Word: gan
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Unceremoniously kicked out of their sea-air bases by newly independent and neutralist Ceylon, the British decided to set up new bases farther south on the placid island of Gan in the Maldives, a splatter of palm-fringed dots in the Indian Ocean 400 miles from Ceylon. There are only 93,000 Maldivians-nut-brown, peaceable folk who have been under the wing of the British Empire since 1802. The world has largely passed the Maldives by. But six years ago, after 800 years of Sultanate rule, the Maldives became a republic. Their first President abolished purdah, designed a Mother...
When the British began landing workmen from Pakistan and materials for the airfield on Gan, the Maldivian Parliament grumbled audibly about the arrival of progress. There was a flurry of demands for independence, charges that too many concessions had been made to the British, and loud outcries that the Maldivian way of life was in danger. Once again a government fell, and a new Prime Minister, Ibrahim Nasir, asked that work on Gan be halted. In reply, Britain's High Commissioner Alec Morley steamed from Ceylon to the Maldives aboard the cruiser Gambia, and that led to hysteric Maldivian...
...islands' simple economy of coir (coconut fiber) and dried fish was totally disrupted by the British arrival. (Also disrupted was the domestic economy of Ceylonese housewives who regard Maldivian fish as an indispensable ingredient of curry, are now limited to a monthly ration of eight ounces per adult.) Gan's schoolteachers quit their jobs to sign on as high-paid laborers on the base, joining the 1,200 workmen imported from Pakistan. A Maldivian official sent from the capital island of Male to persuade the people of Gan to go back to their proper jobs was attacked...
...cutlery companies saw in Tsubame a wonderful opportunity. The U.S. companies wanted low-priced stainless steelware to undercut the high-quality product that Europeans had begun shipping to the U.S. They sent technicians to Tsubame, supplied it with equipment, orders and credits When U.S. silverware makers also be gan feeling hot European competition against their plated tableware, they too joined in building up Tsubame's production in order to save the expense of shifting to stainless-steel production in their own plants. Tsubame exports to the U.S. soared from 421,476 dozen pieces, valued...
...trouble in the Far East, Kenya-based troops will be flown 4,500 miles to Singapore, where equipment will be stockpiled as at Aden. With landing rights in India ended and those in Ceylon scheduled to go in two years, a new refueling base is under construction at Gan in the Maldive Islands. As the R.A.F.'s Transport Command beefs up with new turboprop Bristol Britannias, Britain's scattered garrisons will be stripped and more men concentrated in Kenya...