It was an extraordinary explosion of military effort. 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.[5]. The Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL) opposed the government leading to political instability in the country. To prepare the new land for cultivation, farmers borrowed money from Indian moneylenders called chettiars at high interest rates, as British banks would not grant mortgages. The British ruthlessly exploited the countries resources and left little in return. Another said, "There is theory that anyone who lives above 7,000 feet starts having delusions, illusions and hallucinations. By 1931 Burma had 9 divisions, split into a number of districts. [Source: Wikipedia +], 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. Social activities went on almost around the clock and status and rank was rigidly defined. J. S. Furnivall, "Burma, Past and Present". Historians will add that we saw no harm in this, though we always resisted such a fate to the death when it threatened our own land. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=British_rule_in_Burma&oldid=1006908200, Former British colonies and protectorates in Asia, States and territories established in 1824, States and territories disestablished in 1948, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles containing Burmese-language text, Pages using infobox country or infobox former country with the flag caption or type parameters, Pages using infobox country or infobox former country with the symbol caption or type parameters, Former country articles using status text with Colony or Exile, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2019, Articles with dead external links from November 2016, Articles with permanently dead external links, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. British Raj (1858-1947) was a country located in present-day India, Pakistan, Burma, and Bangladesh.Ruled by the United Kingdom in the aftermath of the First Indian War of Independence, British Raj was an extremely-wealthy asset of the British that they treasured until they gave the countries independence in 1947.. History. The peasants of southern Myanmar had been dispossessed by Indian moneylenders, were burdened with heavy taxes, and were left penniless when the price of rice dropped in an economic depression. British Raj and Northamptonshire Regiment have 11 things in common (in Unionpedia): Burma Campaign, India, Italian Campaign (World War II), London, North-West Frontier Province (1901â2010), Routledge, Singapore, Tirah Campaign, Western Front (World War I), World War I, World War II. The British immediately began exploiting the rich soil of the land around the Irawaddy delta and cleared away the dense mangrove forests. It borders Tibet to the north, China's Yunnan clique to the northeast, Siam to the east, and Free India to the west. An account by a British official describing the conditions of the Burmese people's livelihoods in 1941 describes the Burmese hardships: âForeign landlordism and the operations of foreign moneylenders had led to increasing exportation of a considerable proportion of the countryâs resources and to the progressive impoverishment of the agriculturist and of the country as a wholeâ¦. The British built railways and ports, and many British companies grew wealthy trading in teak and rice. When George Orwell arrived in Burma in 1924, the Irrawaddy Delta was leading Burma's exports of over 3 million tons of rice - half the world's supply. The economic nature of society also changed dramatically. They came away from this experience with the belief that the Burmese situation could be improved through reform. Various portions of Burmese territories, including Arakan (Rakhine State) or Tenasserim were annexed by the British after their victory in the First Anglo-Burmese War; Lower Burma was annexed in 1852 after the Second Anglo-Burmese War. Many dropped dead in the first six months from cholera, malaria, heatstroke, small pox, cobra bites or accidents. [5], Burma's annexation ushered in a new period of economic growth. Burma was forced to cede Assam and other northern provinces. Traditional Burmese society was drastically altered by the demise of the monarchy and the separation of religion and state. JStor. At the same time, the monarchy was given legitimacy by the Buddhist organisation, and the âchurchâ gave the public the opportunity to understand national politics to a greater degree. [Source: Myanmar Travel Information ~], On the night of December 22-2, 1930 the first outbreak of violence that became the Saya San rebellion occurred in the Tharrawaddy district; the revolt soon spread to other Irrawaddy delta districts. George Orwell, who was born in the Bengal region, was one of the rare writers who chose to return to that edge of the empire, employed as a police officer for the British raj. For those tasked with seeing Myanmar culture brought to bended knee by any means necessary, anything beyond seemed the end of the world. The Indian Raj; British East India Company; 1st Burmese War - 1824-1826 ... British Colonial Burma, 1886-1942. The "Frontier Areas", also known as the "Excluded Areas" or the "Scheduled Areas", compose the majority of states within Burma today. "The Withdrawal of the Last British Residency from Upper Burma in 1879." [Source: Ben Macintyre, The Times, April 10, 2012]. [Source: Wade Guyitt, Myanmar Times, July 8, 2013 //\\], âIn the Imperial Gazetteer of India of 1909, the Pegu Club is prominently labelled. This massive move towards foreign trade hurt the Burmese economy initially because suddenly a large amount of their resources were being exported for Britainâs benefit, thereby taking with it the resources needed by the Burmese natives to continue living their lives as they had before colonisation. By processes familiar to Imperial historians, static Burma and dynamic British India had become provocatively incompatible. As elsewhere in Southeast Asia, World War II and the Japanese occupation were politically oppressive times. To the south was a safe shipping route for the empire; to the north, successive lines of âcooliesâ, elephants, and rifles defended against all comers. 