied in the term ‘extremist’. This term was used commonly in the Australian (and British) media, and its use has persisted in recent British analyses such as the 2014 work by David Marston, in which the term ‘extremist’ is used unproblematically for virtually all Indonesian military opposition to the SEAC force.1 While the Indian media in 1945 used the word almost as commonly as the Australian and British papers of the time, the Indian-owned press understood it to have very different meanings.

1

Marston 2014: 151-99.

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Sources The Battle of Surabaya took everyone by surprise when it exploded on 28 October. There had been other fighting after the SEAC landings in early October, but Surabaya had appeared to be stable. The initial accounts were from the British military and the Netherlands News Agency, and then from journalists in Batavia associated with the London presses or agencies like Reuters and AAP. It was only later that news from the Republican side begin to filter out, often communicated through radio. So where did Indian newspapers source their news? The FPJB took much of its news copy directly from the mainstream British press, the Netherlands News Agency or AAP and Reuters. This meant that its main articles were often from the British or Dutch perspective, although it countered with reports from the British left-wing press of oppositional groups, such as the Independent Labour Party and other anticolonial collectives. The FPJB also carried a range of Indian-written opinion pieces from organisations like the All India Women’s Conference (AIWC). Very occasionally it included an English-language summary of key points from the Hindi-language press. Yet while its leading news reflected the view of the British military, the FPJB editorials were consistently and bitterly critical of the British, not only in India but in any colonial setting. The Hindusthan Standard took much of its reporting from the British and Australian press. While it had no correspondents of its own in Indonesia, it actively drew on agency correspondents, at least one of whom was Indian. These agency journalists largely stayed in Batavia, however. The People’s War had no correspondents in the NEI, but, as it had done previously, it drew from communist sources in Australia, including reports from White Australian journalists like Lockwood and also Indonesian activists like those at CENKIM, who were monitoring Radio Merdeka and other Indonesian short-wave radio. The Hindu took some of its copy from the British mainstream press, but also from oppositional newspapers like The Daily Worker. It took far more from other countries than did the FPJB, including Australian presses, both mainstream and oppositional, and often reported based on Indonesian sources in Australia like CENKIM. The Hindu was unusual in employing its own correspondents in the NEI, including the respected author and journalist T.G. Narayanan.2 He had a wide range of contacts in Indonesia, including his old friend P.R.S. Mani, and travelled widely through the countryside, sending back careful reporting and impressive analyses.

2

Narayanan 1944.

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Context Indian-owned newspapers placed the news from Indonesia into two contexts, either explicitly or by implication. One was the international struggle for decolonisation, discussed in Chapter 8, in which coloniser and colonised were grappling with the conflicts over colonial control. Another context, less frequently explicit but nevertheless a persistent undertone, was the local Indian setting. Here two key issues recurred. One was the British prosecution from November 1945 of captured members of the INA, whose show trials outraged Indians; this was relevant to the Indonesian situation because it demonstrated the power of the British Raj. The second were the continuing – and indeed escalating – communal tensions between Hindus and Muslims, not only across a number of Indian regions but also in the campaign for Independence. The British were understood to be encouraging the Muslim League to push for the partition of the coming Independent India into separate Islamic and Hindu states.3 While it is useful to identify these contexts separately, it is also true that there were constant echoes between them. One example was the international conflict around Palestine pitting Muslims against Jews and Christians, which had definite parallels with the internal conflicts between Muslims and Hindus within India and, in turn, ramifications for diplomatic and political relations with predominantly Muslim populations like that of Indonesia. The assertion of the common goals of the independence struggles across Asia, including that of Australia, was widespread and international. The Burmese nationalist leadership, for example, called for an ‘Asiatic Federation to Oust Imperialistic Combines’ that would create a single voice for the ‘subject peoples’ across the region.4 It was awareness of this common feeling that led Sukarno to appeal to an international audience in his broadcast on 8 October, inviting other ‘freedom leaders’ to witness the Indonesian Republic.5 Indians saw Britain as directly involved in all of these conflicts, not only those of its own colonies, because of its leadership of the South East Asian Command to accept Japanese surrender. This British role heightened the 3 Masselos 2005; Hasan 2001. 4 FPJB 30.10.45, 31.10.45: ‘Burma’s Blueprint for Asia. Wanted a conference of all “Subject Peoples”’. 5 Raliby 1953: 52; FPJB: 2.10.45, 8.10.45, 2.10.45. FPJB 26.10.45 cites Voice of Free Indonesia broadcasting out of Radio Bandung (said to be in Allied hands but still broadcasting) on 25.10.45. Radio Republic Indonesia, 8.10.45. Nehru was formally refused permission to visit Indonesia: Hindu 8.11.45.

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frustration about India’s own prolonged bondage. Most infuriating of all was the continued and common use of Indian troops in all of these battles, which demonstrated the impotence of the Indian nationalists. There were protests in the editorial pages of each of these newspapers, reflecting both expressions of anger inside India and the sentiments of Indians outside the country.6 Indonesians persistently called all Indian SEAC troops ‘Gurkhas’, a mis-identification which infuriated Mani who tried repeatedly to correct Indonesians on this matter.7 Yet perhaps Indian nationalists felt that blaming the Nepali Gurkha rulers would make them share the scrutiny. Nehru accused the Royal leadership of independent Nepal of betraying its still-colonised neighbours by agreeing to British requests to send troops to SEAC.8 The Nepali king replied furiously – although with great formality – that there were no Nepali troops in SEAC. There may have been, he pointed out, Indians of Gurkha ethnicity who had either enlisted in the British Army or in the ‘Indian Army’ that was under full British control, but none were there as subjects of the Nepali monarch.9 The Indian media in fact only expressed outrage about the use of Indian troops by the British when the conflict was a declared independence battle, such as those in Vietnam and Indonesia. Expatriate Indians and many others were more clear-eyed in their criticism of the blinkered vision of Indian newspapers and some Indian nationalists. Dr Anup Singh from the American League for Indian Freedom pointed out that Indian troops had long been used by their British colonisers to suppress others. Speaking in Washington on 31 October, he said: ‘The British have always used Indian troops in the past as mercenary forces to do their dirty work in China, Burma, Egypt and all over Asia. This has always earned India the ill-will of her neighbours, against whom India as a country never had any aggressive designs.’10 This ‘dirty work’ had not ceased: Indian troops continued to be deployed widely under the orders of the British. In fact, Indian soldiers had even fired at Indian civilians on Indian soil during the Quit India demonstrations in August 1942. As recently as late October 1945, Indian troops under British command had dispersed and arrested famine-stricken demonstrators who 6 E.g., inside India: FPJB 29.10.45: South East Asia day. Outside India: Bharat Jyoti, Bombay 28.10.45 and London 25.10.45: ‘Indian Workers Association of London.’ 7 Mani 1986: 9-10. 8 Hindu 27.10.45. 9 HS 2.11.45; FPJB 15.11.45. 10 HS 2.11.45.

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were calling for work and food across southern Malaya.11 In another part of the world, on 7 November 1945, Indian troops opened fire following British orders on unarmed Cypriot soldiers who were demonstrating in favour of immediate demobilisation, leaving one dead and five wounded. This shocked the Cypriots, who had relied ‘on [the] Indian people’s brotherly assistance’ according to the Working People’s Progressive Party of Cyprus. Incidents such as these were passed over conveniently with little comment from the Indian-owned media – although by November there was certainly some embarrassment on the part of the FPJB. While its article on Cyprus was very short, it was nevertheless headlined: ‘More Shame Heaped on India’s Head’.12

Local issues The important local context in which Indians viewed the events of Surabaya became increasingly prominent through early November. As the threat of Japanese invasion receded, the soldiers of the INA had come to look more and more like freedom fighters, so their prosecution by the British beginning in November looked like nothing more than colonial revenge. Although the British had hoped these trials would teach loyalty, the real lesson that Indians learned was that the British Raj was still all-powerful and could pursue any Indian patriots who defied it.13 In this situation, the British-led SEAC seemed like yet another coloniser’s strategy for the resumption of total power: the British were seen to be supporting the Dutch and French in reasserting their empires. The INA trials began in Delhi on 5 November as tensions in Surabaya were climbing and the British threats intensified. By then, the INA men and women were being portrayed as freedom fighters by the India-owned press. Rubbing salt into the wound, each day thereafter brought both front-page reminders of Indians’ impotence to protect their own heroes and news of the escalating British threats to the city of Surabaya.14 The other local theme was the rising conflict between Hindu and Muslim Indians. Despite the many high-profile Muslim members of Congress and the 11 Headlined ‘Bullets for Bread: British troops fire [on] Malay demonstrators’, FPJB 26.10.45. The troops were in fact Indians. 12 FPJB 7.11.45. 13 See Khan 2015 for a detailed discussion of the impact of the INA trials on the Indian public. 14 See, e.g., HS 7.11.45.

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close Muslim associates of Gandhi, there were undoubtedly tensions between various religions within India. The approach Congress adopted was to make religious tolerance the central credo of their vision of an independent India. The British press seemed interested only in reporting on religious violence. Both the FPJB on 31 October and The Hindu on 11 November pointed out in frustration that there had been no comment on Indian politics from the British press, despite India being in the midst of an acrimonious election campaign over major social and economic issues with significant future implications. While there had been no coverage of these big political stories, there had been a number of articles on incidents of communal conflict – as if nothing else were happening.15 The wide distribution of Muslims across Southeast Asia meant that religious conflict had echoes in many of the political positions taken by Congress and Nehru. Support for the Independence of Indonesia, with its predominantly Islamic population, was seen to be an effective demonstration of the fundamental religious tolerance within Congress.16 It was also the case, of course, that some Indians looked to the ancient Hindu influences on Indonesian Islam to foster the illusion that there would be common feeling based on common culture, a belief Mani had observed to be widespread among the troops he accompanied on their sea journey to Batavia.17 While Sukarno, whose mother was a Balinese Hindu, highlighted this underlying link with Indian Hinduism in his letters to Nehru, this view was not widespread in Indonesia, and this contributed to the confusion felt by the Indian troops when they finally landed and did not receive the welcome they expected.18 Whether from illusions about past connections or current visions of a liberated, decolonised future, there was powerful symbolism in the links between the nationalists in India and those in Indonesia. This shared vision offered a solidarity around the region to demand the departure of all colonisers. Yet such solidarity was threatened by the tensions around the Indian Ocean, precisely because independence for all British colonies seemed to be approaching. There were rising conflicts along racial lines in colonies where the presence of racial minorities, especially those who had made some profits, however small, like traders, was seen to have been 15 FPJB 31.10.45: ‘British Press Mum on Indian Elections’; Hindu 11.11.45: ‘Indian Question ignored. Apathy in Britain.’ 16 Masselos 2005; Hasan 2001. 17 Despatches, Series 6, 29.9.45. Series 6, P.R.S. Mani papers, Online archive, Blake Library, UTS. 18 Sukarno to Nehru, 19.10.46, Series 14, P.R.S. Mani papers, Online archive, Blake Library, UTS.

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facilitated by British colonisers. So in South Africa, Indians were attacked and turned out of their homes, while in Malaya and Burma the nationalist movements demanded an end to Indian immigration and the return of those Indians living there.19 The solidarity with Indonesia was therefore considered by Congress to be an important affirmation of India’s key role in the Indian Ocean region. There were also resonances with the Australian Boycott of Dutch shipping. Nehru was calling on seamen and dock workers in India to follow the examples of those in Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere who refused to handle Dutch ships. As made clear in earlier chapters, most of the Indian seamen in Australian waters were Muslims, with a small proportion of Christian Goans. The ISUiA had written to both Nehru and Jinnah. As noted in Chapter 8, Maulana Azad had warmly congratulated the Indian seamen in Australia during Congress meetings; this was reported on 20 October, and it was followed by a telegraph message to Australia on 3 November.20 Jinnah was slower, responding only on 12 November and apparently with little ongoing contact with the seamen in Australia.21 It was therefore a point of pride for Congress, which could rightly claim to have a massive number of Muslims in its ranks, to argue that it was responding to Indian seamen’s calls for support.22 Throughout October, in the weeks before the Battle of Surabaya began, the press in Australia saw the East Indies situation as ‘worsening’ because the Indonesians were refusing to accept British control. The Indian press, on the other hand, reported rising tensions but were increasingly positive and determined to support the people they called ‘heroic freedom fighters’. 23 Events that newspapers presented as reasons for pessimism in Australia were therefore presented as reasons for celebration and support in the Indian nationalist press. Australia was very visible in these Indian newspapers, particularly in Bombay, where an Australian cricket team was touring through October. 19 Burma, Malaya, South Africa: Hindu 3.11.45; and note also tensions between Chinese merchants/residents and Indian troops in Saigon: Hindu 1.11.45 and FPJB 1.11.45: ‘Chinese Strike in Saigon: Alleged Excesses of Indian Soldiers.’ This was a very serious conflict: the Chinese held a three-day strike and as a follow-up measure, the British appointed an ‘Anglo-Chinese Bureau’ attached to the Indian Army that investigated each accusation of rape, looting, or murder (Hindu 8.11.45, from APA). 20 Hindu 20.10.45, 5.11.45; FPJB 5.11.45. 21 Hindu 12.11.45. There has been no follow up correspondence found in the ISUiA archives. 22 Masselos 2005; Hasan 2001. 23 FPJB 26.10.45, 29.10.45.

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The results of their games with Indian teams were frequently headline news on the sports pages of all newspapers, but there was also news of Australian protests against the Dutch. Such accounts often went beyond the shipping Boycott. The Hindu, for example, reported on the Australian airmen’s protest at Bundaberg against the Dutch military, which had fired machine-guns at striking Indonesians who resisted Dutch attempts to force them into a plane and take them to another airfield. Eight men were injured in this incident, and consequently the Australian airmen refused to deal in any way with the Dutch.24 Again, there were many references to the dockside demonstration against Dutch troops aboard the British ship Sterling Castle, where the Dutch attacked the demonstrators below by throwing bottles and rubbish at them before turning on water hoses.25

Events of the Battle Fighting was already occurring in other locations on Java, so some conflict at Surabaya on 28 October was not unexpected, but the level of Indian casualties from the surprise attack by nationalists was grim. The immediate effect of the attack was a refocusing of Indian media attention away from other parts of the region and onto the many battles occurring in Indonesia. The first news reports largely came from the British military or Netherlands News Agency, as in an article in the FPJB on 29 October headlined ‘British and Indian Troops Attacked in Sourabaya: Disarmament Orders Resented by Nationalists.’ This article made visible the vastly higher proportion of Indian casualties compared to British ones. But it was also written from the British perspective of horror at the outbreak of fighting – a horror that was soon to be dominated by the death of Brigadier Mallaby, so there was little interest in any statement of the Indonesian position. The Hindu and the HS printed page 1 coverage that was similarly written from within the colonisers’ perspective.26 The terminology of the British and Dutch analyses appeared in both of these papers immediately, such as in accounts of the press conferences by Christison and other military spokespeople who said the attack was ‘unprovoked’.27 24 Hindu 27.10.45. 25 Hindu 8.11.45. See also FPJB 8.11.45: ‘British Pattern of Promises for the Indonesians: Dutch Reform Scheme.’ 26 Hindu 1.11.45: report of Mallaby’s death. 27 HS 1.11.45 for Christison’s press conference; NB Reuters Special Correspondent is N. Rajmani in Batavia. See Hindu 1.11.45 for Sukarno’s ‘shocked and horrified’ reaction to Mallaby’s death.

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But the editorials in these Indian papers took a very different tone, each unrelentingly critical of the British role in SEAC. On 1 November, the FPJB editorial responded to the British demand that Mallaby’s killers be surrendered: The British, to begin with, are in Indonesia on exceedingly doubtful business. Their own official statements have ranged from pleading the necessity of clearing out the Japanese to claiming an obligation to reinstate the Dutch. With the first objective, the Indonesians may sympathise […] With the last aim, it is difficult for the Indonesians to agree. And matters have been aggravated by the Allies seeking Japanese cooperation in putting down the Indonesians. The Indonesians have made it clear that they do not want the Dutch over them.

The HS editorial on 2 November asserted: The oppressed and the exploited are all one, irrespective of the geographical distance that separates one from another […] One in freedom in the distant past, one in slavery in the current present, these countries must be one also in the coming day which is about to break. In spite of local variations, the problems of all these countries are fundamentally one – the problem of subjection to the imperialist powers of Europe.

The editorial position of The Hindu on 8 November was scathingly critical of what it called the ‘niggardly’ Dutch offer of reform: When Soekarno’s men shout the slogan ‘The Indies for the Indonesians’ they mean it; they are not prepared any more to allow eight million Dutch settled 10,000 miles away in Europe to rule 72 million of them. The Dutch do not realize or perhaps do not want to admit that nationalism in the Indies has come of age and will not be satisfied with anything less than independence.

While the conflict at Surabaya was unfolding, press attention had increasingly focused on the military tactics of the British, who were already using heavy weaponry elsewhere in Indonesia before the fighting broke out in Surabaya. By early November, the flights of Thunderbolt fighter jets over Semarang and Magelang had become the symbol of the British impact right

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across Indonesia. ‘Indonesia to be Blitzed’ the page one headline of the FPJB had screamed on November 1.28 Rather than any more peaceful symbol of restoring civil order, SEAC came to be identified with the Thunderbolt fighters which had been used against the Luftwaffe over Europe. At first it was other places that featured in the headlines, such as the FPJB about Thunderbolts flying over Magelang to support ‘Besieged Gurkhas: British Dive-Bombers Ordered to Attack.’29 The following day the same paper headlined its front page with ‘Thunderbolts Strike at Indonesian Extremists: Besieged Gurkhas SOS for Help.’30 This attention to the unequal military force being applied was raised at the same time (31 October to 4 November) as the International Youth Conference was being held in London. With many Indians studying at universities in Britain, the Indian delegation was strong.31 This conference was particularly important because the Indonesian ‘extremists’ were implied to be young people. The official SEAC spokesperson was quoted in the FPJB on 7 November saying that the ‘extremists’ were ‘young hot-headed Indonesians’ and implied that their youth was the cause of their lack of discipline and judgment. Indians at the Youth Conference were acutely aware of the slur aimed at Indonesian youth – and by implication all young nationalists – and many took up the challenge. The FPJB was particularly interested in Kitty (Ketayun) Boomla, a young Parsi woman from Bombay, with a BSc in Economics undertaking further study in London, and who later became a key activist in the women’s movement. The FPJB depicted her ‘David and Goliath’ challenge with the headline: 23-year old Bombay Girl Attacks Britain.

The newspaper went on to cite Kitty’s plea for a ‘Youth International to Safeguard Democracy’. She had pointed out that the many millions of people in colonised countries needed development and education. And yet, this was not what colonisers like Britain were doing: BOMBERS NOT FREEDOM The people of Burma, Malaya and Indonesia have been in the forefront of resistance to the Japanese. But liberation from the Japanese today is 28 FPJB, 1.11.45. 29 Ibid. 30 FPJB 2.11.45. 31 Ibid.

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not bringing youth freedom, but British and American bombers in the service of Dutch imperialism. BRIGHT EXAMPLE In order to achieve this we have to strengthen international friendship. The brightest example of this has been joint Australian, Indian, Chinese and Indonesian seamen’s and dockers’ decision not to load munitions for use against the Indonesians.32

The British, as Kitty Boomla had said and as the FPJB emphasised in its headline, were bringing ‘Bombers not Freedom’. The people of Burma, Malaya, and Indonesia were now facing ‘British and American bombers in the service of Dutch imperialism’. The Indian press had just reported the SEAC commander General Christison’s threat after Mallaby’s death in Surabaya, that he would ‘crush’ those responsible with ‘all the weapons of modern warfare’.33 Even more widely than those Indian students in London, the broader Indian women’s movement at the same time spoke out against what they called ‘the misuse of troops’ at a meeting in Lahore in the first days of November. The HS headlined its report of this meeting ‘Indian Soldiers Made to Fight for Dutch Imperialism’.34 On 3 November during this meeting, women from both the national All-India Women’s Conference and the local AIWC branch passed a motion stating: ‘The action of the Indian Government in allowing Indian troops to be sent to Java to crush the brave nationalist movement and re-impose Dutch imperialism is outrageous and against the declared principles of freedom and democracy of the United Nations.’ In moving the motion, Ms K. Sabberwal, the principal of a Punjabi Women’s College, said that ‘Indian people could not tolerate their own kith and kin being used against the Asiatic people in Java and other places’. She continued: ‘Theirs as ours, is a freedom movement against imperialist domination and aggression. If we were free, we would have actively helped the Indonesian movement of freedom but we can in no case agree to Indians being used against Indonesians to suppress their struggle for freedom.’35 Each of the members of the Indian delegation to the inaugural meeting of the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF), held in Paris at the end of November, spoke on the same theme, repudiating the use of Indian 32 FPJB 5.11.45. 33 Hindu 1.11.45 34 Ibid.; HS 5.11.45. 35 FPJB 5.11.45.

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troops against the Indonesian Independence movement. They argued that fascism and colonialism were reverse sides of the same coin, and that when Indians contributed to the war effort, they had done so to end Colonialism as well as Fascism. The words of the Atlantic Charter echoed in these speeches by Ela Sen (later Reid), Vidya Kanuga (later Munshi) and Mrs Jai Kishore Handoo in which solidarity with Indonesian nationalists was made very clear.36

Bombardment narrows the focus The beginning of the British bombardment shifted the Indian coverage again from a broad interest in all Indonesian conflict areas to a very tight focus on Surabaya itself. In the previous days, there had certainly been some criticism of ‘hothead’ extremists, but this negativity was dramatically overtaken by horror and then anger at the scale and ferocity of the British destruction of the city. The FPJB headlined its coverage on 11 November with ‘British Might Makes Headway in Sourabaya: Half of City Falls’.37 The British denied that their airstrikes were indiscriminate, insisting that all targets were ‘known to be extremist strongpoints’. They also insisted that ‘Indonesian reaction in other parts of Java to news from Sourabaya’ was ‘almost phlegmatic’. The accounts that began to appear from Indonesian sources depicted a very different story, as the FPJB reported: Indonesian sources said that the bombing and shelling of Sourabaya yesterday continued until late in the evening after which British and Indian forces began moving into the city. They said the all the roads leading out of the town were crowded with escapees. Indonesian reports quoted in a Batavia cable to New York alleged that Sourabaya and its vicinity has been ‘devastated’ and that there were ‘thousands of Indonesian soldiers and civilians killed by continuous British attacks by air, sea and land’.

This news brought instant attention to the Indonesians resisting the attacks, who appeared more and more as heroes in Indian statements. At an Indian 36 Women’s International Democratic Federation. Inaugural Meeting Proceedings. 26.11.45 to 1.12.45, Paris. Proceedings. See speeches of Ela Reid (p. 59), Mrs Jai Kishore Handoo (p. 137) and Vidya Kanuga (later Munsi), (p. 378). 37 FPJB 11.11.45.

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election rally in Chowpatty, Jawaharlal Nehru made a long statement immediately after the bombing began: We are proud of the people of Indonesia. We are proud that, ill-equipped in weapons of warfare, they are fighting desperately and with courage. They have refused to yield to the combined forces of the British and Dutch Governments […] We were told that the War [WWII] was being fought for the freedom of all subject peoples. It is a matter for shame that the British Empire must be using all its might to establish a Dutch Empire in Indonesia […] If India were free, it would not have been possible for the British Government or the British Empire forces to carry out this assault on a helpless country. If Imperialism in Indonesia or French Indo-China is removed, the balance of Imperialism in Asia will be disturbed and it will be difficult for Britain to continue her domination of India… I warn the Western European Imperialist powers [that] the movement of the people of Indonesia for freedom cannot be suppressed by force. The fire of freedom which has been lit in Asia will not be extinguished till it has consumed the whole imperialist machinery.38

The news out of Surabaya continued to become worse for everyone. Despite the British assumption that they would achieve a rapid victory, the Indonesian resistance was entrenched, forcing the British and Indian troops to fight for every inch of ground they took. In an attempt to force the Indonesians to retreat rapidly, the British acquired more tanks and escalated their bombardment from the ships docked at the harbour, flattening large sections of the city.39 The savagery of this bombing resonated through freedom movements around the world. It led, indeed, to growing unease on the part of British commanders about the extent to which they were being drawn into endorsing Dutch return. 40 The Indian papers carried stories of the intensifying bombing and the tenacity of the Indonesian fighters, who were armed with little except the determination to keep on fighting. The Hindu’s article was sourced from the Netherlands News Agency, but with a headline that saddened Indian readers:, ‘British Attack on Sourabaya: Many Killed in Fight against Tanks: City Bombed Again.’ The paper noted that after three days of 38 Hindu 11.11.45. 39 FPJB 13.11.45. 40 McMillan 2005: 85-7.

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‘stiff fighting, in which tanks, aircraft and guns of warships offshore have all been employed, there has been no sign of Indonesians seeking to end the fighting. They have been putting up stubborn and in places fanatical resistance.’ 41 The HS was even more sombre: ‘Sourabaya Devastated by British Fire: Thousands of Soldiers and Civilians killed.’ This paper, based on a cable from Batavia sent to New York, described a new wave of unrest rippling across Java, fuelled by the awful news from Surabaya. On the following day, quoting Sukarno’s broadcast speech at a youth rally in Jogjakarta, the paper’s front page was headlined: ‘Ruthless Bombing of Sourabaya: Vast Massacre of Women and Children.’ 42 The Hindusthan Standard described the rally, where Sukarno had ‘appealed to the world to judge for itself the bombing of Sourabaya’, continuing that Sukarno had said that ‘the British had bombed and bombarded the city “mercilessly” and claimed that among the many killed were “Hundreds of Chinese and Arabs, innocent and peace-loving people, who came here as merchants and traders, [who] have been killed and seriously wounded.”’43 The FPJB and The Hindu said the rally was attended by 50,000 Indonesian youth, with the FPJB reporting that Sukarno ‘aroused the youth rally to frenzied applause with his appeals for unity and a firm stand in the cause of Independence’. 44 By 16 November, British and Indian troops controlled only about half of the city, and according to the British and Dutch sources of The Hindu, the Indian 123rd Brigade had ‘fought their way through a hail of fire’ to take up a position on the western side of the ‘bitterly contested Kalimas Canal’, but ‘latest reports indicate no slackening of Indonesian resistance’. 45 It was the Republicans who were achieving public relations victories. First, Indonesian activists in India had finally achieved an audience with Jinnah. The FPJB, located firmly in the Congress camp, was scathing, leading with ‘Jinnah Wakes Up From Trance’. Nevertheless, Jinnah had responded by calling publicly for the British to withdraw all troops from Indonesia and to allow Indonesia ‘to be free from the octopus of imperialism’. 46 At the same time, the Australian short-wave news service was reported to have broadcast the ‘Official Australian Criticism’ of British policy in Indonesia, calling Britain’s handling of the situation ‘hypocritical’ and criticising the 41 Hindu 13.11.45. 42 HS 12.11.45, 13.11.45. 43 HS. 13.11.45 44 Ibid.; FPJB 13.11.45. 45 Hindu 16.11.45. 46 FPJB 13.11.45; Hindu 16.11.45; HS 13.11.45.

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USA for ‘washing its hands like Pontius Pilate’ of its responsibility to restrain the Dutch. 47 It should be noted that this radio report did not appear in the mainstream Australian newspapers, suggesting a selectivity in editorial policy! The concept of ‘extremism’ had shifted sides for the FPJB by 14 November, when its lead page 1 story was headlined ‘British Terror Haunts Indonesians’ and described the ‘Savage onslaught of artillery and mortar fire’ with which the British were pounding the city. It pointed out that, although it might surprise the British, the result of the onslaught was that ‘Indonesian spirit was mounting’. 48 By 17 November, in addition to calls from the Left in Britain to ‘Stop Bloodshed in Indonesia’, The Hindu was reporting that a Dutch eyewitness described ‘Desolation at Sourabaya’, in which ‘Sourabaya is increasingly presenting a picture of war-torn desolation with warehouses full of rich trade goods blazing towards the sky’. Still the Indonesians refused to surrender, with the HS reporting: ‘Indonesians Holding Out Amid Ruins of Sourabaya: Fierce Fighting Continues.’ 49 There were solidarities building too. The Indian press, after reporting the tensions between Indian troops and Chinese merchants in Saigon,50 recognised that some members of the Chinese community in Indonesia were supporting the Independence struggle. The HS reported that ‘Chinese and Indonesian youths were fighting shoulder to shoulder against imperialism’, that is, they were together in fighting against British and Indian troops.51 After still more reports of killings, burnings, the flight of refugees, and new British bombing at Semarang, the colonised world – as reflected in the Indian-owned press – saw the Battle at Surabaya as a ruthless attempt by the British to impose the same colonial control over Indonesia as it had in India. On 21 November, striking Bombay seamen who were refusing to load Dutch ships held a mass rally where they expressed their anger at the policy of the British Government, ‘who are enacting Jallianwala Baghs in Java on a hundred times greater scale’. In this reference to the 1919 British massacre of up to 1000 unarmed Indians trapped inside the walled garden of Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, the dock workers made it clear that they saw the British supporting colonisers everywhere to restore their power over subject peoples, as they had always done. 47 48 49 50 51

Hindu 16.11.45. FPJB 14.11.45. Hindu 17.11.45; HS 15.11.45. HS 11.9.45 HS 18.11.45.

