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‘Buddhism Has Been Insulted. Take Immediate Steps’: Burmese fascism and the origins of Burmese Islamophobia, 1936–38

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2020

MATTHEW J. BOWSER Open the ORCID record for MATTHEW J. BOWSER [Opens in a new window]
MATTHEW J. BOWSER*
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Northeastern University Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

In light of the current Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, this article investigates the emergence of Islamophobia in colonial Burma. Focusing on the under-examined Islamophobic riots that broke out countrywide in 1938, my research reveals that a nascent fascist movement used Muslims as a scapegoat for political and economic crisis. The colonial agribusiness economy had collapsed during the Great Depression, while the vast contract labour system of the Indian Ocean had brought millions of low-wage Indian migrants to Burma, causing a glut in the labour market. Burmese socialism provided a popular response to these issues. To compete, Burmese fascism emerged to appeal to a rising sense of nationalism, racially scapegoating Indians and the religion of Islam as the exploiters, colonizers, and invaders behind Burma's problems. Using the racialized term kala to conflate the ideas of colonizer, Indian, and Muslim, Burmese fascists inflamed hatred against Indian Muslims, Indian Hindus, and even indigenous Muslims, such as the Rohingya. By revealing the origins of this racialization, this article both deconstructs the lasting Burmese perception of the Rohingya as ‘Bengali immigrants’ and provides a generalizable case study into how races and racisms develop from specific historical factors and political movements. It also argues that the British amplified fascist ideas in Burma by focusing repression on movements that directly challenged their material control, such as socialism and communism. Therefore, it highlights how ruling classes often prefer nationalistic movements because they redirect popular unrest from the project of overthrowing structural factors to that of eliminating scapegoated minorities.

Type
Research Article
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Modern Asian Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 4 , July 2021 , pp. 1112 - 1150
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Copyright © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 U Paduma, ‘Bama Thway’, New Light of Burma [Burmese], 25 July 1938. All translations from Burmese/Myanmar in this article are done by the author.

2 Thuriya [Burmese], 23–26 July 1938.

3 Thuriya [Burmese], 19 July 1938; New Light of Burma [Burmese], 19 July 1938.

4 Government of Burma, Final Report of the Riot Inquiry (Braund) Committee (Rangoon: Superintendent, Government Printing and Stationery, 1939), 12–42. IOR/V/26/262/16.

5 I contrast ‘ultranationalism’ with ‘nationalism’ through ultranationalism's focus on the exclusion of ‘foreign’ communities. Robert H. Taylor made a case against calling U Saw's movement fascist. According to Taylor, Liberal Western historians had labelled U Saw as fascist because they did not understand the need for aggressive tactics in the independence struggle. While I agree in that regard, Taylor almost entirely ignores the atrocities and racial scapegoating that characterized U Saw's movement. See Taylor, Robert H., ‘Politics in Late Colonial Burma: The Case of U Saw’, Modern Asian Studies 10(2) (1976): 161–193CrossRefGoogle Scholar; classification of fascist ideology based on definitions provided by Finchelstein, Federico, From Fascism to Populism in History (Oakland: University of California Press, 2017), 19–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Paxton, Robert, The Anatomy of Fascism (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 1–27Google Scholar; Sternhell, Zeev, Sznajder, Mario, and Asheri, Maia, The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 3–31Google Scholar.

6 I define ‘Islamophobia’ as the modern political articulation of anti-Muslim prejudice. Muslim populations were persecuted sporadically in precolonial Burma, but concerted political action and rhetoric against ‘Muslims’ as a group began in 1938. See Yegar, Moshe, The Muslims of Burma: A Study of a Minority Group (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1972)Google Scholar. Due to the recent Rohingya crisis, scholars have begun to re-examine the issue but focus almost solely on the postcolonial period: Wade, Francis, Myanmar's Enemy Within: Buddhist Violence and the Making of a Muslim ‘Other’ (London: Zed Books, 2017)Google Scholar; Ibrahim, Azeem, The Rohingyas: Inside Myanmar's Hidden Genocide (New Delhi: Speaking Tiger Publishing, 2017). For anti-Indian prejudice, see Mahajani, Usha, The Role of Indian Minorities in Burma and Malaya (Bombay: Vora, 1960)Google Scholar; Chakravarti, Nalini Ranjan, The Indian Minority in Burma: The Rise and Decline of an Immigrant Community (London: Oxford University Press, 1971)Google Scholar; Adas, Michael, The Burma Delta: Economic Development and Social Change on an Asian Rice Frontier, 1852–1941 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1974)Google Scholar.