1 March 2010. Up until 1937, Burma was a direct extremity of India, and only became its own crown colony in that year. In theory the king was in charge of all of the Hluttaw but none of his orders got put into place until the Hluttaw approved them, thus checking his power. [15] Though the country prospered, the Burmese people largely failed to reap the rewards. It gained independence between August 1961 and January 1963. Tribal divisions were compounded. [Hugh Tinker, The Union of Burma, Oxford University Press 1937, ch.XII. Wade Guyitt wrote in the Myanmar Times, âIt played host to British royalty, saw shocking racism and inspired a cocktail still served today. British rule was disrupted during the Japanese occupation of much of the country during the World War II. +, Another way in which the British controlled their new colony directly was through their implementation of a secular education system. At the same time, thousands of Indian laborers migrated to Burma (Burmese Indians) and, because of their willingness to work for less money, quickly displaced Burmese farmers. Way this countryâs going, you know. But the British initiated the Third Anglo-Burmese War, which lasted less than two weeks during November 1885. Progressive constitutional reform in the early 1920s led to a legislature with limited powers, a university and more autonomy for Burma within the administration of India. farmers were forced to borrow money from Indian moneylenders at high interest rates and were often evicted for failure to pay back the loan. ~. The colonial Government of India, which was given control of the new colony, founded secular schools, teaching in both English and Burmese, while also encouraging Christian missionaries to visit and found schools. "reign" in Hindi) ... At the inception of the Raj in 1858, Lower Burma was already a part of British India; Upper Burma was added in 1886, and the resulting union, Burma, was administered as a province until 1937, when it became a separate British colony which gained its own independence in 1948. [12], The British controlled their new province through direct rule, making many changes to the previous governmental structure. 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. Web. After the Suez canal opened in 1868, and travel was shorter and easier, more married English men and their families became more common and more British women arrived and married the single English men. The Britain-Burma Society aims to be politically neutral and has as its objective the fostering of friendship and understanding between British people and Burmese people, especially in exchange of cultural and social relations between the two countries. +. In Mandalay, the police shot into a crowd of protesters led by Buddhist monks killing 17 people. Because of its location, trade routes between China and India passed through the country, keeping Burma wealthy through trade, although self-sufficient agriculture was still the basis of the economy. He was a Buddhist monk, physician, and astrologer in Siam (Thailand) and Myanmar before the rebellion. While the Burmese economy grew, all the power and wealth remained in the hands of several British firms and migrants from India. [17][21] Shortly after, rebellion broke out in the Arakan led by the veteran monk U Seinda, and it began to spread to other districts. Saya San (1876 and 1931) was the leader of the anti-British rebellion in 1930-32 that bore his name. .the exploits of Alaungpaya had given the Burmese an entirely new estimation of themselves. [5], The British also implemented a secular education system. The last monarch, the cruel king Thibaw and his queen, were exiled to India: carried out of Mandalay in an oxcart. Charles' George Orwell Links â Biographies, Essays, Novels, Reviews, Images. 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. Within fifty years he and his successors had defeated and in many cases subjugated most of the adjacent peoples, creating in the process an expanded nation-state with frontiers resembling those of modern Burma but in the north-west more extensive. They were administered separately by the British, and were united with Burma proper to form Myanmar's geographic composition today. +. The region under British control was known as British Burma. The British Raj extended over all regions of present-day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. 