by Tim Newark
‘When I saw him,’ said the witness, ‘his eyes were rolling around and around, when open. He appeared to be semi-conscious and then lapsed into unconsciousness alternately. At the end of my inspection the doctor felt his feet and invited me to do the same – they were stone cold.’
Hutton was taken out of the camp to a hospital and died that evening, on 15 August 1943. After the war, two Japanese policemen, both members of the Kempeitai, were arrested for Hutton’s murder, but released, as the date for completing war crimes trials had expired. Undeterred, Hutton’s elderly father persisted and shamed the British colonial authorities into re-arresting the two murderers, who were finally jailed in Hong Kong. Wartime vengeance, however, came from a surprisingly unconventional resistance elsewhere in Japanese-occupied colonial territories.
As the war progressed, there were three main elements among the Chinese resistance to the Japanese in South-East Asia. Two of them were connected to the dominant Chinese political parties – the nationalists, or Kuomintang (KMT), and the communists. Spin-off parties sprang up throughout the British colonies, especially in Malaya. The third element was organised crime. Several secret reports by the British military authorities draw a fascinating picture of how these gangsters fought against the Japanese, while pursuing their own interests.
‘There are numerous but small bandit gangs throughout Malaya,’ said a Special Operations Executive (SOE) report. ‘They are armed with weapons picked up during the Malayan Campaign or bought from those who did so. The gangs are known variously as Sam Seng Tong or Hong Mun, both generic Chinese terms for the secret Chinese Triad societies whose origins are lost in antiquity but which long ago degenerated in Malaya into criminal gangs specialising in “protection” rackets.’
These Malayan gangs launched hit-and-run raids against the Japanese but also exploited the anarchic wartime situation by looting and robbing the local population. At times they aligned themselves with the left-wing Anti-Japanese Union and Forces – the AJUF – or the Kuomintang, depending on whoever best served their interests at the time. ‘They are no political problem but will be difficult to identify as they will almost certainly seek to justify themselves as partisans.’
The British sent agents among the AJUF to discover what was going on. ‘Bandits are with Hong Mun (Chinese Secret Society) organisation leader Cheong Shak Ph,’ noted one of them. ‘Bandit strength, formerly 200, split up into five sections, but present strength 100 … Pre-war these bandits mostly Jelutong tappers and members of Sam Seng Tong (criminal gangs) now call themselves Overseas Chinese Volunteers, also Chinese Guerrilla Forces, and use both KMT and communist badges according to the areas they enter.’
Left-wingers claimed they saw these gangsters mostly wearing hat badges consisting of a white sun with white rays – the KMT emblem – and they were roaming through the jungle, killing and robbing indiscriminately. To suit their own political purposes, the AJUF advised the British colonial authorities to bring an end to these gangs. The British were very aware of the ruthless political games being played out in the jungle and were not so easily swayed.
Peter Dobree was a 28-year-old dairy farmer in north-east Malaya when the Japanese invaded. He joined the Singapore Volunteer Artillery, but when the British garrison fell, he was forced to flee in a small boat to Sri Lanka. Determined to fight back against the Japanese, he was commissioned into the 3rd Gurkha Rifles and volunteered for behind-the-lines operations in Japanese-occupied Malaya. This brought him to the attention of SOE Force 136 and he was parachuted into northern Malaya in December 1944. By the end of March 1945, he had recruited a band of almost 200 Malay and Chinese villagers. Leading raids against the Japanese, they took particular delight in killing members of the Kempeitai.
Dobree was aware of the many shades of grey in his unconventional campaign and rejected the black-and-white views of the left-wing AJUF, which wanted the criminal gangs working with the KMT eliminated.
‘The whole problem has been under consideration by us and we have sought Dobree’s advice,’ said a top secret British report of June 1945. ‘He is of the opinion that the KMT guerrillas, if lightly armed, well controlled and given tasks such as road blocks, can be usefully employed, but if disowned they will become embittered and likely to be troublesome. He reminded us that they are already armed and have been helpful and cooperative.’
The British proposed that Dobree take over the disparate KMT units – including the gangsters among them – in preparation for the anticipated Allied invasion of Malaya. In the event, the dropping of two nuclear bombs on Japan in August brought the Pacific war to a hasty end. In the meantime, the British were becoming wary of the communist-infiltrated AJUF.
‘The main point to be remembered in estimating the danger of supporting AJUF is that the rank and file of the guerrilla forces and union is entirely drawn from the uneducated classes in the country,’ said the same report. ‘These may have been subjected for years to a spate of propaganda and have no doubt been told that they will all live like princes under a republic.’
While it was estimated that 80 per cent of the guerrillas would be happy to return to their families, the British feared that their officers had a political agenda.
‘Whether they will be able to retain any following if they decide to go anti-British after that will depend on how well we have managed by then to regain the confidence and friendship of the general body of Chinese in the country.’
For one British agent, however, who had direct experience with AJUF communists, it was already too late:
The Communists are anti-British and have a Chinese all ready to take over as Governor of Malaya; however they tell the Malays that the Malays will govern the country. They want arms badly and will pretend to be pro-British to gain these ends. An instance has occurred of their asking a Malay to steal arms from me. These arms would be a great menace after the war.
