With no English wives to tie them down, these Englishmen were fond of attending parties which featured food, drink, opium and fun with dancing girls who usually doubled as prostitutes. By the turn of the century, a nationalist movement began to take shape in the form of Young Men's Buddhist Associations (YMBA), modelled after the YMCA, as religious associations were allowed by the colonial authorities. Traditional Burmese society was drastically altered by the demise of the monarchy and the separation of religion and state. “‘Try the mutton,’” he was told. [Source: Wikipedia +], The economic nature of society also changed dramatically. Most hill stations we built on ridge tops. The real reason for imposing direct administration was that it was the fashion of the age, and modern standards of efficiency were the only standards intelligible to the men who entered Upper Burma. However, to prepare the new land for cultivation, farmers were forced to borrow money from Indian moneylenders called chettiars at high interest rates and were often foreclosed on and evicted losing land and livestock. The country had two codes of law, the Rajathat and Dammathat, and the Hluttaw, the centre of government, was divided into three branches—fiscal, executive, and judicial. ), After Britain took over Burma, they maintained the sending of tribute to China, putting themselves in a lower status than in their previous relations. Tucker, Shelby. Burma is sometimes referred to as "the Scottish Colony", due to the heavy role played by Scotsmen in colonising and running the country, one of the most notable being Sir James Scott, and the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company. Print. When the British began their imperial take on Burma, the colony was immediately thrown into a world of exportation in which they had not ever been exposed to before colonisation by the British. Charles' George Orwell Links – Biographies, Essays, Novels, Reviews, Images. He enacted administrative reforms and made Burma more receptive to foreign interests. 1 March 2010. Rangoon, having been the capital of British Lower Burma, became the capital of the province. Rice, which was in high demand in Europe, especially after the building of the Suez Canal in 1869, was the main crop grown in and exported out of Myanmar. The ambivalent feelings of the protagonist in "Shooting an Elephant" … For those tasked with seeing Myanmar culture brought to bended knee by any means necessary, anything beyond seemed the end of the world. The British colony of Burma was part of the British run-state in India, the Empire of India, from 1824 to 1937.Burma was separated from the rest of … It "was nearly the size of the palm of my hand...olive brown and covered with a soft down.” The missionaries also had to put up with dust storms, torrential monsoons and 130°F heat that lasted for weeks at a time. The economic nature of society also changed drastically. Moreover the Burmese, like all the other peoples of India, remain under the rule of the British Empire for purely military considerations. London: Pluto, 2001. People who, in the cities, are the models of respectability are known to fling more than stones and insults at each other when they come to live up here. "Myanmar (Burma) – Charles' George Orwell Links." In 1930 some of these dissatisfied students founded a new group called the Dobama Asiayone (We Burmans Association) whose members called themselves Thakin (an ironic name as thakin means "master" in the Burmese language – rather like the Indian 'sahib' — proclaiming that they were the true masters of the country entitled to the term usurped by the colonial masters). After Burma's defeat of the Kingdom of Arakan in 1784–1785, in 1823, Burmese forces again crossed the frontier and the British responded with a large seaborne expedition that took Rangoon without a fight in 1824. Bounded by Prome Road (now Pyay), Newlyns Road (now Zagawar) and Budd’s Road (now Padonmar), its location – north of the city’s built-up waterfront downtown, but south of the cantonment (or garrison) line which marked the edge of the developed city just north of Shwedagon Pagoda – afforded easy access to the barracks, parade grounds, prisons, lunatic asylums and burial grounds which marked the British view of Rangoon at the time. The Frontier Areas were inhabited by ethnic minorities such as the Chin, the Shan, the Kachin and the Karenni. Burma is sometimes referred to as "the Scottish Colony", due to the heavy role played by Scotsmen in colonising and running the country, one of the most notable being Sir James Scott, and the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company. The hill station were complete town with sanitariums, churches, cottages, clubs, libraries and activities. [5], The British immediately began exploiting the rich soil of the land around the Irrawaddy delta and cleared away the dense mangrove forests. Though war officially ended after only a couple of weeks, resistance continued in northern Burma until 1890, with the British finally resorting to a systematic destruction of villages and appointment of new officials to finally halt all guerrilla activity. At the same time, thousands of Indian labourers migrated to Burma and, because of their willingness to work for less money, quickly displaced the Burmese farmers, who instead began to take part in crime, giving themselves a bad reputation. [5], The traditional Burmese economy was one of redistribution