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. (See George Orwell's novel Burmese Days for a fictional account of the British in Burma.) A rift had also developed in the AFPFL between the communists and Aung San together with the socialists over strategy, which led to Than Tun being forced to resign as general secretary in July 1946 and the expulsion of the CPB from the AFPFL the following October. [17] There were further strikes and anti-tax protests in the later 1920s led by the Wunthanu athins. The second university students strike in 1936 was triggered by the expulsion of Aung San and Ko Nu, leaders of the Rangoon University Students Union (RUSU), for refusing to reveal the name of the author who had written an article in their university magazine, making a scathing attack on one of the senior university officials. Prominent among the political activists were Buddhist monks (hpongyi), such as U Ottama and U Seinda in the Arakan who subsequently led an armed rebellion against the British and later the nationalist government after independence, and U Wisara, the first martyr of the movement to die after a protracted hunger strike in prison. Burma became an official colony on January 1, 1886. [cited in Maurice Collis:Diaries,1949-1969, Heinemann, 1977], George Webb of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs wrote: âBurma's apartness from India was paradoxically among the complex causes of the Third Burmese War. Most hill stations we built on ridge tops. It was not always so. It "was nearly the size of the palm of my hand...olive brown and covered with a soft down.â The missionaries also had to put up with dust storms, torrential monsoons and 130°F heat that lasted for weeks at a time. This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been authorized by the copyright owner. After that the British community became more self-sufficient and more insular and separated from the India community. Instead, it was Indian workers who migrated to the country once it was under British rule, and competed with the local Burmese for jobs, lowering the standard of living in the country. "An empire is primarily a money-making concern," wrote George Orwell, brilliantly skewering "the lie that we're here to uplift our poor black brothers rather than to rob them". By some estimates more than 10,000 peasants were killed during it. They were later superseded by the General Council of Burmese Associations (GCBA) which was linked with Wunthanu athin or National Associations that sprang up in villages throughout Burma Proper. Many Burmese were unhappy with the colonial status quo. 'National Schools' sprang up across the country in protest against the colonial education system, and the strike came to be commemorated as 'National Day'. 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. As Burma finally inches towards democracy, Britain's involvement in Burma's past offers a unique opportunity to help shape its future. The peasant had grown factually poorer and unemployment had increasedâ¦.The collapse of the Burmese social system led to a decay of the social conscience which, in the circumstances of poverty and unemployment caused a great increase in crime.â +, Immigrants and Infrastructure in Colonial Burma, According to Lonely Planet: The colonial era wrought great changes in Myanmarâs demographics and infrastructure. 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. When the British conquered Pegu (now Bago) in 1852, they did so, according to one rather biased report, âin what may be called dashing style, while exposed to the fierce rays of a burning sunâ. The British made southern Burma into one of the worldâs largest rice exporting regions and also exploited rubies and other products that they sold on the world market. Here was one of the casualties of the nineteenth Century, knocked over by a momentum beyond its understanding. Two famous nationalist monks, U Ottama and U Wizaya, died in a British prison and are revered to this day. This was out of a total population of only 13 million; it was equivalent to the United Kingdom today taking 2 million people a year." The invention of the steam ship really opened up travel between Britain and Asia. Harvey wrote in his chapter on Burma in the Cambridge History of the British Empire: 1858â1947 The new British Raj - sovereignty extended to a few new regions, such as Upper Burma. Furnivall, J. S. "Burma, Past and Present." This humiliation paved the way for the extreme nationalist militarism that followed. The movement became known as Htaung thoun ya byei ayeidawbon (the '1300 Revolution' named after the Burmese calendar year),[17] and 20 December, the day the first martyr Aung Kyaw fell, commemorated by students as 'Bo Aung Kyaw Day'.[19]. It should be remembered that the pre-partition British Indian Army incorporated territory now to be found in Pakistan and Bangladesh. London: Pluto, 2001. The British government justified their actions by claiming that the last independent king of Burma, Thibaw Min, was a tyrant and that he was conspiring to give France more influence in the country. He wrote: the British Empire âwas about antiquity and anachronism, tradition and honor, order and subordination; about glory and chivalry, horses and elephants, knights and peers, processions and ceremony, plumed hats and ermine robes; about chiefs and emirs, sultans and nawabs, viceroys and proconsuls; about thrones and crowns, dominion and hierarchy, ostentation and ornamentalism.â. Tenasserim and Arakan were taken in 1826 by the British after their victory in the First Anglo-Burmese War. (Asia, India, British Raj, Southeast Asia, Empire of Burma, Kongbaund Dynasty, European Colonies). The map shows plantations and villages outside the lines but does not name them. Between 1900 and 1911 the "Irish Buddhist" U Dhammaloka publicly challenged Christianity and imperial power, leading to two trials for sedition. 