THE CHINA. 'MAIL, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1959.
Wise reports on
on Nehru's jungle
terror:
HEADHUNTERS' WAR
A Nagaa captured gun
I see the hills of the
Donald Wise-
Is the first reporter | to dodge Nehru's patrols in the Assam jungle and meet the
secret leaders of the beadhunting Naga tribesmen and they tell him a story of terror and repression by Indian troops..
-Calcutta, Sunday-
LITTLE headhunters have slipped me in and out of the rain-drenched Naga Hills in the north-casternmost tip of India so
that for the first time their leaders could
what tell the world Nehru's troops are doing to their people, The Indian Government has been waging a pitiless colonial war against these primitives. Nagaland has been locked against all outsiders- particularly Europeans, whom the little people like very much.
Now that I have seen what is going on in these the Assam- switch-back hills matted with jungle on Burma horder I am not surprised at Nehru's ban.
The situation is a blot on the Indian Army, a dis- grace to a Government whose lender ceaselessly prenches non-violence and the evils of colonialism.
Naga means naked, and these hills land of the unked and the dead.
Into the jungle
are now the
More than 35,000 men, women, and children have died in two years. Villages have been fired. schools closed, riceftelds flattened. European missionaries, have been thrown out, and Nagas, who are mostly Christians, are being forced to become Hindus.
The old and the very young men must live in prison villages, hambon-stockaded, curfewed by night, and guarded by fast-shooting Indian troops.
I
But the young men have gone underground. contacted some of them, and and I wanted to meet their leaders,
Q
min 100
GAUHATI
Brahmaputra
TEZPUR
JORHAT
ASSAM
ХОНІМА
INDIA
EAST PAKISTAN
DACCA
IMPHAL
BURMA
NAGA TRIBES
TIBES
INDIA
CHINA
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BRITAIN, EUROPE
and JAPAN
Commencing 3rd April
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naked and dead
The mea took a paper clipping on
NCWB- which
was my photograph and dis- appeared.
Three dawns later was waiting at the jungle edge.
From nowhere a tiny head-hunter appeared. He gazed at me for minutes.
into a tree
(jungle axe) Then he slammed his dah stump, twice slowly and fast three more times.
I was led to splendid ancient was wait- ing. He shook my hand and sild: "It is too kind of you
where
to come and see us."
Leeches
"Thanks for the invita tion," I said, and plunged the sodden after him over jungle floor.
Veterans of the Four- teenth Army will know what it was like: they fought with the Nagas against the Japs here in these bills.
Maybe you saw the film, "The Bridge on the River Kwai" You remember tho trek of Juck Hawkins and his cominando group to blow the bridge.
Brigade of the Nagu Army, 1,410 nuggety little men.
A
A blanket was spread bamboo seat and
I
talked.
BRIGADIER PANGAR He commande 1,410 men.
Trouble. head of n
The rest is terror.
Round the camp fire in the jungle, I asked the Naga lenders. What are you fight ing for?
Basically
"
it is tho
out and hung up by the heels to bleed to death. f
WHAT 15 NEBRU'S ANSWER?
Ile binmes British and American missionaries for
dependence into these Mon-
right to live in their hilla putting the idea of in- by themselves in their own gol heads with pudding. time-honoured way.
Their
busin haircuts.
its
gravest deficiency He has a case for insisting is hard cash for their 12,000 on keeping Nagaland-its
position, One day the "Home Guards." Arms they strategic particularly ob- capture--or even buy-from surrounding rich ten gur noxious Indian Admini Indian troops or smuggle in dens. on atrator arrived in a basket from Burrda.
If only his best adminis- we at Shillong, capital of Assam,
with the noto: "Please send The Nagas-niany speak trators and at best they are English and were delighted splendid-had been sent up us a more polite man."
to meet a paleface again in the first place the blood- By 1956 the Nagas had told me that Indian patrois bath might
British and shot on sight everything happened,"
the
Piece by piece I filled out the picture of cruelty and repression which other unearthed Nagas had sketched for me. Japanese arms from war moving off
time dumps and hnd or trucks,
Torn up
For a moment take
a
bottomed friends (they only backward glance into Naga
little single flap history. wear hanging down from their equators on a string) left
me grunting.