The communists were living off rice taken from Malay peasants. ‘They do practically no underground work against the Japanese but take great delight in killing Chinese informers and have put the fear of God into would-be Malay informers.’
He concluded, ‘They are a boastful, lying, dirty lot of braggarts and a future menace.’
His prediction was absolutely correct, but that problem would not erupt until later in the decade.
9
THE PRETTY ORPHAN GANGOO
AS WORLD WAR RAGED IN China and South-East Asia, organised crime in other parts of the British Empire carried on much as before – especially when it concerned the sex industry.
Gangoo was a little Indian boy, orphaned within minutes of being born when his mother died in childbirth. His father, a poor farmer from a village in Kangra District, in the very north of India in the shadow of the Himalayas, had passed away months before. A neighbour passed the baby on to a woman whose husband was a Havildar – a native officer of the equivalent rank of sergeant in the British Indian Army. She found a wet nurse for Gangoo and raised him as her own.
‘When I was three years old, I lost my first benefactor, who died under the spell of black magic,’ Gangoo told a friend in wartime India in 1942.
The Havildar remarried and took his new wife and the child with him to his battalion. He regarded the toddler as a mere encumbrance, one he wished to rid himself of as soon as possible, but Gangoo worked a charm of his own and, as he grew older, he developed into a pretty boy.
‘The new bride was plain and I was lovely,’ he recalled. ‘The Havildar’s love for me increased as my looks improved with my years, and his repulsion for his wife too increased proportionately. She attributed it to me, and made one or two attempts to strangle me, but the Havildar came to my rescue each time.’
She beat him regularly with a stick, slapped his face till it was raw, plunged her fingers into his nostrils. But she and the soldier were his only carers in the world and he began to get a perverse pleasure from the beatings.
‘I missed her blows even more than the Havildar’s kiss
es,’ he said. ‘What I did mind most was the soldiers’ unwelcome attentions. They were revolting. It was cruel of them to treat me as they did, and I hated them for it, but they could persuade me always by their gifts of sweets and occasional tips. I was ten years old and must have looked superb.’
One day, Gangoo was hanging around the bazaar in Peshawar, the busiest city in the Khyber region, when a well-dressed gentleman started chatting to him. He wondered whether the child had ever been to the cinema. The boy admitted he had not.
‘Then you have missed the treat of your life,’ said the gentleman. ‘It is a sight for the gods.’
Gangoo visited the movies and thoroughly enjoyed the black-andwhite adventure. The gentleman returned the boy to his home and they agreed to visit the cinema again. On each occasion, the man did not attempt to molest him and Gangoo was happy with the relationship.
‘One day he proposed that I should become an actor. I was pretty enough to take on myself the role of a heroine, he said. That would be something delightful. I agreed to follow him to the ends of the earth if he could help me to get that role.’
The gentleman invited Gangoo to go with him to Lahore, capital of the Punjab. With the Havildar taken ill in hospital and his life at home a purgatory, the boy agreed. The gentleman said they would travel abroad to Hollywood and earn a fortune. They would send his photograph ahead of them to the film producers.
‘But how can we go overseas without money?’ wondered Gangoo.
‘That is the point, my boy,’ he said. ‘Would you believe me if I tell you, you could have money for the asking. If you seriously set yourself to make it.’
‘But I am serious.’
‘My good boy, nothing is disgraceful,’ he assured him, ‘if it ends in bringing us gold and taking us across the seas.’
They held hands and Gangoo swore solemnly to the seductive older man: ‘You will find me agreeable to any of your propositions.’
In Lahore, Gangoo was introduced to a gang of teenagers in a similar situation to himself.
‘The man who had thus led me astray was no other than the notorious gaol-bird Nusroo,’ realised Gangoo. ‘He had an organisation of his own whose many-sided activities brought him in plenty of money. He had a ring of beggars and crooks. Some of these posed as blind Brahmins. They were no more blind than you or I.’
Sometimes the beggars functioned as cat burglars at night and brought their treasures back to Nusroo, who sold them on through sub-agents all over India. They called the booty ‘dat’. Nusroo also ran gambling dens, brothels and nightclubs, where Lahore’s criminals met to spend their money and plan robberies. Hindu priests took his money and informed him of pretty girls who could be corrupted or wealthy donors whose houses might be visited by child burglars. Nusroo’s newest scam was to run a girls’ school attended by teenage prostitutes.
‘He had engaged a number of pretty girls,’ explained Gangoo, ‘to whom he gave receipt-books to go to rich men’s houses and induce them to patronise their girls’ school by liberally subscribing towards their funds. They kept half the collection and the rest went to Nusroo, who helped run the school. Another girls’ school run by some scoundrels received a substantial grant simply for providing pretty girls to be supplied to scoundrels out of whom Nusroo was able to extract money. He was now in need of a boy who would do the collection, from rich folk. I was to be that boy. I was to have no scruples, if I cared to collect money.’
