In 1942 and 1943 the
Indians of Southeast Asia had been the vanguard of the freedom struggle, but
these epic days soon passed into legend. INA veterans still paraded in their tattered
uniforms and clung to the memory of Subhas Chandra Bose. Around this time
stories first appeared in the Malayan press - rumours
which would never be dispelled entirely - that he was alive and somewhere in
Tibet. The British witch-hunts against the INA cast a long shadow. Many of its
civilian leaders left Southeast Asia to become ambassadors for the new Indian
republic, and as pre-war figureheads resurfaced, many reaffirmed their loyalty
to the British Empire. (Rajeswary Ampalavanar,
The Indian minority and political change in Malaya, 1945-1955 (Kuala Lumpur,
1981), pp. 18-19).
In August 1946, on
Nehru's advice, a former minister of Bose's provisional government, John Thivy, who had recently been released from a British jail,
founded a Malayan Indian Congress. In its early days the new party remained
firmly anchored to the subcontinent. 'Indians in East Asia', Thivy argued, 'are the Ambassadors of India.' He promoted
Hindi, although the language had virtually no native speakers among Indians in
Malaya, and opposed the proposals for a Malayan Union citizenship in order to
safeguard dual-citizenship rights for Malaya 's Indians. But as they watched
the death throes of the Raj, Indian leaders in Singapore and Malaya realized
they could no longer trust New Delhi. In early 1947 Thivy
took further advice from Congress in India and conceded that Indians should
seek their Swaraj in Malaya and adopt local citizenship. He allied the Malayan
Indian Congress with the Malayan Democratic Union and other parties of the
left. But Indians remained ambivalent about Malayan politics. Thivy himself stepped down as party leader in July to take
up a diplomatic appointment as agent of the government of India, and the party
continued to attend Congress meetings in India until 1950. The labouring masses were disenchanted with an elite who
claimed to speak for them, yet ignored their immediate concerns. It was an
article of faith of the Penang shop and municipal workers that they would trust
no man who wore trousers or spoke English. (Michael Stenson, Class, race and
colonialism in West Malaysia: the Indian case, Queensland, 1980, pp. 141-51).
Also, between 1945
and 1950 a substantial number of the Eurasian communities of India and Burma,
who identified themselves with the continuation of the British presence
(including many technicians, teachers and railway workers) left Asia. They
hoped that, at the very least, India, Pakistan and Burma would continue as
dominions within the Commonwealth.
Before he left for
London Aung San had been talking of a Burma which would be 'a federation of all
the races and the frontier "races'. He spoke of local governments in
minority areas with their own financial independence and he was generally much
more conciliatory on these issues than were the languishing parties of the
right. Aung San's first steps as a virtually independent political leader were
remarkably sure, despite the massive problems the country faced. It is this, as
much as his military exploits, which has kept his reputation high after his
death. Below Aung San (center) in front of Downing street nr.10, London,
January 1947:
The Karen lobbyists
who had caused a stir in London the previous autumn were firmly of the belief that
the British government would help them to form some kind of Karen state before
it finally abandoned its responsibility for Burma. They were disappointed. Not
only had the frontier areas' administration gradually declined in political
clout after the ousting of Dorman-Smith, but the Labour
government had also decided that it would make no further special
representations on the part of the minorities. (Narrative of Arthur George
Bottomley, in Tinker, Burma, vol. II, pp. 841-8).
Aung San met him
before the conference and made it clear once again how heavily the long shadow
of India lay upon these events. Burmese politicians were concerned that, now
that a partition of India was a virtual certainty, the British would try
something similar in Burma. Bottomley tried to persuade them that the situation
on the subcontinent was quite different. The British, he said, did not want
partition. It was being forced on them by the intransigence of the Muslim
League and the Congress. (McEnery, Epilogue in Burma, pp. 98-9).
Rance
moved from town to town, trying to calm the situation. He had spoken at the
largely Burmese Orient Club in December 1946, claiming that the country was
returning to normal. In February he made an upbeat speech at the Rangoon
Chamber of Commerce. The January agreement, he said, 'brings to an end the
struggle of the Burmese people in their passionate and natural desire for
freedom'. He made an appearance at the convention of the Burmese Union of Stage
and Screen and the Burmese arts and crafts exhibition, where he praised the
emerging local film companies and the revival of handicrafts such as lacquer
ware and basket weaving. He gave Burmese national feeling another fillip when
he attended a ceremony marking the affiliation of the Burmese Olympic Committee
to the international body on 8 July. Yet, under the surface, deadly hatreds
were feeding on the corruption that had spread with the military administration
and the return of the old politicians. Guns were everywhere and a lot of them
were flot in British hands. British troops continued
to return home. So did the Indians. (McEnery, Epilogue in Burma, pp. 98-9).