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Yet the horrors of the Battle at Surabaya intensified the fundamental view that Indonesian Independence was a key to the independence of all colonised peoples. On 18 November, Nehru responded to the Indonesian Vice President Hatta, who had written to him seeking his intervention: ‘the Indonesian struggle was today the most vital aspect of the Asiatic problem, and was therefore a world problem. It was the symbol of revolt against imperialist domination. It was the acid test of the professions made by the United Nations in the course of the war of the four Freedoms of the San Francisco Charter and of so much else that had been said in regards to democracy and freedom.’52 Nehru revealed that British permission for him to travel to Indonesia had been refused, but he assured Hatta that he remained ready to go to Indonesia the moment it became possible to do so.53

‘Extremists’ The term ‘extremists’ had been seldom used in the Indian press before 27 October, but once the Battle of Surabaya broke out and the papers relied almost fully on Dutch and British sources for daily updates it became much more common. At the end of November the FPJB had identified the British as the sources of terror, but in India as in the West the term was generally applied only to Indonesians. In the Western press, ‘extremists’ were often referred to not only as young but as irrational, ‘frenzied’, or ‘excited’, and their lack of discipline was used as an indictment of Sukarno and the Republican Government. For the Australian press, it was self-evident that this ‘frenzy’ was a characteristic that both Muslims (as fanatics) and Hindus (as irrational and excitable) shared. And in the Australian press too, these ‘extremists’ were usually also assumed to be communists (see Chapter 10). How then was this term used by Indians in the Indian press? We have seen in Chapter 9 that Mani used the term ‘extremists’ to create a distance between those who had committed the brutal killings of so many of the Indian troops he knew and the nationalists whom he admired and with whom he empathised. What the Indian press generally did was very different from the coverage in the Australian press. The Indian-owned press looked for rational reasons for ‘extremism’. This was an approach that placed the blame for the rise of passionate extremism at the feet of the British. The clearest example is a 52 Hindu 18.11.45. 53 FPJB 13.11.45.

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series of four by-lined articles in The Hindu by the widely-respected T.G. Narayanan, the long-time friend of P.R.S. Mani and a fellow Tamil with whom Mani had worked closely in Burma in 1944. Narayanan’s articles present a more detached view than Mani’s diaries do, since he was less caught up in the terrifying realities of the Battle than Mani was. Narayanan grappled with the concept of ‘extremist’ until he reached an extended and thoughtful resolution on 27 November. His first article was an in-depth interview with Sukarno, which had far greater detail than the interviews by the AAP correspondent Harry Plumridge that had been published in Australian newspapers. Narayanan aimed to show the powerful role of Indian nationalists in the development of Sukarno’s ideology as well as to explore Sukarno’s strategies for dealing with the Japanese while sustaining a goal of ultimate Independence. He concluded that the Indonesian movement was not inspired or equipped by the Japanese, but was instead a ‘battle for freedom from 350 years’ colonial slavery’. It was in his second article, a discussion of his trip to Jogjakarta, the centre of Republican administration and political power, that Narayanan went to great lengths to consider the concept of ‘extremist’ by describing the orderly conditions in this Republican city: I found no such extremists, but, on the contrary, well disciplined Indonesian troops, police and people. For the first time in history and after the war was supposed to be over, Surabaya was being mercilessly bombed and shelled and news of this massacre had reached Jogjakarta townspeople. Yet I and six of my fellow English, Australian and American foreign war correspondents were treated with the utmost courtesy.54

Narayanan’s third article was a careful analysis of Dutch colonial practices during their long rule over the East Indies. Concentrating on Dutch economic policy, rather than the information circulated by the Dutch about their recent ‘ethical’ education policy, Narayanan’s article was a scathing assessment of the ruthless Dutch economic exploitation over the whole colonial period. He argued that not only had the Dutch bled profits from the Indies before the war, but that now the Dutch strategy was to place an economic stranglehold on the country, leading to the downfall of the Republic and the return of the Indies to Dutch control.55 54 Hindu 22.11.45. 55 Hindu 24.11.45.

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It was in his fourth article on 27 November that Narayanan returned to the meaning of ‘extremism’. Rather than assuming that youth alone explained the actions of the pemuda, Narayanan gave examples of the shooting of civilians by the Dutch and Ambonese troops in a strategic terrorism that has only recently been recognised by Dutch historians after careful archival investigation.56 Narayanan argued that any young Indonesians’ ‘extremism’ was ‘one of the inevitable results of this fascist terror tactics of Dutch imperialism’. The Dutch, he continued, had ‘been pursuing as yet a not very successful but familiar imperial tactic of dividing the political forces of the island’. For Narayanan, the motivation for ‘extremists’ in Indonesia was both the long history of economic exploitation and the recent deliberate, strategic violence of the Dutch. He argued that the British had miscalculated in landing troops in Surabaya, where the population had not been given a clear idea of SEAC’s role. Further, he believed the Dutch had failed to realise that the new Prime Minister, Sutan Sjahrir, was just as committed to complete Independence as Sukarno and Hatta were. Soon after Narayan’s articles, the Ambonese troops were withdrawn entirely from Java.57 The lessons of its pyrrhic victory in Surabaya were becoming clear to the British: they had lost more than they had gained. There had been a sustained outcry in Britain itself about its involvement in the Indies, and it appears that the British military was unhappy with the extent of its deepening entanglement in support of the Dutch.58 For journalists, the state of armed hostilities which, although worst in Surabaya, now extended right across Java, led to a dramatic reversal of what had been a brief peacetime access to military operations. From 5 November, SEAC imposed something close to a wartime censorship regime across all of its activities in the Indies. There were to be no more press conferences, which meant that journalists would no longer be able to freely question military command. Instead SEAC commanders would issue daily communiqués. No 56 Zurbuchen 2005; Limpach 2014. 57 McMillan 2005: 85-7, noting that British and Indian troops noted from November 1945 with rising frequency and alarm the indiscriminate violence of Dutch troops in Java, leading to Christison’s concern expressed to Mountbatten and subsequent withdrawal of Ambonese troops.. 58 Ibid: 148-9, noting rising anxiety from Earl Archibald Wavell, Viceroy of India and Genderal Auchinleck, Commander in Chief of Indian Army, about the Indian view that the British were supporting Dutch colonial reentry; then, pp.165-170 – recording the occasions in regimental diaries and in public statements where British officers expressed misgivings about the strategies and outcomes at Surabaya and in the following months.

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Allied officer whatsoever was to be interviewed unless special permission had been sought and granted by SEAC command. Correspondents protested, but from this time onwards a tight seal was placed over any reporting from the Indies.59

Absent voices In the strong sympathies for the new Indonesian Republic expressed in the editorials of the Indian-owned newspapers, there is a glaring absence of the voice of Indian soldiers. There was almost daily coverage of the outrage among Indians in all political roles about the misuse of Indian troops who were forced to be mercenaries for the British. These accounts showed that there were thousands of Indians serving with the Indian Army under British command in Indonesia, but there was not a single interview with a serving or retired Indian soldier. Censorship would no doubt have made approaching these soldiers difficult, but there were not even any observations of Indian soldiers’ lives or opinions. Only on a very small number of occasions was there any mention of Indian troops refusing to fire on Indonesian Republicans.60 Only much later, when Mani took matters into his own hands, was there even any contact with those soldiers who had crossed the lines to desert and fight alongside the Indonesian nationalists, let alone any space for their views and voices. Clearly the presence of Indian troops made Indians – and journalists – uncomfortable. It was easier to protest about their use and misuse than to talk to them about how they felt about it. This is also a particularly notable absence in the coverage of the Indians involved in the shipping Boycott. Taking the decision to walk off a ship was difficult for Indian seamen, since they risked the dangers of a bad nully, which meant they might never work again. Many took that risk and made a major contribution to the campaign in Australia and overseas. Indian activists like Kitty Boomla, Kapila Khandvala, and at times even Congress leaders like Maulana Azad and Jawaharlal Nehru recognised that Indian seamen were involved in the Boycott and celebrated them as champions for Independence. Indian soldiers were under regimes just as onerous as the seamen – with potentially fatal consequences – which was why they were compelled to fight against the Indonesians. Those who ‘deserted’ did 59 Hindu 5.11.45. 60 HS 18.11.45; Hindu 25.11.45.

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so at enormous risk to themselves. Yet the Indian mainstream press was simply not able to acknowledge their existence, let alone seek them out to tell their story. This general embarrassment with the presence of serving or deserting Indian troops in battles against independence movements has had very real consequences. Their absence from the pages of the daily press means that it has been fairly simple to ignore not only the men themselves, but the compulsion under which they served and the complexity of their responses to it. As will be seen in Chapter 15, for many years only Mani’s history of the Battle of Surabaya recognised them at all. Now there is contestation about who these defecting troops were and why they chose to fight alongside the Indonesian Republicans, as their history continues to be entangled with the bitter consequences of Partition.

12 Breaking the Boycott By the end of 1945, the striking Indian seamen believed that their occupations and protests at the KPM offices and Indian High Commission had been very effective. They had followed the fear-mongering press coverage of the Battle of Surabaya, where Indonesians and sometimes Indians were represented as fanatical ‘extremists’ and anyone supporting them dismissed as ‘communists’. In response, they generated powerful images through press photos of the demonstrations and their appearances in the filming of Indonesia Calling!, which they hoped would carry their message across the Left and perhaps internationally.1 Their protests forced KPM to pay for much of the repatriation process and to promise them back pay to cover the strike. The Indian High Commissioner had also promised support and protection.2 Some seamen had been deported very quickly. Abdul Rehman, for example, President of the Union and a high-profile leader of the Boycott, had been shipped out in mid-December 1945, while Mohammed Hanif, the Vice President, was among 135 Indians repatriated on the Mooltan in mid-January. Rehman wanted to see his young family, but he was also eager to return to Australia. He had been crucial in building the confidence of Indian seamen in the ISUiA and knew he still had important work to do.3 For the others, repatriation had been promised in the New Year, as was pay for the period of the strike. They had also received promises that no retaliation would be exacted for their stand, which for them meant they would be protected against the power of the nully. They expected that there would be no negative reports on their CDCs and that they would not be discriminated against by either Dutch or British shipping companies in the future. 4 The December promises seemed to offer some stability, allowing the Union to get on with its core business of trying to get better wages and conditions. Campbell was making plans to travel to India to maintain his

1 Abdul Kasim (home address Entally, Calcutta), from Fremantle to C.H.C., 12.1.46. ISUiA file, E177/5, NBABL. 2 Dasrath Singh, ISUiA to Manager, KPM, 17.11.45; Dasrath Singh for ISUiA to Hon. A.A. Calwell, Minister for Immigration, 28.11.45. E177/5, NBABL. 3 C.H.C. reference for Abdul Rehman, 11.12.45. E177/5, NBABL. 4 Dasrath Singh, ISUiA to Hon. A.A. Calwell, Minister for Immigration, 28.11.45. E177/5, NBABL.

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contacts with Indian seamen and unions, and expected to be in India for six months from November 1946.5 As a group of seamen prepared to leave in early February, they held a dinner in honour of the Australian trade unionists who had worked so closely with them. With meagre resources – ‘we are Indian Seamen in a strange land without a ship so we have not been able to do all we would have liked for your comfort’ – they concocted a rich banquet to share with the unionists and CPA members they had invited. The sense of common goals between Indians, Indonesians, and Australians was the theme of the main speech made by one of the seamen, Mohamed T. Hussain, who thanked the guests for assisting us in playing some part in defeating the Dutch in the killing of Indonesians in their struggle for freedom. The winning of freedom in Indonesia will surely be followed by the freedom of India. For that reason we must do everything possible to see that the Dutch are driven out of Indonesia.

Hussain said the seamen appreciated not only the political support but the warmth of the comradeship they had received in Australia: We have been in many countries and met many people, but only in Australia have we felt that we are among people that treat us like brother human beings. Not only have we had the friendship of Australian men, but the Australian women have treated us like brothers […] Our women in India will be thankful for all you have done for us […] Those who have controlled our country for so many years say that because we are Indians we must be slaves […] There can be no NEW WORLD while there are any people the slaves of others. We understand that the UNITY of workers of all lands is important, otherwise, the millions who have died in this war would have died in vain.

As well as the unions and the Communist Party, Hussain made special mention of Clarrie Campbell: It would be impossible for me to say all that the Indian People think of Mr Campbell. Sometimes it has taken him hours to make an Indian understand, but he was always ready to spend the time. There has not been one Indian seaman, soldier or civilian come to Australia that he has 5

C.H.C. to Indian Unions, 3.5.46. E177/5, NBABL.

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not helped in some way. I do not think there is any Australian so well liked among the working people of India than Mr Campbell. To us he is a Brother. We wish him a long and worthy life.6

The handwritten menu was signed by many of the Indian seamen, including Hussain himself, Mohammed Huniff, John Manuel (sketched by a Tribune illustrator for its coverage of the Union’s inaugural meeting), and Dasrath Singh. Clarrie wrote to Hussain with a characteristic mix of rhetoric and warmth, thanking him for the ‘wonderful banquet and the opportunity of being present’: ‘It is with such actions as this that real friendship is built between people, so that while we build a strong Indian Seamen’s Union, you are building a strong and real friendship with the Australian people.’

Labour unity splinters For the Boycott, time was running out. The coverage of the events at Surabaya – the killing of Mallaby and then the widespread Australian press reporting on the alleged irrationality of the Indonesian ‘communist extremists’ during the Battle – had added to hostility from right-wing unions in Australia. Albert Monk, the ACTU Secretary, was in Britain and the Netherlands in November 1945 when the news about Surabaya was front page on all the papers. Monk came under substantial pressure to end the Boycott from Ernest Bevin, formerly a Trades Union Congress leader but in 1945 a Foreign Secretary in the British Labour Government. Bevin argued that Britain needed to maintain relations with its wartime ally of the Netherlands, while SEAC needed the shipping to transport the many ex-POWs back to their homes. The Australian Workers Union (AWU), a strongly right-wing union and powerful player in the NSW TLC, had launched an assault as early as 5 November, attacking the whole campaign supporting Indonesian Independence as led by ‘Red Racketeers’ and evidence of ‘the communist menace’.7 In January 1946, the AWU accused the Indonesian committee of the ACTU of misappropriating funds. This was an attack not only on the Boycott campaign but also on Clarrie Campbell, who was Treasurer of the ACTU Indonesian Committee. Campbell pointed out how much money the Indonesian and 6 Details and the speech from a bundle including typed speech text in the ISUiA file, ‘Indian Banquet Speech, 13-1-46’ at 117 Harris St, Pyrmont (one of the Indian ‘labour pools’, now demolished). Accompanied by a card with handwritten menu and signatures. 7 Worker, Brisbane, 5.11.45; see Ross 1982; Ryan 2014; and Macintyre 2015 for tensions on the left.

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Indian seamen, with so little cash at their disposal, had contributed to the campaign to cover the pay of all the union members caught up in the Boycott. He criticised of the ‘fortunately small group of delegates of the NSW Trades and Labor Council’ who had failed to recognise the loyalty of the Indian and Indonesian seamen, adding: ‘May we say that this ban could not have been effective had not the Indian and Indonesian seamen stood loyal to the Trades Union decision, as only Indian and Indonesian seamen were the crews of Dutch ships.’8 Meanwhile, Monk and the ACTU were conferring with Foreign Minister Evatt, who proposed that Dutch ships carrying food be allowed to sail. Prime Minister Chifley was more cautious: having rejected a proposal by Evatt, he responded to a censure motion in Federal Parliament on 6 March by arguing: In this country there is a considerable body of opinion that the set of circumstances which originally existed regarding the administration in the NEI requires a good deal of reformation. The feeling I have indicated runs very deeply through the whole Trade Union movement and does not exist merely among a few Communists. It runs much wider than the Trade Union movement.9

Chifley insisted that any change should be fully negotiated, arguing that to impose ‘a policy of repressiveness and putting men in gaol’ would simply make the whole waterfront flare up. Nevertheless, he felt that there could be no reason for refusing to load ships with food.10 The ACTU and NSW TLC called a conference on 29 January to gain approval for ships carrying food and ‘mercy’ supplies. All major unions involved in the Boycott were invited and Campbell attended as an official of the ISUiA. He went with a letter from the Indian Union to be delivered to R.A. King, the powerful anti-communist secretary of the NSW TLC and a NSW Labor Party Member of the Legislative Council, stating the Union’s objections to any change to the Boycott: The Indian Seamen’s Union in Australia wishes to respectfully draw the ACTU attention to the fact that the majority of crews involved are Indians, and members of their Union, therefore, any decisions arrived at should be in co-operation with them […] 8 C.H.C. to President, NSW TLC, 4.2.46. ISUiA file, E177/5, NBABL. 9 Kalgoorlie Miner 7.3.46; Tribune 19.4.46. 10 Tribune 19.4.46.

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[…] several of these Dutch boats were serviced with repairs, stores and coal by members of Unions affiliated with the ACTU […] and actually some did leave Sydney and other Australian ports before our members could leave the ships. It was only because of the prompt action of the Indian Seamen in leaving the remaining boats, plus their refusal to raise steam on the others, that the ban became effective.11

Overall, the Australian unions were divided, with only those in Queensland voting by a clear majority to fully continue the Boycott. The maritime unions agreed to load a ‘trial’ ship if observers acceptable to the Union were on board to supervise both the contents of the cargo and its disposal in Indonesia, to ensure that it was evenly distributed to all groups including the Republicans. Campbell’s notes indicate that he supported the proposal that, if possible, the original Javanese crew should be employed to work the ship as further guarantors of its appropriate contents and distribution, but if that were not possible, then a crew could be assembled from the striking members of the ISUiA, with selection controlled by that Union.12 The ACTU established a subcommittee to consider the issue, to which Campbell was co-opted, although Evatt was scathing and told Campbell that ‘all Indians were scabs’, meaning presumably that the Union members were not to be trusted.13 The subcommittee recommended the Maritime Union proposal to send an onboard observer, including the option of employing a crew of striking Indian members of the ISUiA, but the Dutch rejected the whole proposal as ‘scandalous and insulting’.14 The debate within the trade union movement, both federally and within New South Wales, was conducted throughout March. The ACTU and NSW TLC goal of breaking the Boycott on the remaining half-dozen ships was repeatedly defeated.15 11 ISUiA to Hon R.A. King, MLC, Secretary, NSW TLC, 29.1.46. ISUiA E177/4, NBABL. 12 Handwritten notes outlining a proposed ISUiA strategy to select from striking Indian crew. In Campbell’s writing, on reverse of copy of letter to King, 29.1.46, NBABL; Lockwood 1982: 193 for the subcommittee recommended proposal of sending an Indian crew from among striking Indian seamen. 13 C.H.C. to Phyllis and Johnno Johnson, 6.3.46. Clarrie Campbell File, P81/2, NBABL. It is not clear if this is actually what Evatt said or whether Campbell was angered by the accusation that the Indians were not to be trusted. The occasion may have been the compulsory conference called by Evatt on 26.2.46 to end ‘the deadlock over the hold up of Dutch ships in Australia’, cited in Lockwood 1982: 192, quoting a WWF press release and proceedings of the ‘Conference re the Working of Dutch Ships’, Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. 14 Lockwood 1982: 194. 15 Ibid.: 189-97; Sheridan 2006.

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The ISUiA’s rule book was finally back from the printers, and the Union sent them out not only to all the members who had returned to India, but also to the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League (3 March) and the key seamen’s unions in Calcutta and in Bombay (9 March). The accompanying letters tried to convey the scope of the Union’s activities, which went far beyond support for the Indonesian Republic. The Union first sketched out the events of the strike, initiated by the call from the Indonesians, which was then responded to by Chinese, Australian, and Indian unions. The Union explained that while 200 Indians had actually left the ships, there were 1000 still on the ships who refused to sail; as long as the Australian unions continued to refuse to load, refuel, or pilot them, such ships were trapped and immobile. Then the letters outlined the work of the India-Australia Association in raising funds to aid India during the famine and in running the Social Club with its picnics and picture shows. More recently, the IAA and the Union had aided Indian servicemen who had been released from Japanese POW camps, as well as continuing to assist Indian seamen with funds for medical, legal, and even funeral expenses.16 In Campbell’s light-hearted letter to Phyllis and Johnno Johnson, (then on holiday in Townsville) he appeared optimistic and confident, despite the disputes in the ACTU and TLC, that the Indian Union was going to be sustained. Clarrie jokingly outlined the ups and downs of the departure of the last of the Indonesians and the closing of their Social Club, then moved on to joke about the ISUiA, with which Phyllis and Johnno had been more closely involved: Nothing like that with us Injuns, we are going along nicely, thank you: if I understood what they were saying about me, it might be different. Am still pirating new members, and am continuing to do boats on nights off. Some of the Indonesians on the boats with the Indian boys have voluntarily joined our Union, we will start absorbing the Australian Seamen’s Union later on!

Bad nullies – Clarrie Campbell By this time, however, the Indonesian Republican Government was reassessing the question of trade altogether. The new Prime Minister, Sutan Sjahrir, was interested in building links with international partners through trade. 16 Series of letters to Unions and political organisations, 3.3.46, 9.3.46. E177/4, NBABL.

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The massive bombardment of Surabaya had been sobering not only for the British perpetrators but for the Republicans under attack: they clearly needed more effective international pressure if they were to prevent the Dutch from simply retaking the Indies through British military force. CENKIM in Brisbane continued to support the Boycott, but the view from the Indonesian Republican Government was cautious and equivocal, leaving the maritime unions to attempt to negotiate a compromise. Yet by late March, still no agreement had been reached.17 The British intervened with a visit by Lord Louis Mountbatten, as commander of SEAC, who negotiated through the ACTU but met jointly with the Australian Government, the ACTU, and the maritime unions themselves on 29 March. The British continued to echo the Dutch accusation that the ‘extremists’ who were active in Java were ‘fascist-trained and fascist-minded youths’, despite the widespread conservative Australian accusations that the same ‘extremists’ were communists.18 Sjahrir stated that he would not endorse any final decision on the Boycott until ‘the question of Dutch and Indonesian relations is settled’.19 As the outcome of Mountbatten’s visit was inconclusive, the Boycott of the few remaining ships continued. But British and Dutch pressure also continued, and in June 1946 a majority of the NSW TLC voted to end the Boycott. Soon after, the NSW Coal Lumpers’ Union broke the Boycott by loading coal onto Dutch ships in Sydney Harbour – enough coal, in fact, to fuel the remaining blockaded ships in the Queensland ports as well. The Coal Lumpers’ Union was a small anti-communist union that covered men working on the New South Wales waterfront but was not affiliated with the WWF, and which could quite rightly claim that it was following TLC directions. By this time, the Indian seamen were realising that they had very serious difficulties to face back in India. Despite the promises from KPM after the demonstrations in December, on the day of their planned repatriation a group of Indian seamen, including Mohammad Hanif, went to the Sydney docks only to find that the KPM representative was there to cover their fares, but there was none of the back pay they had been promised for the time they had been under contract. The ISUiA cabled the Indian High 17 Lockwood quotes from Sjahrir’s cable: 1982: 206-7. 18 Commonwealth Government notes of meeting 29.3.46, held in WWF f iles, quoted in Lockwood 1982: 200-08 in outline of Mountbatten negotiations. 19 Australian Government representative in Batavia, conveying Sjahrir’s position, quoted in Lockwood 1982: 207.

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Commissioner on 9 January and told him that the KPM representative had promised the men ‘before the Captain’ that KPM would pay when the ship reached Fremantle. The High Commissioner was asked to ‘telegraph KPM Sydney Office your authority as additional guarantee’.20 When the ship reached Fremantle, there was still none of the promised pay. The seamen wrote back to Campbell from Fremantle in distress, asking the Union to try to help them recover the funds and to send them press clippings with photos of their occupation at KPM so that they could try to hold the company to its December promises.21 Even worse than the refusal of KPM to honour its promises about pay were the failed promises for protection against a bad conduct report on the CDCs. By the time the shipping companies organised the next load of Indian seamen to be repatriated, many had already received their CDC and knew that they were being given a bad nully. An example was Goan seaman D. Furtado, who found out when he got back to Bombay on the Mooltan that he had ‘Deserter’ marked on his CDC by KPM. What shocked Furtado was that he had believed that if he got such a bad nully it would only affect his future employment on Dutch shipping; now he found out that the British were using the KPM nully to deny him work on international British cargo shipping as well. He wrote sadly but accusingly to Campbell: ‘The seamen work is my only hope by which I can support my family and as you should be well aware, it is impossible to get an employment with such remark on my service certificate. You have told us that it is not the movement against the H.M. Forces and we only relied on you.’22 Campbell wrote back to explain that he had written to 27 organisations in Bombay to try get their pay for them and have the CDCs revised. Furtado was in the unusual situation of falling into the strike almost by accident, so Campbell went to some lengths when he wrote to the Bombay Shipping Master to outline Furtado’s case. In doing so, he explained how the striking seamen saw their position: We have received a letter from Mr D. Furtado, who left Bombay as a Chief Cook, under articles to the British Admiralty shipping pool for Sydney and Australia. This man, with approximately 100 other seamen, arrived 20 C.H.C. to ‘Hanif’, one of the seamen on the Mooltan, 8.1.46, informing him that the secretary of the SUA would meet the ship at Fremantle ‘to see that the KPM keeps its promise’; ISUiA cable to Indian High Commissioner, 9.1.46. Both in ISUiA file, E177/5, NBABL. 21 Abdul Kasim (home address Entally, Calcutta), from Fremantle to Clarrie Campbell, 12.1.46, ISUiA file, E177/5, NBABL. 22 D. Furtado to C.H.C., 28.3.46, from Bombay. ISUiA file, E177/5, NBABL.

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in Sydney and was housed on a damaged boat called the ‘Publingbar’, where they remained for several weeks. Owing to the termination of the war, these men were not wanted by this shipping pool, and arrangements were being made for their repatriation back to India. For some reason or other, this man was placed on the Dutch KPM ship, ‘Japara’ on a Saturday morning and unbeknown to him, the whole of the crew went to the Captain and said they had heard he was taking them to Java where heavy fighting was going on against the Indonesians, who were allies of the United Nations [i.e. Allied armed forces]. They asked the Dutch captain for assurance that their families would be compensated should they be killed in the fighting. This was refused, they then promised they would take the ship to any part of the world except Java, again the captain said they would have to go to Java. […] The men left the ship that Saturday night. The tragedy of the situation is that Furtado had not been on the ‘Japara’ long enough to start work when the crew left the ship. He was told, with two other Goanese men who were similarly placed, that they were not wanted when the crew left the boat […] Although the Australian government tacitly agreed that the men who left the Dutch ships were not deserters because they refused to invoke the immigration laws against them, we most certainly think that Furtado and the other two Goanese are being subjected to a gross miscarriage of justice in withholding their livelihood by issuing a ‘deserter’ discharge.23

Campbell received many letters describing bad nullies between March and September 1946. Abdul Ali wrote in April 1946 that he had received a bad nully, leading to ‘extreme hardship’. S.K. Nuroo had written in July 1946 that he had not received his CDC because ‘the company has kept that with them and passed bad remarks on it’. Amir Hossain from Ballygunje was another who wrote in July that ‘our three month strike pay still not received and our nully (discharge) is also with remarks they did not clear. We are very poor man we are suffering for delaying our money’. Valiyoollah wrote in November 1946, explaining he had been ‘penalised with a discharge book marked “deserter”’, as Campbell wrote in a reference to try to help him get work.24 Campbell appealed again to the Indian High Commissioner, who reiterated that he did not regard these men as ‘deserters’ but said it was 23 C.H.C. to Shipping Master Bombay, 13.4.46; C.H.C. to D. Furtado, 13.4.46, then sequence of letters from and to Furtado. ISUiA file, E177/5, NBABL. 24 All these letters are in the ISUiA file, E177/5, NBABL.

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up to the Government of India to make a judgment about their discharge papers.25 Eventually Campbell wrote to both Nehru, as leader of Congress, and Jinnah, as leader of the Muslim League, on 5 March 1947:26 It is now seven months since the High Commissioner promised to take action, but even up to today, I am receiving heart-breaking letters from these men and their familes in India stating how shipping companies are still refusing them employment after 12 months of starvation because of their noble action as freedom fighters […] Your influence on shipping companies and shipping masters in both Bombay and Calcutta to relieve the ban on these men would do much for India’s cause in the eyes of progressive forces throughout the world.  Yours in the cause of freedom  C.H. Campbell, Treasurer, Indian Seamen’s Union in Australia

The Union had now lost all three of its major activists – its President Abdul Rehman in December, its Vice President Mohammad Hanif on the Mooltan in January, and then the union Secretary and interpreter Dasrath Singh on the Eastern Prince in February. Abdul Monnaff, a Bengali, had been elected President when Rehman left, but he had been unsatisfactory, found to be criticising the union’s leadership and undermining its solidarity, as Campbell reported to Rehman.27 By March, the Union was struggling in terms of leadership, and Campbell’s ignorance of any Indian language – one of the grounds on which Abdul Monnaff had been critical – had become a very serious disadvantage once Dasrath Singh had left. The WWF planned a rally in Sydney for 15 April, with strong support from the CPA, in the hope of reawakening union support for the Indonesian cause against rising pressure from the anti-communist factions in the ACTU and the NSW TLC. The flyer went out early in April, naming Australian unionists prominently but also indicating that there would be speeches from Indonesian activists and the Chinese community. The organisers ignored the ISUiA altogether: it had not been invited to speak or to attend the rally despite the major role of its members in the strike’s implementation and success. 25 C.H.C. to Sir Raghunath Paranjapye, 13.7.45; Paranjapye to C.H.C., 22.7.45, both in ISUiA file, E177/5, NBABL. 26 Both these letters are also in the ISUiA file, E177/5, NBABL. 27 C.H.C. to Abdul Rehman, 9.4.46. ISUiA Archives, E177/4, NBABL.

