Read part one of this post here.

The Inauguration Ceremony

Most of the attendees at the inauguration ceremony were family members of the railway’s Tamil victims. A single survivor was present, namely 97-year-old Mr. Arumugam Kandasamy, who was sent to the railway at the age of 15. Many attendees, including Mr. Arumugam, travelled to the site via a 24-hour rail journey to commemorate the path taken by the workers. At the site of a workers’ camp, the attendees performed the Aathma Puja—a Hindu ritual offering prayers for the souls—with the help of a priest, who was the grandson of a victim himself.

The ceremony evoked a spectrum of responses from the attendees. “In most cases, it was an emotional moment as most of the victims have never had the final rites done,” said Chandrasekaran in our interview. For distant descendants who never knew their lost relatives, attending the ceremony was merely a matter of curiosity. But for those haunted for decades by a lingering hope for their relatives’ survival, the pagoda and ceremony served as long-awaited closure.

Mr. Arumugam, too, was pleased by the ceremony. “All your life, you were living in an isolated place in an estate, you have gone through all this, but nobody around you is interested. Now suddenly, when you came on this trip, there’re 30 other people who want to know what your story is. It’s not just these 30 co-travellers, but also the press in Thailand,” remarked Chandrasekaran in our interview. “Over the years, many people have gone to see him and promised to get compensation for him, but he has not got his compensation. Through DRIG, he has got a lot of recognition. Over the last seven, eight years, he has attended our symposium, we have honoured him there, and then we gave him a lot of exposure. His statements and his photographs appeared in the media, as a survivor.” Today, the descendants of the railway’s Tamil victims are doing much better than their forefathers. “Most of them are no longer in the plantations, they are all out holding jobs now,” said Chandrasekaran in our interview.

DRIG as an Unofficial Truth Project

In memorialising the Death Railway’s Tamil victims, DRIG is arguably an Unofficial Truth Project (“UTP”) as defined by Louis Bickford (2007). UTPs are transitional justice strategies driven by civil society organisations which aim to reveal truths about past human rights abuses in transitional societies, and which “self-consciously or coincidentally resemble official truth commissions” (Bickford 2007). They may be initiated where official truth commissions are politically unfeasible, ineffective, or compromised, and may serve to replace, prepare for, or complement official truth commissions. According to Patricia Lundy, UTPs also represent “a shift away from the top down ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to a bottom-up model that allows ‘voices from below’ to be heard and heeded.”

Whether conducted by official truth commissions or UTPs, truth-telling is vital for ensuring accountability for past atrocities, as it “limit[s] the possibility of denial or trivialisation of victims’ experiences” (Bickford 2007). Indeed, Principle 22 of the Basic Principles and Guidelines entitles victims to, inter alia, the following forms of reparations:

• verification of facts and full and public disclosure of the truth;

• search of the bodies of those killed, and assistance in the recovery, identification and reburial of the bodies in accordance to victims’ expressed or presumed wishes or the cultural practices of their families and communities; and

• commemorations and tributes to the victims.

As an NGO formed in response to the British and Malaysian governments’ failure to secure reparations for Tamil forced labourers, DRIG may be seen as a UTP that provides victims and their families with these forms of reparations. Its ground-up initiatives are especially important for ensuring justice for victims’ descendants. As reparations have been delayed for many generations, most victims’ living descendants are no longer covered by the definition of “victim” in Principle 8, and hence may not be legally entitled to reparations under the Basic Principles and Guidelines.

DRIG’s work therefore provides a case study for transitional study research, as it shows how justice may be delivered to victims of human rights abuses after very long delays. It also sheds light on what steps marginalised communities can take to prevent the erasure of past injustices from history.

Moving forward, DRIG plans to organise yearly pilgrimages to the pagoda, as well as group trips to the pagoda upon request. In addition, it is planning several ambitious projects to publicise Tamil victims’ stories to the global audience. These include publishing a book about forced labourers like Mr. Arumugam, and producing a documentary about Tamil forced labourers on the Death Railway. “Our ultimate goal is to tell the global audience about what has happened here, that this is very much a part of World War II history, which is not recorded and not given its due recognition,” said Chandrasekaran.

Ryan Ma is a third-year law student at the National University of Singapore pursuing a second degree in Liberal Arts at Yale-NUS College, with a minor in Environmental Studies. He is passionate about sustainable and inclusive development, especially in developing countries. His interests in law lie in sustainable finance (especially in climate mitigation and adaptation), ESG, and climate justice.

Read more on Asian law topics in the Asian Journal of International Law.