But even among Karen
radicals the future remained unclear. For some time there had been talk of a
country called Kawthulay, a kind of Karenistan. Yet even the most geographically challenged
Karen enthusiast must have been aware that this entity, if it had ever existed,
would have made the future Pakistan look a positively rational political unit.
The delta Karen were scattered widely and were in a majority in only one
district. Others lived some distance to the south in Tenasserim. Their distant
cousins in the hilly Karenni states to the east were
few in number and had had relatively little contact with the modern world. In
February Aung San and British officials convened the promised upon these
events. Burmese politicians were concerned that, now that a partition of India
was a virtual certainty, the British would try something similar in Burma.
Bottomley tried to persuade them that the situation on the subcontinent was
quite different. The British, he said, did not want partition. It was being
forced on them by the intransigence of the Muslim League and the Congress.
For instance, could
the Kachin tribes who had always been in Burma proper, now called ministerial
Burma, have the same rights as the Shan and the Chin or the Kokang Chinese way
up on the northern border? When did local autonomy become virtual independence?
How far could a future Burmese government in Rangoon accept this sort of autonomy
when ominous clashes were already occurring beyond those borders, where Chinese
nationalists and communists, Indian Hindus and Muslims, Vietnamese communists
and the French were beginning to square up to each other? Superficially, a
degree of agreement was reached. This was an easier matter on the northern and
eastern frontiers. The Chin, Kachin and Shan wanted 'roads and schools', as one
delegate said baldly. They had at least a little hope of obtaining funds for
development if they stayed in some kind of united Burma after the British left.
Besides, the frontier rulers were keeping a wary eye on the Chinese armies
whose leaders claimed that these territories were part of their patrimony. The
problem was more complex in the case of the Karens
living deep in Burma, who feared for their autonomy, religion and way of life
once the British had left. Whereas the representatives of the frontier areas
cautiously agreed to join a new Union of Burma, the Karen majority remained
unconvinced. The newly formed Karen National Union boycotted the elections to
the new assembly. A delegation of its leaders waited on Rance
on 25 February to tell him of the 'restiveness' of their people, arguing that
the AFPFL had not offered enough. Their talk of autonomy was too vague. Aung
San carefully avoided exacerbating the situation. He did not denounce the Karen
National Union for its boycott, merely regretted it. During the months after
the Panglong meeting, he did his best to show that minority interests would be
constitutionally safeguarded in an independent Burma and that the Karens in particular would have virtual autonomy within a
unified country. (Aung San to the frontier peoples, Times of Burma, 15 June
1947).
Although he had been
doubtful about its wisdom, he agreed to the constitution of a Frontier Areas
Commission of Enquiry, which was joined by Arthur Bottomley and J. L. Leyden,
one of the less partisan of the frontier officers. The commission made
recommendations about the number of seats to be reserved for these tracts in
the new assembly. (New Times of Burma, 5 June 1947).
When the report was
published Thakin Nu, who had long been suspicious of
its operations, signalled his approval, conceding, in
his homespun way, that 'the proof of the pudding was in the eating'. Another
sign of Aung San's good faith on this matter was the AFPFL's statement in May
that Buddhism would not become the official faith of the new Burma. Aung San
even made some disparaging remarks about political monks to keep the air sweet.
This was a risky strategy as some senior figures, notably Nu, felt that the
president of the new republic should automatically be a Buddhist. Certainly the
priesthood had expected that Buddhism would be made the state religion. Rance reported to the Burma Office that he was worried by a
possible Buddhist backlash.But he conceded that Aung
San was 'doing everything possible to improve relations between the Burmese and
people of the frontier areas, particularly the Karens'.
Before independence, at least, the gulf between minority leaders and the AFPFL
had not become unbridgeable. (McEnery, Epilogue in Burma, pp. 98-9).
