Book review- “Land of Jade: A Journey From India Through Northern Burma To China”
Books related to travel are on high priority in my reading list. When a book contains the details of travel in the remote lands, coupled with the experiences with rebel groups and the people inhabiting these places, the book becomes a must-read. So, once I got my hands on the book Land of Jade: A Journey From India Through Northern Burma To China by Bertil Lintner it seemed exciting in the first place due to the fact that the book contains all the elements mentioned above. The book is interesting, daring as well as quite involving. I have read numerous travel books, but this work is beyond those genres, yet it can be considered a travelogue. The short story is that the author has to travel to Burma (the official name of Myanmar in those days) in order to meet the rebel leaders from the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), and he chose a path that goes through Northeastern India, where the Naga rebels operate.
Bertil Lintner is a Swedish journalist, who lives in Thailand and is considered an expert on the issues of North East India, Myanmar, and China. This book is about the journey he undertook in 1985, when he crossed the Indian border along with his wife and a 6-week old daughter, in order to enter Northern Myanmar to meet the rebels from the KIA. The book is divided into 14 interconnected chapters, which take the reader from the Indian cities of Calcutta (Kolkata now) and New Delhi on one hand to the remote Northeastern state of Nagaland on the other. Further the story moves into Burma (Myanmar now), where the author travels from the Indian border in Longwa to the Chinese border in Panghsang. In the last chapters, the story moves into Southern China, where it ends when the author reaches Hong Kong.
The story starts in a Naga insurgent camp where the author is stuck in the crossfire between the rebels and the Burmese army along with his wife and little daughter and how he struggles there to convince them to fight back. Then the author starts telling about how he got there. The details about the insurgence in Myanmar along with the willingness to visit the rebel-held territory are mentioned. The author preferred to take the “Stillwell road” from the Northeastern part of India to Mynamnar’s rebel-held territories because that seemed to be the easiest way. He takes the help of some Naga rebels in India to help them cross the border and make contacts with the Burmese rebels as these two groups were on relatively better terms with each other.
The story goes from Kolkata to Delhi to Kolkata and then to Darjeeling. Further, it moves from Darjeeling to Guwahati, Shillong, Dimapur, and then Kohima. There are plenty of instances when the author tricks the Indian authorities in order to reach the forbidden Northeastern part of the country and successfully cross the border through Longva. He spends 6 months in Kohima and how he camouflages himself and his photographer wife is really interesting to read. His daughter is born when he is among the rebels in Kohima.
After crossing the border, the author describes their stay in the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) camp and their first interaction with the KIA fighters, which ends tragically, with the death of a young rebel soldier at the hands of the Burmese army. He interviews Isak Swu and T. Muivah, the NSCN leaders in their camp. Then the story is all about long walks through the dense jungles devoid of any human settlements, crossing the Chindwin river in order to reach the Kachin-held area. He faces some physical damage to his feet during this journey, and of course, carries out the responsibility of a newborn baby. He meets plenty of ex-WWII soldiers and exchanges some ideas with them. After reaching the Kachin headquarters, where they spend some time, they carry further towards the border with China through the Shan state. They enter Sipsongpanna in China through the Shan state illegally, of course, keep in mind that all the journey undertaken in this journey was illegal. He was arrested there but the police officers were kind enough to let them stay in the guest house where they intended to stay. But, in order to get out of China, a diplomatic issue was made and the author along with his family was quickly whisked out to Hong Kong, from where they went to Thailand, where they intended to stay.
The flow of the book is excellent, I could not resist not completing it once I started. This book is engaging and interesting at the same time. Obviously, the author doesn't maintain good relations with the regime in Burma and this is evident throughout the books where he doesn't hesitate in criticizing the government forces. Through illegal entry in Myanmar, he was able to sneak into Kachin territory and extract interviews from their rebel leaders, despite facing the possibility of arrest or even a fatal encounter with the Burmese army. Even if someone is not interested in the Burmese or Indian insurgency, this book serves as an inspiring read about how a young European looking man was able to sneak in from Indian to Burma and eventually to China, under the nose of the authorities with his wife and a newborn baby passing though rebel territories and encounters with government forces. By interviewing people whenever he travels, he also conveys the viewpoints of the people living in those territories, which I think is one of the intentions of this book. At that time when the rebel-held Burmese territories were out of bounds for many outsiders (most of them are out of bounds even now), he sneaked in with his wife and a newborn baby in order to present their stories to the world, which was very inspiring indeed.
This is a book, which is an engaging read on the one hand, while extremely informative on the other. Bertil Lintner takes us on a journey to North-Eastern India and Myanmar. On the way, he tells stories about the rebels and their way of operating which reveals a lot of information. This book is an exciting read for someone willing o know how these rebels operate and what goes on in their territories. I’d like to put this book in my ‘Read again: section, a section where I put selected books that I like and skim them from time to time just to freshen up the memories.