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Campbell wrote an icy letter of protest on 8 April to the general secretaries of the NSW and Federal WWF, the Federal Ironworkers Union, the Federal Seamen’s Union, the ALP (Stan Sharkey), and the Indonesian Seamen’s Union,28 in which he pointed out: The withholding of Dutch ships could not have been successful without the cooperation of the Indian seamen. Every Dutch ship left by Indians had been previously repaired, stored, cargoed, coaled, tugged and piloted by Australian Unions, and were only held up at the last moment by the Indians spontaneously leaving these ships. Throughout the Campaign, the Indian seamen have played an outstanding part. They led the demonstrations in each case against the Dutch shipping company, they subscribed many times more cash than did the whole of the Australian Trades Unions combined. They sacrificed 20,000 in wages and willingly saw their families starve in India rather than assist the Dutch to suppress the Indonesian Republic.

The Indonesian Seamen’s Union scrambled to apologise to the ISUiA over this blunder. Its president, M.H.L. Mailangkay, explained that the WWF had organised the rally without consulting them either. The Indonesians, Mailangkay went on to assure the Indians, were making urgent representations to correct the omission of people they regarded as playing such ‘a heroic part in our common struggle’.29 The SUA took Campbell’s letter deeply to heart. Its newsletter, The Seamen’s Journal, published large sections of the letter though it did not explain the context in which it had been written.30 It does not seem, however, that Campbell’s angry representations on behalf of the Indians were enough to have them invited to speak at this rally, which was reported in the SMH and Tribune with no mention of them at all.31 The problems with other Australian unions were worrying enough, but there were further problems, as more and more Indian union members

28 ISUiA to Waterside Workers, NSW and Federal, Ironworkers Federal, Seamen’s Federal, ALP [Sharkey], Indonesian Seamen’s Union. ISUiA Archives, E177/4, NBAC. 29 Central Committee, Indonesian Seamen’s Union to ISUiA 10.4.46. NBAC, ISUiA Archive, E177/4. 30 This is reported by Lockwood 1982, Martínez 2001 and others to be in The Seamen’s Journal, IV(11), 1946. Despite searching, this item has not yet been confirmed, but it will undoubtedly be conserved in the SUA archives. 31 SMH 14.4.46; Tribune 19.4.46.

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found on reaching home that their nullies were ‘bad’.32 It seemed that few among the more experienced leaders would be able to return, and the worst news was from Abdul Rehman. He had made the journey home expecting to return rapidly to Australia. He wrote a number of letters to Clarrie and Ada on the trip and encouraged Clarrie to send him the Union membership book as quickly as possible. It had still been at the printers when he left and, as he told Clarrie, ‘you know I have to do great work with it’.33 After seeing his family, he tried to find more work but faced extreme difficulty getting a place on any international shipping. Branded with a bad nully like so many others, Rehman was unable to gain work on the overseas lines, so he had to fall back on the local cargo vessels working around the coast of India. Clarrie wrote back, catching Rehman up on the union news, revealing his underlying interest in bread-and-butter union issues, and pleading with Rehman to hurry back: Most of the Indonesian trouble is over as far as it affects Indian seamen, so have been able to give more time to the Union work. The membership has grown to 800, but it would have been much higher with somebody like yourself on the job. We have been hoping that you were coming back to be with us permanently, and put some punch into the work. I am very anxious to hear how the men got on who were on strike […] I will be very glad to hear from you, Abdul, better still, we would be pleased to know you were coming back.34

Campbell wrote to a number of other seamen in early April, sending the newly printed union membership books and encouraging the men to let him know how they were getting on, and particularly whether their Discharge Certificates had been clear. He was hoping that other experienced unionists might be considering, like Abdul Rehman, coming back to Australia. There seemed to be no one who would be able to return soon, however, and it was becoming clear that the British were not going to give Campbell permission to go to India in the way he had hoped, to stay for six months from November.35 These setbacks made the failure to include the Indians in 32 There was a steady stream of letters from returned seamen in India to the ISUiA offices in Sydney after March, as seaman after seaman received their CDCs and saw the ‘deserter’ report on it. ISUiA archive, E177/5. 33 Abdul Rehman to C.H.C., 14.1.46, Colombo. ISUiA archive, E177/4. 34 C.H.C. to Abdul Rehman, 9.4.46. ISUiA Archive, E177/4. 35 F.G. Galleghan to Director General ASIO, 25.1.46. ASIO had passed Campbell’s proposed travel plans on to the Indian High Commissioner and the Government of India, expecting that

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the Hands Off Indonesia Rally on 15 April even more worrying. Nevertheless, the Indian seamen were preparing for the May Day march, held on Sunday, 5 May in Sydney, and at this rally at least, much more attention was given to the role of Indians. Their float won the second prize, although over 20,000 other unionists had competed! Another bright spot was an article by Sibtey Hassan, an Indian journalist and member of the CPI, that was published in Tribune on 26 April, demonstrating that news of the ISUiA was being circulated in India. Hassan said the returning seamen had been given a warm welcome when they arrived at the Indian docks, where they were named ‘Soldiers of freedom, who joined the hard struggle against imperialism in Asia’. Hassan’s article detailed not only the sustained campaign the Indian seamen had mounted in Australia, despite the threats and at times violence against them, but also the difficulties many of them were facing because of being marked as a ‘deserter’ in their CDC. In the article, Hassan praised the strong support given by the ISUiA and other Australian maritime unionists to the struggle for Indian Independence. And it contained a moving tribute to Campbell when explaining how the support for the strikers had organised: I asked them who had organized this, and immediately they pulled out a photograph – of C.H. Campbell, the Treasurer of the ISUiA. ‘How can we ever forget him? He was so hospitable and sincere and you know what we Pathans are like we never forget our friends. He is like our own brother! The Dutch company harassed us terribly. They refused to pay for our passages back, but Campbellbhai would not give way. He fought doggedly for us and finally he won: this was how we got back to India and our people!’36

Hassan wrote about the seamen: They were proud of what they had done – rightly, for they added yet another chapter to the history of India’s freedom movement: by their action, more than any other section of our people, they have told the if Campbell did attempt to go to India he would be kept under tight surveillance. ASIO Campbell papers, NAA. 36 Tribune 26.4.46. ‘Pathans’ refers to a linguistic and cultural grouping who formed a significant section within the ISUiA. They are understood to have originally been Pashtun peoples from Afghanistan, who had migrated eastwards into the North West Provinces of British India (later Pakistan), the Punjab and Bihar. They continue to be predominantly Muslim and were widely assumed to have a strong sense of assertive collective identity, including, as this quote suggests, unshakeable loyalty.

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Indonesians that India sympathises with the Indonesian struggle for independence. They were even prouder still of what their Australian comrades had done – of their solidarity and their support which alone enabled them to win their victory. But now they are facing a hard life. The Dutch company has classed them as ‘deserters’ and they cannot get employment on any ship. It is up to their people now to carry on the battle fought by ‘Campbellbhai’ and the Australian workers and get cancellation of this false slander and their re-employment on trade union terms.37

Campbell wrote to the men who had been interviewed for this article, thanking them for their kind words and hoping they knew how Australians had valued their extraordinary courage and principle. He added that the Indian Seamen’s section of the May Day march had been led by 60 Pathan men. But his main query was about how they were coping with the ‘deserter’ label on their nullies and how others they knew had been getting on: ‘I am very anxious to know if all the other men got their pay, will you write and tell me Mohamed? Miss Boys wishes to be remembered to you and all her Indian Brothers […] Yours for Freedom.’38 Late in May, Abdul Rehman wrote again, this time in a deeply sombre tone. His life had been overwhelmed with a family tragedy. His young son and daughter had both fallen gravely ill in Poona when he was away working. He had left his ship at Calcutta and rushed home. His daughter recovered but his 14-year-old son had died. Still grieving, with his savings exhausted by his family’s difficulties and unable to get a job to work his passage to Australia, he wrote sadly to Clarrie, assuring him that he would come back to Australia to assist the Union if it was really needed but making it clear that his family’s needs came first.39

Message read – Kapila Khandvala There was one more hopeful event for the Indian Seamen’s Union in 1946. The film Indonesia Calling! premiered on 10 August 1946, when it was seen 37 Ibid. 38 C.H.C. to Mohamed Sultan, 6.5.46. ISUiA Archive, E177/5, NBABL. The terminology ‘Pathan’ is discussed in an earlier note, and the role Campbell mentioned in leading the May Day march reflects the strong sense of collective identification and pride which is demonstrated in the Sibtey Hassan article, Tribune, 26.4.46. 39 Abdul Rehman to C.H.C., 26.5.46. ISUiA Archive, E177/4, NBABL.

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by two Indian activists, Kapila Khandvala and Mithan Lam. They had come to speak at the second Australian Women’s Charter Conference, with Khandvala also speaking at the series of New Education Fellowship (NEF) conferences on the theme of ‘international understanding for peace’. The NEF was an influential international progressive education network associated with both Theosophy and socialism and supportive of decolonisation. 40 Lam was the first Indian woman to be admitted to the Bar in Britain and to practise there and in India as a barrister. 41 Khandvala was a senior educator from Bombay, holding social science and teaching degrees from the University of Mumbai and the University of Chicago, and the first woman to direct primary education across the whole of Bombay City.42 Both Lam and Khandvala spoke out repeatedly in condemnation of the White Australia Policy and argued that international peace could not be achieved without decolonisation and an end to racial discrimination, not only between nations in the international community but also inside countries like Australia. Khandvala was judged by ASIO to be ‘extremely left and pro-Indonesian’. 43 At the launch, Joris Ivens sought Khandvala and Lam out to ask their opinion of the film. He was hopelessly confused about their purpose in visiting and their affiliation, thinking they were involved with a Christian missionary concern. He was pleased, however, that they had recognised the courage of the Indian crews. He wrote: ‘They said their heads went down in shame when the film showed the Indian crew taking out the Dutch ship, but their heads came up proudly when the crew stopped the engines, when they refused to sail. They will take the film back with them to India.’44 Khandvala wrote a lengthy report to the AIWC when she returned home, in which she commented on the film at length: We were also specially invited by the Indonesia Association in Sydney to see another picture, Indonesia Calling! – a documentary film showing how the waterside workers in Australia refused to load ships with ammunition and food stuffs for the Dutch, against the interests of Indonesians. Australian, Chinese and Indian seamen, all joined the Indonesians and 40 Goodall & Ghosh 2018; Bevir 2003; Best 1948. 41 Lam 2009. 42 Best 1948: 113-16; Goodall & Ghosh 2015. 43 11.9.46, Report on NEF conference, F.G. Galleghan, Deputy Director to Director, Canberra. ASIO, NAA, A9108, Roll 6/11, p. 28 of 30. 44 Joris Ivens, Description of the launch of the film on 9.8.46, in handwritten original form and later typed up with Catherine Duncan’s added description of the earlier showing to Indonesian activists before they were to be deported. Ivens Archive, Nijmegen.

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they too like the waterside workers, refused to carry any ships with ammunition to Indonesia for the Dutch. They all thus helped to save the young Indonesian Republic from being crippled by the Dutch. The picture presented a thrilling demonstration showing how people of all countries can help colonial countries in their struggle for freedom. 45

Khandvala did not recognise the union badges, but from her perspective as an Indian activist seeking to mobilise teachers to consider themselves workers and unionists, the film demanded inquiry not only into the question of Indonesian independence, but into the conditions faced by Indian seamen in Sydney and other ports in Australia. As a result, Khandvala visited the ISUiA’s Sydney office to investigate. 46 The results of her inquiry were included in the next section of her report to the AIWC. It is notable that her understanding of the Indonesian revolution as a symbol of the hopes for decolonisation everywhere is referenced at the same time as she describes the conditions and complaints of Indian seamen in Sydney: I feel our conference should also know about the conditions of Indian seamen in Australia. A very large number of Indian seamen working on ships visiting Australia happen to be in Australia [for some time…] their living conditions are appalling, and require immediate attention and improvement. There is a welfare officer of the Government of India, who is supposed to look after the interests of these seamen. I happened to visit the Seamen’s Club, and the seamen on the ships and was shocked to see the condition in which they had to live. They pleaded with me to acquaint the proper authorities in India, with their true condition and to get their hardships removed. The welfare off icer has not been able to do much so far. It would be a great boon and a blessing for these seamen if something is done to improve their lot. The Chinese and the Indonesian seamen are better off as there is someone to look after [their] interest […] There is an Indian Seamen’s Union in Sydney trying to help them at present and it is helped by Australians. 47

45 Kapila Khandvala, ‘Report of the Australian Conferences to the AIWC’, 10.12.46, p. 17. AIWC Office Archives, New Delhi. 46 C.H.C. to Indian Seamen’s Union in Bombay, 3.10.46; detailed report of visit by Kapila Khandvala to ISUiA. ISUiA archive, E177/4, NBABL. 47 Kapila Khandvala, ‘Report of the Australian Conferences to the AIWC’, 10.12.46. (20 pages), p. 18, AIWC Office Archives, New Delhi.

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The visit to the ISUiA strengthened Khandvala’s advocacy for the unionisation of working people – including teachers, her own fellow workers – after her return to India. She undertook an investigation into the conditions of women working as teachers and nurses in Maharashtra over the next two years, submitting a report to the AIWC that strongly recommended support for unionisation, despite the counter-arguments advanced by elites and employers that, as professionals, neither teachers nor nurses should consider forming unions. The campaigns of the Indian seamen in Australia had therefore contributed, perhaps unknowingly, to the movement in India to link workers in different industries, including professional ‘white collar’ workers, through unions.

Re-focusing on Indonesia – Molly Bondan There were to be no more bright spots. With the Boycott effectively broken and the problems of the bad nullies for striking seamen in India frustratingly beyond reach, Campbell began to direct his energy towards the campaign where he could still have some impact – supporting the Indonesian Republic. Wherever possible, he also continued to bring together his abiding involvement with Indians with his support for Indonesians, writing to support Kapila Khandvala, for example, in her ongoing work in India. At the same time, Campbell intensif ied his work with CENKIM in Brisbane, at least some of which was aimed at offering support for Indian seamen as they tried to sustain the Boycott. The presence of armed guards had now become standard on all Dutch ships to enforce the work of the crew. Campbell was in regular contact with CENKIM and Molly Bondan, both officially and as a friend. Even Molly’s personal letters give a glimpse of how the land-based activists were attempting, often unsuccessfully, to offer support to seamen trapped under this very serious duress. 48 Molly wrote to Campbell in December 1946 that, in spite of the assistance of a new arrival – an Indian associate of Campell’s referred to by Molly as Dean – they had been unable to assist the Indian seamen on a number of ships that had arrived in Brisbane from Sydney. Not possible for Dean to do much with Indians on these ships because of shortage of time […] We have been down to the ships (two of them) 48 See Molly Bondan’s personal letters to C.H.C., 18.10.46, 23.11.46, 8.12.46, 15.12.46, 31.3.47. Held in Clarrie Campbell file P81/2, NBABL.

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this morning and we all believe that it is not possible to get the chaps off […] it was evident that the men came up under Dutch guard […] We believe that maybe a dozen could be got off safely, but that the rest would be stopped, and being a Dutch wharf, there is little we could do about it […] and as our reason for wishing to remove the men is to provide them with protection against reprisals for their Sydney attempts, to fetch only a few off is worse than to fetch off none […] We will warn the Republic to expect them, and state all the circumstances, and they must make a concerted attempt in Batavia. 49

Campbell seems to have become closer to Bondan through his long background with Molly and to have also become a close friend of Joris Ivens. As is clear from Marion Michelle’s shooting diary for the film in December 1945, neither Campbell nor Abdul Rehman were known to her at that stage. But by the time the film was launched in June 1946, Ivens was consulting Campbell about finding funds to produce the copies for showing in Australia and overseas.50 Campbell’s role in circulating the film is doubly interesting because he must have been aware of the Indian seamen’s intervention in the visual language of the film by wearing their union badges. By December of that year, Ivens was preoccupied with ensuring the film would be shown in Indonesia. A ban on the foreign showing of the film had been lifted when Chifley organised a viewing for his Minister for Information, Arthur Calwell.51 Ivens hoped to have the film smuggled into Indonesia, past the Dutch blockade, so that it could be seen by both the Republican leadership and a popular audience in urban and rural areas. Ivens advised Eddie Allison, a close friend and fellow communist, to draw on Clarrie Campbell in arranging both the distribution of the film in Indonesia and a safe way for Ivens himself to enter the country if the Republicans wanted him to film there for them.52 Campbell was observed by ASIO to be interested in establishing trade between Australia and India.53 As his opportunities for getting to India were diminishing, he considered the broader Asian region including both 49 Molly Bondan to C.H.C., 15.12.46. Held in Clarrie Campbell file P81/2, NBABL. 50 Joris Ivens to Eddie Allison, 18.9.46, Joris Ivens Archive, Nijmegen. 51 Fettling 2013. Calwell is better known for his long-held position as Minister for Immigration, but in this case his responsibility as Minister for Information is relevant. 52 Ivens to Allison, 15.1.47. Joris Ivens Archive, Nijmegen. 53 F.V.B. Stewart to Director General ASIO, 25.1.46. CHC file, ASIO, NAA. ‘Campbell is active in a study group formed by [the Australian Institute of International Affairs] to go into special research into trade relations between Australia and India.’

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Indonesia and India. His interest in establishing trade links was consistent with the views of the international Left54 as well as the increasingly pragmatic approach of Indonesian Prime Minister Sutan Sjahrir. By the end of 1946, Campbell considered trade to be an important strategy in the defeat of not only the Dutch but of colonialism around the region. He had concluded that the seamen’s power to halt trade through the Boycott had not won long-term gains.

Bringing back the Asian Articles For the ISUiA – and for other Asian seamen – the December of 1946 was a long way from the hopefulness of a year before. First, the Indians’ confidence that they would be paid for their time on strike, and in particular that they would be protected from the dreaded bad nully, had been crushed. Most never received pay for their time during the Boycott and many were confronted with bad nullies in both Bombay and Calcutta, and not only for Dutch but also for British shipping, so they would never again get work on international routes. The Indian seamen had clearly expected that the fundamental work of their new union in Australia was to get better conditions and pay – that is, to attack the Asian Articles from another angle, just as the Asian seamen (led by Indian unionists Daud, Serang, and Ali and Chinese seamen’s advocate Chau Chit Wu) had been attempting to do at the ILO in 1936.55 The Boycott to support Indonesia was the opportunity to get the Union off the ground, but they had hoped that this was just the beginning, as Abdul Rehman’s letters and many others indicate. Instead, by mid-year, Campbell was writing letter after letter pleading on behalf of the seamen as they were confronted with the loss of all future work. Then the few gains made against the racial discrimination of seafarers’ conditions at the start of the war were lost. This discrimination had been codified in the multiple versions of the Asian Articles, and was symptomatic of the overall exploitative employment structure of international cargo transport. Most of the striking seamen in Australia from 1937 to 1942 – first the Chinese, then Indians and Indonesians – had won little except jail 54 See Molly Bondan to C.H.C., 8.12.46, in Clarrie Campbell File, P81/2, NBABL. 55 Broeze 1981: 55, 61; Fink 2016: 22. Mohamed Daud and Mohamed Ibrahim Serang (Bombay), Aftab Ali (Calcutta), and Chau Chit Wu led the successful resolution to equalise hours of work for all seamen, regardless of race.

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sentences from their demands for wartime pay rises and safer conditions in conflict zones. But in 1942, once Australia was well and truly at war with Japan, some Chinese seamen had negotiated real concessions. Many hundreds of Chinese seamen struck, walking off ships first in Perth and then in Sydney, with the strong support of local Australian Chinese communities and the SUA. After a bitter strike, they were permitted to take up paid employment and to set up an Australian branch of the CSU, through which they won pay and conditions equivalent to the Australian seamen’s award.56 These gains began to be stripped away during 1946. Chinese seamen, again supported by resident Australian Chinese communities, found early in the year that their appeals against the cruelty of British ship masters on British ships in Australian waters would not be heard under Australian law and instead they would be jailed. Then Chinese seamen hired at different ports were faced with different wage rates; when they arrived at Australian ports, they demanded equality of pay and walked off on strike when faced with refusal.57 Finally, in late 1946 the British company that owned the cargo ship Sarpedon, berthed in Sydney, reduced the pay of Chinese crewmen by £10 per month to remove what the company called the ‘war loading’. The protesting crewmen went on strike and were jailed not once but twice, remaining in jail in early December. Radio 2KY carried a broadcast by Clarrie Campbell on behalf of the Friends of China Association to explain the Chinese seamen’s demands.58 After outlining these three conflicts, and noting that Australian workers would not tolerate such actions, he pointed out that British staff on the Sarpedon were continuing to receive this ‘war loading’ fee. The Australian union position was that ‘Australian workers are united in their demand that the Australian war-time loading is not sufficient to meet the peace-time cost of living’. Campbell continued, ‘this applies even more so to the Chinese, because of the terrific inflation in China’. But his argument was not just about pay: he pointed out that the Chinese had suffered the loss of nine million lives during their much longer occupation by the Japanese before Australia entered the war, and those deaths had at times been from armaments made from Australian pig-iron. The Sarpedon’s 56 Cottle 2003: 138; F.W. Buchan to Director General, ASIO, 30.7.42, pp. 45-51. ASIO, Chinese Seamen’s Union file, NAA. 57 2KY broadcast, C.H. Campbell for Friends of China Association, transcript, 4.12.46. Campbell was asked by the Friends of China Association to speak as Treasurer of the ISUiA to explain the case of the striking and jailed Chinese seamen. Transcript held in ISUiA File, E177/20, NBABL; Chinese Seamen’s Union, GFM to Director General 10.11.44, Series A6122/1848, pp. 197-200. 58 2KY broadcast, C.H. Campbell, 4.12.46. ISUiA File, E177/20, NBABL.

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owners were threatening the striking Chinese crewmen with an imported Indian crew, but Campbell reminded 2KY listeners that the Indian seamen had resisted the attempts by the Dutch to use them to break the Boycott. This broadcast linked the Chinese strikers’ demands with those of Austra­ lians. Campbell placed the strike and the support it needed in the context of the broader region in which colonialism had determined racial hierarchies. It was the alliances across ethnicities among working seamen that had been building during the war and during the struggle to maintain the Boycott: This struggle by the Chinese seamen is the struggle of Australian workers too. Shipping companies and employers generally know no flag, creed or colour. Remember this listeners – considerably more than half the human race is what is sometimes referred to as the Coloured Colonial people. If employers are permitted to again establish or maintain low wage standards amongst the majority of the world’s people, it is but a short step to attacking Australian standards.

The year therefore closed in frustration for the seamen. Their campaigns were to continue, but they seemed to have lost many of the gains they had made during the war. The continued existence of the Indonesian Republic seemed like even more of a beacon, keeping alive the hopes that had been built up at such cost over the previous decade.

13 Trading for Freedom If the Indonesian Revolution was to survive the violence in Surabaya, its strategy had to change. At f irst, the shipping Boycott was valuable for the new Republic because it cut the transport arteries the Dutch needed to retake the colony. It had also mobilised international support: the calls for a Boycott of Dutch shipping had been taken up in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, and India, not only by unions but also by political organisations. But after the overwhelming military strength of the British was demonstrated in the unrelenting bombardment of Surabaya, the Dutch felt emboldened to impose and then tighten their own naval blockade around the Republic. Furthermore, the brutalities of the conflict in Surabaya contributed to weakening the united front among Australian trade unions, which allowed the ACTU to call for the interruption of the Boycott to load ‘mercy ships’. As the military situation worsened throughout 1946, the Republican leadership – and their supporters of all political hues – began to turn to trade and commerce as strategies for establishing international support for the new Republic. One by one, various trade possibilities were attempted with the goal of achieving some lasting links, and there was a strident chorus of pressure from international supporters urging the Republic to hasten the expansion of trade relations. Each of the players introduced in the previous chapters became caught up in this endeavour. This was often an uncomfortable and unfamiliar avenue, as only a few of these supporters had experience in trade. First there were P.R.S. Mani and T.D. Kundan, who both saw the potential for trade in rice and textiles between the nationalists in Indonesia and in India as a way to strengthen both freedom movements. Then Clarrie Campbell was appointed by Sjahrir as Temporary (and Honorary) Trade Commissioner in December 1946; through the following year he worked with activists like Fred Wong in Australia while consolidating his links with Indonesian trade unionists and communists like Haryono, by then Chair of the peak Trade Union body in Indonesia, Sentral Organisasi Buruh Seluruh Indonesia, better known as SOBSI. This placed both Haryono and Campbell, as communist and fellow traveller respectively, in difficult positions as they grappled to find strategies that would be most likely to end Dutch control. Each was also trading at different levels – with news, with safety, and even with identity – to achieve their goals.

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Freedom and censorship: weighing the costs Both Mani and Kundan had a strong motive for thinking about cargoes: they wanted to get rice to India, which they believed was again facing famine.1 Both were also acting with the personal support of a man they admired, Jawaharlal Nehru. When we left them in earlier chapters, Kundan was contributing to the Indonesian resistance around Lawang, south of Surabaya; Mani, briefly evacuated to Singapore after his capture in Surabaya, had returned to witness the British bombardment of 10 November, staying with Indian troops as they fought grimly, street by street, to reclaim at least the inner part of the city for the British. The hinterland, where Kundan and his family had moved, never came under British control. For Kundan, dealing with cargoes was second nature: since arriving in Surabaya in the 1930s, he had been involved in the textile trade while simultaneously directing his considerable energies to social and political goals. Mani’s work, however, had involved only public relations and journalism. Repelled by the Battle of Surabaya, he asked to be transferred to India, transiting through Batavia in December. There he met with Mohammad Hatta, with whom he had already established a strong relationship. Hatta explained the Republican leadership’s interest in building stronger international support. He believed that de jure recognition from India as soon as a free government was formed in New Delhi would lead to ‘a chain of recognitions from Muslim countries and other Asian nations’. To encourage this, Hatta asked Mani to convey to Nehru how fondly he remembered the work they had shared in the League Against Imperialism in Brussels.2 Mani resigned his army commission in India and within months was employed by Swaminathan Sadanand, editor of the FPJB, as its Special Correspondent covering Indonesia, Malaya, and Southeast Asia. Mani’s first task was to accompany Nehru to Malaya to visit its large Indian population, many of them workers on British-owned plantations. Nehru had made repeated attempts to reach Indonesia, but each time he had been denied travel documents by the British. During his Malayan visit

1 Merdeka! 12.4.46. The fear of food shortages was to circulate repeatedly over many years into the future, but the anxious fears and rumours of coming famine were particularly prevalent across the country in the period of political and economic uncertainty leading up to Independence, with severe religious and other civil conflict rising over 1946. See FPJB 11.4.46, for attempt to reassure the public, with an article headlined: No Famine in Bengal!: Psychological impression only, Says Food Official (p. 3). 2 Mani 1986: 65.

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in March 1946, Nehru spoke to Mani privately, asking him to take a letter of greeting to Hatta and Sukarno: Nehru took me aside on the boat and affectionately putting his hand round my shoulders – as was his wont – asked me for a brief account of the situation in Indonesia. As I acquainted him with Hatta’s desire and thinking for early recognition from a free Indian government, he wished to convey in reply the limitations under which an Interim Government was going to function in New Delhi and hence could not hold out a promise for early recognition. At the same time I was to assure Hatta that he will do everything possible both within and outside government and particularly in the international field to further the cause of Indonesian freedom.3

From Malaya, Mani returned to Batavia, pursuing his interest in the Indonesian Republic. Mani would have expected to write opinion pieces like those his old friend T.G. Narayanan had done for The Hindu, but Mani’s perspective was unique. Rather than an outside observer to the conflict like Narayanan, Mani had been deeply entangled in it. He had come under fire and been besieged alongside his fellow Indian soldiers, with whom he had been taken prisoner by the Indonesian fighters at Surabaya. Even while in uniform, however, Mani had used his role as a journalist to build relationships with the Indonesian Republican leadership. Mani’s unique capacity to open up the perspective of Indian troops became clear in an early piece titled ‘Tell Indonesia About India’. 4 Arguing for a more active role of Indian nationalists in providing information to Indonesians, Mani explained that Indonesians were learning about India from soldiers and merchants. Embarrassed by the troops’ coerced service for the British, the mainstream Indian newspapers had ignored Indian troops, failing to acknowledge them as a diverse and complex group who interacted as individuals with the people around them. There were simply no accounts from the perspective of the Indian soldiers themselves. Mani, however, wrote: In the absence of off icial representatives, Indian troops and Indian civilians are our unofficial ambassadors. The last belong mostly to the merchant classes, cut away for quite a long time from their mother-country and victims of persecution by the authorities for their former association 3 4

Ibid.: 66. FPJB 9.5.46.

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with the Indian Independence League. As for the troops, the rank and file speak the truth, the little they know about their own country, often expressing it incoherently. Most Indian officers maintain a dignified attitude, and in their zeal, give way to emotion while talking of India’s urge for freedom.