7 Kala is roughly regarded as the Burmese equivalent of ‘South Asian descent’, but the etymologically contested nature and elusive origin of the term make it untranslatable into English or other European languages. The meaning of the term has changed over the historical periods, especially through the rise of Indophobia in the colonial period when it began to be used in a derogatory way. My assertion is that U Saw's movement reshaped the term to mark out a racial-religious Other, utilizing both Indophobia and Islamophobia to create a seemingly homogenous scapegoat. Usage remains contested today, but it has since manifested this derogatory racialized usage in the Indophobic and Islamophobic resurgence of the 1980s onward. See Egreteau, Renaud, ‘Burmese Indians in Contemporary Burma: Heritage, Influence, and Perceptions since 1988’, Asian Ethnicity 12 (2011): 33–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 See Harvey, G. E., British Rule in Burma, 1824–1942 (London: Faber and Faber, 1946), 73–92Google Scholar; Furnivall, J. S., Colonial Policy and Practice: A Comparative Study of Burma and Netherlands India (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1956), 427–428Google Scholar; Donnison, F. S. V., Burma (New York: Praeger, 1970), 109–121Google Scholar.

9 I take particular inspiration from Wright, Donald, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa: A History of Globalization in Niumi, the Gambia (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1997)Google Scholar; Streets-Salter, Heather, World War One in Southeast Asia: Colonialism and Anticolonialism in an Era of Global Conflict (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Other scholars have recently begun to identify other colonial fascist movements. See Zachariah, Benjamin, ‘A Voluntary Gleichschaltung? Indian Perspectives towards a Non-Eurocentric Understanding of Fascism’, Transcultural Studies 2 (2014): 63–100Google Scholar. On nationalism, see Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso, 1983), 5–7Google Scholar.

11 Wolfe, Patrick, Traces of History: Elementary Structures of Race (London: Verso, 2016), 9Google Scholar.

12 Marzuki Darusman et al., ‘Myanmar: Tatmadaw Leaders Must Be Investigated for Genocide, Crimes against Humanity, War Crimes—UN Report’, United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (Geneva: 27 August 2018), https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23475 (accessed 19 September 2018).

13 ‘Rohingya Crisis’, Human Rights Watch, https://www.hrw.org/tag/rohingya-crisis (accessed 13 February 2020).

14 ‘Transcript: Aung San Suu Kyi's Speech at the ICJ in Full’, Al Jazeera, 12 December 2019, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/transcript-aung-san-suu-kyi-speech-icj-full-191212085257384.html (accessed 13 February 2020).

15 Brown, Ian, Burma's Economy in the Twentieth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 1–44Google Scholar; Amrith, Sunil S., Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013), 104, 114–122Google Scholar.

16 Sinyetha was completely detached from international socialist movements. It met none of the criteria that the British considered most alarming about communism: receiving funding from the Soviet Union or communicating within the Comintern. Still, British officials extended their hatred of communism to Ba Maw and his party. For them, any instance of socialist thinking was a sign of dangerous subversion. See, for example, Louro, Michele, ‘“Where National Revolutionary Ends and Communist Begins”: The League against Imperialism and the Meerut Conspiracy Case’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 33(3) (2013): 331–345CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Maw, Ba, Breakthrough in Burma (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), 1–7Google Scholar; ‘The Hon'ble U Ba Maw, M.A., PhD, Bar-at-Law, Education Minister’, The University College Magazine 26(1) (1934–35) in U Kyaw Min, U Myint, U Thet Tun, et al., Adhipati Dokta Bha Mo (1893–1977) (Yangon: Pancagam Ca Pe, 2013), 165–166; Rangoon Gazette, 5 October 1936, 1.

18 General Election in Burma of 1936 (1942); Government of the United Kingdom, Government of Burma Act (1935), 8-17. IOR/V/8/226.

19 He indicates that these tactics were necessary in his memoirs: Ba Maw, Breakthrough in Burma, 15.

20 Government of Burma, Interim Report of the Riot Inquiry (Braund) Committee (Rangoon: Superintendent, Government Printing and Stationery, 1939), 43–44. IOR/V/26/262/15; Government of the United Kingdom, Burma Office, Notes on Thakins, Do-Bama Asi-Ayon (We Burmans Association) and Kindred Societies, 8 Apr 1938–5 Jun 1939 (1939), 3–5. IOR/M/5/9.

