Coerced Labour and War Prisoners in Southeast Asia: Unequal Remembering Practices of the ‘Death Railway’

Between June 1942 and October 1943, the Empire of Japan (1868–1947) coerced workers and prisoners of war (POWs) to construct the railway connecting Ban Pong, Thailand, with Thanbyuzayat, Burma (now Myanmar). Historical records estimate that over 100,000 people — often forcibly brought to the region as migrants — including approximately 12,000 POWs (e.g., Australians, British, Dutch, and Americans), died during the construction due to the brutal conditions of the ‘work’. This death toll is why the railway is often remembered in present-day Thailand as the “Death Railway”, attracting many tourists each year. The Death Railway was also popularised and became a part of the cultural archives of the Western world through a 1957 Hollywood movie, The Bridge on the River Kwai.

In this paper, I will rely on historical documents and my experience of journeying through part of the railway in July 2024 to discuss the contrasting ways in which different groups of ‘workers’ are remembered. Based on my observations and comparisons with historical sources, I will explore how a simple name can serve as a form of remembering the collective history of violence, forced migration, and coerced labour in Southeast Asia. Moreover, I will discuss how certain groups of forced migrants, such as the so-called Malayans, are more marginally remembered in memorials and literature than Western POWs. While the Western POWs have been memorialised in the form of museums and war cemeteries, no such artefact of memorialisation exists for the captured and indentured workers of the Tamil and the Malayan origins who worked and perished on the ‘Death Railway’. This paper shall also delve into the recent efforts of the Malayans cultural activists and decendents of the captured labourers in reclaiming their narrative of the Death Railway through social media.