Panel No. 19

Panel Title: Merging the unsuitable? Brittish India and Burma 1850-1948

Convenor: Tilman Frasch, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
Co-convenor: Swapna Bhattacharya, Southeast Asia Dept, Calcutta University, Kolkata, India

   Thursday 8 July, 8–12

Panel Abstract: Historians working on British-India tend to overlook that Burma was part of the Indian Empire for more than 80 years, from 1852 to 1937. This panel attempts closer looks into the unequal and sometimes difficult relationship between the two from both sides, bringing together for the first time historians specializing on either Burma or India. We would like to invite papers covering a wide range of topics such as political relations, the debates around separation in the 1930s and the relationship between the INC and the Burmese national movement, the flow and exchange of ideas in the fields of politics and religion, economic dependencies and cooperation, social contacts, migration and company histories, mutual perceptions and representations, the impact of WW II and the formation of separate identities on the frontiers of both countries. Papers referring to an earlier period may come into consideration as well, though the late 18th century would form a definite lower limit for the panel. It is intended to publish the proceedings of the panel in book form; further details including deadlines will be discussed during the conference.

         Read the convenor’s panel report after the conference

Papers accepted for presentation in the panel:

Paper Giver 1: Dr Swapna Bhattacharya (Chakraborti), Reader & Head of the Department, South & Southeast Asian Studies, Calcutta University, Kolkata, India

Paper 1 Title: A Close View of Encounter between British Burma and British Bengal (1886-1937)

Paper Abstract: This paper highlights the close contact between British Bengal and British Burma throughout the period from 1886 to1937. While the existing historical research upholds the strategic, political and economic importance of Bengal for the province of Burma, I am going to show the other side of the coin. The people of Bengal came close to Burma as they shared many common experiences in the field of religion, culture, beliefs, material life etc. Apart from that, to understand properly the spirit of this Bengal-Burma encounter during the given time period (1886-1937), one has to take note of the fact that before the rise of Islam (13th c), the regions of northern Bengal and Bihar were ruled by the Buddhist kings of the Pala Dynasty (9th-12th. c). Buddhist centres of South-Eastern Bengal under the Khadgas, Devas and Chandras (7th-13th c) stood in close interaction with the Buddhist kingdoms of Arakan and Burma. Both, the centres of Bihar, especially Bodhgaya, and those (Salvanvihar and Mainamati) in the modern districts of Comilla, and Chittagong (modern Bangladesh) maintained intensive contact with Burma, Pagan in particular. This Buddhist heritage of Bengal may be a matter of the past today. Apart from a small pocket of the Buddhists living in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh and some Buddhist Barooahs from Chittagong kiving in Calcutta, Buddhism cannot be said to be a living religion in Bengal. Nevertheless Buddhism has left its legacy (Sufism, Baul sects, Vaishnavism and other egalitarian schools) in the kind of Hinduism as well as Islam that Bengal practice today.

      Full paper to be downloaded (as a pdf-file)

Paper Giver 2: Dr Tilman Frasch, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

Paper 2 Title: Burmese Buddhists and the Land of Bodhi

Paper Abstract: The annexation of Arakan in 1783 brought the Burmese kingdom into direct contact with India, and the Burmese used this opportunity to revive their former links with the homeland of the Buddha. In a time when knowledge about Buddhism had almost become extinguished in India among Indians, let alone the western colonialists, the Burmese had little difficulty in identifying sacred sites (most notably Bodhgaya where soon repairs were to be carried out) or search for religious manuscripts. At the end of the 19th century, the newly established Mahabodhi Society provided another forum for Burmese Buddhists to become interested in Indian affairs.
In a wider context, the aim of this paper is to re-assess the role of Burmese Buddhists in the revival of Indian Buddhism before 1956. More specifically, it will focus on two aspects of the religious contacts between Burma and India, the site of Bodhgaya on the one hand and the Burmese contributions to the Mahabodhi Society on the other.