Mani painted sympathetic portraits of both soldiers and merchants in these interactions, though he concluded that Congress needed to go further. He did, however, criticise a few Indian officers who, ‘pretending to be Indian nationalists […] gradually radiate Imperialist propaganda’, and accused them, along with some Indians working for the British Foreign Office, of appealing to Indonesians on the basis of religion to recognise the British argument for the creation of Pakistan as a Muslim state. Mani believed that with the recent Dutch proposal to divide Indonesia into a ‘United States’, many Indonesians were recognising partition on religious lines to be ‘the pattern-child of Imperialism’. For younger Indonesians in particular, who in Mani’s view looked at India’s and Indonesia’s shared problems in economic terms, the key issue was the removal of a foreign ruler, rather than distinctions based on religion.5 Mani’s focus on India was not shared by all Indians in Indonesia. T.D. Kundan was one whose focus was less on Indian nationalism than on the coming Indonesian nation, ‘a nation of citizenship not a nation of blood’6 – and, beyond that, independence for the whole region. Mani also had a broader vision than merely self-contained nations, as his motive for this ‘Tell India About Indonesia’ piece suggested: ‘It is time India and her people thought something about re-establishing contact with a people who are related to them by blood and culture, and contact with whom had been broken by the blending, for all practical purposes, of two powerful Imperialisms which could survive only by building a great wall between India and Indonesia.’7 Mani’s experience in Surabaya in 1945 brought new insights about the presence and the views of Indian soldiers in Indonesia to the Indian-owned press. Mani also brought into his 1946 FPJB articles the experiences he had 5 Mani seems to be here referring to the pemuda groups with whom he had been in contact since his imprisonment after surrendering in Surabaya. See Mani 1986: 8-10. 6 Heidhues 2012: 391-2, referring to Sukarno and the Republic’s f irst constitution, which rejected ethnic dominance and included all locally born Chinese as Indonesian citizens unless they chose to reject the offer of citizenship. As her paper and other authors demonstrate, violence against Chinese Indonesians meant that most did reject it. 7 FPJB 9.5.46.

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in India before he returned to Southeast Asia, in which two critical issues had raised his awareness of Indian troops even further. First, the trials of senior INA officers from November 1945 to May 1946 were in the spotlight, showing the public something of the dilemmas that had faced Indian troops, first as combatants under British command, then as seemingly abandoned prisoners of war, and finally as INA combatants, willingly or otherwise, in Malaya and Burma. The difficult situations of those in the INA and the concurrent INA social policy that addressed the needs of the many Tamil and other indentured labourers in Southeast Asia was the subject of the report compiled by Narayanan in Manipur and Burma and passed on by Mani with his endorsement to Nehru. Second, on 18 February the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny began, not far from the Bombay offices of the FPJB itself and very much on its front pages as it spread rapidly in the following days around the many Indian naval depots via shipboard radio.8 Those arrested after the British forced their surrender were tried with unseemly haste, and much information emerged about their poor food and conditions. But overall, their cause seemed to be the political conditions of unwanted British control. Over several days evidence about the causes of the Mutiny was given which echoed that of Lt Mahendra Pal Singh: ‘the INA trials and the use of Indian troops to fight the Indonesians greatly roused the feelings of the ratings […] Fighting in Indonesia had a definite effect on the ratings. They were bitter about the use of Indian troops in Java.’9 There were many issues contributing to the Mutiny, as Pal and other witnesses had indicated, including slow demobilisation and racial discrimination, but the use of Indian troops against the Indonesian nationalist fighters in Java during 1945 seems to have epitomised the naval ratings’ grievances when they mutinied in February 1946. Beyond the intensified focus on the military services sparked by these events, being in India had forced Mani into greater awareness of the wider questions around nationalism. The quest for the nation was, after all, the lifeblood not only of Mani’s politics but of his inquiry into the Indonesian Revolution. Mani believed that emergence of the Muslim League in India had been nurtured by the British as part of a strategy of divide and rule.10 It had greatly complicated the Independence movement. Indian nationalists 8 Deshpande 1989. 9 FPJB 10.5.46. Singh was giving evidence to the Inquiry into causes of the RIN Mutiny. 10 Mani’s views, as reflected in his FPJB articles, were those of an observer struggling to make sense of a tragic situation, as the later sections of this chapter suggest. There have been many analyses of the complex causes of Partition. Some are discussed in Talbot & Singh 2009 and debates have continued.

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not only had to constantly debate the best response to newly emerging conditions, but they also had to face increasing religiously driven violence. Calcutta in the east and Bombay in the west were both sites of communal rioting and ongoing bloodshed, building up to the awful Calcutta ‘Direct Action Day’ massacre on 16 August 1946.11 Mani was continually reminded of these tensions not only from the pages of the newspaper he worked for, but also as he made his way around the predominantly Muslim country of Indonesia. Islam in Indonesia had played a major role in the development of both nationalism and socialism,12 as indeed it had in India as well. Much of Mani’s career in the Army Public Relations division, displayed so clearly in his despatches from Manipur in 1944 and 1945, had been aimed at building bridges across the chasms of class, religion, and caste within the Indian Army itself.13 His vision of nationalism was based on the secular socialism of Nehru, and, despite engaging so actively with the emerging Republic in Indonesia, where a majority of the population were Islamic, he was interested in the fundamentally secular and collective nature of Indonesian nationalism. In his own writing about India, he continued to strive to present nationalism as above religious or any other form of discrimination and instead to be – as he understood it to be in Sukarno’s vision – a nationalism of citizenship, not of blood.14 Perhaps the most urgent crisis facing India in the months before Mani left for Malaya was the threat of another famine. Memories of terrible deaths from hunger in 1943 were strong everywhere – and still exist today among those who lived though its horrors and their descendants who have grown up on their stories.15 The worst starvation was in Bengal, about which T.G. Narayanan had written his Hindu articles which became his book, Famine Over Bengal.16 But there had been simultaneous severe food shortages across India, distorting demographics and decision-making for generations to come.17 Food again seemed to be running short in early 11 Communal clashes occurred throughout 1945 and 1946, and were at their worst in Calcutta in August, when at least 4000 people, Hindu and Muslim, were murdered. 12 Shiraishi 1990. 13 As demonstrated in Chapter 4. 14 Sukarno grappled with these same questions and proposed the ‘nation of citizenship not of blood’ at one point, and at another, suggested the nation of Indonesia would be based on three pillars: Socialism, Islam, and Nationalism, an approach later, in 1955, transmuted into the Pancasila or ‘Five Principles’ which he took over from the concept first developed by Jawaharlal Nehru and Chow En Lai. Vickers 2005; Suryadinata 2018. 15 Zook 2000; Tauger 2009; Oommen 2016, 2018. 16 Narayanan 1944. 17 Zook 2000.

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1946, grabbing headlines across the country.18 The poor food offered to the RIN ratings in 1946 was such a powerful grievance because it triggered the anxieties left by the decimation of 1943. This anxiety about another looming famine underlay much of Mani’s thinking as he arrived back in Java in 1946.

The rice deal – T.D. Kundan When he first returned to Batavia, Mani’s priority was to convey Nehru’s message of solidarity to Sukarno and Hatta, but neither were in the city. After Surabaya and the tightening of the Dutch blockade, Hatta and Sukarno decided they should relocate the seat of Republican Government to Jogjakarta. Mani was able to see Prime Minister Sutan Sjarhir, who was still in Batavia, so it was he who received Nehru’s message. It was during this meeting with Sjahrir that Mani formed the idea of a rice exchange and spontaneously suggested it to Sjahrir, pointing out that he understood that Indonesia had just had a record harvest and suggesting that India could offer textiles as its side of the bargain.19 Sjarhir was very responsive to this suggestion, offering half a million tons of rice if India could send ships to transport it. Despite poor harvests in a few localities, Sjahrir explained that most of Indonesia’s rice harvest had been higher than average. As Mani understood the conversation, the Prime Minister had a strategic objective: To the shrewd and far seeing Sjahrir, apart from consolidating Indian goodwill towards the Republic as manifest in Nehru’s message, the arrival of ships from India to fetch Java rice would mean a death blow to the Dutch economic blockade which hindered both inter-island trade and even the traditional country-craft barter trade with Singapore from Sumatra. The prospect of a trade pact between the government of the Republic of Indonesia and the Indian government opened a new vista that could lead to expansion of international recognition for the Republic.20

The exchange of Indonesian rice for Indian textiles was set in train, although it was to be many months before it came to fruition. 18 See FPJB, PW, Hindu. 19 Mani 1986: 67. 20 Ibid.: 67-8.

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This offer from Indonesia was announced in an FPJB article published on 7 April, in what Mani always regarded as a major scoop: ‘Indonesia’s Goodwill Gesture towards India: Premier Sjahrir’s offer of 500,000 tons of rice.’ As the article stated the terms of the offer, India would provide transport and would offer textiles in exchange for the rice. This was announced with front page banner headlines in two Indonesian newspapers,The Independent in English and Merdeka! in Bahasa Indonesia, both of which included the letter of support from Nehru that Mani had delivered.21 The immediate response from the Dutch was that any such trade was impossible because the rice harvest had been so low that there was no excess.22 There was certainly a real problem, as Robert Cribb has shown, in that the impact of SEAC and then of the Dutch establishment of limited areas of control in some key cities had set up competing demands for rice as well as new internal barriers obstructing the movement of rice harvests.23 After the heavy-handed Japanese compulsion to hand over their crops, farmers were reluctant to part with harvests unless there were immediate commercial benefits. Nevertheless, the strategic advantages of international trade were so significant for the Republican leadership that there was no question of retreating from their offer. Prime Minister Sjahrir repeated it in another press statement published on 23 April, spelling out the tonnages of rice that had been harvested overall to show that the Dutch claims were false. The British response seemed to be negative, though the Indonesians immediately began to follow up their approaches to the British.24 Still in power in India, the British were by this stage strongly influenced by Dutch concerns: it was certainly the view of the Australian officials in Batavia that Britain was unduly reliant on the Dutch for information, leading their assessments of the Indonesian situation to be based on seriously erroneous information.25 Mani and his editor believed that the British were reluctant to accept the offer, dissembling with minor reasons ranging from shortages of transport to shortages of textiles. The FPJB campaigned furiously against this apparent British reluctance from 15 to 21 April.26 Over the same period, it 21 FPJB 7.4.46; Independent 12.4.46; Merdeka 13.4.46 (the two Indonesian newspaper front pages held in P.R.S. Mani collection, Blake Library, Series 9, 10). 22 FPJB 14.4.46: ‘Dutch Try to Sabotage Indonesian Offer: “Not Enough Rice to Spare”’; Mani 1986: 68-70. 23 Cribb 2015. 24 Ibid. 25 Ball to Burton, 22.11.45. DFAT Archives, AA: A1838/2, 402/1/2/1, NAA. 26 FPJB 15.4.46, 17.4.46, 18.4.46.

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carried articles accusing the British of having caused the 1943 famine;27 the banner headline on page 1 on 22 April was: ‘British Won’t Talk to Sjahrir – even if India Starves: Why Indonesian Rice Has Not Materialised.’ Its political cartoon on the following day painted the Dutch as the ‘Dog in the Manger’ preventing starving Indians from receiving the Javanese rice. The caption for this cartoon was unsourced, but it echoed the implications of all the FPJB articles: ‘Even though millions of Indians are going to suffer from starvation, the Government of India are unwilling to accept the offer of food from Indonesia since the Republic is not recognized by them.’28 This was at the least a public relations disaster for the British in India. When there was finally an indication of British interest on 27 April, the FPJB was sarcastic in its page 1 headline: ‘After All, British Contact Sjahrir For Rice.’ In the face of continuing Dutch objections and further British delay, the offer was restated first by Sjahrir on 14 May and then by Mohammad Hatta on 22 May, in a broadcast to Nehru and the Indian Government, stressing the genuine nature of the offer by claiming that 200,000 tons of rice had already been offered spontaneously by Indonesian farmers. Just as important, Hatta pointed out the strategic goal: ‘Soon a Free India linked in ties of closest friendship with a Free Indonesia will set an example to the whole world how nations should live in friendship and understanding.’ Hatta had framed both this broadcast and a statement made on 11 May in the terms of the Atlantic Charter, focusing on what he saw as its fundamental points: that all peoples should be free to live under a government of their own choosing, and that they should have freedom from want and freedom from fear.29 A series of cables released from 14 to 24 May between Nehru, Sjahrir, and Mountbatten refuted the Dutch arguments about overall shortages and confirmed that Nehru and Mountbatten were in communication with Sjahrir to ensure the rice was gathered and despatched.30 While Mani had stressed the political benefit of the exchange, as had Sjarhir, the Indonesian leadership wanted logistical expertise to ensure a successful outcome. Immediately after Sjahrir’s initial discussions with Mani, Sukarno had taken steps to ensure the rice transfer was in the hands of people he trusted. T.D. Kundan, so active as an interpreter and an advocate for the Republic, had been well known to Sukarno for many years as a 27 28 29 30

FPJB 17.5.46. FPJB 22.4.46, 23.4.46. FPJB 11.5.46. FPJB 14.5.46, 21.5.46, 22.5.46, 23.5.46, 24.5.46.

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13.1 T.D. Kundan (standing, second from right) toasting President Sukarno (second from left), undated, c. early 1950s

Photo from Kundandas family collection, courtesy Manoj Daryanani

fellow Surabayan and nationalist supporter. He was also someone who had enormous expertise in cargo management, particularly in textiles, and was trusted by the Indian as well as the Indonesian leadership. Like Mani, Kundan had been in touch with the nationalist movement in India and had visited Nehru at some time during 1946, giving him an eye witness account of the Indonesian Revolution and bringing back to Indonesia a personal gift of 45 books from Nehru to Sukarno and Hatta.31 So Kundan was asked to manage the process from beginning to end: the collection and movement of rice from farming lands to the Indonesian ports of Cheribon, Tegal, Probolinggo, and Banyuwangi; the rice transport to India on Indian ships; and the incoming movement of textiles.32 Even then, it was a long wait before the formal agreement could be finalised on 15 August 1946.33 Further delay was caused as the Dutch tightened their naval blockade and bombed the Republican-held port of Banyuwangi, 31 Sukarno to Nehru, letter of thanks for books received from ‘Mr T. Kundan’, 11.3.47. In T.D. Kundan papers, held by Manoj Danayeri, Mr Kundandas’ grandson. 32 Resumé pages, ‘Some Main Features of my Life in Surabaya’ by T.D. Kundan, MBE, BA (Hons). Undated but after 27.3.74. From T.D. Kundan papers, held by Manoj Danayeri, Mr Kundandas’s grandson. 33 FPJB 29.5.46, 12.6.46, 24.6.46, 10.8.46, 16.8.46.

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where Indian ships were damaged as they tried to load rice. The Dutch claimed that these ports were servicing ships that had crossed one of the new internal barriers, in this case that between Java and Bali, which the Dutch insisted was their own. More delays were caused by limited and ageing trucks and outdated infrastructure such as railway lines.34 There were then still further delays until the rice deal dropped off the front pages of at least the FPJB, leading Cribb to conclude that ‘the project quietly died’.35 Despite its lack of prominence, however, both Kundan in his biographical statement and Mani in his 1986 book The Story of Indonesian Revolution insisted that the rice transfer had been largely successful, though it could not be repeated through a new agreement because Dutch military action intensified in the lead-up to the first ‘Police Action’ in July and August 1947. As Mani saw the 1946 outcome: ‘Indonesia was able to fulfill in most parts the stipulated supply of rice to India under the barter agreement and received in return agricultural implements, textiles and miscellaneous goods required by them.’36 During this rice negotiation Mani had come under intense scrutiny from his editor about the veracity of his information, and with the storm aroused among the Dutch by the proposal, Mani said he felt at times that he had walked into a hornet’s nest.37 In the end, however, his prestige was enhanced in the eyes of Nehru, Sukarno, and the broader Indian audience of the newspaper for which he wrote.

Protecting Indian soldiers – P.R.S. Mani There were no such positive outcomes for Mani in following his commitment to the Indian troops still in Indonesia. Indian troops were neither of commercial benefit to Indonesian farmers nor of diplomatic benefit to the Republican leadership. And they were an embarrassment to the nationalists in India. Mani found he was still involved in a trade – but this time he was trading his own silence for access. To make contact with the troops, and particularly to look after the interests of those who had changed sides to fight for the Indonesians, Mani had to grapple with renewed military censorship and secrecy, finding he had to censor himself if he was to receive 34 Cribb 2015: 191-2; FPJB 22.8.46, 26.8.46. 35 FPJB 23.8.46, 26.8.46. 36 Mani 1986: 75. 37 Ibid.: 69.

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assurances from all sides that those Indian troops who had ‘deserted’ from the British would be treated fairly.38 At no stage did he forget his commitments to Indian soldiers on the ground in Indonesia. On 11 May, he wrote a strongly worded piece titled ‘UNO Must Act In Indonesia’, which demanded that the UN take action to avoid further calamities such as those already perpetrated by poor British decisions.39 His example was Surabaya, the destruction of which he had witnessed. He foregrounded the experience of Indian troops: The Allied forces who came here to do this task [of disarming the Japanese and evacuating internees] have got it done by the Indonesians. Why was not this thought of six months ago? Several hundreds of Indian lives, and many British lives, not to mention the thousands of Indonesians, could have been saved, and the destruction of large numbers of Indonesian homes could have been avoided. The punitive expedition at Sourabaya at the cost of human lives over the alleged murder of Brigadier Mallaby, for instance, could have been averted. Sourabaya will always remain a blot in British military history. Having scattered his small forces without any means of communication in hostile country, whose people, young, old and even women were armed to the teeth, the British Commander thundered to the Indonesian leaders that he was the ruler of the place and that his orders had to be obeyed. What was the result? Large numbers of Indian troops were massacred. Brilliant soldiers, all of them, with distinguished records in Burma. In India, it has often been stressed that the Indian soldier needs a special type of officer to lead him, and here a worthy part of the famous Indian army was beaten by a crowd with little training.

Mani demanded that the UN act on its responsibilities to aid both the Indonesian people and the Indian troops who were being slaughtered. Later in May, his article Java, Conflict of Imperialisms, exposed the tension between the British and the Dutch. 40 He argued that the colonies had provided a home for the Dutch who sympathised with the Nazis, although there were also some ‘good, realistic Dutchmen’ in the Indies. However, he believed that most of the Dutch he met in Indonesia saw themselves as members of 38 Hindu, 5.11.45; Mani, diary entry for 16.5.46 and 21.5.46. Series 8, P.R.S. Mani Papers, Blake Library, UTS. 39 FPJB 11.5.46. 40 FPJB 16.5.46.

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the herrenvolk (‘master race’), thought the colonies were theirs by right, had no time for ‘subject peoples’, and were ‘intensely anti-British’, hating Indian troops for depriving them of their homeland. ‘Reciprocally’, Mani continued, ‘Indian troops here dislike the Dutch intensely and do not desire to fight to reimpose Dutch rule on the Indonesians whom they regard as brothers’. This deep antipathy to fighting on behalf of the restoration of colonial rule over their ‘brothers’ was what Mani had hinted at in his troubled despatches from Batavia and then Surabaya. Those despatches had only faintly mirrored his diaries, which reveal that many Indian soldiers were profoundly disturbed to be ordered into battle against the fighters defending the Indonesian Revolution. Their frustration, anger, and dilemmas would have been evident to Mani then. In 1946, as an independent ‘special correspondent’, he could write more directly from his diary entries about what he had witnessed in Surabaya. What he encountered in trying to learn about the new conditions of the troops, however, was military censorship. Re-imposed during the bombardment of Surabaya, censorship had not affected Mani at that time, as he was still working within the military. Now he found that he was treated with deep suspicion by both the British and the Dutch militaries. 41 Yet he continued to make contact and learn about not only the troops who remained in the Indian Army under British command, but also about those who had crossed the lines to fight with the Indonesians. Between 600 and 800 men were reported to have done so. They were called ‘deserters’ by the British, who pursued them and wanted to return them to India to be put on trial. The British used radio broadcasts to attack these soldiers, claiming, as the British officers did in their war diaries, that these men had been enticed by alcohol or the promise of a better life or sexual favours. Most, the British claimed, had ‘escaped’ and returned shamefaced to the British ranks. 42 Mani had a very different view of these soldiers. He met them frequently in Batavia, as his diary entries, his book, and his newspaper articles of the day show.43 Although he thought some had been misled or misinformed, and some had been religiously motivated, he found most of them had decided to act because they were highly committed politically. They were offended 41 Hindu 5.11.45; Diary entries 9.5.46, 10.5.46, 14.5.46, 16.5.46, Series 8, P.R.S. Mani Papers, Blake Library, UTS. 42 See McMillan 2005: 138-65. 43 Mani’s 1986 section in his book on the ‘deserters’ (p. 61) covers the same ground as his diary entries of 16.5.46 and 21.5.46, but he adds in the book that while soldiers of all faiths had felt compelled on principle to cross the lines, it was Muslim troops who had been most ‘perturbed’ by the moral dilemmas they faced.

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and deeply angered by British broadcasts saying they had been misled and were ‘deserters’. As Mani wrote on 21 May, they greet him routinely with a heartfelt ‘Jai Hind!’ (‘Free India!’). His diary entry reads in full: ‘Met Indians who have deserted British lines to join Indonesians. They complain of Delhi broadcasts which mention of their having been enticed by women. My own impression is that some have fallen victim to this ruse, and some came over for religious reasons while largest proportion for political reasons. They greet me “Jai Hind!”’ Sjarhir and Sjarifuddin had assured him they would not allow these Indian soldiers to be taken by the British, but, as Mani’s diaries from 1946 show, he had to negotiate carefully with the British Army to protect these men. The British demanded that Mani censor his writing about them for the FPJB. He wrote in his diary for 16 May: Met Brig Landa and discussed with him the question of Ind deserters who have taken up arms […] I gave an undertaking that I would not file a story about it provided he brought it to the attention of the C-in-C, India, that some deserted for religious and political reasons. He also assured me that they will not be punished severely. I agree in the future interests of an army – Brig Landa is an accommodating and understanding officer. 44

His editor, Swaminathan Sadanand, was full of praise in all his letters for Mani’s reporting in Indonesia; only in a handful of cases did he seem uneasy. One was when Mani reflected angrily on the Indian Army officers who came to Indonesia and wanted to be regarded as fellow nationalists by the Indonesians but in fact fawned on the Dutch. Another was when Mani was so angered by the British treatment of the Indians who had joined the Indonesian cause that his despatches on them were strongly worded statements in their defence. Sadanand worried that this would leave the paper open to libel charges, and he urged Mani to moderate his reports, warning: ‘There is a maxim: the greater the truth, the greater the libel. It is when provocation is great, one has to be careful, extremely responsible and restrained. Invectives defeat their ends.’ 45 Mani was caught in the pressure to moderate his despatches to stop the British retaliating further against these ‘deserters’, while at the same time his editor was getting nervous that the British would take defamation action against the paper. Censored in both directions, it was a challenging task to report the situation as he saw it 44 Mani Diary entry, 16.5.46. Series 8, P.R.S. Mani Collection, Blake Library, UTS. 45 Sadanand to Mani, 10.5.46. P.R.S. Mani Collection, Blake Library, UTS.

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and still protect the men. Nevertheless, he continued to call strongly in his pieces for the FPJB for the withdrawal of all Indian troops from Indonesia.46 The question of the bonds between India and Indonesia – regardless of religion – were raised quite explicitly in Sukarno’s letter of thanks to Nehru on the first anniversary of the declaration of Independence. Sukarno, whose mother was a Hindu from Bali and whose name, like so many other names and places in Indonesia, derived from Indian words, stressed the deep cultural and political connections between India and Indonesia: […] it is only natural that we here should have turned our eyes towards India – and in my opinion we were entitled to do so – because your country and your people are linked to us by ties of blood and culture which date back to the very beginning of our history […] Politically too, we have learnt much from you, for your national struggle for liberation has inspired and guided our own movement here […] Is it any surprise that we should have turned to you this past year when we fought with our back to the wall?47

Mani was pushed into action by the British decision, finally announced on 22 October 1946, to withdraw all Indian troops from Java by 30 November. 48 Mani feared that despite the assurances he had received, the men who had ‘deserted’ would be left behind. His main article on this topic was published in the FPJB on 30 October, and indicates both his own and the soldiers’ sense of solidarity with the Indonesians. His article in the FPJB was headlined: ‘A New Unity Forged Abroad Among Indian Soldiers: They Fight For Their Country Out There In Indonesia.’ 49 In keeping with the prevailing mood in India, where by October 1946 many had come to regard the INA as nationalist heroes rather than the traitors whom the British had court-martialled for treason, Mani opened with the statement: ‘Another Indian National Army is writing history in that island fortress of freedom, Java, in defence of the Indonesian Republic.’ Having established this patriotic lineage, he explained that his story could now be told because Nehru had assured Parliament that the Government of India would not tolerate ‘any subterfuge or delay in the withdrawal of Indian troops’. Mani then brought into view the theme that connected all 46 47 48 49

FPJB 5.9.46: ‘Indonesian Memorandum to Interim Government.’ Sukarno to Nehru, 19.8.46. P.R.S. Mani Collection, Blake Library, UTS. FPJB 23.10.46. FPJB 30.10.46.

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of his diverse despatches since 1944, as well as appearing in strands through his wartime journalism. He wrote that among the ‘gallant men’ of this new INA were ‘Punjabis, Madrasees, Pathans, Mahrattas – Hindus, Muslims and Christians, once again proving that outside British control Indians of all communities tend to unite’. The soldiers who had refused to wage war on Indonesia had greeted him in Jogyakarta with the nationalist greeting ‘Jai Hind!’ They had also emphasised their idealism as freedom-fighting soldiers of conscience. When Mani questioned them about their motives, they told him: ‘It is true that some were attracted by material things. But the choice between two bigger issues lay in us and we chose the more honourable one. We decided that aspirers of freedom cannot become freedom suppressors.’ Finally, this was when Mani felt he could at last write about the incident that he had long kept to himself, from that terrifying Surabaya night of 28 October when he and his colleagues had been besieged in the Liberty Hotel by Indonesian forces: In the raging battle of Sourabaya, a ribboned Rajput hero of Burma who lay dying with an Indonesian bullet in his heart exclaimed to me:  ‘Ham Dutch ke liye kion marna hai, Sab?’  – ‘Why should we die for the Dutch, sir?’ 50

Mani concluded with this very personal and powerful experience to explain both the political motives of the Indian soldiers who had joined the Indonesian Revolution, and his own motives for trying to protect them. This Rajput soldier had filled all the criteria for bravery and loyalty. He was the epitome of the British ‘martial’ warrior, and yet he had died with the question on his lips that still haunted Mani and all the Indian troops he wrote about: Why indeed should they have to die for the Dutch? This article appeared on the front page of the FPJB on 30 October 1946. Isolated from the context of the other events of the day, Mani’s article unquestionably appears to be a simple account of demonstrable unity and shared mutual commitment. But when the whole front page is brought into view, Mani’s motives may look rather different. Every other article on that front page reports terrible communal violence across India: from Bombay to Calcutta to Nowakali, Hindus and Muslims were killing each other in repeated outbreaks of murderous violence. Mani had been painfully aware of the intensifying violence in India from his brief stay there during the early months of 1946, and since his return to Indonesia he had been following it. 50 Ibid.

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13.2  Free Press Journal of Bombay, 10 October 1946, upper section of page 1, showing context for Mani’s article on Indian defectors, ‘A New Unity Forged Abroad Among Indian Soldiers’ (top right column)

Mani’s own clipping, held in the P.R.S. Mani Papers, Blake Library, UTS; image reproduced courtesy Free Press Journal, Mumbai

Based in predominantly Islamic Indonesia, he had been increasingly alert to the tensions among Indonesians generated by their hostility to what they believed to be the dominant religions of the Indian troops (either Hindu or, if Gurkha, then Buddhist), which compounded their anger towards Indian troops for carrying out British orders against the Republic. It is perhaps the case that, as well as reporting the religious diversity he was seeing in his meetings with the Indian troops who had crossed the lines, he was also looking for this diversity in an effort to intervene in the terrible conflicts in India by stressing the political unity among anticolonial Indian troops in Indonesia. Mani’s decision to write – and that of his editor Sadanand to publish – this rousing message of unity must be understood in the context of Indian communal violence as well as the deep suspicion held by Indonesians towards Indian troops and indeed the role of British India in SEAC.

14 Transnational Visions The last chapter traced the thinking that emerged around trade through 1946 as both Indians and Republican leaders recognised the potential of Indonesia’s rice crop to bring in both textiles and international alliances. In Australia, the battle outlined in Chapter 12 between right- and leftwing unions over the Boycott of Dutch shipping was being waged, with the Australian Government sitting uneasily between the two. After the Battle of Surabaya in November and December 1945, the Dutch increased their military presence on land and tightened their maritime blockade of Republican areas; it is this strategy that Republican leaders hoped the Indian trade would be able to disrupt. The growing military pressure led Indonesian Republican leaders into negotiations for a political settlement with the Dutch. The result was the Linggadjati Agreement, a political accord concluded on 15 November 1946, that was intended to lead to a ‘United States of Indonesia’ in which the Republic would have only a limited area within a confederation still under the Dutch monarchy. One of the gains that the Linggadjati Agreement promised to the Republic was relaxation of the Dutch blockade, but in March 1947 the Dutch Parliament approved only a truncated form of the agreement. As a result, the Republic rejected it, leaving only uncertainty over future trade. In Australia, Clarrie Campbell’s plans for an active role in the development of trade between Australia and India were crumbling. As recently as 21 May 1943, the Postmaster General had informed the Security Services that Campbell was a man of good character, was not a security risk, and had no association with the Communist Party.1 But with his part in the Boycott and Campbell’s growing association with the CPA unions, he was increasingly coming to the notice of ASIO. They passed on the possibility of Campbell’s coming Indian trip to the British Government of India and that trip never eventuated.2 As the months wore on, Campbell was caught up in an increasingly desperate attempt to defend the seamen as they were confronted with bad nullies upon their arrival in India. He also kept up his involvement with the Indonesians, but it was an uneasy time. During 1946, tensions with other unions – such as the marginalisation of the Indian 1 J.M. Martin, Postmaster General’s Office, Melbourne, to Managing Director, Young Broadcasters Ltd, Sydney, 21.5.43; Chief Inspector Wireless to Brig. W.B. Simpson, Gen. Sec. Security, ASIO, 5.6.43, ASIO. Clarence Hart Campbell File, ASIO, NAA. 2 F.G. Galleghan to Director General ASIO, 25.1.46. ASIO Campbell papers, NAA.