21 They essentially state these goals explicitly during a vote of no confidence against the Speaker near the end of the first House of Representatives session on 24 March 1937. Government of Burma, Burma Legislature, Proceedings of the First House of Representatives (BHRP), Vol. 1: February–March 1937 (1937), 750–785. IOR/V/9/4087.

22 Nemoto, Kei, ‘The Concepts of Dobama (Our Burma) and Thudo-Bama (Their Burma) in Burmese Nationalism, 1930–1948’, The Journal of Burma Studies 5 (2000): 1–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Anonymous, ‘Rangoon University Strike’ (1958), 6–7. Mss Eur D1066/2.

24 Government of the United Kingdom, Burma Office, Visit of Premier U Saw to UK: Invitation and Biographical Notes 31 Jul–21 Oct 1941; Reports of Death of U Saw and denial 8 Aug–1 Sep 1942 (1942), 21–22. IOR/M/3/1113.

25 Ibid., 28.

26 Ibid., 12.

27 Kyaw Min, The Burma We Love (Calcutta: Bharati Bhavan, 1945), 29–30; regarding the nature of Thuriya under U Ba Pe, see Government of Burma, Public and Judicial Department, Burma Legislative Council: Proceedings on Motions Concerning Separation Issue; Conclusions of Government of Burma 3 Jan 1933–7 Jun 1933 (1933), 305. IOR/M/1/46.

28 The society, also known as the Amur River Society (Kokuryūkai in Japanese), was a jingoistic, imperialist, Pan-Asianist organization dedicated to building the ‘living space’ of the Japanese empire: the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. They had established a robust international network of contacts, including Sun Yat-sen of China, Emilio Aguinaldo of the Philippines, Resh Behari Bose and Rabindranath Tagore of India, and pan-Islamist activist Abdurresid Ibrahim in the Soviet Union. Aydin, Cemil, The Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia: Visions of World Order in Pan-Islamic and Pan-Asian Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 56–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Government of the United Kingdom, Burma Office, Visit of Premier U Saw to UK, 21–22; Kyaw Min, The Burma We Love, 30–31.

30 Myochit: amyo (Race, Nation, Religion, etc.) chit (Love). I translate amyo with the nuance of ‘race’, despite its multiple meanings that do not map directly onto the Western conception of ‘race’, because, as this article shows, U Saw's political party was clearly focused on the advancement of what it considered the Myanmar ‘race’ and its attendant religious (Buddhist), national (Burma), and cultural (Burmese) associations. General Election in Burma of 1936 (1942); BHRP, Vol. 4: August–September 1938 (1938), 798. IOR/V/9/4090.

31 Finchelstein, From Fascism to Populism in History, 14–15.

32 On U Saw's use of tradition, symbols, religion, and so on, see Ba Maw, Breakthrough in Burma, 5–7; Kyaw Min, The Burma We Love, 28–36; on U Saw's alliance with Burmese landlords, see BHRP, Vol. 6: August–September 1939 (1939), 1–26, in Government of the United Kingdom, Burma Office, ‘Legislation: Burma Land Purchase Act, 1941’ (1942). IOR/M/3/995; Finchelstein, From Fascism to Populism in History, 14–18, 31–42.

33 Turner, Alicia, Saving Buddhism: The Impermanence of Religion in Colonial Burma (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2017), 1–2Google Scholar.

34 When U Saw became prime minister of Burma in September 1940, he stated as much in his statement of policy and programme before the Burmese House: ‘this Government shall consider it to be its sacred duty to play the role of the Sasana Dayaka … it is necessary to usher in a religious revival to strengthen and purify the foundations of the social order.’ BHRP, Vol. 8: August–September 1940 (1940), 1351. IOR/V/9/4098-4099.

35 U Saw's usage of ‘Galon’ was borrowed from Saya San's usage in the 1931–32 rebellion. Government of Burma, Burma Intelligence, ‘Burmese Political Activity, and Political Parties and Associations 24 Apr 1937–31 Aug 1938’ (1938), 2. IOR/M/5/48. Regarding the global fascist movement and the ‘rainbow of shirts’, see Finchelstein, From Fascism to Populism in History, 18, 36–40.

