别以貌取人

Don't judge a book by its cover!

TEO SOH LUNG

COMPLETING THE SINGAPORE STORY?
MEMOIRS OF A. MAHADEVA JOURNALIST IMPRISONED WITHOUT TRIAL

This book with an unattractive cover tells the important and sad history of Singapore when bright and idealistic people who would have been great leaders were arrested and imprisoned without trial. Anyone who has an iota of doubt about the innocence of the victims of Operation Coldstore of which A. Mahadeva was one, should read this book.

I met Mahadeva in the 1970s, before his second arrest in 1977. I remember him to be a witty and humorous person whose twinkling eyes belie the trauma he had undergone in prison and which ended his career as a gifted journalist and trade unionist. He never spoke about his incarceration and how he and his family suffered as a consequence of his arrest and detention. His father lost his job with the Housing and Development Board and the family faced tremendous financial hardship.

Back in the 1970s, no one spoke about Operation Coldstore and few knew of the victims of Coldstore. Even after Mahadeva's second arrest in 1977, I did not know about Operation Coldstore and the fate of hundreds if not thousands of victims who were swept into jail and tortured by the PAP government throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Reading Mahadeva's memoirs saddens me. He would have written his autobiography had he not suffered a stroke in 1996. He had already amassed a great deal of materials – his prison diaries, notes, newspapers, documents etc. Fortunately for us, his younger brother, Arun Bala has managed to read and research the documents and put together his memoirs for us today.

The book tells of Mahadeva's childhood. Born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1931, he came to Singapore with his mother when he was four months' old. His father had migrated to Malaya as early as 1919 and worked with the railway board. His mother passed away when he was five. Some years later, his father remarried and his step mother doted on him.

When the British enacted the Citizenship Ordinance in 1957, Mahadeva registered as a Singapore citizen. That was in 1958.

It is thus mind boggling how in 1967 (while Mahadeva was in prison) the Committee of Inquiry could deprive Mahadeva of his citizenship on the grounds that he had allegedly been “engaged in activities which are prejudicial to the security of Singapore.” Even if the allegation was true (which it was not), the committee had no right to deprive him of his citizenship as that would render him stateless, a status that is not permitted under our Constitution. The fact that his citizenship was revoked despite the constitutional protection showed the powerless and compliant nature of the committee.

Mahadeva was not the only person to be deprived of citizenship. There were others too. Deprivation of citizenship is a practice that is still prevalent today.

The book give us an insight into the lives of idealistic young people of the '60s. Mahadeva and his friends were anti colonial and filled with the hope that Singapore or rather Malaya would one day be a democratic, socialist and multi racial country with Malay as the National language. Unfortunately, as we all know, Lee Kuan Yew and his colleagues who were much older than Mahadeva and his friends not only worked with the British to gain complete control of Singapore but went on to imprison many of them for decades. Lee's small mindedness is well known. Offend him once, and that was what happened with Mahadeva who refused to give Lee a straight answer about his loyalty, and the consequences would be devastating and totally disproportionate.

Lee Kuan Yew and his colleagues lost no time in taming and destroying trade unions once they were in power. Mahadeva's memoirs tell of the disturbing case of K. Koya who was a journalist of ten years experience with the Kerala Bandhu Daily. He was dismissed by the daily in 1961.

As Secretary-General of the Singapore National Union of Journalists, Mahadeva took up his case before the newly inaugurated Arbitration Court. Mahadeva presented a brilliant case before the President of the Court, Charles Gamba. Gamba was Mahadeva's lecturer when he was an undergrad with the University of Malaya. But even before the case was concluded, politics meddled with the court's proceedings. Apparently, the Malayan government was not happy with the Tamil Daily under the leadership of Koya and complained to the Singapore government, alleging that the paper was pro communist. As a consequence, the hearing before the court was abandoned midstream by the president. He unilaterally dismissed Koya's case on security grounds but strangely, awarded $2,000 as compensation to him. It was an absurd decision. It exposed the arbitration court as partisan to politics.

Mahadeva contemplated pursuing the matter further but abandoned it for practical reasons. What if Koya loses his compensation?

The book detailed the case of Koya and the work of Mahadeva as a brilliant and courageous advocate of workers' rights. Sadly, Koya was also arrested in Operation Coldstore and subsequently banished to India.

While Mahadeva was in prison, two race riots occurred. The first took place on 21 July 1964. The second incident took place on 3 September 1964. They were the result of both the PAP and UMNO playing up their race cards. The two riots resulted in 36 deaths while the other frequently cited riots resulted in much less casualties. The Maria Hertogh Riots resulted in 18 deaths, Hock Lee Bus Riots (4 deaths) and Chinese Middle School incident (13 deaths).

I am glad that the author also gave us a good account of how Mahadeva spent his days in prison, their being shifted from Changi to Queenstown and CID and how the prison authorities suppressed correspondence to his family and his lawyer, T T Rajah.

We are fortunate that Mahadeva was in possession of statements addressed to the ISA advisory board explaining why he and his fellow prisoners refused to attend hearings before the board.

Mahadeva had probably experienced all the prisons for political prisoners in Singapore – CID, Outram, Queenstown, Changi and Whitley. Four of these prisons have already been demolished and it is likely that Whitley is no longer used for political prisoners. The Memoirs provide a good record of all the notorious prisons for political detainees in Singapore.

Finally, the book disclosed the painful process of writing “security statements” and compulsory television appearance before Mahadeva was released. Only an authoritarian government would insist on prisoners giving such interviews and statements after robbing them of their freedom. In Mahadeva's case it was six years for Operation Coldstore and another four months in 1977 for allegedly being involved in a "Euro-Communist" plot which resulted in the expulsion or resignation of the PAP from Socialist International.

If not for his arrest and detention, Mahadeva would probably have been a famous journalist of international repute.

Any person who still believes that the victims of Operation Coldstore were communists, pro communists or communist sympathisers and were threats to national security should read Mahadeva's Memoirs.

This book is available from Word Image
https://www.wordimagesg.com/product-page/completing-the-singapore-story?fbclid=IwAR3bnuj8UmKh3HC2cmvV7ONkrOABhjrfNI5M0AFy_GplD893-bu5Ar4Da2Y
Price S$35; 516 pages