Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know (7 page)

The monarch was the patron of the faith, and his close entourage and advisers were often composed of senior monks, for entrance and exit from the ecclesiastical order was easily accepted. The
sangha
influenced the monarchs and tempered their reigns, for the just ruler was defined by Buddhist principles. The king ruled because he was morally superior to the people by virtue of his karma. But the monarch had an obligation to help improve the livelihood of his subjects so that they in turn could improve their karmas. Order was a singular need in the society, but too strong or repressive an order could result in the rise of a usurper, who, if he succeeded, then had a better karma.

The monks had an even greater role. They educated the populace, and all schools in the precolonial period were in Buddhist monasteries. To be devout was to be literate and be able to read scriptures. Early British observers claimed that Burma was the most literate state between Suez and Japan, and one British traveler in the early nineteenth century believed that Burmese women had a higher percentage of literacy than British women.

The British, to avoid charges of favoring Buddhism and to open avenues for Christian missionaries, eliminated the position of the most senior monk, the
thathanabaing
, thus in essence demoting and denigrating Buddhism by depriving it of its administrative cohesion. The introduction of secular education further undercut Buddhist influence. Instead of being destroyed by these actions, however, Buddhism became the surrogate indicator of Burmese nationalism when political activity was banned by the British, and monks were martyrs to the nationalist movement and often led it.

The relevance of Buddhism to beliefs and legitimacy in the postcolonial period is still central and permeates Burman society. In the civilian period (1948–1958, 1960–1962), U Nu employed Buddhism for political purposes, making it the state religion following the elections of 1960. Today, in virtually every edition of the controlled Burmese press, the military is
pictured as attending to Buddhist needs and customs. Even though the
sangha
lacks the taught administrative structure of the
tatmadaw
, it is the only institution in the country that rivals the
tatmadaw
in size, influence, and national presence. The opposition has also illustrated its religiosity, both in the failed Saffron Revolution of young Buddhist monks in 2007 and also in the public actions of Aung San Suu Kyi when she has been allowed out of house arrest. Under modernization in contemporary Myanmar, how much the Buddhist concept of karma—that the status of individuals reflects their past good or evil actions—makes a Buddhist society more tolerant of poor leadership is unknown.

The colonial period lasted a relatively short time in its domination of the whole country—only from 1885 to 1948. Its impact, however, has been of far greater significance than one might expect from only two generations of foreign rule, the shortest of the colonial experiences in Southeast Asia. (The French were in Laos from 1893 to 1954.) This significance lies elsewhere than in the ostensible modern institutions that continued after the end of colonialism. Rather, traditional patterns of power have become reestablished in spite of the new institutions of authority evolving from the colonial domination and contemporary international politico-economic trends. Many of these new forms of governance operate in part within traditional patterns of authority. The most profound impact of colonial rule is not simply found in these new institutions (legislatures, voting, constitutions, the judiciary, the bureaucracy, etc.) but in the strong nationalist reaction to that era and its foreign domination. This profoundly and emotionally influences contemporary Burma/Myanmar, and indeed, may be said virtually to confine the administration of that state within emotional anticolonial strictures.

The three Anglo-Burmese wars (1824–1826, 1852, and 1885) resulted from Burmese westward expansionist moves into
British-administered East Bengal and Manipur (1824–1826); greed—access to the natural resources of Burma proper and commercial disputes (1852); and French influence and potential economic expansion—if not direct colonization—of Upper Burma and control over the potentially lucrative trade with China through Yunnan Province (1885).

The British and the East India Company’s presence in Dhaka and even Calcutta was perceived by the British to be threatened by an expansive Burman empire that only a generation earlier had taken over the kingdom of Arakan, bordering on East Bengal. The Burmese had also conquered Manipur. Profound cultural differences also made meaningful negotiations difficult. The most publicized was the footwear issue. The British refused to take off their shoes in the palace and in pagodas, thus insulting the cosmological order (the palace as Mount Meru—the center of the world) and the primordial value of Burman society—Buddhism. Regulations for removing footwear in Burma/Myanmar are today the most stringent of such laws in all Buddhist societies. British arrogance toward a culture for which they had no respect was thus illustrated and was also stimulated by reports of monarchic atrocities against members of the extensive royal family who might be pretenders to the throne (succession was not fixed in law or custom). Because the Burmese may have bested their neighbors in warfare, monarchs perhaps believed their grandiose, archaic royal titles translated into modernized power. In spite of British technological superiority, the Burmese fought bravely in the first Anglo-Burmese War, as British reporting indicated. The British were ill prepared to fight a tropical war; more of their troops died from disease than in battle.

The second war, in 1852, evolved from a dispute over British commercial interests in the teak industry. It resulted in the British occupation of central lower Burma, thus uniting the whole coast of that country under British rule, as they had seized the western province of Arakan and the eastern region of Tenasserim as reparations from the first conflict. The
third war was designed not only to facilitate the possibility of trade with Yunnan but to deny the French, who had occupied Vietnam and were controlling Laos and Cambodia, from solidifying their growing influence at the Burmese court. This effectively would have resulted in the denial of the southwest China trade to the British. Anglo-French rivalry in mainland Southeast Asia was important to both. The independence of Thailand as a buffer state between the two was a result of this regional balance of power. There was resistance to these wars in British Parliament, but the media, fueled by merchants who wanted access to the raw materials of the state and to the potential China trade, essentially carried the day.