Fortunately, one day when Gangoo was about to fleece yet another wealthy benefactor, the rich man took a liking to him and offered to remove him from his life of crime.
‘It was a tough job taking me out of this vicious circle,’ concluded Gangoo, ‘but he was a very resourceful man, and saved me from their clutches at last, by paying Nusroo for my release.’
Gangoo was lucky, but many other girls and boys were not and disappeared into India’s vast underworld sex business.
Prostitution in India had been rigorously controlled when it came to the British Tommy indulging himself. The 1864 Cantonment Act was devised to protect British soldiers from venereal disease by training a caste of Indian women to be kept captive within the military encampments exclusively for their pleasure. These women were well housed and fed, earning more than prostitutes outside, but were forced to undergo frequent medical examinations.
Too many soldiers, however, continued to wander beyond their cantonments to consort with working women and so a second law was introduced – the 1868 Contagious Diseases Act – which enabled the military to exert control over these ‘common prostitutes’, demanding they register at police stations and have regular clinical examinations. This included the red-light districts of Indian cities, and allowed the police to raid brothels and prosecute any class of prostitute, up to the mistresses maintained by wealthy native businessmen.
A British government report of 1919 examined the state of the urban sex trade in India and Burma. It estimated there were 15,000 professional prostitutes in Calcutta, another 15,000 in Bombay, 1,000 in Madras, 500 in Rangoon and a good deal many more amateurs, or ‘clandestines’, as it termed them. Generally, the report declared that ‘Prostitution in the East is not viewed in the same light as in Europe, as nothing like the same amount of stigma and shame attaches to it out here.’
There were a number of European prostitutes working in Indian cities and these mostly came from the Balkans or Russia. A small number from Austria and Germany had been repatriated during the First World War as enemy aliens. Many of these were said to have arrived via Cairo and Port Said and may well have been victims of White Slave trafficking before they came to India. A number of Japanese, Chinese and Arab women also served the sex trade in the major cities.
Most of these women worked in brothels where the Madam provided board and lodging in return for half their takings. The police considered the Madams useful ‘levers’ for controlling order in the brothels. Beyond their walls, there was a less controllable world of sex for sale, for example in the Sonagachi quarter of Calcutta:
This part of the town is a seething mass of Indian prostitutes. The houses and balconies along Chitpur Road and Beadon Square are thronged with prostitutes sitting outside, and the narrow lanes and gullies at the back of these main thoroughfares form a veritable ant-hill of these ‘unfortunates’. A very large number are also to be found in the labyrinths of tortuous narrow gullies and lanes at the back of many of the main thoroughfares and arteries in the very heart of the city. These Indian brothels and prostitutes are practically under no police control or supervision, and no police action is taken against them except on the demand of members of the public who may be annoyed by their near neighbourhood.
Trouble often arose when foreign pimps took over the running of prostitutes and kept all their earnings, but whereas the Foreigner Act could be used to remove Continental Europeans, it was ineffective against British and Australian former soldiers who took over parts of the sex trade. There was also a problem with junior police officers extorting protection money from brothel keepers. Evidence of kidnapping and the forcible exploitation of women as sex slaves in India was non-existent.
Having recorded the state of the sex trade in India and Burma under the British, the writer of the 1919 government report – a district superintendent of police in Rangoon – then put forward his own thoughts on reform. There was one topic that concerned him above all others: the role of white women. He wanted them banned from the sex business.
This is called for more from a political than a moral point of view. The European prostitute is known by the Indian as ‘Mem’ and by the Burmans as ‘Thakinma’, and these are the self-same terms that are used in speaking of respectable white women in the country. It is of course true that the Indian and Burman town dweller know quite well that European prostitutes are not of the same class or race as the English women in the country, but it is doubtful whether the ignorant villager who pays a visit to Rangoon is equally aware of the difference.
He cont
inued:
Be this as it may, the white races are at the present time the dominant and governing races of the world and anything that would lower them in the sight of the subject races should, I think, be carefully guarded against, and I do not think there can be any doubt that the sight of European women prostituting themselves is most damaging to the prestige of the white races.
All that was necessary to preserve respect for the white races, insisted the district superintendent, was to set in motion an executive order of government and a declaration of policy that the presence of these women ‘is most objectionable and harmful’.
It was a fascinating insight into the psychology of colonial administrators. The idea of white women consorting with black races had always tormented those imperialists who considered themselves to be morally superior to the people they ruled. In the end, it was not to be the loose morality of some white women that would let down the empire but the failure of white soldiers to hold back the all-conquering Japanese.
In 1941, just before the outbreak of the Second World War in Asia, venereal disease was, yet again, proving a major concern for British military commanders. ‘We are very much worried about the high incidence of VD in Malaya,’ wrote a lieutenant colonel to the War Office. He feared the rates of infection might be even higher than recorded because many servicemen were trying to cure themselves by buying antibacterial sulphonamides at pharmacists rather than reporting themselves to doctors. He also feared the criminal elements of the sex trade. ‘Can anything be done to check the prostitutes, pimps, etc.?’
Among the evidence the lieutenant colonel quoted was an anonymously authored letter describing vice in Singapore:
