Andrew Howard

The Indian Impact on British Burma and Burmese Nationalism

Despite being the last province added to the British Indian Empire, Burma went through profound transformation between the final annexation in 1886 and independence in 1948. Playing major roles in this transformation were the unrestricted immigration of Indian labor into Burma’s cities and the capital Indian moneylenders provided for the cultivation of the Irrawaddy Delta, both of which has sparked controversy in historical scholarship. As a result of this Indian influence and British policy reflecting a racially hierarchical view of their Indian empire, anti-Indian sentiment became a major component of Burmese nationalism in its quest for separation from India, which was finally granted in 1937. This essay will examine scholarly debates over how the use of Indian sepoys to employ force, racial distinctions in the consumption of opium, unrestricted immigration of Indian laborers, Indian finance and moneylending, Indian service and medicine, and British policy affected Burmese society and nationalism.

        Many fans of George Orwell may recall the character in his 1934 novel, Burmese Days, the Indian Dr. Veraswami, who runs afoul of the wrath of Burmese magistrate U Po Kyin.^[1] Although U Po Kyin slanders Veraswami with accusations of seditious, anti-British opinions so as to ensure U Po Kyin’s acceptance into the local European gentleman’s club, it is clear that an Indian in Burma held a higher status in the eyes of the British than the Burmese did themselves—indeed, the military policemen utilized by the British to enforce their rule are Indians, a point that will be returned to later in this essay.^[2] U Po Kyin employs common Burmese stereotypes of Indians in his smear campaign against Veraswami, accusing him of quackery (dispensing “coloured water” to patients), corruption, sexual predation, performing illegal operations or while drunk, murder by poison or magic, wearing shoes in pagodas, and homosexuality.^[3] To understand this conflict between Indian and Burman under British rule, one must begin with the annexations of Burma into India during the nineteenth century. The role Indians played in the end of the Burmese monarchy and the beginning of their colonial rule was never forgotten by the Burmese, earning “the eternal contempt of the Burmans.”^[4] 

The beginning of colonial Burma is termed by Furnivall, utilizing the mythology of Thomas Hobbes, as the “fashioning of Leviathan,” that is, the rule of law in Burma and its assimilation into the British Indian empire.^[5] The way in which the British reformed the Burma was very much in the way the company viewed India.^[6] However, in Burma “it was subordinate officials who performed this state, and they did ambivalently, as the numerous files on misconduct attest.”^[7] This subordination of authority would make colonial rule nearly “invisible” to the majority of the Burmese, whereas in their stead Burmese, Indian, or ethnic minority officials were the face of colonial rule,^[8] a reality that played an important role in Burmese nationalism being first and foremost associated with separation from India.

In 1852 the company invaded again, annexing Lower Burma.^[9] With the Burmese kingdom landlocked, the final annexation of Upper Burma finally came in 1886, and King Thibaw was exiled to India, while the British and their Indian sepoys ransacked the royal palace at Mandalay.^[10] Indians, for their role in the extinction of the Burmese monarchy and the economic and social status they attained in British Burma afterwards, became known as “instruments of foreign domination” rather than “the torch bearers of a common civilization.”^[11] It did not help that for most Burmese exposure to British rule was an “impersonal experience,” most often visible in the form of either a local intermediary, an Indian sepoy, or “a member of a minority group who held his position of authority only ‘at the pleasure’ of the colonizer.”^[12]

        Meanwhile, the Indian immigration to Burma increased as the British expanded their hold. The Irrawaddy Delta became the most prosperous and thickly populated area in Burma, with the Chettiar caste of south Indian merchants providing the capital that turned Burma into the “rice bowl” of the British empire.^[13] Rangoon became a major port, in which Burmese increasingly found themselves the minority, and Indian laborers worked for two decades to develop the central part of the city by way of earth moving, filling in swamps, raising buildings, etc., while the funds came primarily from the sales of buildings to Indian buyers investing heavily in the land and infrastructure.^[14] Rangoon became an Indian city, with Indians owning lands, buildings, and shopping centers, and Rangoon’s trade and commerce being run by Indians. “All this became the object of envy.”^[15] Central Rangoon was in essence an “Indian city,” which “made the maximum impact upon the leaders of Burmese nationalism.”^[16] Rangoon “presented an exaggerated picture of the Indian presence in Burma,” which would be used as evidence in support of the nationalist cause for self-government and separation from India.^[17]

        To understand fully the Indian impact on Burmese nationalism, however, it is important first to examine the nature of Indian immigration itself. There were three main sectors of Indian immigrants: capitalists, merchants, and bankers; the smaller intellectual class, which particularly affected Burmese anti-Indian anxieties of Indian doctors^[18]; and laborers.^[19] There has been an orthodox versus revisionist debate among scholars regarding the nature of the laborers’ migration from India into Burma, with the orthodox, “neo-Marxist,” or “anti-colonial” scholars arguing that workers “were mislead and misinformed by recruiters” as to the nature of the work, in many cases were made captives and transported against their will and drawn into debt bondage—this was regarded as “a new form of slavery.”^[20] Revisionist scholars emphasize “push and pull factors,” arguing that “migration was made economically beneficial,” and that familial and communal networks allowed for familiarization with work conditions ahead of time.^[21] 

As with many things in history (and life more generally), the truth is in between the extremes; the story of the Indian migrant is much more complex.^[22] The free or unfree nature of work may have depended on the migrant’s caste, and migration did sometimes mean more opportunity and equality than near starvation in rural India.^[23] Revisionists on the other hand gloss over the immense suffering, especially those of the earlier generations, and also fail to note the changes in recruiting strategies that helped keep migrant labor coming,^[24] as the death toll of Indian laborers in the cities were exorbitant.^[25] Indeed, “no unilinear pattern of transition from unfree to free labor can be discerned in the case of south Indian migrations.”^[26]

        Indian laborers could go their entire lives without having social contact with the local Burmese. Policy emphasized the differences in Indians and Burmese rather than assimilation, notably in education, which “permitted the establishment of separate schools for different communities, provisions of separate Government aid, and separate inspectorate.”^[27] In 1882, Indians received separate privileges, rights, and representation. These were demanded by Indians and minorities, so “the Government should not be wholly blamed for supporting them,” but they not only perpetuated differences but kept them aloof of Burmans.^[28] 

Scholars have criticized the British government for their lack of appropriate regulation of immigration into Burma, citing their responsibility for tensions between Burmans and Indians.^[29] The former regarded the latter’s immigration “as something approaching an invading force,” and “it would be no accident that some of the earliest episodes of Burman nationalism would erupt as a challenge to the Indian presence.”^[30] Burmese nationalism before 1937 was defined less by subjugation to British rule but more by economic factors involving Indian laborers and moneylenders and the demand to be independent from India.^[31]

        Burmese grew immensely resentful of Indian laborers and created social devices to additionally distinguish themselves, calling them Kala (which is perhaps from the Sanskrit words kula, “caste man,” and kala, “black man,” or the Burmese ka la, “coming from overseas.”)^[32] Marriages between Indian males and Burmese females were “intensely hated by Burmans” and the offspring of such marriages were called Zerbadis (from Persian words Zar “gold” and Baft “brocade”—“people wearing brocade containing golden thread.”^[33] Songs were even sung to dissuade Burmese women from marrying foreigners.^[34]

        British policy regarding opium furthered ethnic divide. British policy showed an ambivalence to the opium trade except when it involved trade to the ethnic Burmese.^[35] The Chief Commissioner of Burma wrote in 1881 that the Chinese and Indians in Burma could productively consume opium whereas the Burmese were harmed, the distinction of which was reflected in opium legislation 10 years later.^[36] The British justified their racially specific prohibition of opium by popularizing this theory of different effects of opium on different people, reflecting Social Darwinist, pseudo-scientific, racist world views that explained why the Chinese and Indians were strong enough to resist addiction and poor decision making whereas the Burmese were not.^[37] This association of non-Burmese communities’ use of opium with increased productivity contrasted with Burmese association with crime and unemployment also justified and explained imperial rule as a civilizing mission and facilitated labor extraction, recognizing the connection between drug regulation and imperial power.^[38]

        This connection was not lost on the Burmese, however, who recognized that “British policy makers designed their opium policy to ensure the continuance and stability of British rule in Burma.”^[39] Abstaining from opium use was considered an indicator of one’s commitment to the nationalist cause, and as such Burmese nationalists strongly opposed the opium industry.^[40] These “racially inflected discourses” involving opium also played a factor in the xenophobic element of Burmese nationalism, as “nationalists viewed the opium industry as intrinsically foreign” and “part of a foreign assault on the bodies of Burmese consumers.”^[41] Furthering the racial divide was the government’s decision to legalize cannabis in the late 1930s, in large part due to the use by Indian consumers.^[42]

        But of all the Indian influences and British policies that contributed most to Burmese nationalism and its xenophobic character, Chettiar moneylending and the foreclosure of lands during the Great Depression was the tipping point of anti-Indian fervor among the Burmese. The Chettiars had long played a vital role in the economic development of the country; as noted previously, the Chettiars provided the capital that turned Burma into the “rice bowl” of the British empire,^[43] and, to a degree, “the direct economic impact” of the Chettiars “was normally greater than that of the Europeans.”^[44] By the turn of the century they were “the most important factor in the agricultural credit structure of Lower Burma.”^[45]

        However, as a result of the mortgaging of land to loans from the Chettiars, rural indebtedness caused the foreclosures of land to the Chettiars, resulting in their being “vilified as predatory usurers who purpose was to seize the land of the Burmese cultivator.”^[46] In spite of this, Michael Adas concluded that traditional depictions of Chettiar moneylenders as guilty of excessive avarice fall short of the mark, even if Chettiars tended to “overlend.”^[47] Recent research by Sean Turnell and Alison Vicary discovered that they did not charge egregiously high interest rates, and despite previous assumptions Chettiars did not “set out to become landlords” for fear of reprisals, which eventually came in the form of expulsion from Burma.^[48] This scholarship has concluded that the Chettiars were less moneylenders and more-so “conventional financial intermediaries.”^[49] 

When the Great Depression struck, already declining paddy prices plummeted, causing massive land foreclosures, resulting in the disastrous and climactic “alienation of much of the cultivatable land of Lower Burma.”^[50] The Chettiars quickly became “scapegoats not just for the current economic distress, but the foreign domination of Burma’s economy.”^[51] Accusations that the Chettiars were intending to steal the land from the Burmese seem unlikely, with the problems appearing more structural. The goal of the Chettiar was to finance the land, as opposed to being its cultivators, of which it would be more difficult to administer, especially in situations when the moneylender wanted to return to Madras.^[52] Nevertheless, these massive land foreclosures of the early 1930s invoked a massive peasant uprising in addition to the burgeoning nationalist sentiment that demanded separation from British India. Despite there being little evidence for Indians financiers maliciously (or laborers inadvertently, for that matter^[53]) taking economic opportunity from Burmese, anti-Indian violence and rhetoric continued throughout the thirties and even after Burmese separation from India in 1937.

        Despite much vilification of Indians, moneylenders in particular, they were merely playing within the imperial capitalist game of which they were a part. Regrettably, Burmese nationalist consciousness did not develop without its ethnically narrow mindset. With British officials essentially handing Indians the keys and emphasizing the ethnic diversity within Burma themselves, they employed a divide and rule tactic that had tragic consequences. Burmese and Indians have no reason not to celebrate their cultural heritage without jealousy or animosity but for the mistakes during the colonial era. One is concerned by the religious persecutions of Muslims within Myanmar today, and struck by the similarities to the riots and attacks against Indian Muslims in July and August 1938,^[54] but is hopeful that historical inquiry of the development of anti-Indian sentiment might allay some of its tragic consequences that are sadly still present today.

Bibliography

        Adas, Michael. “Immigrant Asians and the Economic Impact of European Imperialism: The Role of the South Indian Chettiars in British Burma.” Journal of Asian Studies 33, no. 3 (May 1974): 385–401.

        Aung-Thwin, Michael, and Maitrii Aung-Thwin. A History of Myanmar since Ancient Times. London, UK: Reaktion Books, 2012.

        Blackburn, Terence R. The British Humiliation of Burma. Bangkok, Thailand: Orchid Press, 2000.

        Cady, John. A History of Modern Burma. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1958.

        Chakravarti, Nalini Ranjan. The Indian Minority in Burma: The Rise and Decline of an Immigrant Community. London, UK: Oxford University Press, 1971.

Edwards, Penny. “Bitter Pills: Colonialism, Medicine and Nationalism in Burma, 1870–1940.” The Journal of Burma Studies 14 (2010): 21–58.

        Furnivall, J. S. Colonial Policy and Practice: A Comparative Study of Burma and Netherlands India. New York, NY: New York University Press, 1956. First Published 1948.

        ———. “The Fashioning of Leviathan: The Beginnings of British Rule in Burma.” Canberra, Australia: Department of Anthropology, Australian National University, 1991. First Published in The Journal of the Burma Research Society 29, no. 1 (April 1939): 3–137.

        Keck, Stephen L. British Burma in the New Century, 1895–1918. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

        Mahajani, Usha. The Role of Indian Minorities in Burma and Malaya. Bombay, India: Vora & Co., 1960.

        Orwell, George. Burmese Days. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Inc., 1962. First Published 1934.

        Saha, Johnathan. Law, Disorder and the Colonial State: Corruption in Burma c. 1900. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

Satyanarayana, Adapa. “‘Birds of Passage’: Migration of South Indian Laborers to Southeast Asia.” Critical Asian Studies 34, no. 1 (2002): 89–115.

        Turnell, Sean, and Alison Vicary. “Parsing the Land?: The Chettiars in Burma.” Australian Economic History Review 48, no. 1 (March 2008): 1–25.

        Wright, Ashley. Opium and Empire in Southeast Asia: Regulating Consumption in British Burma. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. 2014.