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Seamen’s Union in the Hands Off Indonesia Rally of 15 April – left Campbell defensive and isolated. The realisation in May 1946 that Rehman could not return further contributed to Campbell’s anxiety.3 In 1946 the film Indonesia Calling! was also being completed, premiering in Sydney mid-year. As we have seen, Ivens believed that Campbell was the person with the best contacts inside both the Australian Government and Indonesia to allow effective overseas distribution of the film and to assist with entry requirements for Ivens and his colleagues into Indonesia. 4 Campbell was looking, as always, at the regional level. He had been aware of Australian involvement in mining in Papua New Guinea (PNG) since at least 1934, when he attacked Jack Beasley (an ally of the bitter anticommunist former NSW Premier, Jack Lang) for his role in New Guinea Mines in which Campbell argued Beasley had acted against PNG interests. Campbell had sustained good relations with his old ALP colleague Eddie Ward, an outlier in the Labor Party who retained Chifley’s confidence as the Minister for External Territories. Like Campbell, Ward was interested in PNG as a trade partner in oil and minerals, with development seen in Left and Labor political circles as benefiting all sides. But PNG also had direct relevance to Indonesia. In 1946, the bargaining about whether Dutch New Guinea (now known as West Papua) should be considered in discussions about the further relations of the Netherlands and the Indonesian Republic was just beginning. Both Ward and Campbell must have expected that Papua New Guineans would be interested in decolonisation, labour conditions, and the international socialist movement.5 Late in 1946, Ward asked Campbell to travel to PNG to explore the trade possibilities there, building on his knowledge of cargo transport and trade as well as of oil.

The tightening Dutch blockade The April and May 1946 statements of Hatta and Sjahrir concerning the trade in rice and textiles with India made it very clear that they believed that international trade was strategically important. With SEAC in place, the Dutch 3 The letter to other unions, 6.4.46, was polite but clearly very angry, reflecting Campbell’s growing frustration. 4 Joris Ivens to Eddie Allison, typed, 18.9.46; handwritten, 15.1.47. Joris Ivens Archive, Nijmegen. 5 Regional Director, ASIO to Headquarters, 9.8.62, in ASIO f ile Clarence Hart Campbell, vol. 1952-63, p. 169. The Cooperatives established through the Anglican Board of Missions by Alf Clint in the 1940s challenged exploitative colonial plantation management: Cook & Goodall 2013: 61-85.

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could not take control of Java, but their naval blockade was still strangling the new Republic. Hatta and Sjahrir hoped that trade links with India and other sympathetic countries would help break it. The Republican Ministry of Foreign Affairs therefore wrote to CENKIM in Australia in July 1946 proposing that the possibilities of trade with Australia should be investigated.6 At the same time, there was a strong current of thought shared among the Labor Party and Left Unions in Australia and the progressive Left in the USA that trade should be encouraged, a view shared by CENKIM. As Molly Bondan wrote to Clarrie Campbell on 8 December 1946, CENKIM believed that established trade relations would have enabled the republic to be in a stronger position for the Linggadjati Negotiations: ‘We have said over and over again, that trade will pave the way for recognition; that trade will force the down-fall of the Dutch, without any agreements, if they wish. [In the CENKIM view,] trade introduced into Indonesia about three months ago would have forced a much more favourable agreement now [than the Linggadjati Agreement].’7 In October 1946, Campbell wrote, on behalf of the Australia-Indonesia Association to Republican Prime Minister Sjahrir, to explain that Eddie Ward, the Australian Minister for External Territories, also agreed that trade between Australia and Indonesia should be encouraged. The AIA believed a formal appointment should be made by the Indonesian Republic to advance trade negotiations. Campbell asked Sjahrir to give approval to some person in Australia in whom the Government had confidence. Campbell suggested some of the Indonesians then resident in Australia or, failing that, that he himself could be temporarily appointed as an Honorary representative to start the process.8 The process of appointing such a trade representative was delayed, but Sjahrir formally announced on 14 December that Campbell was the new Honorary Trade Commissioner. Campbell expressed appreciation, both for himself and for the honour accorded to Australia to be such an early trading partner, which he believed would be an advantage to both Australia and Indonesia. He identified a range of commodities as potential trade items between Indonesia and Australia, but his own expertise, as CENKIM pointed out, was in the oil and lubricant trade.9 World War II had demonstrated the 6 R. Pandoe Soeradhiningrat, Secretary to Minister for Foreign Affairs, Indonesia, to CENKIM, 26.7.46. Held in Clarence Hart Campbell papers, P81/1, NBABL. 7 Molly Bondan for CENKIM to C.H.C. Clarence Hart Campbell papers, P81/2, NBABL. 8 C.H.C. to Premier Sutan Sjahrir, 15.10.46. Clarence Hart Campbell papers, P81/1, NBABL. 9 Free Indonesia 6.1.47: Campbell’s statements encouraging trade with Indonesia referred to commodities such as tea and fibre. This page included in ASIO files, Clarence Hart Campbell, vol. 2.

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power of mechanised, oil-fuelled warfare, and the trades in rubber and oil were clearly going to be crucial to the new world of the future. The PNG trip proceeded; while there, Campbell focused his attention on oil exploration, contributing to Eddie Ward’s detailed knowledge of the state of major company investment in exploration, drilling, and mining in PNG when Ward announced, ‘The Commonwealth would ensure that the search for oil was prosecuted with the utmost vigour added to the best technical resources.’ Not only were British, US, and Australian companies involved in this exploration, but Royal Dutch Shell was as well, in work that involved Catalina flying-boats for transporting drilling and road construction equipment and operating staff.10 The Catalinas were to play a central role in plans for trade with Indonesia. As an innovative plane which could carry cargoes and land on waterways, the Catalina had been developed during the war. The planes were now being sold off to private companies for international commercial trade, but as the Catalinas could still have military uses, governments were keeping a watchful eye over their new owners. The Australian Government was in an uneasy situation in relation to Indonesia as it tried to maintain good relations with the Dutch as well as with the British. Campbell’s appointment by Sutan Sjahrir was awkward for the Australian Government because it implied recognition of the Indonesian Republic. Evatt, as Minister for External Affairs, had supported the Linggadjati Agreement and had recently stated that Australia’s position was that Dutch sovereignty should be preserved but that the Indonesians should have a substantial measure of self-government. This stance had already been rejected by the Indonesian Republic. Ignoring Republican views, the Australian press argued that because Campbell had been an activist in the Boycott his appointment would not be acceptable to the Dutch.11

To trade or not to trade… The Indonesian leadership was in fact exploring a number of pathways simultaneously. It had endorsed the Linggadjati Agreement with the Dutch, to the surprise of supporters like CENKIM, largely because the Republican leadership hoped it would help to increase trade, as it explained by broadcast: 10 SMH 14.1.47, ‘Jungle Search for Oil Grows Intense’. ASIO regarded this as relevant to Campbell’s visit to PNG in the weeks before on Minister Ward’s request. 11 Daily Telegraph 30.12.46. ASIO file Clarence Hart Campbell, vol. 1, p. 46.

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it would bring an end to the Dutch blockade and restrictions; would open the door to foreign trade, both imports of the machinery etc necessary and exports of Indonesia’s products; politically, would give a breathing space to establish a better organized and firmer government; and industrially would give the opportunity to get industry running with imported machinery and so build Indonesia’s economy.12

At the same time as Sjahrir appointed Campbell, the Republic was taking the approach that the AIA had suggested of finding an Indonesian for the role. It also appointed at least one other Trade representative to Australia, Bob Menot, which generated a degree of tension and uneasy competition with Campbell. Molly Bondan’s letters give a detailed account of the conflict. Anton Maramis and Bob Menot had both left Australia unhappily on the Esperance Bay in October 1945, leaving their fiancés behind, but had returned unexpectedly two months later. Their accreditation from the Republican Government was accepted as genuine by CENKIM, but Campbell mistrusted them, possibly because some other Indonesians had been revealed to be in the pay of the Dutch.13 Regardless of such tensions in Australia, the Republican Government was looking to trade and international connections as a way to break the Dutch blockade. Its position was made explicit in a ‘Radio Free Indonesia’ broadcast from Jogjakarta, as it became clear that the promises of the Linggadjati Agreement were not being fulfilled: The present situation in Indonesia should be understood. During the past 5 years, we have been entirely cut off from all contact with the outside world. During the Japanese occupation, nothing was allowed to come into this country, and that policy has been extended since the fall of Japan by means of the Dutch economic blockade. We have recently received some goods through the Red Cross and similar organisations, but these are a mere drop in the ocean to what is required. Australia needs our tea, sisal, tobacco and spices, whilst we need her agricultural machinery, butter, meat and dairy products […] But even since the signing of the Linggadjati agreement the Dutch economic blockade still continues. Even medicines and foodstuffs are never given to Indonesians living in the Dutch-occupied areas of Java and Sumatra, unless they are working for the Dutch, and these commodities are certainly not permitted by the Dutch administration to penetrate inland, if they can help it. 12 Molly Bondan to Clarrie Campbell. CHC papers, 8.12.46. P81/2, NBABL. 13 C.H.C. to Phyllis and John Johnson, 6.3.46. ISUiA File, E177/4, NBABL.

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Campbell attempted to enter Indonesia to fulfil his role of fostering trade, but the Dutch refused him entry. He then flew to Singapore, which was acting as a hub for communication between Indian, Malay, and Chinese activists, both in their own countries and in the complex multi-ethnic population of Malaya itself. Campbell had continued contact with both Indians and Indonesians, and in Singapore joined Indonesian unionists flying on an Indian plane. As he explained it to the Singapore paper the Straits Times, he ‘hitched a ride into Republican Java in an Indian aircraft carrying Indonesian delegates returning from the Inter-Asian Affairs Congress in New Delhi’.14 One of the Indonesians with whom he maintained contact was a unionist who had been in Australia: Haryono, a worker from Java who had become one of the ‘new’ communists. Haryono had joined the revived Communist Party (again known as the PKI) in 1935, and had been exiled to Boven Digul in 1935 and brought to Australia in 1942. After leading CENKIM in Brisbane, Haryono returned home to Republican Java where he revealed his Communist Party affiliations and became the leader of SOBSI, the Indonesian peak trade union body.15 Soon after Campbell arrived in Jogjakarta, he broadcast with Haryono on Radio Free Indonesia with a message aimed at the Brisbane ‘Listening Post’ (i.e., CENKIM) to confirm that a trade union meeting, about which there must have been some doubt, was going to go ahead as scheduled on 16-18 May. He had previously sent out a message that was intercepted by ASIO asking that people at two phone numbers be alerted that he would be broadcasting; ASIO investigated the numbers only to find that one was his business and the other was the home he shared with Ada Boys.16 ASIO was also suspicious about a broadcast Campbell made later, in which he reassured Indonesians that news was being heard internationally. He used the example of Bung Tomo, the militant from Surabaya, whom he told Indonesians was known to the outside world and regarded as a progressive leader. Then, according to ASIO, Campbell called on Indonesians to ‘let

14 SMH 8.5.47. The quotation is from an interview Campbell had given to the Straits Times that was published in Singapore on 14.4.47. In ASIO file Clarence Hart Campbell, vol. 1, p. 75. 15 Soe Hok Gie 1968: 20, 204, Information from interview with Soebadio, 22 March 1968; Djojoprajitno n.d.: 75. Translation and research by Suzan Piper. 16 The full text of the broadcast has been conserved in an ASIO report, unsigned and with annotations, presumably by ASIO staff, indicating the misspellings, one of which was Harjono’s name [‘Hayuno’] and his organisation ‘General Secretary of the All Indian [sic] Trade Union movement’]. ASIO file Clarence Hart Campbell, vol. 1, p. 73.

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your fire arms be seen, also your political and diplomatic weapons for so long as imperialism and capitalism have not been driven from your land’.17 On this visit, Campbell met with Sjahrir, taking the opportunity to propose that he be replaced as Trade Commissioner with an Indonesian as soon as practicable. Still, Campbell continued to investigate trade possibilities. Sjahrir was cautious about the Boycott: Australian papers reported that the Indonesian Prime Minister had indicated that his Government ‘intends leaving the question of lifting the Australian boycott on Dutch shipping to its own trade union movement to decide with Australian waterside workers’. The Canberra Times quoted Sjahrir as saying: ‘Our Government really has nothing to do with the boycott. We did not ask for it and I think it would be better if we, as the Government, did not interfere in what is an Australian trade union internal matter.’18 This caution may have surprised some Australian trade unionists, but it seems to be directly related to continued hopes in the Linggadjati Agreement, including a proposal for a joint Dutch–Indonesian request to the Australian Government to intervene in having the shipping Boycott lifted – which would certainly have been government interference in trade union matters.19 Whatever his formal role, Campbell continued to talk to the Australian public about trading possibilities, reporting through broadcasts on Radio Free Indonesia from Jogjakarta that Indonesia hoped to restart tea exports to Australia in the near future, while their farms produced a range of primary products that could all be exported to Australia or elsewhere ‘in a needy world’. While he praised Indonesian efficiency in industrial production, he simultaneously pointed out that the factory equipment there was badly outdated, and that this was an area to which Austra­ lian industrial manufacturers could look for markets.20 After returning to Australia, he continued the same theme, stressing the potential for Australians to develop commercially viable trade in a number of commodities and manufactures. In October, for example, Campbell spoke to the Commercial Travellers Association (CTA) to suggest some of the areas in which Australia could import Indonesian raw materials and, even more importantly for Australian traders, what types of machinery they could export to Indonesia. He argued, on the basis of Evatt’s statements, that the Australian Government was interested in re-establishing trade, but that 17 ASIO Report 8.5.47 to Deputy Director. ASIO file Clarence Hart Campbell, vol. 1, p. 76. 18 Canberra Times 9.5.47. ASIO file Clarence Hart Campbell, vol. 1, p. 79. 19 Ibid. 20 Tribune 20.5.47, 8.7.47.

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this goal should be assisted with public support and encouragement from independent bodies like the CTA.21 Campbell’s other interest while in Indonesia was the Trades Union Congress chaired by Haryono in May, to which two Australian unionists also came, Ted Roach (Assistant Secretary, WWF) and Mick Healy (Secretary, TLC), the latter of whom had become a close friend of Haryono’s in Brisbane.22 This Congress had been called to discuss the planning of a wider conference to be held later in the year, to which delegates from Burma, India, Siam, Indo-China, Malaya, China, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand were to be invited.23 All of the Australians spoke, but it was comments by Campbell that grabbed the headlines in Australia amid suggestions that he had made inflammatory statements. What he was actually quoted as saying appears, however, to be fairly conventional, if the Sydney Sun is reliable: ‘We in Australia are proud of what we have been able to do for Indonesia. But we are not satisfied with our effort. One of my reasons for coming to Indonesia is to see what more can be done.’ Campbell went on to express the hope that the Trade Union Congress would seek a world-wide ban on Dutch shipping.24 The tension between such a ban and the goal of increasing trade was obvious, as pointed out by an audience member at the CTA meeting in October. Campbell’s answer was cryptic: he said it depended ‘on the brand on the ship’, implying that trade with some countries would be more fruitful than that with other countries.. The audience member seemed exasperated that Campbell had dodged the question!25 The Sun’s headlines during Campbell’s Indonesia visit were far more sensational and reflected the general theme in Australian newspaper coverage, with a headline: ‘Union Man’s Attack on Dutch.’ Former NSW Labor Premier, Jack Lang, had become a vitriolic and dogged anti-communist, and was an old enemy of Campbell from their long shared time in the Labor Party. Now as the Federal Member for Auburn, Lang asked in Parliament on 19 May whether Campbell’s role as Trade Commissioner for Indonesia was acceptable to the Australian Government, given his alleged association with the CPA. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Evatt, no friend of the CPA himself, 21 F.G. Galleghan to Director, Security Service: C.H. Campbell, Address to Commercial Travellers’ Association, 21.10.47. ASIO File, Clarence Hart Campbell, p. 115. 22 Healy 2007. 23 Broadcast 21.4.47. ASIO file Clarence Hart Campbell, vol. 1, p. 74; Healy 2007. 24 Sydney Sun 16.5.47. In ASIO file Clarence Hart Campbell, vol. 1, p. 80. 25 F.G. Galleghan to Director, Security Service: C.H. Campbell, Address to Commercial Travellers’ Association, 21.10.47. ASIO File, Clarence Hart Campbell, p. 115.

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responded that the Australian Government did not support Campbell’s appointment as Trade Commissioner, which was in any case temporary and was, as Prime Minister Sjahrir assured the Australians, already drawing to a close at Campbell’s own request. Evatt continued that Healy and Roach were representing their own unions, not the ACTU, and that Evatt dismissed the accusation that Campbell was a member of the CPA, pointing out that ASIO had uncovered no evidence that Campbell was a Party member, despite repeated attempts to do so. Finally, Evatt restated that Australia was eager to reopen trade with the Indies, pointing out how Australia had benefited from importing tea before the war.26 Evatt’s emphasis on restoring – and indeed increasing – trade links between Australia and the Indies brought the Boycott on Dutch shipping into stark focus. Yet the trade unionists in Indonesia were quite clear that the Boycott was an important strategy that they wanted to be sustained. The SOBSI Congress (16-18 May 1947) resolved that the Boycott should be maintained ‘until the last Dutch soldier had left Indonesia’.27 Haryono asked the Australian delegates, Ted Roach and Mick Healy, to advise Australian trade unionists to continue the Boycott.28 Further, in a letter to Australian trade unions, he described the Boycott as ‘a deed of historic importance and an example to the world’.29 Campbell therefore returned to Australia late in May 1947 with two contradictory goals. On the one hand, SOBSI had called on Australian unions to continue the Boycott. On the other, there was heavy pressure from the Indonesian Republican leaders, from CENKIM, and from progressive movements internationally to strengthen international trade links. If the Boycott were to be maintained, this must require developing other forms of transport besides shipping. The urgency of the situation in Indonesia escalated within weeks; in June, it became certain that the Dutch would not honour their promises that the Linggadjati Agreement would open the doors for trade. Their blockade had not been lifted, and the Dutch were seizing whatever cargoes came into Indonesian waters.30 Then in July the Dutch military attacked in the first of its euphemistically called ‘Police Actions’. Despite no longer having a formal role, even an honorary one, with the Indonesian Republic, Campbell and 26 Lang’s question and Evatt’s reply were documented in a flurry of newspaper items about ‘Reds’, e.g., Daily Telegraph 20.5.47; Sun 20.5.47; Argus 21.5.47; SMH 21.5.47. All included in ASIO file Clarence Hart Campbell, vol. 1, pp. 82-5. 27 Lindsey 1997: 201. 28 Healy 20057. 29 Lockwood 1982: 141, 285. 30 Ted Roach, quoted in Tribune 15.6.47.

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his fellow activists began investigating ways to transport cargoes to create trade links and carry increasingly needed supplies into the Republican areas. In his f irst plan to start trade going without breaking the maritime boycott, Campbell began planning in June 1947 to use Indonesian-owned ships to transport teak from Java to Sydney, accessing only unsawn logs so as not to compete with Australian timber workers’ jobs. He argued that the Indonesians were conscious of the need for afforestation and had been planting teak since before the war. This meant that there were teak and other timbers in abundance to supply the Australian market.31 This was a convoluted plan to start trade without injuring any Australian unionists or breaking the Boycott. It just had too many complications to work.

Trade after the Partition of India While the Australian focus had been on Indonesia for some months, India had been building towards its own Independence, set for August 1947. The anticipation was tempered, however, by the decision forced on Congress to agree to a partition of British India into two independent countries: Pakistan and India. There were many concerns over this partition. For centuries India had had a large proportion of Muslims in its population; many of them, having been active Gandhians and/or participants in Congress, had no desire to live in a separate nation defined by religion. The independence plan would also lead to the second partition of Bengal, a battle that had been fought in 1905 against the British and won in 1911, with the restoration of Bengal as a single state.32 For the seamen who had taken such an active role in the ISUiA, this was a troubling difficulty. Over a third of those who had signed up had given home addresses in the area that was to become East Pakistan and later Bangladesh. Cut off from the powerhouse of the Calcutta office of the ISU, they would need some time to establish themselves as a separate union. There were similar problems for seamen in the west, facing the interruption of industrial organisation between Pakistan and India, when so many of the seamen had affiliations in the northwest even if they shipped through Bombay. This added to the apprehension with which many viewed the impending Independence day. When it came, Partition was far worse than anyone had imagined. Many died in the mass movement of people across the new borders in 31 Tribune 17.6.47. 32 Roy 2009.

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both directions. To the horrifying murders of Muslims and Hindus in the awful weeks after Independence was added a mounting toll of violence specifically aimed at women.33 The burden of this tragedy meant that it was to be years before the workers on either side of the borders – particularly where they had been transnationally mobile workers like the seamen – were able to organise into effective unions.34 The tumult in South Asia ensured there was less motivation and capacity for political action in international waters, including Australia, than there had been for the previous five years. Added to the disorganisation caused by the bad nullies in 1946, the consequences of Partition meant that the momentum of the ISUiA faltered. There had been international anger at the Dutch ‘Police Actions’ and the collapse of the Linggatjati Agreement in late 1946, leading the Australian maritime unions to re-impose their bans on servicing Dutch shipping – but there was now far less capacity of any international seamen to implement it.35

Asian Airlines disaster – Fred Wong Although during 1947 Campbell’s attention turned towards building alternative transport for trade between Indonesia and the region, he had continued to have a strong relationship with Chinese seamen and the Chinese community in Sydney. In December 1946, for example, he had been asked to speak on behalf of the Chinese seamen on Radio 2KY to explain their series of strikes. In January 1948, Campbell joined W.J. Lee, a Sydney barrister, Lewis Wong, Secretary of the CSU in Sydney, and his brother, Fred Wong, the long-time activist and supporter of the campaign around the Indonesian Republic, to become directors of the publicly listed company Asian Airlines Pty Ltd. ASIO described them all as ‘well known communists’.36 There was actually very little money available to this group, with Campbell’s long-time partner Ada Boys contributing £1000. The planes were to take off from Lake Boga in Victoria and land in Singapore, before servicing a range of countries in the region. 33 Butalia 2000. 34 Ahuja 2013: 120-1. 35 Lockwood 1982: 215-23. 36 13.1.48, extract from report to Director General, ASIO. Clarence Hart Campbell File, Asian Airlines volume, NAA432, 1948/676. This saga has been well documented by Drew Cottle 2000, 2003, though without seeing the context of maritime strategies and the regional interest in PNG, Burma, and elsewhere.

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The decision to use planes rather than shipping as a means to move cargo was inevitable given the contradictory positions held by the Republican leadership in Indonesia and its trade union body, SOBSI. But it also led to enormous trouble. Trying to use aircraft brought together the use of relatively newly developed warfare technologies with the Dutch-generated suspicions that the Indonesian Republican leadership were either collaborators with the Japanese or communists. It generated a storm of accusations and vitriolic red-baiting that left Fred Wong dead in suspicious circumstances, many of the others damaged or exiled, and the scheme eventually collapsing in tatters. The year 1948 was to prove momentous in Southeast Asia. This was the year of armed communist-led uprisings across the region. In September there was a confused uprising at Madiun in inland East Java, blamed on the PKI.37 Early analyses, shaped by Cold War scholarship, attributed the cause of this wave of unrest across Southeast Asia to direct intervention by the Soviet Union, arising from instructions said to have been delivered at two conferences held in Calcutta in February and March 1948.38 Later studies have offered more measured interpretations, identifying the strong local movements in each country that were campaigning for decolonisation and for social and economic change as the root of these conflicts, however much they may have taken their shape and timing from models in the communist world.39 In this context, Asian Airlines was always going to fly into trouble. Despite expecting to purchase a whole fleet of Catalinas, only one plane actually arrived at Lake Boga, on 20 July, when Campbell was in Singapore trying to lobby for Malayan approval for the aircraft to travel in its airspace. Confusion persists about the number of planes sought or purchased, and it took some time before authorities in Australia and Malaya (concerning Singapore) could be certain of the proposal, which both treated as suspicious. There were accusations that Asian Airlines planes were smuggling opium or gold, or both, into Singapore from Indonesia. This accusation of smuggling, as both Malayan and Australian security services discussed in correspon­ dence, was a smokescreen to mask their real concerns, which were that the planes were ‘probably due to take a cargo of guns up to the guerrillas in 37 Poeze 2009 argues that while there were local motives for rising against the government, namely the ongoing negotiations with the Dutch; the decision to be involved at Madiun arose after the PKI had sought Dutch and Soviet Communist Party advice. 38 Brimmell 1959. 39 Ruth McVey 1958 and later authors, including Phillip Deery 2007 have argued the local motives were the major causes; Hack & Wade 2009 argue that while there were clearly no Soviet instructions, and local causes were important, the shift in Soviet policy to a ‘two camp’ line may nevertheless have swayed some local activists more than McVey and others believed.

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Malaya’, or were ‘a Communist Master Plan to organise and maintain a fairly formidable fleet of long-range aircraft – ideal for transporting Communist Organisers throughout the Far East or South West Pacific area’. 40 Smuggling of opium was occurring – from Sumatra into Singapore – and was carried out by an individual widely known and named by John Coast in the lengthy discussion in his 1952 book. 41 The smuggling issue was a major problem for Hatta, who had become Prime Minister of Indonesia, as well as other leaders because it undermined their campaign for international recognition. But, as Coast confirmed, it had nothing to do with Asian Airlines. The obstructions in front of the struggling airline were mounting, and then Fred Wong drowned in Lake Boga on 23 July 1948 in unexplained circumstances. He and Albert Taylor Stewart, an aircraft technician, had gone to Lake Boga to undertake service work on the one Catalina that had been flown there. As they tried to do the work, the dinghy in which the two men were manoeuvring around the plane capsized. Stewart said Wong was treading water beside him, but after grabbing a line from the flying boat Stewart turned to find that Wong had disappeared. Fred Wong’s grieving family and friends were never happy with this explanation, given the obstructions to the airline and the false accusations that had been made against Wong and his partners. The small company’s funding exhausted – again in circumstances the family was never happy about – the airline tottered. Campbell had now been formally blocked from entering Indonesia, but he was still in Singapore, now seeking Malayan approval for a survey of potential landing sites for freight deliveries, only to be blocked again by the technical requirements of Malayan Civil Aviation. ASIO officers admitted this was, as they called it, ‘an excuse’ to delay what they believed were the more sinister purposes of the airline. 42 Campbell returned to Australia in September 1948 to appear at a Civil Aviation Inquiry into matters relating to Asian Airlines. 43 He was by this time dispirited and exhausted, and in his interactions with journalists he did himself no favours. Irritated and angry, Campbell boiled over about 40 Annotation by L.R. McIntyre on report; D. Dexter to L.R. McIntyre, ‘C.H. Campbell and Asian Airlines Pty. Ltd’, 11.8.48; A.H. Birch, Flight Lieutenant, Area Intelligence Off ice, HQ Eastern Area Bradfield Park to Wing Commander Colquhoun, 8.7.48. ASIO file Clarence Hart Campbell, Asian Airlines volume, NAA432, 1948/676. 41 Coast 1952: 185-6. 42 Report, 11.8.48, D. Dexter to L.R. McIntyre, ‘C.H. Campbell and Asian Airlines Pty. Ltd’; Cottle 2000. 43 Extracts of Evidence from Civil Aviation Inquiry, ASIO file Clarence Hart Campbell, Asian Airlines volume, NAA432, 1948/676, pp. 11-13.

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claims that the airline was smuggling opium and then lashed out physically at a press photographer, leading to a series of dreadful photographs in the Sydney press. 44 Sometime in mid-1948, after Fred’s death and after Clarrie had given up trying to get back into Indonesia through the Dutch blockade, he approached John Coast, Sukarno’s press attaché, on the street in Singapore. 45 Coast, an English soldier, had been captured in Singapore and survived a POW camp in Thailand before coming to Indonesia. By 1948, he was organising the Republicans’ blockade-running operations as they tried to break out of the Dutch naval encirclement. He was sorry to see Asian Airlines fail, as he wrote: As I left the office for the last time to go to Kallang Airport I encountered on the pavement a strange Australian, named Campbell. He told me that he was the Campbell who had been largely responsible for organising the dockers’ strikes in Australia, which had formerly greatly handicapped Dutch shipping and certain war supplies intended for Indonesia. I know his name, also, as being that of the leader of some trade mission which had gone to Indonesia from Australia in 1947. I had always heard that he was very much to the Left. He now told me that he had been planning to help the Republic further by opening up another blockade-running airline, this time between Australia and Jogja[karta]. For this purpose, he and some friends had attempted to purchase three Catalina planes, easily the longest range of any two-engine machines. But now, with the word Catalina being linked together with opium in any connection with Indonesia, he was finding that the Australian Government was no longer willing to cooperate with him. If he saw opium he would not even know what it was, but now he found himself being frowned upon as if he were planning to rival the ubiquitous Cobly who, wherever his plan went, made difficulties for others. I felt very sorry for Campbell. Such a line to Jogja would have been admirable for us, and its failure was undoubtedly personally serious for him. He struck me as both genuine and tough. But my Indonesian friends told me that he had already been quick to assure them that I was a Foreign Office agent and not, under any circumstances, to be trusted. He confided to my care, nevertheless, two glass eyes, which he asked me to take to Jogja on my next blockade-run, for his friend Hariono, the chairman of the 44 Hansard 22.9.48; SMH 14.9.48, 21.9.48. ASIO file Clarence Hart Campbell, Asian Airlines volume, NAA432, 1948/676. 45 Coast 1952: 185-6.

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Central Trades Union which had just merged with the new Communist Party. He handed me the eyes in a small tin box, telling me that Hariono’s glass eye was loose and that he had long promised to send these spares to him […] But […] by the time I next reached Jogja the Communist revolt in Madiun had already broken out, and I had been forced to leave the eyes with one of the staff in Terban Taman, asking him to pass them on to Hariono if a peaceful settlement with the Communists were reached. Hariono, who had impressed me earlier as a sincere, suspicious trade union leader, was later killed.

Activists in exile – Clarrie Campbell While Coast’s poignant sketch of Campbell suggests that he was isolated, he was in fact part of a community in Singapore and Southeast Asia. Campbell had not been alone when he travelled to Singapore in March 1947 and ‘hitched a ride’ on an Indian plane to get into Indonesia for trade talks and a labour conference. At least one travelling companion for Campbell’s trip was Alex Brotherton, a teacher, fellow member of the AIA, and fellow returned serviceman. Brotherton was a much younger man than Campbell and had served in World War II, but even from different wars both came out of their time in the army with strong left-wing views. 46 Brotherton went from Singapore to Bangkok in Thailand, where he was based for much of the rest of his life. Working with the Vietnam News Agency, he made a living teaching English and translating Dutch and Malay literature about Indonesia. At the same time, he became deeply involved in the political life of the region, particularly in relation to decolonisation, travelling at times to China and Indonesia and keeping in touch with others in the Left among local people and those travelling through like Campbell. Eventually, Campbell was to choose exile too. He moved between Sydney and Singapore over the next few years and was still involved with the ISUiA in 1949, assisting seamen in day-to-day welfare activities, writing references, and writing more letters pleading with Indian unions to send organisers.47 But from mid-1949, Clarrie took up more permanent residence in Singapore. Rumours reached Australia of Campbell and Boys living a sumptuous 46 Alexander Brotherton (aka Archibald Brotherton, aka Van Tan, 1946-1954 (993507)). ASIO file, A6126 257. Notes by Geoff Wade, re reports for March 1947 and May 1947. Thailand – Australians in A. Brotherton – Activities in Thailand 1948-1948 (538276). ASIO file : A5019 90/2/6. 47 E177/5, ISUiA Files, NBABL.

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lifestyle, but there is little evidence to substantiate it. What is clear is that both Campbell in Singapore and Ada Boys in Sydney were under heavy ASIO surveillance, and much of the information about Campbell after 1951 is from ASIO sources. It shows Clarrie to have been actively involved in campaigns in a number of countries in Southeast Asia as well as continuing to try to thread together trading links between them all. Campbell registered Malayan Bitumen Products Ltd in Singapore in mid-1949 and was able to travel extensively in Malaysia. In May 1949, for example, he was reported to have just completed a 3000-mile tour of Malaya and the border of Siam, in order, as he explained, ‘to establish the manufacture of road making materials which in times to come will extend to the whole of the Far East’. Planning to use local labour with a view to reducing unemployment, Campbell had by that stage opened discussions with some governments.48 Ada left Australia to join him in November 1949 and became the company secretary. They were to stay together for most of the rest of their lives. 49 The bitumen business was brisk and clearly lucrative: before long, Malayan Bitumen was supplying road-making services to the Singapore municipality and to an RAF base. By 1953, the company had expanded ‘into a monopoly with all the government and military departments relying on it for supplies’. Campbell hoped to trade the bitumen he produced in Singapore to China, where he had built up contacts and where, in Hong Kong, he established a chemical plant – probably as part of the bitumen manufacturing process.50 While ASIO considered any trade with China as sinister, it is unlikely to have appeared so in the context of Southeast Asia. ASIO escalated its pursuit of communists and in July 1953 raided the home of CPA member Bert Chandler. A number of letters were discovered that had been written by Campbell to Chandler and others between Ada and various people in Australia. Campbell was clearly in continuing touch with CPA members and he included in these letters, writing quite openly, his criticism of the Malayan Government. During his extensive travels on road-making work, Campbell had made contact with the guerrillas in the mountainous areas of Malaya, who for decades continued to fight the Malayan Government established after the British withdrew.51 Campbell 48 Singapore Free Press 28.5.49; see Khiun 2006 for unions in Singapore 1921 to 1971. 49 Director General to Regional Directory NSW, 23.11.2. ASIO file Clarence Hart Campbell, p. 177. Clarrie died in Singapore 1972. The date of Ada’s return to Sydney is unknown, but was apparently in the late 1960s. Ada died there aged 85, c. 1986. 50 Report attached to C.C.F. Spry to Minister for External Affairs, 17.5.55. ASIO file Clarence Hart Campbell, Asian Airlines volume, NAA432, 1948/676, pp. 90-8. 51 Singapore Free Press 28.5.49.

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accused this Government – in its ‘campaign against the terrorists’ – of obtaining false evidence from local rural people. In his letters, Campbell also discussed the many Indonesian students – 2000, by his estimate – whom he described as proudly identifying themselves as communists and whom he met as they passed through Singapore and Hong Kong on their way to China to study.52 Despite his exile from Australia, Campbell was connected to the vivid world of Indonesia’s international intellectual life, as well as to the networks with which Brotherton and others were in touch.53 In 1962, Campbell returned to Australia for a visit of a few months, and spent time with two well-known members of the CPA, Albert Keesing, the manager of the Tribune, and Norman Jeffery.54 He was regarded by the Party as an expert in South Pacific affairs. The 1962 ASIO report of his visit noted that he had also kept up his contact with Papua New Guinea. After his first visit in early 1947, Campbell had returned to PNG from Singapore in 1953, continuing to work with Wallace Dawson to set up trading cooperatives, which ASIO believed to be ‘communist’.55 It is a puzzle to historians that Campbell could sustain his left-wing contacts in Australia and trade actively with China and yet still flourish in authoritarian Singapore and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Singapore’s leadership was strongly nationalistic but had been socialist in the past. However, a 1952 letter discovered in the raid on Chandler’s home might offer a further clue. In it, Campbell discussed his current ‘sticky time’, in which the US security service had discovered that part of his profits had been channelled to assisting unions. But, as he pointed out, a part also had gone to members of the bureaucracy and business elite. Such payments were clearly able to extricate him from this particular problem and – given the importance of road-making to the civil and military structures of this developing region – he was able to continue business relatively unimpeded.56 No other correspondence was reported on – or can be found – in the voluminous archives of ASIO, but Campbell certainly kept in touch with his 52 Regional Director, NSW, to HQ, ASIO, 20.11.53. ASIO file Clarence Hart Campbell, vol. 1952-63, pp. 88-9, an analysis of the five letters intercepted. 53 On the brutal end to communist politics in Indonesia in 1965-66 and its long impacts: McGregor 2012; Hearman 2010, 2013; Vickers 2005. 54 Overview biography and activities, unsigned and undated, ‘Clarence Hart Campbell also known as “Steve”’. ASIO file Clarence Hart Campbell, vol. 1952-63, pp. 183-4, up to and including his visit to Sydney, and associated with documents dated August 1962; Ryan 2014: 3. 55 9 August 1962, Regional Director, ASIO to Headquarters, in ASIO file Clarence Hart Campbell, vol. 1952-63, p. 169. 56 ‘Steve’ to ‘Comrades’, 23.11.52, found in home of H. Chandler, 17.7.53. ASIO file Clarence Hart Campbell, vol. 1952-63, pp. 66-7.

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14.1 Clarrie Campbell, in 1971, hosting ten Australian women trade unionists including Phyllis Johnson (fifth from left in dark glasses) in the Singapore Automobile Club, of which Campbell was Vice President. 11 May 1971, Singapore Herald

Photo provided by the late Phyllis Johnson from her clipping collection, published with her permission after being scanned by the author in 2008

Australian comrades from the CPA, such as Edgar Ross and Phyllis Johnson.57 Phyllis may have been the last Australian to see him before his death in February 1972. She visited him in Singapore when she travelled with a group of ten Australian women trade unionists on a trip to the Soviet Union in May 1971. Clarrie took them to have lunch in the Singapore Automobile Club, where he was vice-president, and the local press published a photo of the group at a relaxed lunch, kept carefully as a clipping in Phyllis’s own collection.58

57 Interview with Phyllis Johnson. 58 Singapore Herald 11.5.71. This newspaper has since gone out of business, so the original is lost, but fortunately Phyllis kept the physical clipping in the collection she allowed me to scan.

15 Remembering Heroes This final chapter reviews what this book has aimed to do differently and suggests some conclusions. There have been a number of histories written in Australia and Indonesia about the momentous events described above. In India, only P.R.S. Mani has published about these events despite the importance of Indian involvement in them. Each of these histories leads to questions about who has been remembered and who has been forgotten in each country. I consider the implications for future histories of the region, before turning to consider the afterlife of the visions that motivated the actors in the 1940s. By 1950 these visions of new worlds beyond borders seemed to have stalled, but they were to re-emerge in later decades. This chapter closes with a sketch of some of those reimaginings. Beyond Borders has stepped outside the usual frame in two ways: first, by looking at two major, simultaneous events – the Boycott of Dutch shipping in Australia and the Battle of Surabaya – from the perspective of the region; second, exploring this regional view by following the working people whose mobility took them back and forth across this region, making the region itself a lived experience.1 The soldiers, sailors, and traders in this book, as well as the activists they worked with, were not limited to one place or one affiliation. Neither the Boycott nor the Battle was an isolated event: both involved networks of people from many different places that had been building for centuries through religions and colonial trade, and that accelerated during World War II due to changes in the technologies of transport and communication, moving people ever more quickly and stories even faster. For these two events, not only the participants but the news itself became part of the story. Accounts and images of the conflicts were cabled around the world and back, selecting, interpreting, and reshaping the stories as they went. These two events interacted with each other: not only did they occur simultaneously and in relatively close proximity, but they were also linked through new forms of media. This ensured that the events in Indonesia would 1 Indian authors might call these groups ‘subaltern’, initially a British military term meaning lower officer rank, but more broadly now, lower orders in whatever occupation they might be, rather than only the industrial setting that ‘working class’ implies: Tambe & Fischer-Tine 2009. I have, however, chosen to use ‘working people’. Those in unions, like the seamen, would often call themselves ‘working class’ or ‘working people’ but a simple class definition is not entirely helpful. Traders like Kundan held assets and education that took them out of any usual ‘working class’ category, but they were neither massively wealthy nor divorced from the activism of nationalist movements.

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have ramifications in India and in Australia, as well as in the colonising metropoles of Britain and the Netherlands. This book addresses the ten-year period of warfare and revolution from 1939 to 1949, which saw hopes raised and then frustrated. It opens with the partly successful challenges to the Asian Articles by Chinese, Indian, and Indonesian seamen in Australian waters. Chinese seamen were able to win wages and conditions equal to those of White seamen; Indian seamen hoped to move in the same direction. However, the book closes with a setback: the re-imposition of the Asian Articles in 1946, when Chinese seamen were forced into accepting lower wages and Indian seamen had to move out of the industry altogether in the face of punitive bad nullies and other company reprisals. At the opening of the book, the restrictive immigration law in Australia, the White Australia Policy, was breached by refugees and exiles flowing in from war zones. Despite struggles and protests, by the end of this period the White Australia Policy had been re-imposed, even if only temporarily. More battles were needed before that set of laws was finally removed. The book opens with a focus on the key groups of mobile people who linked Australia, India, and Indonesia in the 1930s: seamen, traders, and soldiers. But these were the people of the old transnational economies, linked by empires and ships. The technologies of maritime trade were about to undergo dramatic change just like the European empires themselves, and the number of seamen was to decline. At the close of the period covered in this book, there were new groups of mobile people emerging: journalists and activists, some on the move with the new technologies of communication, others as exiles because of the new borders of nationalism and the hostilities of the Cold War. The colonial armies were diminished, but new armies would march. And soon there were students and professional migrants joining the refugees and exiles, generating new mobilities that nevertheless drew much from the old visions. Taking this regional view and following mobile working people during the period of this study, we can draw some conclusions.

Conclusions 1

Asian Articles and the Boycott

The Australian Boycott of Dutch shipping in support of the Indonesian Republic from September 1945 cannot be understood on its own; instead, it must be seen as but one more manifestation of the rising frustration

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among Asian seamen with the discriminatory Asian Articles. The war had created both dangers for seamen and opportunities for them to take action. Although wartime industrial action had been only partially successful, it did put seamen in the southern hemisphere in a stronger position than they had ever been before. Such action also led also to strengthening networks that brought Chinese, Indian, and Indonesian seamen closer together than they had been in the past. Despite widespread gendered and racialised stereotyping that obscured their actions, Indian seamen took far wider and more challenging industrial action against the wartime conditions than has previously been recognised. Religious pressure and bribery were used shamelessly by British companies, while cultural misunderstandings made working with Australian union allies difficult. Nevertheless, Indian seamen held out for better conditions in port cities across Australia despite jailing and deportation. The links between seamen’s unions in different countries as well as those in Australia, representing seamen from India, China, Indonesia, and Australia, all took their most active form in the 1945 Boycott in support of the Indonesian Revolution, a boycott that held solidly for nearly twelve months, freezing hundreds of ships in Australian waters until it was finally broken by a small local Australian union. 2

War, colonialism and fascism

The war itself looked very different for Indians, Chinese, Indonesians, and Australians than it did for people in Europe. The possibility of Indonesian independence was therefore also understood in very different ways than it was seen in Europe.2 Despite its major costs, the Japanese occupation of Indonesia also opened up many doors. Indian campaigners against British rule argued that fascism and colonialism were two sides of the same coin, as did the Bengali women’s activists Ela Sen and Vidya Kanuga in 1945. There was therefore a greater understanding among Indians about the ambivalence and complexities of Indonesian responses to the Japanese occupation. While Australians had fewer insights into these complex responses to the Japanese, the country was nevertheless far more cosmopolitan, diverse, and open to cultural differences than it had been for many decades. The warimposed disruption of the White Australia Policy allowed new relationships to flourish and new perspectives on the region to emerge. This book also offers a glimpse of the role of women in the networks of personal and political 2

Raben 1999.

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support created around the Indian, Chinese, and Indonesian seamen. Where it led to longer-term relationships and families, the brief disruption to the closed borders of the country contributed to far more lasting connections which eventually contributed to the renewed struggles to end the restrictive immigration policy altogether. 3

Indians Abroad: soldiers, travellers, and traders

Relations were often difficult between mobile – and resettled – Indians and the established peoples in the many places these Indians lived, including Malaya, Burma, South Africa, and Fiji. Yet the nature of these interactions need to be problematised, rather than assumed. Both in Burma during the war and under SEAC in Indonesia after it, Indian troops had international networks of information as well as interactions with local people. As Gajendra Singh has pointed out, interest in decolonisation was already circulating in the Indian Army in the 1920s, leading the British to diversify recruitment beyond the northwest.3 Then World War II brought people into the armed forces like P.R.S. Mani, a nationalist who enlisted to fight fascism rather than to serve the British Empire. One of the roles of Mani and his fellow Public Relations officers was to supply troops with radios and news from home, which meant they sustained contact with both family and the developing campaigns for independence. News from home during the terrible famine of 1943 further troubled Indian troops – while the famine was worst in Bengal, there was severe scarcity in many areas of British India during the war years that left a fear of further food shortages for decades. The troops fighting the Japanese in Burma were also aware of the Indian National Army. Some, like Mani, may not have supported the INA’s military strategies but were impressed by its social approach, which recognised the exploitation of Indian workers. 4 Those soldiers who were sent immediately into action under SEAC in Indonesia cannot be assumed to be isolated from the local people. At least one of the Indian soldiers in Batavia was Captain Jagjit Dhillon, a Sikh who had been born in Medan, Sumatra and was fluent in Malay and Chinese.5 Many other members of the Indian military, including Mani, had picked up Malay in earlier postings. The resident Indian population of workers 3 Singh 2006. 4 Khan 2015; Raghavan 2016. 5 Mani, Despatch, 5 October. Available in P.R.S. Mani Papers, https://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/ research/handle/10453/28084.

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and merchants across the Indies also offered support, information, and sometimes protection to the Indian troops. This ensured that the troops were never entirely separated from the local environment, however complex and tense relations may have been between the local resident Indian populations and Malay Indonesians. Indeed, T.D. Kundan and his extended family are examples of interactions and solidarities between the two groups. 4

Surabaya: national or transnational

When the Australian shipping Boycott was at its strongest in October and November 1945, the Battle of Surabaya broke out – the most ferocious and destructive of all the fighting during the four years of the struggle for Indonesian Independence. While there was brutality on all sides, it was the massive bombardment of Surabaya by the British from 10 November that had a shattering impact not only on the Indonesians of the city but across the country, but also on the Indian troops being used against the Republic and indeed on the British commanding SEAC.6 While there has been little mention of events in Indonesia in the histories of the Australian Boycott, the Battle of Surabaya was the focus of Australian and Indian press attention for weeks. There has also been little place in histories of Indonesia for Indians – other than as enemy troops. Further, histories of Indian Independence fail altogether to consider the complex positions of Indians in Surabaya whether as troops, resident merchants, or journalists. The unique situation of P.R.S. Mani as a writer placed so closely among Indian troops allows a very different perspective on them. Their dilemmas and anxieties and courageous decisions to cross the lines in Indonesia become much more visible in Mani’s papers, as does their anger at the violence inflicted on them by Indonesian nationalists, the Dutch, and the British, as well as the treatment of the non-European internees they were eventually called upon to rescue. Mani’s account also opens up the role of Indian civilians in the city, whose presence has previously been obscured by British distrust towards Indians,7 particularly those like T.D. Kundan who were known to be aligned with the Republicans. Only with Indonesian memoirs and histories can any of these stories be told more fully, but there remain significant limitations to what can be learned and certainly to the way it is now remembered. 6 The rising alarm of British commanders discussed in Chapter 11. See McMillan, 138-46; 148-9; 165-70. 7 Ibid. p. 163.

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Mani’s story also allows insight into how nationalists like him, who were sympathetic to the Republic and decolonisation, could make sense of the violence of the initial attacks by the Indonesian forces by using the term ‘extremists’. This allowed him to separate the perpetrators of violence against the Indian troops – and with which he was personally threatened – from the nationalists he came to know, from both the elite priyayi and the young pemuda fighters. His account is important too for offering a glimpse of the presence and role of women across the Indonesian nationalist movement. This cannot be followed up in this volume, but it opens a rich vein for further research. Just as important is the even briefer glimpse in Mani’s writing of how Indian troops were disturbed and challenged by their rescue of the thousands of Eurasian and Chinese prisoners the British had left behind. These prisoners had suffered violence from the Japanese, then from the Indonesian fighters, who held long antagonisms towards those they regarded as collaborators with both the Dutch and the Japanese. Indians like Mani and many of the resident population were assumed to have more sympathy with the Republicans and had been favoured by Indonesian nationalists over Indische or Chinese residents. Indians themselves had often been hostile to Eurasian and Chinese communities. So such rescues disrupted any easy political or racial identification with nationalist fighters, making Indian vulnerabilities all too evident. 5

The Boycott: a double-edged sword

The Boycott was not the unproblematic strategy for solidarity that has been celebrated in Australian histories. As a strategy, it had very different impacts for maritime workers than it did for nationalist politicians. It has to be re-evaluated in relation to the needs of the time, which changed as the long struggle for Indonesian Independence wore on. As Cold War conflict between the various Australian unions previously involved in supporting the Boycott worsened in early 1946, the Republic itself was also rethinking the Boycott strategy. The Dutch naval blockade was tightening, and the Republican leadership turned to trade as a way to build supportive international links. Over 1946 and 1947, Mani, Kundan, Wong, and Campbell all became involved in working towards building international trading links. There were many obstacles: Indonesia itself was just emerging from scarcity and famine under the Japanese, and while there appeared to be good harvests, there was deep anxiety and resentment at any further food extraction. As they tried to strangle the Republic with a blockade, the Dutch were bitterly opposed to any trading links, so the British, uneasy

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about challenging the Dutch – let alone encouraging the Indian nationalists involved – were unhelpful and slow to act. By 1947, an attempt to set up an air cargo service to leapfrog the blockade had emerged, but interventions by the British and Australian governments scuttled the plan. Wong died in the attempt and Campbell was forced into permanent exile. 6

The media as actors

This book argues that the ‘national’ is an inadequate concept for understanding events in this region, as is particularly clear in this example involving mobile people and international solidarities. The Battle of Surabaya led to a major shift in press coverage about Indonesia (in Australia and India) and the Boycott of Dutch shipping (in Australia). For this reason, I have discussed newspapers and film in the periods before and after the start of the Battle of Surabaya. Before the Battle In Australia, the priority issues in the mainstream press until 28 October 1945 were the return of Australian troops and POWs from Southeast Asia and the rising tide of industrial disputes across major and essential industries like electricity generation and coal. Just in terms of the number of workers involved, the shipping Boycott was a relatively minor industrial dispute compared to the many others at the time. The Boycott was criticised, however, because it caused an interruption to the shipping that might have been used to ensure the speedy return of troops and POWs. The very f irst reports of the Indonesian Independence Declaration explained at length that Sukarno and the Indonesian nationalists were making proposals that had long circulated in the Indies and across the region, and which were explicable in terms of the Atlantic Charter and other WWII pronouncements. Within days, however, material arising from the Dutch Government was adopted and repeated without question across all mainstream Australian newspapers. This material branded Sukarno as a quisling who had collaborated with the Japanese, thereby allowing the simple dismissal of the Independence movement as a tool of the Japanese. The Indonesians and particularly the Indians – both assumed to be naïve natives who could be easily led – were virtually ignored, although their supposed ‘irrationality’ contributed to the pessimism of the Australian coverage. In the Indian-owned English language press in India, the calls for Indonesian Independence were not seen as isolated at all, as they were in Australia.

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Instead, the Indonesian movement was presented as but one manifestation of a wider decolonisation movement across the whole of Southeast and South Asia. Indian nationalist editorials of all political positions welcomed the Indonesian Declaration of Independence and offered support in principle, while political cartoons published in the Indian-owned press made the argument for support for the Republic even more powerfully. However, most attention in the nationalist press was focused on Indo-China, where Indian troops had already been mobilised by the British-led SEAC to fight nationalists. The Boycott of Dutch shipping in Australia was much discussed in this Indian-owned press, which considered it surprising. Australia was best known in India for its restrictive immigration policies, so the Australian Government’s support of Australian unions and its refusal to take part in SEAC were welcome signs that Australia saw itself as part of Asia and no longer an outpost of European colonialism. After the Battle began In Australia, the Battle of Surabaya was front-page news in the major newspapers for most of November. The press attention focused on the death of Brigadier Mallaby, which was depicted as evidence of the irrational frenzy of the Indonesian nationalists, who were said to be led by ‘communist agitators’. Sukarno, still depicted as a Japanese collaborator, was now also said to be unable to control these ‘extremists’, who were not only irrational and communist but also criminal. The events in Surabaya were seen as isolated from other places in Southeast Asia and in fact from other parts of the Indies, where Indonesians were said not to care what had happened. At the same time, the violence was implied to be part of a global Soviet-inspired communist movement. Once the British ultimatum was rejected and the bombardment of the city began, the Australian mainstream media largely ignored the destruction; when it was mentioned, it was blamed on the Indonesians, either because they had rejected the ultimatum or had burnt the city as they retreated. Indians in Australia were ignored on the assumption that they were compliant and submissive. On the few occasions when Indians were identified as actively opposing the British in India, the Australian press depicted them as irrational and frenzied, using the same terms routinely applied to Indonesians in November. In India, the outbreak of the conflict focused the attention of the nationalist press on Indonesia and, with the bombardment, onto Surabaya itself. The city’s plight was not presented as isolated, but as symbolic of all the other

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anticolonial peoples who were being damaged and punished by colonisers for daring to resist. Indian-owned nationalist newspapers had already expressed anger that Indian troops were being used against nationalists in both Indonesia and Indo-China; in reports about the major escalation of conflict in Surabaya, they emphasised the high and disproportionate loss of the Indian troops who were forced to fight on the front line against the nationalists. Political cartoons were an important means through which the Indian-owned newspapers reinforced their editorials, arguing that Indian troops were being used as mercenaries by two European empires, the British and the Dutch, with nothing but contempt for Indian wishes. The scale of the British bombardment of Surabaya shocked Indians; the Indian press focused on the damage done and the plight of the thousands of refugees. Australia still formed a significant part of the coverage of the Indianowned press, which pointed out that the Australian Government had refused to take part in SEAC and had also refused to intervene against the unionists who were boycotting Dutch and British shipping into the Indies. The Australian workers and the Australian Government were therefore held up as models of heroic support for decolonisation, examples to be followed by Indian workers and the British themselves. The Australian and the Indian-owned press were therefore presenting very different accounts of the same events and advocating very different political actions as a result. In Australia, the mainstream press repeatedly advocated for Australian Government intervention into the Boycott to release ships to aid the British and the Dutch as well as to bring Australian troops home. At the same time, by depicting the Indonesian nationalists as irrational, frenzied communist ‘extremists’ in their articles and editorials, newspapers like the Sydney Morning Herald gave added weight to the anticommunist unions’ attempts, in national and state peak union bodies, to end the united support for the Boycott. The emotive new usage of the term ‘extremist’ contributed to this political impact. In India, the nationalist press amplified the anger of nationalist organisations at the scale of the attack on fellow nationalists in Indonesia and at the use of Indian troops to suppress anticolonial struggles. The Indian editorials called for an end to the use of Indian troops. While the papers often drew news copy from left-wing journalists in Australia and Britain, Indian editorials and cartoons were then relayed back, influencing public opinion both in Britain and India in opposition to this use of Indian troops. The Indian seamen’s role in the Australian Boycott was recognised and celebrated as assertive heroism in defence of Indonesia and the region’s struggle to end colonialism. The Indian papers were again drawing on

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sources from Australia, but editorial decision allowed more column space and therefore more detail to these sources than did Australian papers, which allowed events to be interpreted very differently in India than in Australia. Spokespeople for the rising anticolonial unrest in India, such as those who took part in the 1946 mutiny in the Royal Indian Navy, pointed to the Indonesian events as proof of British disrespect and illegitimacy. While much of the analysis in this book focuses on print media, literacy was not a necessary qualification for following the news reported in the print media or for intervening in the new media of the day. As the events analysed throughout this book demonstrate, photographs and cartoons in newspapers, ‘newsreel’ and political film, and the ubiquitous radio were actively used by all sides. The mobile people with the least power in this story – the seamen and the soldiers – were each using these visual and aural forms of media to make political interventions, as well as seeking support from literate professional journalists like Mani to broadcast and publish on their behalf. In their occupations of Dutch shipping company offices and the Indian High Commission, Indian seamen in Sydney carefully chose forms of dress and ‘sit-down’ strategies to demonstrate the rationality and peaceful intent of their demands. In the filming of Indonesia Calling!, the Indians chose to wear Union badges to identify themselves as activists and unionists in the dispute, though this symbolic action contradicted their casting as naïve, newly arrived crews. Their strategic performances and these visual signs may not have been widely recognised at the time, but they have been conserved in the images and film produced. After their deportation, when the seamen found the shipping company was not going to honour its promises, they wrote to their union’s Sydney office asking specifically for newspaper cuttings of the December occupation with the photographs, so they could show proof of their actions and demands. Both radio and text were used in Indonesia. Short-wave radio was used extensively by Indonesian nationalist forces to communicate with each other and to send messages to supporters in Australia. The cabled news of Indian nationalist speeches was rapidly scrawled as graffiti messages on Surabaya’s walls to greet Indian troops. More formally, Radio Republic was the means by which the Republican leaders Sukarno and Sutan Sjahrir contacted the outside world to call for support of the Republic. And the Indian troops who had crossed the lines in Indonesia to fight with the Republicans also at times broadcast in vernacular Indian languages to the incoming Indian troops, urging them to join in refusing to fire on Independence fighters. After crossing the lines in 1946, the Indian troops who had chosen to fight alongside the Indonesian forces monitored the British military broadcasts,

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which aimed to denigrate and intimidate them, on the official All India Radio station. It was in response to such British broadcasts that these soldiers contacted P.R.S. Mani in Batavia, seeking his support for explaining their decisions. This led to the eventual publication of his account of their motives in the Free Press Journal of Bombay on 30 October: ‘They Fight for their Country out there in Indonesia’.

