Many ethnic tribes and foreigners in the country face an unusual problem when in legal difficulty—a language barrier
~By Prakash Bhandari
When three Tamil speaking Indians were arrested in Yangon, accused of stealing money from ATMs, it was the start of a legal nightmare. Their problems began when they were presented before a court. The three men knew no language except Tamil. For weeks, the legal process could not begin because the courts needed to find an interpreter who knew Tamil as well as Burmese. Finally, a priest of a Hindu temple who could speak both was found, but he had no knowledge of Burmese legal terminology.
U Yan Naing, a lawyer involved in the case, explains: “In this case of the Tamil Indians arrested for stealing ATM money, the priest who acted as an interpreter was unable to differentiate between a witness for the prosecution and a witness for the defence, leaving the defendants confused about how the proceedings were developing.” The language issue in Burmese courts does not just affect ethnic Indians. In Myanmar’s border areas, many villagers living in areas close to Manipur and Mizoram speak Manipuri and the ethnic Mizo language. If they are charged with a crime and have to appear in court, they face the same problem as not all members of the ethnic group speak Burmese and the language barrier is a significant handicap in a court of law.
Similarly, in Rakhine state which is on the border of Bangladesh, a large number of the population is Muslim Rohingya, who speak Bangla or Ruaingga. Ruaingga is related to the Chittagonian language spoken in the neighbouring Chittagong division of Bangladesh. Interestingly, the Ruaingga script is written in Arabic and the Rohingyas use mainly English and Urdu for written communication. Since independence in 1948, Burmese has been used in all official communications and the Rohingyas, who are stateless people, find it difficult to pursue the legal pro-cess. “Since the Burmese do not understand the Ruaingga language and the Ruaingga-speaking people do not understand Burmese, getting legal redressal remains a major problem,” says Rohingya leader Tayyub Hussain Moin. The bigger challenge is finding an interpreter who knows the two languages and also understands legal terminology.
The priest of a Hindu temple who could speak both Tamil and Burmese was found, but he had no knowledge of Burmese legal terminology
As local lawyer Nyein Chan Kyaw, explains, in the Rakhine province the word “thutdeh” means “beat”, but in Burmese, it means “kill”. A misunderstanding by a judge in an assault case, for example, could lead to serious consequences for the defendant. Another ethnic dialect is Kayin, spoken in the Tanintharyi region. Kayin has a general term for staff at a court, but no specific word for judge, lawyer or law officers. “In a region like Tanintharyi where various communities speak various ethnic languages, meaning and pronunciations have often resulted in strange sentences given to thieves. In one case, a lenient sentence was given to a man who had stolen an expensive necklace.
The dilemma of dialect
The Republic of the union of Myanmar is a sovereign state bordered by Bangladesh, India, China, Laos, and Thailand. Myanmar, originally known as Burma, was part of British India till 1936.
Although influenced by India, it was culturally, linguistically and ethnically different. Separating Burma from India made political sense, since the Independence movement was relatively less active in Burma. In 1936, Burma was identified by the British as a separate country.
Like in India, there are a hundred languages spoken in Myanmar. Burmese, spoken by two-thirds of the population, is the official language and is spoken by 32 million people as a first language. It is the primary language of instruction, and English is the second language.
English was the primary language in higher education till 1964 when the dictator General Ne Win mandated educational reforms in an effort to “Burmanise”. English continues to be used by educated urbanites and the national government. And while Burmese is the official language, the nation has 135 officially recognised ethnic groups, many of whom do not speak this language.
Although there are separate words for “necklace” and “beads” in the Myanmar language, in the southern Myanmar dialect, there is only one word for the latter. “The complainant spoke about the theft of ‘beads’ when in reality she meant the necklace. The court interestingly lessened the sentence because they did not deem the ‘beads’ to be of high value,” said lawyer Kyaw.
As law officers are mostly Burmese-speaking, they find it difficult to tackle legal issues involving ethnic groups due to the language barrier. In 2015, the government headed by U Thein Sein enacted the Ethnic Protection Law that gave the minorities the right to teach their mother language as long as the activities did not affect national education policy. According to advocate Daw Dwe Bu, the government should instead give priority to deploying officials in remote areas who speak the local language. “Such a process would help in providing legal aid easily and would be appreciated by the local people.’’
The Indians who live in Myanmar come from an array of ethnic backgrounds. There are Tamils from Tamil Nadu, Telugus from Andhra Pradesh, Marwaris from Rajasthan as well as Bengalis from West Bengal and Bangladesh. There are also a large number of Hindi-speaking people, mostly Biharis who speak Hindi at home. Most of them can communicate in Burmese due to years of assimilation. However, those from a Tamil background can find it difficult, like the three accused of stealing from the ATMs.
In India, law books are translated from English to various official languages and each state has these books available in the official language like Bangla, Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi and Gujarati among others.
This is not the case in Myanmar. The legal system has many flaws and because of translation problems, the ethnic minorities who do not speak the dominant language, Burmese, getting entangled in a court case has resulted in many a miscarriage of justice.