15. This may have been on account of anti-British popular sentiment being strong in Burma at the time. 1 March 2010. Prominent among the political activists were Buddhist monks (hpongyi), such as U Ottama and U Seinda in the Arakan who subsequently led an armed rebellion against the British and later the nationalist government after independence, and U Wisara, the first martyr of the movement to die after a protracted hunger strike in prison. The Trouser People: A Story of Burma in the Shadow of the Empire. The Republic of Burma, or simply Burma, is a country in southeast Asia. Jstor. J. George Scott, an adventurer and explorer who spent a lot of time in northern Burma studying and recording the habits of the Shan, Padang, Palaung and Wa. After three Anglo-Burma Wars (1825, 1852 and 1885) Burma was conquered and transformed into a British colony. After the opening of the Suez Canal the demand for Burmese rice grew and vast tracts of land were opened up for cultivation. Burma is sometimes referred to as the Scottish Colony, due to the heavy role played by Scotsmen in colonising and running the country â one of the most notable being Sir James George Scott, and the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company. In the process of removing the monarchy, the British destroyed the structure of traditional Burmese society. Membership was open to âall gentlemen interested in general societyâ, the clubâs rules stated, but in practice that meant whites only. Under British rule, as a colony Burma was seen very much as a backwater. During the British Raj, India experienced a slight expansion of territory that spread into Pakistan, upper Burma, and Singapore for a short period of time. Larger presidencies were broken up into "Provinces". Progressive constitutional reform in the early 1920s led to a legislature with limited powers, a university and more autonomy for Burma within the administration of India. The country was very much shaken. George Orwellâs time in Burma was essential for the development of his political consciousness, as he went from being a rebellious but naïve young man to a disaffected member of the British Imperial class. The British were victorious in this war and as a result obtained access to the teak, oil, and rubies of their newly conquered territories. [Source: Lonely Planet], Indian immigration to Burma was a nationwide phenomenon, not just restricted to Arakanâthe region of Burma that bordered India. He had time for only two stops in the city: that âbeautiful winking wonderâ the Shwedagon Pagoda, and the Pegu Club. It [Source: George Webb, Royal Society for Asian Affairs, June 16, 1983 //\\], âSuch wider motives of strategy or commerce apart, Theebaw's cruelties and follies were enough to make Burma an intolerable adjacent state for an outward looking Indian Empire rising to the zenith of its power and self-respect. Mid 19th century engraved map with original outline hand color. The very idea of the British Rajâthe British rule over Indiaâseems inexplicable today. The British Raj (âreignâ in Sanskrit) commonly refers to British rule in the Indian subcontinent, usually for the period between 1858 and 1947. British Raj was a British Crown Colony in the Indian Subcontinent. [3] This arrangement lasted until 1937, when Burma began to be administered separately by the Burma Office under the Secretary of State for India and Burma. Encyclopædia Britannica. The Frontier Areas were inhabited by ethnic minorities such as the Chin, the Shan, the Kachin and the Karenni. It spread to Mandalay leading to the formation of the All Burma Students Union (ABSU). In Upper Burma, the still unoccupied part of the country, King Mindon had tried to adjust to the thrust of imperialism. The British became the wealthy and elite class. Aung San also succeeded in concluding an agreement with ethnic minorities for a unified Burma at the Panglong Conference on 12 February, celebrated since as 'Union Day'. The civil service was largely staffed by Anglo-Burmese and Indians, and Burmese were excluded almost entirely from military service, which was staffed primarily with Indians, Anglo-Burmese, Karens and other Burmese minority groups. Our Mission. By 1945, British-led troops, mainly from the British Indian Army, had regained control over most of the colony. 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. +, Finally, in order to control the country on the village level, the British implemented a âstrategic hamletâ strategy in which they burned villages and uprooted families who had supplied villages with their headmen, sending them to lower Burma. In 1937, Burma was made a crown colony of Britain. Web. Furthermore, possession of Burma would place the Japanese at the gate of India, where they believed general insurrection against the British Raj ⦠A nationalist movement developed, and there were demonstrations, often led, in true Burmese fashion, by Buddhist monks. //\\, âBurma's tragedy, through every stage of British penetration from 1826 to 1948, was on the one hand to be self-centerd, traditionalist, conservative, desiring only to be left alone; and on the other hand to be so situated as to be exposed to external pressures which she was powerless to repulse. The following year, the province of Burma in British India was created, becoming a major province (a Lieutenant-Governorship) in 1897. 