Remembering heroes These events have been memorialised in different ways in each country, in the books and films that have been referenced throughout this study. In Australia there are formal histories of the Boycott, notably Rupert Lockwood’s Black Armada, and the histories of the unions involved.8 There are no histories of the Battle of Surabaya’s relation to Australia. In Indonesia there are many accounts of the Battle, but the Boycott in support of Indonesian Independence is seldom remembered. Heroes’ Day, the solemn commemoration of the Battle of Surabaya each year on 11 November, was for decades dominated by the state-building goals of Sukarno and then Suharto, so for many years the story was dominated by military histories, alongside personal memoirs from Indonesian participants in the fighting, some of which are now translated into English.9 There have been many studies of the politics, economy, and social structure of the large port city of Surabaya, including those of Frederick, Reid, Dick, and Peters, all of which discuss the Battle in part, while recent filmic histories and formal historical accounts like that by Palmos have tried to draw an overall narrative of the Battle.10 In India, neither the Battle of Surabaya nor the Boycott in Australian waters is memorialised or analysed, despite so many Indian soldiers dying in the first and so many Indian seamen taking heroic roles in the second. Only P.R.S. Mani published in India on the momentous Battle of Surabaya and the role of Indians in it, but his book has fallen out of print in his home country. In Indonesia, Mani’s book has been translated and is widely available, although many Indonesians assume from his abbreviated name that he is, in fact, an Indonesian.11 8 Lockwood 1982; Fitzpatrick & Cahill 1981; Beasley 1996. 9 ABRI 1998; Abdulgani 1964; Alwi 2012. 10 1990, ‘Merdeka Atau Mati’ Soerabaia 45, directed by Imam Tantowi; Palmos 2012; Padmodiwiryo 2016. 11 Mani 1986.

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Each of these previous studies has taken the national borders as the conceptual limit of their study, despite the transnational mobilities of so many of the key actors in the events. Each of them has absences that open up fruitful questions. One question surrounds leadership. Without doubt, the Boycott of Dutch shipping in Australian waters from September 1945 reflected a peak in the cooperation between Indian, Indonesian, Chinese, and Australian unionists and activists. The Australian histories discussed in this book (Lockwood, Fitzpatrick & Cahill, Beasley) have all assumed that Australian workers were the leaders and educators of the Asian seamen. Yet, as demonstrated by the evidence explored here, there are strong grounds to recognise the initiating role of the Asian seamen, who were then able to draw in the local Australian workers. It was, in any event, a powerful experience of the strengths of collaborative action, which drew on the combined skills and resources of both international and local networks, of both men and women. Another question concerns the absence or marginalisation of Indian seamen. Reports in the Australian newspapers of the day eroded the role of Indian and Chinese sailors in the Boycott. Lockwood’s 1982 book provides important, though incomplete, details about the Indians involved in the Boycott, but delays mentioning them until the later chapters. The f ilm Indonesia Calling! uses Indians extensively, but shows them in misleading ways, often implying they are Indonesians and failing to mention any Indians or Indian union organisation in the f ilm voiceover or credits. Just as striking is the virtually complete absence of women in the Australian accounts of the period or in Lockwood’s book, which, like the later histories of the Seamen’s or Waterside Workers’ unions, focuses on the completely masculine membership of the unions involved, rather than on any of the female activists and supporters. Yet we know from the documentary and photographic sources and the memories of women like Phyllis Johnson that women were indeed present both as activists and as friends and supporters. In the Indian newspaper accounts, there is a gap in the view of Indian troops in Indonesia. There is a strong celebratory theme in relation to both Indian seamen and their allies in the Australian Boycott. Despite the anger over the British use of Indian troops, there is no attempt besides Mani’s to allow Indian soldiers to be directly heard. Nor is there any representation of those who defected to the Indonesian side, except for some recent attempts to claim that they were all Muslims and chose

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to defect because of their religious aff iliations rather than political solidarity.12 Indians are certainly present in recent Indonesian films, but they are either represented as uniformly hostile to Indonesians – as in the 2016 animated film The Battle of Surabaya – or, if they are shown to be in some sort of collaboration, are still unnamed and unrecognised, like the Kundan figure in the 1990 film Soerabaia 45 ‘Merdeka Atau Mati’ (‘Freedom or Death!’).13 Certainly none are depicted as having doubts or dilemmas about the awful situation into which they had been forced, nor is there any representation of the defectors. And there are no Chinese, no Indische, and no women at all. In all of the representations of these events – even at the time, and certainly more recently – the role of people from beyond national borders is seldom depicted or even acknowledged. This shrinkage of the vision of the transnational networks created in the struggles of the 1940s to the more limited ‘national’ borders is common to them all.

Implications This study has implications for future historical work. Perhaps the most important is that the ‘national’ is an inadequate category within which to confine historical research. History has often been assumed to be written with the goal of explaining, bolstering, and indeed serving the nation-state, but it is an illusion to think that this is how people live their lives. The disruptive conditions of warfare in the period of this study escalated mobilities among soldiers, seafarers, refugees, and exiles. Many of the world’s populations became increasingly mobile over the centuries of escalation of imperial trade and colonisation. The world wars of the twentieth century mobilised still more people, while the technologies of transport and communications developed ever more rapidly in the service of both warfare and trade. There could not be a retreat for long into the limits of any nation-state – even a new, decolonised one. Historical work needs to recognise the mobility of people and ideas and to trace the changes in pace and composition of these mobilities. 12 Khan 2012: 11. The Khan article was itself based on an earlier work, Khan & Karim (2004). Khan 2012 was picked up by the Indonesian Consular staff, and its key points, including the f igures and the number of ‘martyrs’ and survivors, appeared on the Facebook page of the Indonesian Defence Department 20.12.2012. 13 1990: ‘Merdeka Atau Mati’ Soerabaia 45, directed by Imam Tantowi. This film was reviewed and translated in part by Suzan Piper.

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The second implication is that movements and networks, even when they present themselves as being between men, are invariably gendered. The archival record reflects those who have the power to create it; the union officials, just like the newspaper editors and the political leaders in the period under study, were invariably men, even if it was sometimes women who typed and filed the documents. Photography and film may reveal the presence of women, just as these visual media may reveal the performative nature of clothing and physical interactions that are not obvious in the written sources. It is more likely that oral histories and private papers will make more women visible in what are, at first sight, the masculine worlds of any period in the past. More important than trying to ‘add in’ women, however, is recognising the culturally constructed inflections of gender hierarchies in colonial conditions, as in all others. As well as exploring sources critically and creatively to reveal the presence of women, historians must be alert to the gendered qualities of power in the ways that masculinities and femininities are mobilised. The third implication of this study is that media – newspapers, photographs, radio, and films – must be understood as more than unproblematic ‘evidence’. As historians, we need to understand how media work; researching in cross-disciplinary teams wherever possible, we need to learn how the tools developed in sociology and media studies can expand our historical understanding of the impact of newspapers, photographs, radio, and film. By investigating the media’s framing of events – by attending, for example, to contextualisation, association, emphasis, omission, and repetition – we will be better able to recognise that the media cannot be considered simply ‘sources’ for, but rather actors in, historical events. The call for multidisciplinary studies was being made some decades ago by Teun van Dijk among others.14 What is new about this book is the call to undertake that investigation comparatively, ‘across borders’. We need to ask comparative questions because the media in each of these countries used the actions of the other countries as powerful symbolic arguments about not only what was going on in the region, but also what was happening in their own country. What role did Indonesian Independence play in Indian public debates about Indian Independence? How did Indians see the actions of Australian workers and governments? Did Australians see the conflict in Indonesia in relation to politics inside Australia and if so, how? What role(s) did Australia play for Indians in the questions around the independence of either Indonesia 14 van Dijk 1998a.

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or India? Were Australians aware of the symbolic use of Australian actions in India for debates around Indonesian – and Indian – independence? The answers to some of these questions can be found by looking at what was included in the media in each country and what was left out – and how what was included was presented. This makes the media frames visible, opening up insights into how and why people from these countries understood or failed to understand each other. It also allows deeper insight into how transnational interactions might have taken place in both the past and the present.

Visions and afterlives Even though the expectation of a new world where borders had melted away was frustrated by the polarisation of the Cold War in the 1950s, there were still traces of the earlier interactions and hopes for new ones. Sometimes it was the participants of the actions in the 1940s who themselves reactivated new interactions, as the seamen – as leaders of their own country’s unions – Tuk Subianto and Eliot V. Elliott did.15 Another example was the Indian socialist and feminist Kapila Khandvala, who took the film Indonesia Calling! back to India and reported to Indian women’s organisations about conditions in Australia for Indian seamen, Australian women, and Aboriginal people. In her later years as a leading educationalist and the president of the National Federation of Indian Women, Khandvala worked with numerous Australian, American, and Indian left-wing women’s activists to sustain international communication and solidarity.16 Sometimes the ideas of that new, transnational world were taken up by new activists and new movements, reshaped almost beyond recognition but nevertheless with roots in the time before the Cold War. Carla Risseuw has suggested, for example, that the old universalist ideas of theosophy that shaped Komalam Craig’s world in 1939 re-emerged in the counter cultures of the 1960s.17 Many people came to the anti-war movement in the 1960s to express their solidarity with the nationalists in Vietnam, but their interests later broadened into the wider peace and disarmament movement or, later still, global environment networks, all of which demanded looking beyond any one national border. While they were reshaping the earlier visions 15 Goodall 2012. 16 Goodall & Ghosh 2018. 17 Risseuw 2000.

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completely, they were working in the same hope that the future would lie beyond the borders of any one country. While Independence acted to separate many of the seamen who had earlier been comrades, the emergence of new nations in an age of internationalism also offered structures for communication in bodies like the United Nations and in the diplomatic services of the newly independent countries like India, which could play a role in the wider processes of decolonisation. P.R.S. Mani made this transition, entering the Indian diplomatic service in 1949 and working as a consular negotiator in delicate situations like the decolonisation of Goa. This meant that there was a long interval before he could finally publish an account of his time in Indonesia, which he did as The Story of Indonesian Revolution, 1945-1950 in 1986.18 But this also allowed time for reflection. In 1945, as he struggled to understand the brutalities of the Indonesian attack on Indian troops, Mani had called the pemuda ‘extremists’. In later years, he took a wider view; when he published a brief memoir of his diplomatic life in 2005, Look Up Aim High, he chose to end the Indonesian chapter with an appreciation of those same pemuda: ‘I must salute the steadfastness and fortitude of the Poemoeda, the dynamic youth of Indonesia who performed their role ably and diligently.’19 T.D. Kundan became and stayed a citizen of Indonesia, and remained committed throughout his long life to fostering communication between Indians and Indonesians and across religious and national borders. The British Government acknowledged his work in trying to save lives through his role in translation by awarding him the OBE in December 1946.20 The Indonesian Government, however, gave him a far higher honour, recognising the depth of his commitment. It awarded him the Piagam Tanda Kehormatan Bintang Jasa in 1977 and, after his death in 2012, a place for his ashes in the revered Heroes’ Cemetery in Surabaya. Activists like Clarrie Campbell and others were pushed into exile; while this was a loss for the Australian Left, the network of exiles across Southeast Asia was rich and politically active. We know little about Campbell’s decades in Singapore, but it is clear that he maintained contact with old comrades in Australia and with the new and emerging left-wing and student groups in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Malaya, and Singapore, as well as trading with China. Those who remained in Australia, like Phyllis and Johnno Johnson and Rupert Lockwood, battled it out with the anti-communist 18 Published in Indonesian in 1989 as Jelak Revolusi 1945. 19 Mani 2005: 19. 20 Order of the British Empire.

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15.1 Kundan’s name inscribed on Wall of Heroes, 2015: Number 48 in the second column from the left

Photograph by the author, taken on visit to Heroes’ Cemetery with Mrs Priya Vashdev, T.D. Kundan’s youngest daughter

campaigns but eventually were able to leave a mark on the re-emerging internationalist activism in the 1970s. The film Indonesia Calling! offers important insight into how it seemed to the participants at the time. Its final scene depicts the march that had taken place on 18 December 1945, when a demonstration made up largely of Indian seamen marched from the Lido across the Harbour Bridge to the KPM offices. In the film, it was re-enacted by seamen, workers, and servicemen of all countries involved in the Boycott. As Andre Stufkens, a f ilm historian and the curator of the Ivens Archive, has pointed out, this stirring last scene is the hub of the film, imperfect though it may be as history.21 It makes the film perhaps closest to the vision of the times in 1946, when it was completed – when all involved shared hopes that there were new worlds to be made.

21 Pers. Com. Andre Stuffkens with Heather Goodall, Joris Ivens Archive, Nijmegen, July 2016.

Glossary Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia (ABRI) Republic of Indonesia Armed Forces. This was the name of the Indonesian army under Suharto’s ‘New Order’ (1965-1998) but the name reverted to Tentara Nasional Indonesia (Indonesian National Army/TNI) after 1998. Continuous Discharge Certificates (CDC) or Nully (or Compulsory Discharge Certificates). A seaman’s identification document that stayed with him throughout his working life. The variant of the Asian Articles imposed specifically on Indian seamen, called a ‘nully’ by Indian seamen, included in its CDC a ‘Quality of Work’ category, which was to be filled in by the ship’s master at the end of each of the seaman’s contracts, to be reviewed later by prospective shipping employers. If a negative comment like ‘Deserter’ or ‘absconder’ was written in this section, the seaman might never be able to work again. The ILO voted to abolish this section in 1926; the British Government agreed, but refused to enforce its abolition in British shipping companies, so the Quality of Work section of the Indian CDC remained in wide use and proved to be a powerful weapon against dissent. heiho Indonesians who became soldiers for Japan. Hindusthani/Hindustani A language used as the common tongue under British rule in India. It drew vocabulary and pronunciation from both Urdu and Hindi and was intelligible to speakers of both languages. In the period under discussion, 1939 to 1950, the historical sources used for this study used the term ‘Hindustani’ for the language of northern India, although romanised spelling varied, for example, ‘Hindustani’ in P.R.S. Mani, Despatches, Blake Library UTS but Hindusthan Standard in the name of the Calcutta-based newspaper. Urdu and Hindi are both languages of northern India – Urdu was associated with Islam, deriving from Persian and written in Arabic script. Hindi (although the word derives from the name of the river Indus) became associated with Hinduism, was derived from Sanskrit and written in Devanagari script. After Indian and Pakistani independence in 1947, Pakistan chose Urdu (with Arabic script) and India chose Hindi (with Devanagari script) as their ‘official’ language although both countries continue to have significant – and highly politicised – internal divisions over choices of language and scripts.

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The ISUiA offered union members a choice between four languages in which they might receive their book of union rules, and did not offer Hindustani. Instead, they offered: Bengali, Urdu, Goanese (Konkani) or English. Rai, 1984; ISUiA papers, Noel Butlin Archive. Indian Army A volunteer land-based standing army under the command of the British Empire. Raised initially by the British East India Company, these Indian troops were reconstituted in 1895 as the Indian Army and enforced British rule both inside India and in a series of colonial wars such as the AngloBurmese Wars, the Boer War, and the Boxer Rebellion. The Indian Army then served in World Wars I and II, and in SEAC. Although composed of Indian troops it was often led by British officers. At times called the British Indian Army to distinguish it from the post-Independence Indian Army from 1947. See Doulton 1950; Hack & Rettig 2011; Springhall 1996; Omissi 1995, 1999; McMillan 2005; Singh 2006, 2014; Barkawi 2015; Raghavan 2016; Khan 2012; Marston 2014. Indian National Army (INA) An armed land-based resistance force aimed at overthrowing the British Raj. Best known under its abbreviation INA or as Azad Hind Fauj (literally Free-Indian Army), it operated in Malaya and Burma from 1942 to 1945, fighting the British Army and the troops under British command in the Indian Army. The INA included the women’s Rani of Jhansi Regiment. The best-known INA leader was Subhas Chandra Bose, who commanded the INA independently but in alliance with the Japanese army. After the Japanese surrender in August 1945, many INA troops were captured by the British and put on trial in India. Bose is said to have died in a plane crash over western China. Discussed here in Chapter 4 and referred to throughout. The INA has been extensively analysed; see Bayly & Harper 2004/2007; Kratoska 2005; Sato 2005; Lebra 2008; Raghavan 2016. Indische People of mixed race in the Netherlands East Indies, usually understood to include Malay and Dutch ancestry but sometimes also including Chinese forebears. Bosma & Raben 2008; Houben 2009. kampung Self-contained neighbourhood; urban village. The term kampung refers to a community rather than only a space or place. The people of the kampungs,

Glossary

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particularly in Surabaya, were often from the industrial, railway, or other urban working class. They saw themselves as distinct from the elite priyayi, who may live in the physical area of the kampung but were distrusted because of their economic and social difference. Priyayi were believed to have middle-class pretentions and relationships with the Dutch colonisers. Some priyayi families were, however, able to maintain good relations with surrounding kampung residents in Surabaya, including that of the nationalist Ruslan Abdulgani. Frederick 1989; Dick 2002; Peters 2015. Koninklijke Paketvaart-Maatschappij (KPM) Dutch: Royal Packet Navigation Company. A Dutch shipping company in colonial Indonesia, active 1888-1966. lascars Derived from Persian military terms meaning ‘army’ and ‘foot soldier’, through the Portuguese adoption as ‘lascari’, this term became a widely used for Asian seamen. In Australia, it was used as an increasingly specific racialised term for South Asian seamen. Butalia 1999; Visram 1986. Mohamad/Mohammad The name of the Prophet (Pbuh) is used widely as a first name in India and Indonesia among Muslims, but spellings were often idiosyncratic and might change even for the same person. With key characters, I have located the source closest to the person and used that consistently. So the name of Molly Bondan’s husband is always spelled as Molly spelled it: ‘Mohamad’. Other authors have spelled his name in various ways. For each individual I have maintained the best-authenticated orthography. Vice President Hatta is always ‘Mohammad Hatta’ and so on. ‘Md’ also denotes this name in some texts and has the advantage of removing the spelling problem! However, I have only used it if it was the only source available. Nully See Continuous Discharge Certificate (CDC), also known as a ‘nully’. pemuda Literally, ‘youth’. This term arose from the 1928 Youth Congress, which promoted a united Indonesia. The pemuda or young Nationalists were not affiliated with any one party and saw themselves as distinct from the established elite priyayi (though pemuda were often well educated and came from similarly – or indeed the same – middle-class families). They

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were seen in newspaper reports as a collective but were not a homogeneous group; divisions were very evident in Surabaya. Frederick 2012. perenakan Chinese people descended from people who had arrived in the Netherlands East Indies in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries – many of whom no longer spoke any Chinese language, only Malay and Dutch, and identified as Indonesian. This term distinguished them from totoks, or those who had newly arrived in the early twentieth century; totoks spoke a Chinese language, were oriented towards mainland China, and advocated for the Sinicisation of Indonesian-Chinese communities, particularly after the 1911 Sun Yat Sen revolution. The term ‘totok’ was also applied colloquially to newly arrived Netherlanders. Heidhues 1988, 1999, 2012; Cushman & Wang 1998; Yang 1998. pergerakan Literally ‘movement’: name given to early twentieth-century Indonesia, particularly in the 1920s. It was seen as a period of emerging indigenous political ‘movements’, glossed by its major analyst Takashi Shiraishi as an ‘age in motion’. Shiraishi 1990. priyayi The Indonesian elite, middle class (i.e., not part of the old aristocracy), who were educated, often politically liberal, and held official roles under the Dutch colonial structure. romusha Forced labourers under the Japanese occupation of Southeast Asia. Many were from Java, others were from elsewhere in Southeast Asia; there were also many Tamil Indians who left indentured positions under British control in Malaya or under Dutch control in Sumatra. Some romusha initially volunteered in an attempt to escape poor conditions or indenture, but all were rapidly forced into involuntary labour in extreme conditions. Romusha had very high death rates under Japanese forced labour conditions. Kratoska 2005. sepoy A term used for a foot soldier in the Indian Army (which was under direct British command until Independence in August 1947). Today the term remains in use for the rank of private in the Indian Army.

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sinoman Locally elected self-help organisations in kampungs, effectively taking on the roles of local government, but independent of any state control. They were drawn only from Muslim kampung residents, not from Chinese or Indische residents. totok A recently arrived migrant to the NEI. This term was applied to both Chinese and Dutch immigrants (for the latter, often temporary residents). It has often been used to distinguish the two major groups in Chinese society in the NEI; perenakans were those oriented to the local Indonesian language and culture, compared to totoks, who oriented themselves towards mainland China. See ‘perenakan’ above. SOBSI The peak Indonesian Trade Union body after 1945.

Spelling I have chosen to use the current Indonesian spelling in my text in, for example, Surabaya and Sukarno. However, in many quotations from written sources, names are spelled with the earlier spelling conventions for Bahasa Indonesia. In these quotations from written sources, I have retained the original spelling. The most common differences are: Current spelling

Earlier spelling/s

Surabaya Jogjakarta Sukarno Haryono Ruslan pemuda

Sourabaya; Sourabaja Djogjakarta Soekarno Harjono; Hariono Roeslan poemoeda

The main Indian port cities are named as they were in the mid-twentieth century, when the events of this book are set, that is, as ‘Bombay’ and ‘Calcutta’. I have used their recent names (Mumbai and Kolkata) only when referring to current addresses.

Abbreviations ABRI ACTU AIA AIF AIWC ALP ASIO ASSLH AWU CENKIM CDC CHC CIB CPA CPI CSIRO CSU CTA CYL FPJB HS IAA IIL ILO INA ISEAS ISU ISUiA IWM JIA NAA NBABL NEI NMML NUS P&O

Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia Australian Council of Trade Unions Australia-Indonesia Association Australian Imperial Force All India Women’s Conference Australian Labor Party Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Australian Society for the Study of Labour History Australian Workers Union Central Committee for the Independence of Indonesia Continuous Discharge Certificate Clarence Hart Campbell Criminal Investigation Branch/Bureau Communist Party of Australia Communist Party of India Commonwealth Scientific Industrial and Research Organisation Chinese Seamen’s Union Commercial Travellers Association Chinese Youth League Free Press Journal of Bombay Hindusthan Standard India-Australia Association Indian Independence League International Labour Organisation Indian National Army Institute of South East Asian Studies Indian Seamen’s Union Indian Seamen’s Union in Australia Imperial War Museum Joris Ivens Archive, Niemegen National Archives of Australia Noel Butlin Archive of Business and Labour Netherlands East Indies Nehru Memorial Museum and Library National University of Singapore Press Peninsular & Oriental

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PKI PNG POW PW RAPWI RIN SEAC SARPELINDO SLNSW SLP SMH SOBSI SUA TLC UN USA UTS WWF

Beyond Borders

Partai Komunis Indonesia Papua New Guinea prisoner of war The People’s War Recovery of Allied Prisoners of War and Internees Royal Indian Navy South East Asian Command Sarekat Pelayar Indonesia (the Indonesian Seamen’s Union – in Indonesia) State Library of New South Wales State Labor Party Sydney Morning Herald Sentral Organisasi Buruh Seluruh Indonesia (All Indonesia Workers’ Organisation) Seamen’s Union of Australia Trades and Labour Council United Nations United States of America University of Technology Sydney Waterside Workers Federation

Bibliography Archives India

All-India Women’s Conference Office Archives, Cousins House, New Delhi. National Archives of India, Delhi. Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Newspaper Holdings, Delhi

Netherlands

Joris Ivens Archive, Nijmegen, NL. JIA

Indonesia

Kundandas Family Archive, Surabaya and Den Pasar, Bali

Australia

Australian Security Service (ASIO) National Archives of Australia Commonwealth of Australia Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) National Archives of Australia Indian Seamen’s Union in Australia Archives, held in Noel Butlin Archive of Business and Labour, Menzies Library, Australian National University P.R.S. Mani Collection, Blake Library, UTS, https://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/research/handle​ /10453/28084

Singapore

The National Library, Singapore. Newspaper holdings.

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Smail, J.R.W. 1964. Bandung in the Early Revolution, 1945-1946: A Study in the Social History of the Indonesian Revolution. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University. Soe Hok Gie 1968. ‘Simpang Kiri dari Sebuah Djalan (kisah pemberontakan Madiun September 1948)’. Unpublished thesis, University of Indonesia. Information from interview about Haryono with Soebadio, 22.3.1968. Soewito, D.I.H. 1994. Rakyat Jawa Timur Mempertahankan Kemerdekaan: The East Javanese People’s Defence of their Freedom, 3 vols. On Kundan and Sukarno, gathered from telephonist. From the original military notes of (later General) Sungkono. Jakarta: Grasindo. Spivak, G.C. 1988. ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ In C. Nelson & L. Grossberg (eds), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. London: Macmillan. Springhall, J. 1996. ‘“Disaster in Surabaya”: The death of Brigadier Mallaby during the British occupation of Java, 1945-6’. Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 24(3): 422-33. Stevens, C. 1989. Tin Mosques and Ghantowns: A History of Afghan Cameldrivers in Australia. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Stoler, A.L. 1995. Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault’s History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Stoler, A.L. 2002: Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power. Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule. Berkeley: UCLA Press. Streets, H. 2004. Martial Races: The Military, Race and Masculinity in British Imperial Culture, 1857-1914. Manchester University Press. Stretton, P., & C. Finnimore 1993. ‘Black fellow citizens: Aborigines and the Commonwealth franchise’. Australian Historical Studies 25(101): 521-35. Stufkens, A. 2002. Cinema Without Borders: The Films of Joris Ivens. Amsterdam: European Foundation. Suryadinata, L. 2018. ‘Ethnic groups and the Indonesian nation-state: with special reference to ethnic Chinese’. In R.W. Hefner (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Indonesia. Routledge: online publication: 43-53. Tabili, L. 1994. ‘We Ask for British Justice’: Workers and Racial Difference in Late Imperial Britain. New York: Cornell. Talbot, I., & G. Singh, Gurharpal 2009: The Partition of India. New York: Cambridge University Press. Talbot, I., & G. Singh 2009. Limits of British Control in South Asia: Spaces of disorder in the Indian Ocean region. New York and London: Routledge. Tauger, M.B. 2009: ‘The Indian Famine Crises of World War II’, British Scholar, 1(2): 166-96. Thapan, A.R. 2002. Sindhi Diaspora. Manila: Ateneo De Manila University Press. Tjwan, G.G. 1982. ‘In memoriam: Siauw Giok Tjhan (1914-1981)’. Indonesia (33): 123-6. Twomey, C., & A.J. May 2012. ‘Australian responses to the Indian famine, 1876-1878: Sympathy, photography and the British Empire’. Australian Historical Studies 43: 233-52. van Dijk, T.A. 1998a. Ideology: A Multidisciplinary Approach. London: Sage. van Dijk, T.A. 1998b. ‘Opinions and ideologies in the press’. In A. Bell & P. Garrett (eds), Approaches to Media Discourse: 21-62. Oxford, MA: Blackwell. van Kessel, I. 2002. ‘The Black Dutchmen: African soldiers in the Netherlands East Indies’. In Merchants, Missionaries and Migrants: 300 Years of Dutch-Ghanaian Relations. Accra, Ghana: African Books Collective: Sub-Saharan Publishers. van Kessel, I. 2003. ‘African mutinies in the Netherlands East Indies: A nineteenth-century paradox’. In G.J. Abbink, M. De Bruijn, & K. van Walraven (eds), Rethinking Resistance: Revolt and Violence in African History. Leiden: Brill.

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van Kessel, I. 2009. ‘“Courageous but insolent”: African soldiers in the Dutch East Indies as seen by Dutch officials and Indonesian neighbours’. Transforming Cultures eJournal 4(2): 51-84. Vickers, A. 2005. A History of Modern Indonesia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Visram, R. 1986. Ayahs, Lascars and Princes: Indians in Britain 1700-1947. London: Pluto Press. Women’s International Democratic Federation. Inaugural Meeting Proceedings. 26.11.45 to 1.12.45, Paris. Proceedings. Women’s International Democratic Federation Records. Box 1 Folder 7, 3pp. Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass. Yang, T.P. 1998. The Chinese Business Elite in Indonesia and the Transition to Independence 1940-1950. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Yarwood, A.T. 1967. Asian Migration to Australia. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Ying, W.D., & P. Ngo 2013. Chinese-Indonesian: An Odessey through Racism, Ethnicity and Science. Irvine, CA: Ying, Wu Da and Ngo Peilin. Zachariah, B. 2012. Playing the Nation Game: The Ambiguities of Nationalism in India. New Perspectives on India’s Pasts. New Delhi: Yoda Press. Zook, D.C. 2000. ‘Famine in the landscape: Imagining hunger in South Asian History, 1860-1990’. In A. Agarwal & K. Shivaramakrishnan (eds), Agrarian Environments: Resources, Representations, and Rule in India, 107-31. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Zurbuchen, M.S. (ed.) 2005. Beginning to Remember: The Past in the Indonesian Present. Singapore: Singapore University Press.