Paper Giver 3: Andrew Huxley , SOAS London, UK

Paper 3 Title: Bombay to Rangoon: The Anglo-Indian Legal Attitudes of John Jardine (1844-1919)

Paper Abstract: A recent article uses John Jardine's stay in Burma as a case study in legal Orientalism'. In this paper I shall use it as a case study in the effect of Anglo-Indian legal attitudes on Burma. Jardine's time in Burma was brief: though he held the post of Judicial Commissioner from 1878 to 1884, he was on furlough in London for two of those years. For the fourteen years up to 1878, Jardine had worked his way up the Bombay civil service, specialising in the Judicial side. By the time he went to Burma, he embodied Anglo-Indian legal attitudes: he mixed Jeremy Bentham's utilitarian principles of government, with Henry Maine's propensity to over-generalisation in legal history and Mountstuart Elphinstone's attitudes to custom. It is sometimes assumed that Anglo-Indian attitudes to law and state were the same as English attitudes. In fact there was a deep hostility between, on the one hand, Jardine and his fellow bureaucrat-judges (the Anglo-Indians) and, on the other hand, those Inns of Court-trained lawyers who joined the I.C.S. as judges, having practised as barristers at the Bombay bar (the English).
In September 1882 Jardine initiated a two-year research project that brought these attitudes to bear on Burmese legal history. His (unpaid) researcher was the Swiss Pali scholar, Emil Forchhammer, and his (unpaid) translators were S. Minus and Maung San. The project produced four publications between 1882 and 1885, the year Jardine returned to Bombay to join the bench as a High Court Judge. What happened to Jardine's Anglo-Indian attitudes when faced with the Southeast Asian reality of Lower Burma? I shall trace the fortunes of only one (but the most fundamental) of them: Jardine believed that the key to understanding Burma's dhammathat and rajathat literature was expertise in North India's dharmasastra literature, such as he possessed. Could he persuade Forchhammer to endorse this claim?
Jardine and Forchhammer's project had little influence on the actual government of British Burma, since events swiftly overtook them. Once the dust had settled from the Third Anglo-Burmese War, the British could, without loss of face, tap the expertise of the law profession in Mandalay. But Jardine and Forchhammer's project has impacted enormously on the historiography of Southeast Asia. And most of this present misunderstanding of dhammathat and rajathat derives from Jardine's exaggerations rather than from Forchhammer's carefully measured claims. Jardine's attitudes still matter, because they still becloud our understanding.

Paper Giver 4: Alexey Kirichenko, Institute of Asian and African Studies, Moscow State University, Russian Federation

Paper 4 Title: Social changes, new identities and political activism in colonial Burma and India (c. 1880-1948)

Paper Abstract: The paper offers an outline of social history of colonial Burma against the background of developments which took place in India. My objective was to investigate and compare the social consequences of British rule for Burma and India, thus ascertaining to what extent the colonial experience was shared or divergent. To put it in other words, I’ve tried to evaluate if the merging of Burma into British India contributed to convergence of its social systems with Indian ones or vice versa.
It’s quite obvious that India and Burma shared the same institutional and socioeconomic environment, were open to the play of basically the same forces, yet their colonial experience was rather unlike. While India witnessed the emergence of indigenous middle class and development (or adoption) of new concepts and approaches to reality which had important social implications, this was not exactly the case with Burma. Though such concepts and terms as democracy, socialism, communism, state, nation building, development, etc. became widely used, this usage was hardly meaningful. Politics didn’t evolve into (at least partially) rational affair and values appealed to therein never became political in nature. Despite the pronounced influence of Gandhi ideas and INC strategies on Burmese national movement and well-known contacts between Indian businessmen and Burmese politicians, the general discourse of political activism in Burma was built on traditional concepts, now rethought reinterpreted, thus making newly adopted Indian and Western notions extensively used but irrelevant. The most striking mismatch between Burma and India lies in the fact that while both the discourse of Indian opinion leaders and realities of Indian politics gradually exhibited more secular and modernistic trends, Burmese politics were increasingly dominated with matters of religious nature. At the same time the identities developed through the colonial time were also quite different – while in India they contributed to incorporation of diverse people inhabiting the country, in Burma they encouraged ethnic and social differentiation.
To understand these phenomena, the paper summarizes demographic and social changes in Burma and India. Having identified the main social actors of the period, it reviews their position in the new setting as well as their perception of colonial reality and vision of desired/possible future. Next I compare the ideas and approaches of men who articulated these visions in Burma with messages conveyed by INC leaders. This section of the paper is based on writings by P. Monin, U Ottama, U Neyya, Thakhin Kodaw Hmaing, Thakhin Soe, Thakhin Than Tun, U Ba Khaing, Aung San, etc. The paper also studies the dynamics of political activism and religious situation in Burma and India, together with their implications for subsequent developments in these countries.