Many Burmese however
were convinced that British interests were playing dirty tricks among the Shan
and Kachin by trying to undermine the accord which Aung San had brokered
between the minorities and the future Union of Burma. While this was not
official policy, the evidence suggests that some British personnel were
continuing to meddle in the politics of the minorities. Meanwhile, in Arakan a communist separatist movement, led by U Seinda, was spreading vigorously. (New Times of Burma, 14
June 1947). A further cause for concern on Burma 's borders was the continuing
influx of 'unauthorized' persons into the country. These were former Indian
residents who had fled in 1942 or after and were now returning to claim their
property. In June the interim Burmese government rushed through an emergency
immigration bill to stop the influx, claiming that it was only a temporary
measure while Burma was rebuilding its shattered infrastructure. Opinion in
India was not impressed and a government spokesman said that the act would fall
hard on the 300,000 refugees from Burma still resident in India. Nehru had
always accepted that the Burmese did not want the return of powerful Indian
capitalists to their country, but ordinary refugees were a different matter. A
rather tetchy relationship developed between the two countries as India edged
towards independence and partition. Gandhi sent a message promising friendship
with Burma and reminding the Burmese that the Buddha was an Indian. (New Times
of Burma, 11 June 1947).
The monsoon of I947
had been particularly heavy in Rangoon. On a wet morning when Rance was working in Government House, an ADC burst in to
say that there had been an armed attack. Within a few minutes it was confirmed
that Aung San and five members of the council had been killed. Later Kyaw
Nyein, the veteran independence fighter who had joined the delegation to London
in January, when he was interviewed by the historian Robert Taylor in the
1970s, said that Attlee, had personally known about and approved of the plot
against Aung San. It was an act of personal vengeance, Kyaw Nyein insisted. At
the conference in London, Aung San had given Attlee his word that, in return
for an immediate commitment to independence, Aung San would keep Burma in the
Commonwealth. Aung San had broken his word and had thus called into question
Attlee's 'personal role in history'. He had to die. But, he added, the
nationalists had decided not to reveal their evidence because they feared it
would delay independence. Kyaw Nyein, home member and strong socialist, said
that European business firms had been secretly financing Saw in the hope of
promoting a non-socialist government that would leave their interests
unaffected. Some credence was given to this because Mr
Bingley of the British Council had apparently been in conversation with Saw
about his attitude towards British firms. Whatever the truth, Rance understood that he had to move quickly to fill the
gap left by Aung San. Luckily, one plausible candidate, Thakin
Nu, had not been in the council chamber. The governor persuaded Nu to take on
the job and he was rapidly sworn in as acting prime minister. Nu was about the
only person acceptable to both the British and most of the nationalist parties.
As a kind of Buddhist socialist he seemed moderate to the British compared with
most AFPFL leaders and the communists. Yet the latter knew that his instinct
was for fairly radical land reform and the nationalization of 'vested
interests'. Nu gathered what remained of the nationalist leadership around him.
He also recruited a young journalist and nationalist, U Thant, to act as his
press adviser and personal confidant. More practical than Nu, Thant became a
power behind the scenes in AFPFL politics over the next few years. Later he
became a diplomat and ended his career as UN secretary general. (June Bingham,
U Thant of Burma: the search for peace, London, 1966, pp. 164--6).
By mid August the vacuum left by the assassinations had been
partially filled. The immediate attempt to bring the communists into government
had failed. What was thought to be an auspicious day was chosen and the
governor was called away from the golf course to swear in Nu and his colleagues.
Rance could not find the oath of office, but luckily
Tin Tut, a member of the new cabinet, had memorized it. Giving up on the
communists, Nu spent much of the next two months trying to assuage the Karens and other minority groups and to disarm the restive
PVO bands. The task seemed all the more urgent as every day brought news of
fresh massacres across northern India, where Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims were
engaged in tit-for-tat killing. There was unfinished business to do with the
British, too. The agreement at the start of the year between Aung San and
Attlee had not tied up the loose ends of independence, especially on the
financial side. The details were important especially because the communists
were continuing to make political capital out of what they described as the
'rightist' AFPFL's compromise with the 'imperialists'. In September, therefore,
Lord Listowel, secretary of state for Burma, visited
Rangoon, while in October prime minister designate Nu flew to London for a
final set of talks. Listowel's job was basically one
of public relations. He took tea with Aung San's widow, Daw
Khin Kyi, and her son and two-year-old daughter, Aung San Suu Kyi, and presented his condolences.
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