with the prices of the most important commodities set by the state and supply and demand mostly unimportant. They came away from this experience with the belief that the Burmese situation could be improved through reform. An account by a British official describing the conditions of the Burmese people's livelihoods in 1941 describes the Burmese hardships as they must quickly adapt to foreign trade: “Foreign landlordism and the operations of foreign moneylenders had led to an increasing exportation of a considerable proportion of the country’s resources and to the progressive impoverishment of the agriculturist and of the country as a whole…. It spread to Mandalay leading to the formation of the All Burma Students Union (ABSU). Most of the hill stations were located above 6,000 feet because that seemed to be the ceiling of malaria-carrying mosquitos. Hugh Tinker wrote in “The Union of Burma”: The British community in Burma was so small and the period of British rule so brief that no comparable Burma connection ever developed. +, A new generation of Burmese leaders arose in the early twentieth century from amongst the educated classes that were permitted to go to London to study law. The British were victorious in this war, and as a result desired access to the teak, oil and rubies of northern Myanmar. Jstor. The Burmese resented both the British and the Indian migrants, and staged guerilla warfare against the British army of occupation. Once these troublesome or unloyal Burmese were forced out, the British replaced them with strangers they approved of. +, Another way in which the British controlled their new colony directly was through their implementation of a secular education system. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. The economic nature of society also changed dramatically. The system in which the wealthy patronized the monasteries was broken. The British built 96 hill stations in India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Burma. The Pegu Club had become the sidelines from which the empire was run. Saya San (1876 and 1931) was the leader of the anti-British rebellion in 1930-32 that bore his name. Social activities went on almost around the clock and status and rank was rigidly defined. [citation needed]. +. Their actions and the crime that began when the villagers were displaced by Indian workers, led to the British impression of their Burmese colony as a restless and violent place. After three Anglo-Burma Wars (1825, 1852 and 1885) Burma was conquered and transformed into a British colony. The main character is the narrator who experiences external and internal conflicts. At the same time, the monarchy was given legitimacy by the Buddhist organisation, and the “church” gave the public the opportunity to understand national politics to a greater degree. It was customary for unmarried British men to keep a local mistress-housekeeper who would raise their children. 4 March 2010. This humiliation paved the way for the extreme nationalist militarism that followed. Intermarriage between Europeans and Burmese gave birth to an indigenous Eurasian community known as the Anglo-Burmese who would come to dominate the colonial society, hovering above the Burmese but below the British. Other wasted away more slowly from syphilis, exotic jungle diseases and doctors who treated cholera with a red hot iron on the heel. The British separated Burma Province from British India in 1937 and granted the colony a new constitution calling for a fully elected assembly, with many powers given to the Burmese, but this proved to be a divisive issue as some Burmese felt that this was a ploy to exclude them from any further Indian reforms whereas other Burmese saw any action that removed Burma from the control of India to be a positive step. J. S. Furnivall, "Burma, Past and Present". By 1945, British troops had regained control over most of the colony. Burma achieved independence from British rule on 4 January 1948. The British separated Burma Province from British India in 1937[12] and granted the colony a new constitution calling for a fully elected assembly, with many powers given to the Burmese, but this proved to be a divisive issue as some Burmese felt that this was a ploy to exclude them from any further Indian reforms. [6] In 1852, the Second Anglo-Burmese War was provoked by the British who sought the teak forests in Lower Burma as well as a port between Calcutta and Singapore. [2] The campaign cost the British five million pounds sterling to 13 million pounds sterling (roughly 18.5 billion to 48 billion in 2006 US dollars)[3] that led to a severe economic crisis in British India in 1833.