      Full paper to be downloaded (as a pdf-file)

Paper Giver 5: Dr Jacques Leider, EFEO Yangon, Myanmar/Burma

Paper 5 Title: Specialists for ritual, magic and devotion: the Court Brahmins of the kings of Arakan and Burma

Paper Abstract: The presence of Brahmins at the courts of the Theravada Buddhist kings of Southeast Asia is a well-known fact. It is generally acknowledged that they played an essential part in the ritual of king making (ablution ceremonies, abhiseka) and that they acted as court astrologers. Their functions were thus related to the transmission and the practice of a special knowledge basically imported from India. In a way, the court Brahmins represent a living heritage of India and the continuity of their presence can be seen as a secular link with India. But though they always formed a distinctive social group in a host society, they became integrated in a way that estranged them from their roots.
This paper is an attempt to deal with a subject that has raised little scholarly attention. It is largely based on evidence from the early Konbaung period when new badges of Brahmins were imported from Arakan, Manipur and North India. A first part will shortly deal with some general aspects (sources on the Brahmins, the term ‘punna’, Brahmins vs. Brahmanism) and methodological issues. A second part will deal with the functions and the complex organisation of the Brahmins under the reign of King Badon (aka Bodawphaya 1782-1819). Questions of the status of the Brahmins and the role that Brahmins played in King Badon’s religious and foreign policy –involving India and the English) will be discussed in a third part.

Paper Giver 6: Shobna Nijhawan, University of California, Berkeley, USA

Paper 6 Title: "We and They": A Hindi feminist ethnography on Burmese women

Paper Abstract: In 1918, the female political activist Rameshwari Nehru visited Burma to hold a series of lectures on social reforms and women's education in front of Burmese social reformist and women's organizations. As the founder of the Prayag Mahila Samiti (Women's Assembly, Allahabad) and editor of the women's journal Stri Darpan (Women's Mirror) from 1909 to 1924, Rameshwari Nehru was a popular figure in the Hindi public sphere of the early twentieth century. She scrutinized mainstream male-dominated nationalist politics and added a feminist perspective to the political discourse.
In 1920, after several visits to Burma, Rameshwari Nehru published an ethnography on Burmese women. Written in Hindi and addressed at the readers of Stri Darpan, the ethnography provides detailed insights of Burmese society with an emphasis on the customs and rituals of Burmese women. Nehru was fascinated of Burmese culture. She showed deep respect for the dharmik practices of Burmese society and deplored how Indian traditions were corrupted and parochial. She extolled Burmese women's independence and equality in society and critiqued that the majority of Indian women were kept in a state of ignorance. In the name of religion, she held, Indian women were oppressed and exploited by men. In regard to higher education and intellect, however, Nehru emphasized the pioneering role of Indian (elite) women who were frequenting the public sphere and who could provide Burmese women the necessary tools to do the same in the Burmese political sphere. Nehru's mission was to set up women's organizations in cooperation with Burmese women. Her goal was to 'awaken' Burmese society in order that they would fight colonial rule. Within this context, the emancipation of women was conceptualized as a precondition to political independence.
The paper presents a close reading of Rameshwari Nehru's ethnography on Burmese women. I argue that even though Nehru tends to set Indian women against a Burmese other, the primary motivation for her engagement in Burma was a feminist-nationalist one. Her aim was to build social reformist, educational and women's organizations that would amount to organizations fighting colonial rule. Indians and Burmese would jointly demand political independence. In this discourse it was women's responsibility to articulate particular feminist demands on behalf of a larger imagined community of women. The women's struggle was one that fought oppressive patriarchal customs and illiteracy and that demanded women's political emancipation and liberation.

Paper Giver 7: Dr Jörg Schendel, Humboldt University Berlin, Germany

Paper 7 Title: Economic relations between Burma and India in the Nineteenth Century

Paper Abstract: In the study of international economic relations since the nineteenth century, the focus has very often been on the position of the industrialized core of the “world-economy” with Asia and other peripheral areas. Less attention has been paid to intra-regional relationships of exchange and their consequences for economic development. The paper will seek to highlight the division of labor between India and Burma as it emerged in the course of the nineteenth century and to create a clearer picture of the role both countries played for each other’s development. The focus will be on the trajectories of bilateral trade, which will be linked to data on the domestic economic development.