After the British stamped out headhunting and Nagaland, The trees rong with all brought order, the unidentifiable whoops, was kept free of outsiders
administered by shrieks, and honks of the anxi
handful of the finest officers jungle.
of the Indian Civil Service.
a
Overhead Indian Air Force Dukotas, operating Camo independence for from our wartime strips India. An agreement signed in the Brahmaputra val between the Nagus, the ley, circled about para, Governor of Assam, and chuting live goats (they Nehru's men allowed Naga- aro tossed out of speeding land to remain autonomous- lorries to acclimatise ly within the Indian Union them for the drop) to for 10 years with the option Nehru's army.
then of complete inde- pendence.
Creepers ripped at my trousers, and my sweater hung rodden,
Then suddenly with a great oath I fell headlong
The need is cash
Almost immediately after.
This was like that only the leeches and the tigers were not studio props, and the lurking soldiers over a log and rolled down warde Nehru tore up the were not Japs but Indians. slope to find myself agreement and then sent in I was always accused of alongside a roaring bamboo a bunch of "failed B.A.s," marching too fast when I fire and helped to my feet half-baked idealists from wore jungle green in war by Brigadier Pangar, com- Indian universities
the time, but now my bare- nanding
北
Seventh the Nagas out.
to Bort
ganised na underground
army.
Tortures
beaten
never
have
Brigadier Pangar got up from the camp fire.
We shook hands, and I took my leave through the cordon of almost invisible guards.
Nehru, worried stiff at n decaying situation in terri- tory that touches Chink, They also told me that Pakistan and Burma, sent prisoners have been wrapped off back to continue the I last saw them trudging thousands of troops into in bamboo and burned alive, fight. the area.
or had their eyes gouged --(London Expren Service).
Reporter Wise with the headhunters-they wear captured Indian uniforma
Fish and chips BEFORE HE GOES...
New York,
Britons,
TOMESICK HOME
or Americans some insight
seeking
into the British way of enjoyment, can now walk along the New York "sidewalks" eating fish and chips out of an English newspaper.
feast for
New York
Two shops are. nt- He left Oxford in 1936 quest: "Teach me the busi- tempting to make their to sail around the world as ness."
machines.
"atmosphere" and their a merchant seaman. Оп 'Back in New York, products as authentic
calls as one of his
ist New Barker opened his little he possible. Both use imported York
decided New shop. He covered the walls English
deep-frying Yorkers should be intro with British travel posters, duced to the "delights" of and hoped Americans and the British scamen from the liners which berth at Shop" acros the street. Barker wont back to the end of his street would
arena England and presented him- like his "bit o England." known as Madison Square self at a Camden Town fish Garden.
Success and chip shop with the re-
Jack Barker operates his fish and chips. **English Fish and Chip
from the famous
ROUND-UP
LARGEST FLOATING DOCK
THE
HE Admiralty's largest eating dock, the AFD. 11, has been towed from la borth in Portsmouth. Dockyard to the upper reaches of the harbour, A Naval spokesman says, "A decision about the deck's future is awaited from the Admiralty." A.F.D. 11, with
They did; and Barker's success encouraged a young couple to open another fish and ehl, shop in Manhat-
tan.
Called The Britannia, the shop is run by an American boy married to an English girl Marie Ritchie..
Besides fish and chips, The Britannia features
a ilting capacity of 00,000 tend, tres been used for the refitting of stacks of English magazines aircraft carriers and the construction of the wartime Mulberry and newspapers for "refine- Harbour. It has been replaced in Portsmouth Dockyard by AF.Ď,
20 which is less than half its size.
LONDON SMOKE BAN.
ment."
The main difference be- tween these transplanted British institutions and the real thing Hos in the
7 HE emission of smoke from all chimneys in an area of 160 seres | variety of fish offered.
sole.
1 in West Kensington, London, has been banned under a Smoke Usually it is cod, sometimes Control Order anuroved by the Minister of Housing. The now miakelazs zone adjoins Fulham Council's first smokeless area which has been in operation since October. In the now zona ere `0,190 houses, 350 dats and 248 commercial premises. The present, estimated consumption of cost in the area is 2,070 tona a‘your, and the number of fireplaces requiring replacement or adaption-for the burning of smokeless fuels is 3,069. The Clovernment will make a grant of £18,201 and Fulham Counell a grant of £10,019, of fish and chips, a towards the cost of convenión,
And another important difference. In New York a customer has to pay about six shillings for his order
Cummings
Protection Rgainst iron hand
clasps
FRIDGE NAT ATTITUDES FROZEN
FOR KEEPING
YES' PROOF!
FILTER
PROOF AGAINST BEAR-LIKE HUGS
(Return spring for
retiring from compromising handshakes
Whose finger on
the Olive Branch?
"Stay like that, Harold, and you may
back with your shirt stil
London Express Merrion,