[4]. [Source: Wade Guyitt, Myanmar Times, July 8, 2013 //\\], “In the Imperial Gazetteer of India of 1909, the Pegu Club is prominently labelled. The invention of the steam ship really opened up travel between Britain and Asia. The strike, starting in September 1946, then spread from the police to government employees and came close to becoming a general strike. After three Anglo-Burma Wars (1825, 1852 and 1885) Burma was conquered and transformed into a British colony. [11], The agreement left parts of the communist and conservative branches of the AFPFL dissatisfied, sending the Red Flag Communists led by Thakin Soe underground and the conservatives into opposition. Over the following 20 years of British rule Burmese society disintegrated. final full decade of British rule. This was particularly harmful because the Buddhist monks were so dependent on the sponsorship of the monarchy. After that the British community became more self-sufficient and more insular and separated from the India community. +, Burma was grafted onto India despite the incompatibility of India and the Burmese heartland, which lacked a "Burma lobby" to explain it in Britain. [5], Conflict began between Myanmar and the British when the Konbaung Dynasty decided to expand into Arakan in the state of Assam, close to the British possessions in India. Burma achieved independence from British rule on 4 January 1948. Soon after settling in Burma, the British realized that the valleys of Arakan were quite fertile and had great agricultural potential. They staged a strike in 1936 which was notable because it was during this strike that Thakin Nu and Aung San joined the movement. By then, in most of the largest cities in Burma, Rangoon (Yangon), Akyab (Sittwe), Bassein (Pathein), Moulmein, the Indian immigrants formed a majority of the population. India. Though the country prospered, the Burmese people largely failed to reap the rewards. It was also one of the first Southeast Asian countries to receive Buddhism, which went on to become the officially patronised religion. It was not always so. By processes familiar to Imperial historians, static Burma and dynamic British India had become provocatively incompatible. A nationalist movement developed, and there were demonstrations, often led, in true Burmese fashion, by Buddhist monks. Japan then successfully invaded the Asian colonies of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, including the Philippines, Malaya, Hong Kong, Singapore, Burma, and the Dutch East Indies. He eventually resigned from the Legislative Assembly and was arrested for sedition. British rule in Burma, also known as British Burma, lasted from 1824 to 1948, from the Anglo-Burmese wars through the creation of Burma as a Province of British India to the establishment of an independently administered colony, and finally independence. Even the Pegu Club, I’m told. This excited the Chambers of Commerce and influenced the annexation. Burma was made an independently administered colony in 1937. While the Burmese economy grew, all the power and wealth remained in the hands of several British firms and migrants from India. Furnivall, J. S. "Burma, Past and Present." Fifteen thousand European and Indian soldiers died, together with an unknown number of Burmese army and civilian casualties. He organized his followers into the "Galon Army" (Galon, or Garuda, is a fabulous bird of Hindu mythology), and he was proclaimed "king" at Insein, near Rangoon (Yangon), on Oct. 28, 1930. The hill station at Taunggyi was described in 1902 as “not merely for house-building but for racecourses, pol-grounds and public gardens.”, The atmosphere at the hill stations was both formal, strange and hedonistic. "CIA – The World Factbook." In order to increase the production of rice, many Burmese migrated from the northern heartland to the delta, shifting the population concentration, and changing the basis of wealth and power. they did win the trust of the peasants and displaced the older generation of London-educated elites at the head of the Burmese nationalist movement. the British – emblazoned on the pennants the rebels carried, required thousands of British troops to suppress along with promises of further political reform. Established as an independent state from a series of land concessions acquired by an Englishman, James Brooke, from the Sultanate of Brunei. Ever since the 1820s, the British had regarded Burma as a lucrative sideline to India, strategically vital and, more important, a place to get rich. Burma became an official colony on January 1, 1886. For generations, British merchants, like their military and commercial rivals the French, had dealt with the Burmese; but this was peripheral trafficking by outsiders, only tolerated for their wares. Visitors were brought up the slopes in bullock cars, on horseback, or in sedan chairs. As Rudyard Kipling recalled after his one visit to Rangoon in 1889 as a young newspaperman, the club was “full of men on their way up or down”. Historian Thant Myint-U writes: "At the beginning of the 20th century, Indians were arriving in Burma at the rate of no less than a quarter million per year. Wikipedia +], With the arrival of the British, the Burmese economy became tied to global market forces and was forced to become a part of the colonial export economy. Patrick O'Sullivan. Web. Because of its location, with trade routes between China and India passing straight through the country, Burma was kept wealthy through constant trade, although self-sufficient agriculture was still the basis of the economy. +. British rule in Burma British rule in Burma lasted from 1824 to 1948, from the successive three Anglo-Burmese wars through the creation of Burma as a Province of British India to the establishment of an independently administered colony, and finally independence. Now there is an opportunity to forge a completely different relationship, based on acknowledging the many sins and few virtues of a shared history. British rule in Burma lasted from 1824 to 1948, from the Anglo-Burmese Wars through the creation of Burma as a province of British India to the establishment of an independently administered colony, and finally independence. 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