Trade potential in the colonial era thus pointed north. The British explored in the nineteenth century the possibilities of trade with China in Yunnan and beyond with mule trains beginning at Bhamo on the Irrawaddy River. Now, China views Myanmar as its market and avenue to the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean. That country is exploring the possibility of using Bhamo as a base for southern economic expansion down the Irrawaddy to the Bay of Bengal and beyond.

The British occupation of Burma largely used troops from the subcontinent to suppress discontent. Administrative convenience (if not acumen) led the British until 1937 to govern Burma as a province of India in spite of profound cultural differences. The Indian pattern of control became the model. As the British ruled India both directly and indirectly through the princely states and certain designated peripheral areas (such as the Northwest Frontier Province), so Burma was eventually divided into Ministerial Burma (also called Burma Proper), that core of the country essentially inhabited by Burmans and directly ruled, and the peripheral regions that were indirectly administered. The Burmese continuously claim that the
divide-and-rule policies of the colonialists are the cause of their minority problems today. The colonial period helped reify ethnicity, resulting in minorities becoming more cohesive entities that had not before existed. This led to ethnic nationalism and the demands on the state for specialized rights.

Because Burma was administratively integral to India, various types of immigration were approved and sometimes subsidized. At the administrative acme, Burma was governed by the Indian Civil Service, at first composed of the British. Only much later were Indians included. After 1937 and the administrative separation of Burma from India, the Burma Civil Service was established. The Burmese called the BCS the “heaven sent,” as they were on the highest rung of the Burmese social ladder at that time. Because the British did not trust the Burmans, who had resisted their rule, those recruited into the Burma army who were not Indian were essentially from the “martial races.” Thus, minorities formed the majority of the troops: the Karen (27.8 percent), Chin (22.6 percent), and Kachin (22.9 percent), who were organized into ethnic military units, such as the Karen Rifles. Only about 12.3 percent of the Burma army was composed of Burmans at the start of World War II. Burman antagonism against the Karen was exacerbated by the Karen participating with the British in the pacification of the Burmans.

The lower levels of the administration—clerks, peons, and others—were often recruited from the Indian community, for these people knew the British ways and administration and spoke English. As modern medicine and education were also introduced, Indians came to staff many of those professional positions. Some fields of urban manual labor, such as dock workers, were largely Indian. By the 1930s, Rangoon was essentially an Indian city, with Burmans in the minority, in spite of the attractions of the venerable Shwedagon Pagoda, the most important Buddhist pilgrimage site in Southeast Asia.

As the economy of Burma expanded and became monetized, Indian labor was recruited, in many cases as a type of
indentured servitude (to pay off transport costs and debts). This became especially important in the development of commercialized rice agriculture. With the growing commercialization of the Burmese economy under the British, the Indian subcaste of Chettyars from Madras moved into the money lending field, which they soon dominated. The Burmese, unused to the legal implications of credit and repayments, often overextended themselves, using land as collateral. When the Great Depression dropped the price of rice on the world market after 1929, many Burmese lost their agricultural land, which was 80 percent mortgaged, mostly to the Chettyars. This and the Indians’ preferential position in Burma caused great resentment against all Indians that to a large degree persists today.

The British tried to mitigate the problem of rural indebtedness as early as the end of the nineteenth century through the establishment of cooperatives. These were top-down efforts, in contrast to those evolving out of the European experience. These government-controlled cooperatives continue today under an official ministry; they have been one element of state control over the population and the economy.

The influence of India was not all negative. The Indian nationalist movement and the activities of Mahatma Gandhi and the India Congress Party had a positive impact of the rise of Burmese nationalism. As the Burmese became more assertive through strikes in the central oil fields and student demonstrations (1920, 1936), the British considered separating the administration of Burma from that of India. There was considerable ferment in Burma over this possibility—some felt that separation might delay self-governance and later independence, whereas others wanted the autonomy from Indian administration. Separation finally occurred in 1937, although the Government of Burma Act was passed in 1935.

The British adopted a means for localized control at the village level. In traditional Burma, the village headman (rarely a woman) was the leading authority in the village and in a sense represented the village to the world beyond. His job was to keep
government away from the village. As the Burmese proverb states, government was one of the five evils, along with fire, flood, thieves, and enemies. The British overturned this concept and made the headman the lowest representative of the Crown, reporting up the bureaucratic ladder and charged with enforcing government regulations. This change was continued after independence, allowing greater state control of rural areas.

The goals of colonial administration in Burma were multiple. The British could concentrate on imposing law and order so that the province could pay for its own administration. They had denied French influence. Thailand was essentially politically neutralized to the east. The British controlled the west, and a weak China to the north posed no potential threat. To encourage control and trade, the British expanded communications, built roads and railroads, and developed ports, as well as riverine transport (the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company is a prime example). Burma held the world’s most extensive teak reserves (much in demand for building because it was impervious to termites). The British developed a sophisticated and much renowned Burma Forest Service, said to be the best in the world, to protect this valuable resource (up until the degradations of the past generation).

Burma had mineral wealth. The traditional oil wells of central Burma, formerly under royal monopoly, were modernized, and Burma became, before World War II, a modest oil exporter (the Burmah Oil Corporation). Annual production in the 1930s was 250–280 million gallons. The Bawdwin-Namtu mines (producing silver, lead, zinc, copper, and gold) were renowned. The Mawchi mine was the largest tungsten mine in the world. Tin and other minerals were exported. The traditional exploitation of the world’s finest jade and ruby mines and sapphires all contributed to the export-led growth of colonial Burma.