Newspapers

Advertiser (Adelaide) Advocate (Burnie) The Age (Melbourne) Amrit Bazar Patrika (Calcutta) Argus (Melbourne) Australian Worker (Sydney) Barrier Truth (Broken Hill) Bharat Jyoti (Bombay) Cairns Post (Cairns) Canberra Times (Canberra) Catholic Press (Sydney) Courier Mail (Brisbane) Daily Commercial News and Shipping (Southern Edition, Sydney) Daily Examiner (Grafton) Daily Mercury (Mackay) Daily Mirror (Sydney) Daily News (Perth) Daily Telegraph (Sydney) Daily Worker (UK) Examiner (Grafton) Examiner (Launceston) Goulburn Evening Post (Goulburn) Independent (London, UK)

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Indonesia Times (Jakarta) Kalgoorlie Miner (Kalgoorlie) Maritime Worker (Sydney) Merdeka! Jakarta, Indonesia Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton) Murrumbidgee Irrigator (Leeton) Narromine News and Trangie Advocate (Narrowmine) Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate (Newcastle) News (Adelaide) New York Review of Books (New York) Northern Miner (Charters Towers) Northern Star (Lismore) Sansar (Benares) Pittsworth Sentinel (Pittsworth) Singapore Free Press (Singapore) Singapore Herald (Singapore) Southern Cross (Adelaide) Straits Times (Singapore) Sun (Sydney) Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney) Telegraph (Brisbane) Telegraph (Sydney) The Advocate (Adelaide) The People’s War (Calcutta) The Sun (Sydney) The Worker (Brisbane) Townsville Daily Bulletin (Townsville) Tribune (Sydney) Truth (Sydney) West Australian (Perth) Western Argus (Perth)

Interviews All interviews digitally recorded and transcribed, except for those interviews done with families of Calcutta seamen (2007) during which field notes and photographs were taken, and that with Meenu Danayeri (2014), during which notes were taken. 2007 2007 2007 2007 2007

Phyllis Johnson, 10 May 2007, Padstow. Interviewed by Heather Goodall. Sylvia Mullins, 13 March 2007, Normanhurst. Interviewed by Heather Goodall. Jack Mullens, 2 March 2007, Glebe. Interviewed by Heather Goodall. Dr Jyoti Trivedi, Kapila Khandvala’s neice, 10 May 2007, Santa Cruz, Mumbai. Interviewed by Heather Goodall. Families of Calcutta seamen who were previously members of ISUiA, including the late Ali Jaan, the late John Manuel, and the late Md Ayub, Entally, Park St and Kidderpore, Kolkata, respectively. Interviews conducted by Heather Goodall,

Bibliogr aphy

2012, 2013 2013 2014 2014 2014 2014

375

Devleena Ghosh, Titas Chakraborty and Prakriti Kumar. Notes and photographs taken during field research in various visits, March to July, 2007. Sarla Sharma, 28 November 2012; 14 January 2013, Delhi. Interviewed by Devleena Ghosh & Heather Goodall. Deirdre Morton, 24 September 2013, interviewed in Sydney by Devleena Ghosh and Heather Goodall. Dr S. Padmavarti, 13 January 2014, Delhi. Interviewed by Heather Goodall and Devleena Ghosh. Dr. Padmavarti is P.R.S. Mani’s sister-in-law, Priya and Vashdev Lachmandas, 18 June 2014, Surabaya. Interviewed by Heather Goodall. Govind Punjabi, 17 June 2014, Jakarta. Interviewed by Heather Goodall. A close friend of Kundandas, Govind is Kundandas’ granddaughter’s father-in-law. Meenu Daryanani, 4 October 2014, Jakarta. Interviewed by Heather Goodall. Meenu is the widow of Kundandas’ son, Vasdev, and mother of his grandson, Manoj Michael Daryanani, who holds Kundan’s personal papers and photographs.

Index Abdulgani, Ruslan 213-4, 222, 230 Ali, Aftab 69, 94, 160, 291 All India Trades Union Congress 66 All India Women’s Conference 134n40, 252, 261, 287-9 Alwi, Des 219 Amritsar massacre, 1919 25, 265 anti-communism 27, 45, 201, 233, 237, 240, 276, 279, 282, 320, 341, 348-9 Asian Airlines disaster 323-7 Asian Articles of Employment (Asian Articles) 41, 57, 65-7, 81, 203 challenge to – 98-9, 143, 334 disobedience to – 83-4 exploitation under – 76, 82, 100, 179, 291 founded on imagined differences between seamen 65 re-imposed, 1946 291-3 strategic use of – 204-5 Atlantic Charter, 1941 26-7, 36, 97-8, 128, 145, 154, 170, 180, 184, 190, 192, 201, 204, 216, 233, 238, 262, 303, 339 Four Freedoms Declaration 113 Australia ‘Afghan’ cameleers 71, 73, 181-2 anti-British sentiment 95-6, 307 Australian Imperial Force 50 Australian press 21-2, 35-6, 173-88, 233-50 Australian troops in Shanghai massacre 25 awareness of British India 67, 123 awareness of Indonesian aspirations 121, 173 diversity of population 24, 121 fear and vilification of East Asians 122 immigration to 55 Indian residents in – 55, 61, 72 interaction with India 21, 64, 123 Irish backgrounds of Australians 25, 128, 180 known as being a racially defined nation 194 military subservience to Britain 50 part of flow of information in region 25 ‘coloured’ seamen barely noticed 67 political awareness 129 racial fear and hatred 183-4 fear of communists 45, 184-5, 235, 238, 266, 273, 279, 323, 328 fear of ‘extremists’ 185-6, 235, 266, 279 unprecedented Asian presence in – 144, 182 US troops in – 121-2 wartime – 121-43 see also White Australia Policy Australia-Indonesia Association (AIA) 147, 315, 317, 327 Australian Council of Trade Unions 127, 129-30, 275-7, 279, 283, 295; see also unions

Australian Labor Party 62, 85-6, 100, 124, 283 Australian maritime disputes 1937, the Silksworth 82-5 1938, the Dalfram 85-6 1939, Indian seamen’s strikes 87-9 1942, continued Chinese activism 98-100 demands behind the – 102 networks arising from the – 102 Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) 45-6, 62, 92, 100-2, 126, 138-9, 159-60, 162, 179, 287, 290, 313, 318, 321, 323, 325, 328-9 Australian Workers Union 87, 275 Azad, Maulana 199, 257, 269 Battle of Surabaya 21-2, 36, 43, 209-31, 337 Australian representations of – divided Australian unions 45 British failure to abide by promises 218, 222 Bung Tomo’s ‘Rebellion Radio’ 225-6 details given in Mani’s despatches 228 distinction between ‘fanatics’ and ‘nationalists’ 228 effect on campaigns for independence 22 ferocity of the bombardment 22, 209, 226, 230-1, 262 Indian perspective on 45, 209-10 Indian role in 210, 212, 218, 220-1, 226-7, 270 Indonesian perspective on 222 Mallaby, Brigadier 215, 217-8, 222-4 his death 224-5, 228, 235-7, 258-9, 275, 340 Mansergh, Major General 224-5, 229-30 his ultimatum 226, 228, 236-7 regional effects of – 46 seen as attempt by British to impose colonial control 265 story made into mythology 209 symbol for struggle to free Indonesia 209 Bondan, Mohammad 147-9, 167, 211, 290 Bondan, Molly 73-4, 289, 315, 317 Boomla, Kitty 260-1, 269 Bose, Sarat Chandra 197 Bose, Subhas Chandra (‘Netaji’) 114, 197, 352 re-forming of the Indian National Army 114-5 Boven Digul prison 104, 147-9, 153, 187, 318 Boycott of Dutch shipping 21-2, 30, 42-3, 153-205, 337 a double-edged sword 21, 30, 338-9 Australian opposition to Dutch presence 154-5, 169 boycott a common strategy 21, 155 breaking of the – 158, 289 differing accounts of 156-7 Dutch coercion of Indian crews 167

378  Indian demonstrations against KPM 168-70 Indian role in 155-6, 196, 201 covered in Indian media 202 ignored by Australian unions 157 ignored in Australian histories 155 recognised by Rupert Lockwood 157 underestimated in Australian media 201 Karsik incident 178-80, 196 motives of Muslim Indians 168 organised by Indian seamen 165 regional effects of – 46 representation in Australian media 153, 155 stereotypes in representations and expectations 173, 180-2 supported by British seamen in Australia 169 transnational effort between maritime workers 21 unions divided on significance of 182, 237, 275, 277 Boys, Ada 42, 135, 286, 319, 323, 327-8 Britain betrayal of Atlantic Charter promises 190 British Raj 49-50 deployment of Indian Army 49, 59, 111, 113-4, 118 imprisonment of Congress leaders 114, 128 outcry about British involvement in Indies 268 Bux, Khawaja Mohammad 57-8 Byles, Marie 130 Byrne, Eleanor 145, 147 Campbell, Clarence Hart 37, 41, 45, 52-3 advocate for Indian seamen 74, 124-6 chair of Famine Relief Sub-committee of IAA 133-4 Gallipoli experiences 53, 61 interest in oil, petroleum and bitumen 62 involvement in ALP 61-2 involvement with maritime unions 62 link between Australia, India, and East Indies 61 residence in Singapore 135, 324-5, 327-8 treasurer of the ISUiA 37, 62-3, 74, 168, 282, 285 under ASIO surveillance 126, 138, 290, 313, 318-9, 328-9 CENKIM see Indonesian Independence Committee Chifley, Ben 53, 77, 123, 184-5, 188, 196, 209, 276, 290, 314 interest in India 123 China British shootings at Shanghai, 1925 25 Chinese Republican movement 23 Chinese Seamen’s Union 153 Chinese Youth League 153 emigration to Australia 55 expansion of citizens resident outside – 213

Beyond Borders

‘sinicisation’ 55 Christison, General 236, 258, 261 colonialism accelerated exercise of power 27 accelerated flow of cargo and ideas 27 anticolonial movements 24, 26, 185, 193, 195 calls for end to 23, 26, 191, 341 challenges to 15 closely linked to fascism 262, 335-6 colonial armies 48-52 conflicts around 16 crimes of 113 discriminatory structure of 100, 110 implied racialised power 66 management of labour 67 Commonwealth Conferences, 1921, 1923 25 communications media 21, 33, 44 expansion made visible by Boycott 155 expansion of – technology 33 new technologies 34, 44 Communist Party of Australia (CPA) 39-40, 46, 84-5, 91, 126, 129-30, 135, 140, 195, 238, 274, 282, 320-1, 328-30 CPA newspapers 83, 129, 201 CPA unions 313 Communist Party of India (CPI) 39, 75, 125, 129, 189-90, 195, 205, 285 Communist Party of Indonesia 75, 129, 159, 190, 195, 205, 285 Continuous Discharge Certificates (CDCs) 66, 156, 273, 280 ‘bad nullies’ 45, 66, 156, 278, 281, 284, 286, 289, 291, 313, 323, 334 ILO decision to remove section on CDCs not enforced 66 ‘Quality of Work’ report 124, 156, 203 used as weapon against seamen 45 Craig, Komalam 42, 89-97, 128 Craig, Ronald 90 Cranswick, George 131 Daud, Mahomed 66, 76-7, 291 Devi, Rukmini 112, 146 diaspora 28, 56-7, 107 cultural isolation between Chinese and Indians 56 identification with the homeland important in – 28, 70-1 South Asian – of labourers and traders 71 Digulists see Boven Digul prison Eager, C.C. 176, 188, 235-6 East Indies, Dutch rule of 48-9 Elkin, A.P. 131-2 Evatt, Herbert 27, 209, 276-7, 316, 319-21 Gallipoli 41, 50-2, 137, 182 presence of Indian troops at – ignored 50-2

Index

Gandhi, Mohandas K. 90, 129, 112-4, 121, 123, 128, 170, 187, 243, 256, 322 satyagraha strategies 111, 129-31 globalisation 36, 46 aided by faster communications 37 obstruction to global flows 36-7 Great Depression 48, 62, 76 Haryono 148-9, 295, 318, 320-1 Hatta, Mohammad 25, 61, 98, 109, 154, 191, 212, 221, 229, 266, 268, 296-7, 301, 303-4, 314-5, 325 heiho 105, 111 Henskens, Fred 110 Imperial Conference, 1923 72 indentured labour 23, 27, 53-6, 58-9, 67, 90, 105 independence movements 23-6, 32, 103, 106, 140, 177, 184, 191, 233, 249, 253, 256, 266, 298, 336 India anger at continuation of colonialism 173 ethnic and religious diversity 42, 75, 311 famine 45, 67, 113 in Bengal, 1943 300 the rice-textile exchange, 1946 301-5 independent newspaper culture in – 38 Indian Independence movement 17, 22, 112, 115, 129, 192-4, 203, 235 Indian ‘Mutiny’ 1857 (Sepoy Uprising) 49 Indian navy mutiny 1946 (RIN Mutiny) 299, 342 Indian traders in NEI 58-9 Indian troops, deployment of 22, 38, 42, 113, 115, 119, 129, 191, 193, 196, 212-3, 218-20, 226 anger at use against fellow Indians and other nationalists 197-8, 210, 253-4 forced to confront Indonesian nationalists 198, 299 international networks of information 336 rescuers of abandoned internees 228-9 used as mercenaries 254-5, 269 views of – 209-10, 297 Indians resident in Australia 72, 315 Quit India movement 128, 190 anger at jailing of nationalists and socialists 190 ‘Quit India means Quit Asia’ 192 resentment at British rule 193 shame at use of Indian troops against anticolonial fighters 193, 299 South East Asia Day 192 India-Australia Association (IAA) 130-2, 203, 278 Indian Army 22, 42, 111-4, 118-9, 200, 210, 220, 254, 269, 300, 306-7, 336 Indian Independence League (IIL) 108, 118

379 Indian National Army (INA) 114, 190, 299, 310, 336 British treatment of captured survivors 190 treason charges laid against leaders 190-1, 309 Indian seamen blamed or barely noticed 44-5, 67, 344 familiar with Indonesians 73 frequent ‘bad nullies’ issued to – 66, 124, 203, 269, 280, 291 hope for better pay and conditions 334-5 links with Australian unionists 42 perception of Asian Articles 67 regional differences 75 role in Boycott 44, 164-8, 200, 273, 341 seamen’s unions 37, 64-6, 69, 75-6 strikes 95-7; see also Australian maritime disputes Indian Seamen’s Social Club 42, 132, 134-43, 153 Indian Seamen’s Union in Australia (ISUiA) 22, 37, 42, 62, 74, 137, 141, 153, 159, 161-2, 168, 200, 203, 242, 244-5, 247, 250, 257, 273, 276-7, 279, 282-3, 285, 289, 291, 322-3, 327 importance of union badges 242-3, 247 Indonesia Declaration of Independence 149, 164, 173-4, 180, 340 Independence struggle part of Southeast Asian anticolonial movement 177 Indonesian Independence Committee (CENKIM) 148, 200, 289 Indonesian Independence League (IIL) 108-9, 118 Indonesian nationalist/independence movement 22, 26, 229, 288 Indonesians welcomed in Australia 144 key to independence of colonised peoples 266 links with Indian nationalists 256 Japanese occupation 42, 61, 104, 109, 176, 191, 335 Linggadjati Agreement, 1946 313, 315-7, 319, 321 mainly Islamic population 256, 311 seamen’s strike, 1942 101 SOBSI 149, 295, 318, 321, 324 suspicions towards Indian troops 311 Indonesia Calling! 44, 157 distribution of the film: focus on Indonesians, not Indians 157, 202 presence and action of Indian crews not acknowledged 202 Indonesian Club 144-5, 153 Indonesian Republic 25, 27, 44, 105, 153, 157, 167, 178, 191, 196, 200, 213, 237, 253, 269, 278, 289, 293, 297, 309, 314-6, 321, 323, 334 little sympathy in Australian media 177 Republican Government 198-9, 266-7, 278-9

380  Republican leadership 45, 119, 211-2, 297, 313, 321, 324 Republican troops 186, 201, 214 Republicans 45, 139, 177, 185-6, 195, 200, 213-4, 226, 229, 234-6, 238, 264, 269-70 trade and commerce strategies 295-305 viewed with sympathy and respect in the US 235 Industrial Workers of the World 62 International Labour Organisation 63, 66, 68, 75-7, 81, 94 Convention 57 76-7, 81, 100, 102 Special Maritime Session, 1936 66, 69 International Workers of the World 139 Islam Caliphate movement 49 Islamic culture 22 Muslim League 253, 278, 282, 299 religious affiliation between Indians and Indonesians 204, 256 shipboard misunderstanding of Ramadan 88-9 Ivens, Joris 157, 244-5, 287, 290, 314, 349 Japan advance into Indonesia, Indo-China and Burma 26, 42 destabilised Western European empires 26 unstoppable expansion 101 Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere 26 – rule seen as imperial domination 26 invasion of 1942 101 oppression of its regime in Indonesia 105, 109-11 rise as modern military power 48 surrender 26, 210 troops lingered in war zones after surrender 154 Jinnah, Mohammed Ali 66, 257, 264, 282 Johnson, Johnno 42, 163, 169, 278, 348 Johnson, Phyllis 42, 46, 139-40, 153, 161-3, 168-9, 278, 330, 344, 348 Keiller, Joan 138 Khandvala, Kapila 269, 287-9, 347 Kundan, T.D. (Kundandas, Thakurdas Daryanani) 41, 44-5, 59-61, 108, 210, 213-4, 295-6, 298, 303-5, 337-8, 345, 348 awarded Indonesian honour 230 part in Battle of Surabaya 215-31 labour pools 125-6, 137-8, 143, 165, 179, 205 Lang, J.T. 62 languages 22, 34, 38-9, 55, 108, 342 of Indian seamen 165 ‘lascars’ 29, 33, 65, 87, 94, 96, 157, 182, 240 Lascar War Memorial 82 shipping companies’ belief about – 29

Beyond Borders

League against Imperialism 25 Lockwood, Rupert 85, 130, 132, 157-9, 161, 164, 170, 179, 201, 203-4, 242, 250, 252, 348 Black Armada 157, 178 Mangundiprojo, R.H. Muhammad 222-3 Mani, P.R.S. 22, 34, 42, 44-5, 61, 111-3, 146, 211, 214, 216, 252, 254, 256, 266-7, 269-70, 295-303, 305-9, 333, 336-7, 342-3, 348 allowing perspective of Indian troops 210, 344 article in FPJB 30 October 1946 309-10 despatches 115-6, 120, 221, 228, 300, 307-8 in Indian Army 38, 42, 114-20 papers 38 part in Battle of Surabaya 215-31 purpose in using term ‘extremist’ 266, 338 respect for T.D. Kundan 213-6, 225 Maramis, Anton 145, 317 Maramis, Lotte 43, 46, 145 media 16, 21-2, 33-6 active role of 18 comparison of Australian and Indian – 43-4 electronic – 118 English language – 22, 39 Indian – 189, 192, 195, 254, 258 – as actors 339-43 new media 15, 32-3, 333 news media a crucial means of observing events 34 oppositional press, censorship of 34 visual and aural – 34, 36 Menzies, Robert (‘Pig Iron Bob’) 83, 85, 87, 94 Michelle, Marion 244-6, 290 military power 30 colonial armies 30 identities and affiliations of troops 30 recruitment of ‘martial races’ 30, 33, 48-50, 114 lessening of commitment to British empire 50 use by colonisers 30 Mitchell, D.R.B. 91, 93-5 mobile working people 23, 41 built network of links 23 shaped by universalist ideas 30 Mountbatten, Lord Louis 127, 184-5, 279, 303 Movement Against War and Fascism 62 Mullins, Jack 17, 165-6 Mullins, Sylvia 17, 42, 139, 165, 169 Narayanan, T.G. 34, 45, 118-9, 252, 267-8, 297, 299-300 Nehru, Jawaharlal 24-5, 27, 111, 113-4, 119, 187, 191-2, 197-8, 217, 254, 256-7, 263, 266, 269, 282, 296-7, 299-305, 309 Netaji see Bose, Subhas Chandra

Index

Netherlands East Indies (NEI) 47-8, 54-6, 58-9, 63, 85, 104, 121, 144, 146, 155, 167, 170, 174, 180, 186, 194, 235, 238, 244-5, 252 Dutch ‘Police Actions’ 321, 323 Dutch saw themselves as master race 306-7 Dutch surrender to Japanese 100, 104, 109, 144 ethnic diversity of traders and labourers 58 Japanese invasion of 182 naval blockade of new Republic 290, 295, 301, 304, 313-6 part of Dutch empire 184 newspaper coverage absence of voice of Indian soldiers 269 censorship regime imposed by SEAC 268 conflicts in region seen as outbreaks of violence 186-8 as ‘extremism’ 186 in India as ‘communal violence’ 187 British press only interested in religious violence 256 differences in context and meanings 36 in India and Australia 36 Indian newspapers in English 38-9, 44 Indian press sought rational reasons for ‘extremism’ 266 journalists and news media 34-5 repatriation of Indonesians 187 SMH themes of violence, irrationality and ‘extremism’ 186-7, 341 vocabulary used 36 newspaper coverage of the Battle all Indonesians seen as irrational ‘extremists’ 23-7, 240 Australian press drew on pre-existing stereotypes 235 British pessimism and Indian celebration 257 change of tone after Mallaby’s death 171, 235 egregious factual error in headline 235 FPJB editorials critical of British 252, 259 Mallaby’s death front-page news 237 Mallaby’s death never examined 236 no shock expressed over British bombardment 236 pessimism about Indonesia 234-5, 238, 339 Surabaya population all ‘extremists’ – SMH 236 sympathy for Mallaby and SEAC in all newspapers 237 newspaper coverage of the Boycott 22 coverage in Australian newspapers 173-88 Indian seamen seldom visible 180, 201 coverage in Indian newspapers 189, 202 role of Indian seamen acknowledged 201 view of nationalist movements 191-3 different perspectives by Australian Left and Right 182

381 Indian perspective not reported in Australian press 195 little sympathy shown by mainstream media 184 racialised stereotypes in Australian – 180 significant facts not reported 196 SMH interpretation of events 176-7, 187 ‘extremists’ were ‘communists’ 235 Noronha, Joseph 126-7, 132, 134, 137-8 NSW Trades and Labor Council 87, 162, 180, 276 nullies see Continuous Discharge Certificates Partition of India 253 ethnic violence at 310-1 pemuda 212-4, 219, 222, 226 perenakan 55, 107-8 pergerekan 25 Plumridge, Harry 174, 176, 234, 238-9, 267 Prasad, Rajendra 192 Prichard, Katharine Susannah 91 prisoner of war (POW) 26, 82, 101-2, 122, 148, 176-7, 183, 189, 234, 238, 275, 278, 299, 326, 339 racial and gendered stereotyping 49, 65 racial ‘purity’, illusions of 24 racially restrictive immigration acts 24 rationality 32-3 characteristic of Europeans 32 supposedly absent in non-Europeans 32-3, 327 Recovery of Allied Prisoners of War and Internees (RAPWI) 216, 234, 238 Rehman, Abdul 42-3, 138, 159, 162, 169, 202, 247, 273, 284, 286, 314 described as ‘decent’ and ‘moderate’ 162 high-profile leader in Boycott 273 union activity 282 Reid, Elsie 145 repatriation 70, 84, 86, 102, 164, 171, 273 Rich, Ruby 131 romusha 26, 105, 109, 111, 122 starved and brutalised 26 Sadanand, Swaminathan 39, 296, 308 Saksena, R.R. 123, 131-2 SARPELINDO 147-8, 245 seamen accommodation conditions; see labour pools ‘coloured’ – 67, 101, 140 ethnic distinctions in employment of 53, 56, 63-4, 137 safety 76, 101, 124-5, 162-3, 295 danger money 124 – lost over strike 167, 273, 276, 281, 291 Seamen’s Mission 126-7, 134, 140, 163

382  seamen’s pay 76, 82, 84, 86-7, 100-2, 124-5, 142-3, 155, 179, 242, 291-2 broken promises on – 244, 273, 279-80, 342 unionised Indian – 69, 73, 75, 81, 125, 160, 243 use of boycott as weapon 16, 21, 30 Seamen’s Union of Australia (SUA) 40, 62-3, 67-8, 70, 86-7, 89-91, 95, 99-100, 102, 143, 148, 155-8, 161, 163, 168, 185, 283, 292 shipping a racially structured network 63, 74 chief mode of transport 15 impact of Great Depression 76 mechanisation in 37 shipping companies Australian-owned – supported by Australian unions 67 beliefs among – 29 British-owned – supported by British Government 65, 67 power of 45, 66, 77, 205, 241, 273 systematic exploitation in British – 76 Sindhi traders 28-9, 41, 53, 58-9, 108 connections with Australia 61 in Surabaya 225 reasons for success in Indonesia 28 Wassiamul Assomull & Co. 71 Singapore 45-6, 67, 112, 135, 210, 224-5, 296, 301, 318, 323, 324-30, 348 fall of – 50, 113, 128, 183, 233 Singh, Dasrath 43, 159-63, 164-6, 168, 178-9, 200, 203-5, 250, 275, 282 Singh, Hari Sahodar 89, 91 Sjahrir, Sutan 45, 212, 278-9, 291, 295, 301, 315, 342 appointed Prime Minister 186, 212, 239 appointment of Clarrie Campbell 316-7, 319, 321 committed to Independence 268 offer of rice to India 302-3, 314 Sjarifuddin, Amir 212, 221, 222, 308 South East Asian Command (SEAC) 108, 154, 183-4, 191, 195-6, 202, 209-10, 233, 237, 251-3, 259-60, 268, 275, 302, 314, 336-7, 340-1 imposed wartime censorship 268-9 Indian anger over use of Indian troops in – 191, 196-8 Indian troops in – 191, 254 strategy to restore colonial order 255 State Labor Party 62 stereotyping 32, 65, 180-2 common theme of irrationality 235, 237-8, 240, 266, 275, 339-40 ‘docile’ ‘Hindoos’ 241 ‘fanatical Mussalmen’ 241 gendered – 32 Indians seen as compliant, passive and politically inactive 201, 340

Beyond Borders

masculinity – 32, 51, 65 racial – 65 striking Asian seamen seen as irrational and ‘frenzied’ 241, 243 Street, Jessie 131, 145 strikes 44, 65, 81, 83, 85-9, 92-4, 96-7, 99, 101-2, 124-5, 128, 143-4, 155, 157, 159, 165, 167, 179, 183-4, 189, 193, 195, 201-3, 238, 247, 273, 278, 280, 282, 285, 291-3, 323 strike-breaking 156, 164, 166, 178, 196, 204, 240, 245-6, 248, 277, 293, 322 Subianto, Tuk (‘Tukliwan’) 147, 148, 245, 248, 250, 347 Subrahmanyam, P.R. 111; see Mani, P.R.S. Suharto 209, 343 Sukarno, President 27, 61, 109, 119, 154, 174-6, 186, 209, 211-2, 220-2, 235, 253, 256, 264, 266, 297, 300-1, 303, 305, 339, 342-3 gift from Nehru 304 interviews with T.G. Narayanan 267-8 letter of thanks to Nehru 309 seen as a Japanese collaborator 176-7, 185, 195, 234, 340 Sungkono 220, 222, 225 Surabaya 22, 41 ‘arek Suroboyo’ 212-3 Chinese and Eurasian residents 224, 338 damage to city after Battle 236, 341 devastation blamed on Indonesians 236 ‘scorched earth’ policy of Republicans 236 economy 105 elite (priyayi) residents 106, 213, 217, 226 heavy demands by Japanese 109 mixed (Indische) residents 106 modernisation offered by Japanese 109 newcomers (totoks) 107-8 node in flow of ideas and philosophies 22 working class (kampung) population 106 trade Arabic, Chinese, and Indian traders 22, 53, 57 cargoes forming mobile communities 53-4 importance of – 29-30 movements of traders and seamen 54 obstruction of – through boycotts 29 reasons for success of trading communities 28 – networks 27, 56 transport, importance of new modes 47 racialised hierarchy of staff on ships 68 Tukliwan, see Subianto, Tuk unions in Australia 25, 41, 64-5, 67, 83-5, 87, 125, 128-9, 155-8, 187, 278 conflict between left- and right-wing – 237, 313, 338 right-wing – 275

Index

debate on Boycott 277 links between – and militant Indian seamen 42 strategy to divide Australian unions 45 support for Boycott 209 support from New Zealand unions 158 unionisation 56, 158, 289 Wharfies: The History of the Waterside Workers’ Federation 157 see also Indian Seamen’s Union in Australia unions in India 68-9, 75, 159, 168 backing from Australian unions 168 demand for union power 125-7 Indian Seamen’s Union (ISU-C – ie Calcutta) 94 links with Chinese unions 75-6, 81 universalist philosophies/religions 30, 311 Buddhism 31 Christianity 31 communism 31 critical of empire 31 Hinduism 31 Hindu influence on Indonesian Islam 256 Islam 30, 47, 53, 73, 106, 108, 121, 168, 182, 256 Islamic seafarers 69, 97, 204 Ottoman empire 102 role in Indonesian nationalism and socialism 300 religion in general 47 socialism 31 Theosophy 31-2; and see Craig, Komalam Ward, Eddie 62, 87, 314-6 Warner, Molly see Bondan, Molly

383 waterfront, activism on 41 Waterside Workers Federation (WWF) 34-5, 62, 69, 87, 158, 170, 184, 195, 201, 241, 244, 249, 279, 282-3, 320 ignored role of Indian seamen in Boycott 173 West Papua/New Guinea 25, 43, 104, 140, 147-8, 314, 329, 348 White Australia Policy 25, 42, 55-8, 69, 71, 180 artificial barrier to Australian awareness of Asia 121, 144 discriminatory effect on Indians 131 Indian anger over it 24, 71 opposition to – 71, 73, 237, 287 women absent in Australian accounts of period 344 present in region and actions 23 role of 31, 40, 94 thought to be weak and childlike 32 – trade unionists 330 Women’s International Democratic Forum, 1945 192, 261 Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom 123 Wong, Fred 41, 45, 99, 295, 323-5 World War I 42, 48 World War II 23, 26, 48, 56 conflicts with Japanese 103 effects in India, Australia, and Indonesia 103-20 end of – brought visions of new worlds 154-6 experienced differently in Asia and Europe 103 world wars, effect on populations 48