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 ⦠Fifteen thousand European and Indian soldiers died, together with an unknown number of Burmese army and civilian casualties. [Source: Wikipedia], Burma Becomes a Colony After the Third Anglo-Burmese War, Britain made Burma a province of India in 1886 with the capital at Rangoon and ushered in a new period of economic growth. [13], The traditional Burmese economy was one of redistribution with the prices of the most important commodities set by the state. â. The province of Burma, after 1885 was administered as follows: The "Frontier Areas", also known as the "Excluded Areas" or the "Scheduled Areas", compose the majority of states within Burma today. In the eighteenth century it was not Burma's isolationism but her almost manic imperialism, ruthlessly asserted against her neighbours and in the end suicidally over-extended, that brought her up against the East India Company. The Burmese under the British rule felt helpless, and reacted with a "racism that combined feelings of superiority and fear." Kipling's view of Burma was acquired in the aftermath of that surrender, and must be understood in the light of preceding historical events, today largely forgotten. Though they did not actually participate in the rebellion. [20] Lord Mountbatten realised that a trial was an impossibility considering Aung San's popular appeal. Burma: The Curse of Independence. The Burmese resented both the British and the Indian migrants, and staged guerilla warfare against the British army of occupation. "Between the rising and setting of the sun," one missionary wrote, "a foreigner should not leave his house without the shelter of a carriage or palanquin or a thick umbrella. However. The delta region including Rangoon (Lower Burma) was annexed in 1852 after the Second Anglo-Burmese War. Saya San joined the extreme nationalist faction of the General Council of Burmese Associations led by U Soe Thein. They had become a conquering race and feared no one on earth.â //\\, âOn the British side, there was at first no wish to tackle Burma, a profoundly mysterious country, alleged to have a huge population, certainly able to raise great armies. It would remain an Indian province until it was granted the status of an individual British colony in 1937. All of these mechanisms of transportation were owned by the British, however, and this meant that the Burmese had to pay higher rates to transport their goods to market. +, 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. ", Traditional Myanmar society was drastically altered by the ending of the monarchy and the separation of church and state. In the intense Indian summers, the English gentry and their servants fled the cities for the hill stations in the cooler mountains. Discontent in British-Ruled Burma and the Beginning of the Nationalist Movement. The Burmese export economy was hit hard by the world depression in the 1930s. Naturally cool air proved to be the perfect remedy for world where air conditioning, insect repellant and antibiotics had not been invented. After the Third Anglo-Burmese War in 1885, Upper Burma was annexed, and the following year, the province of Burma in British India was created, becoming a major province (a lieutenant-governorship) in 1897. Further dividing the country, provinces were ruled by governors, who were appointed by the Hluttaw, and villages were ruled by hereditary headmen approved by the king. Further dividing the country, provinces were ruled by governors who were all appointed by the Hluttaw, and villages were ruled by hereditary headmen who were approved by the king. Instead, the Indian moneylenders gave the mortgage loans out, but foreclosed them quickly as the rice prices and land costs soared. In 1852, another war, instigated by a Commodore Lambert (the 'Combustible Commodore') led to another Burmese defeat and the annexation of all of lower Burma to the expanding raj. Imported Indian labor ended up with most of the jobs and whole villages became lawless dens full of the unemployed. Inside, however, the club was the pinnacle of imperialist attempts to replicate England in foreign lands. The revolt was crushed. The hill station at Taunggyi was described in 1902 as ânot merely for house-building but for racecourses, pol-grounds and public gardens.â, The atmosphere at the hill stations was both formal, strange and hedonistic. In 1858 Lower Burma was already a part of British India; Upper Burma was added in 1886, and the resulting union, Burma, was administered as a province until 1937. Few of them spoke the language, and those who did, came with preconceptions gained in Lower Burma. [Source: Myanmar Travel Information], Ben Macintyre wrote in The Times, âLike every country, Burma is a product of its history, in which Britain played a defining role, sometimes for better, mostly for worse. Journal of Southeast Asian History 10.2 (1969): 253â78. Lasting for two years, the Galon Rebellion, named after the mythical bird Garuda â enemy of the Nagas i.e. Nineteen years later, soldiers and officials in what was then called Rangoon found themselves looking for a place to escape those âfierce raysâ and have a drink. This was particularly harmful because the Buddhist monks were so dependent on the sponsorship of the monarchy. It was a myth, resembling the monomanie du Mékong from which the French suffered.