Memoir of R. Balan, Vice-President of the Malayan Communist Party

I was born in Nova Scotia Estate, 4 miles away from Telok Anson proper, Perak, on 22 November 1921. My father, named K. Ramalingam, was a conductor-cum-clerk on a rubber estate who came from Ceylon. My mother, named Sinnatheiammal, was a housewife who came from Madras, India. I am the eldest of four children (two boys and two girls). My father worked on the Nova Scotia rubber estate in Perak. When I was five months old, my father sent the whole family to India. We lived in India for seven years before my father called back the whole family to Malaya. We came back to Malaya around early part of 1929 to rejoin my father at an estate named ‘Jong Estate’ where he was a Manager. I had my primary education at the Anglo-Chinese School, Telok Anson and completed my secondary education at the Nagaratham Memorial English School. I sat and passed the Government Junior Cambridge Certificate examinations in 1937. While I was in Senior Cambridge for three months, I fell ill of pneumonia and was bed-ridden for nearly two months.

R. Balan

Eventually, as a result of loss of studies I left school and went out to work to support my mother, brother and sister (another sister had died one month after birth). My father had left us in Telok Anson to work in Bertam Rubber Estate in Kepala Batas, and we did not know until years later that he had taken another wife. I worked as an apprentice clerk at Selaba Estate, Telok Anson for two years without any payment, and then as a clerk at the Ulu Bernam Estate in 1940–1941 until the Japanese occupied Malaya. Two months after Japanese occupation of Malaya, the Japanese armed forces visited Ulu Bernam Estate. The commanding officer of the Japanese armed forces felt the office field staff in Ulu Bernam Estate was exorbitant, therefore decided to transfer a few of the staff to other estates where they were needed. I was one of those transferred to Jong Estate, also in Telok Anson, as an officer-in-charge.

My family background, therefore, can be said to be middle class. My father’s salary was enough for our family until he left us to go to Kepala Batas, and we never went in want. I had uncles (the elder brothers of my mother) one of who was a kangani (headman), while another was a tapper. I used to go to their homes and mix with the labour force. In the pre-war days, $12/= monthly wage was sufficient for an estate labourer who was provided with quarters. There was not much evidence of poverty. I had not yet become politically conscious. I was only labour conscious.

After the Japanese had transferred me to Jong estate, they decided to recruit labour force from the estate to be sent to build the railway in southern Thailand, later known as ‘The Death Railway’ because most of those who were sent there to work never returned. My estate, which was about 1,000 acres or so, had a working force of 200 men and women. I was ordered to prepare a list of labourers who could be sent to Thailand. When it was time for the first batch of young able-bodied labourers, about 150 of them, to leave the estate on their journey, their womenfolk came to my house and started crying, pleading for help and urging me not to send their men to their death. They had heard of the horrors of the Death Railway, and said their sons, husbands and fathers had no hope of ever returning. I was very moved by their tears and pleas, and decided to do something to help.

I remember this momentous day. It was 22 August 1942. I gathered all the labourers who were supposed to leave the next day outside my office and told them my sympathies were with them and their families. If they did not want to go to Thailand, they must by 2 a.m...