Paper Giver 8: Md. Mohiyuddin Md. Sulaiman, International Islamic University Malaysia, Selangor

Paper 8 Title: Burmese Muslims’ perception of Indianic Identity of Islam

Paper Abstract: Muslims are minority in Burma and constitute approximately 15 to 20 percent of total fifty million inhabitants of Burma (or today Myanmar). They are again divided into few sub-groups transforming into minority of minorities. Basically there are three Muslims major groups such as Rohingyas, Burmese (native) Muslims and the Indian (migrant) Muslims.
Burmese Muslims postulate that they are in no difference with their Buddhist counterparts except religion while Indian Muslims authentically follow Islamic teachings and traditions as those who dwell in India. Burmese Muslims feel that Indians make a Muslim’s life difficult by imposing unjustifiable rules and regulations, some of which according to them, even against Islamic principles. Indian Muslims women cover from head to toe while Burmese Muslim women don’t and Polygamy is rampant among Indians while Burmese Muslims abhor although the state is not against it. Indian Muslims in turn see Burmese Muslims as second-class brothers (in religious) for they (Burmese Muslim) generally incline to accept Burmese Buddhist traditions such as fortune telling, belief of spirit and many others.
This misconceptions and difference became not only wider but also deeper soon after Buddhist-Muslim riots swept through Burma in 1930s and 1940s. Buddhists generally assume that all Muslims are the same and all Muslims’ shops were looted, homes were burned and villages were destroyed. Burmese Muslims blamed Indian Muslims claiming that they were victimized by Buddhists just because they happened to be of the same faith of those of Indians.
Today, Rohingyas’s struggle of the Western Arakan state to be independent state is not supported by both Indians and Burmese Muslims while Burmese Muslims assume Indian Muslims are the sympathizers of Pakistan and Rohingyas are fighting for a homeland for themselves and not for Islam. For Indians, Burmese Muslims are with Muslim body and Buddhist soul.
In this paper, general perceptions of Muslims among themselves are discussed along with the difficulties they faced and the ways they endeavored to overcome them. Buddhists’ views on Muslims of the same land are also looked into.

Paper Giver 9: Dr Sean Turnell, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

Paper 9 Title: Cooperative Credit in British India and Burma

Paper Abstract: Cooperative credit was the British Empire's all-purpose answer to problems of rural poverty and indebtedness, usury, and land alienation. Originating in the idealism of the 'Rochedale Pioneers' and in schemes from rural Germany, cooperative credit was imported into India with an evangelical zeal to solve all manner of perceived economic and social ills. With only slightly less moral fervour it was transplanted from India into Burma in the first decade of the Twentieth Century, and by 1920 several thousand cooperative credit societies had mushroomed across the country.
The purpose of this paper is to trace the development of cooperative credit in Burma from these promising beginnings, until the near collapse of the movement on the eve of the Great Depression. The paper explores the way in which cooperative credit was seen by the imperial authorities as a device to limit the role of Indian moneylenders in Burma, and as the basis for the establishment of formal rural credit markets. The paper concludes that poor implementation, on top of official myopia as to the cultural, historical and economic differences between India and Burma, brought about the demise of a movement that promised much.

      Full paper to be downloaded (as a pdf-file)

Panel report:

The proceedings of the panel were somewhat hampered by the fact that it had been switched to an earlier day than originally announced, so not all participants could be informed in time to change their travel schedules. Nevertheless six out of the eight papers originally envisaged were presented on the conference.
Swapna Bhattacharya (Calcutta University) opened the series of presentations with a broad outline of the relations between Bengal and Burma. Taking up the question in the heading of the panel, she rejected that the two countries were unsuitable to each other, pointing at the manifold contacts the existed during the colonial period. Alexey Kirichenko (Moscow State University) had fresh look at Burmese society and politics in relation to developments taking place in India. The term ‘socialism’, he argued for instance, became part of the political discourse not through direct contacts with Russia or the Comintern, but only after Nehru had made reference to it in his speech on the 1936 Congress meeting.
A closer look on the situation of agriculture and rural credit systems in Burma and their transfer from Great Britain and Germany to Burma via India was taken by Sean Turnell (Macquarie University). Jacques Leider (Ecole Francaise d’Extreme-Orient Yangon) investigated the history of Indian Brahmins and their role at the Konbaung court, where they were indispensable in the consecration ceremonies and astrology. Though some of them traced their ancestry in Burma back the 15th century (and beyond), new batches were invited from North India, Manipur and Arakan in the late 18th century.
A completely different topic was taken up by Shobna Nijhawan (Berkeley) who showed how Burmese women were represented in a Hindi-language journal for women as reformist counter-model for Indian women. The final paper dealt with the role of Burmese Buddhists in the rediscovery of Buddhism in India. Tilman Frasch (Asia Research Institute Singapore) argued that notably the rediscovery of the site of Buddha’s enlightenment at Bodhgaya was due to at least two Burmese missions visiting the site in the late 18th/early 19th century, long before the first European “discoverers” heard of it.
All papers were followed by a lively discussion, and it is planned to publish them as a book.