36 Ratana Sein, ‘The Way of the World’, New Burma, 5 July 1939.

37 Zachariah, ‘A Voluntary Gleichschaltung?’; Finchelstein, From Fascism to Populism in History, 55. For an example of a strict definition of fascism as a solely European phenomenon, see Sternhell et al., The Birth of Fascist Ideology.

38 The next sections will abound with examples, but the key one would probably be the article entitled ‘Town Meeting Needed to Protect Sasana’ on 23 July 1938 that transformed a relatively obscure book critiquing Buddhism by a Burmese Muslim into the raison d’être for the 1938 anti-Muslim riots. Thuriya [Burmese], 23 July 1938.

39 U Saw himself described these authoritarian practices during the Saya San Rebellion in The Burmese Situation: A Letter to the Right Hon'ble William Wedgwood Benn, M.P., Secretary of State for India from U Saw, M.L.C. for Tharrawaddy South, Burma (Rangoon: The Burma Guardian Press, 1931), 6, in Government of Burma, Public and Judicial Department, The Burma Rebellion, General File (1934). IOR/L/PJ/6/2020; For a quasi-autobiographical account, see Orwell, George, Burmese Days (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1934)Google Scholar.

40 For a full discussion of the dynamics between the majority Myanmar and the various indigenous and non-indigenous ethnic minorities in colonial Burma, see Smith, Martin, Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity (London: Zed Books, 1991), 27–90Google Scholar.

41 Amrith, Crossing the Bay of Bengal, 104, 114–122.

42 Searle, H. R., Reports and Notes on Indian Immigration into Burma (Rangoon: Reforms Department, 1935)Google Scholar. Mss Eur E252/38; James Baxter, Report on Indian Immigration (Rangoon: Superintendent, Government Printing and Stationery, 1941). IOR/V/27/820/20; Brown, Burma's Economy, 19–41.

43 Brown, Burma's Economy, 19–41.

44 Searle, Reports and Notes on Indian Immigration, 14.

45 Government of Burma, Report of the Burma Land and Agriculture (U Pu) Committee 1937–39. Part II: Land Alienation (Rangoon, Superintendent, Government Printing and Stationery, 1939), 43–45. IOR/V/26/312/4; White, Sir Herbert Thirkell, A Civil Servant in Burma (London: E. Arnold, 1913), 296–297Google Scholar; Amrith, Crossing the Bay of Bengal, 101–141.

46 Ali, Imran, The Punjab under Imperialism, 1885–1947 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 4–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brown, Burma's Economy, 19–41.

47 I have argued that Indian capitalists were ‘co-colonial’ in practice in 1930s Burma, using European racial hierarchies and colonialist language to maintain a relationship of economic and administrative domination in Burma. See Bowser, Matthew J., ‘Partners in Empire? Co-Colonialism and the Rise of Anti-Indian Nationalism in Burma, 1930–1938’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History (2020)Google Scholar, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03086534.2020.1783113 (accessed 28 September 2020).

48 Baxter, Report on Indian Immigration, 120.

49 The definitive work on this subject is Moshe Yegar's The Muslims of Burma. He agrees that precolonial and early colonial anti-Muslim prejudice in Burma was relatively unorganized and localized before the late 1930s. Yegar, The Muslims of Burma, 25–28.

50 See Ikeya, Chie's excellent work on this topic: Refiguring Women, Colonialism, and Modernity in Burma (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2011), 1–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the following discussion, see also Than, Tharaphi, ‘Nationalism, Religion, and Violence: Old and New Wunthanu Movements in Myanmar’, The Review of Faith & International Affairs 13(4) (2015): 12–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 The British census report of Burma in 1931 shows that mixed marriages rose in a predictable manner commensurate with the rate of increase in the Indian immigrant population. A seemingly precipitous increase in Burmese-Indian children (Zerbadees) is attributed to improvement in recording this category between 1921 and 1931. Government of India, Census of India (Vol XI: Burma): Part I, Report (Rangoon: Superintendent, Government Printing and Stationery, 1933), 211, 294–297. IOR/V/15/146.

52 Ikeya, Refiguring Women, 133–136.

53 Ibid.

54 ‘Burmese Women Who Took Indians’, 10,000,000, 27 November 1938. Also quoted in Ikeya, Refiguring Women, 135.

55 See Indian Statutory Commission, Burma Evidence (1929), Tenth Meeting, 3. IOR/Q/13/1/33, Bur-0-10; Great Britain, Burma Round Table Conference, Proceedings of the Committee of the Whole Conference (London: 1932), 65–68, 81. IOR/V/26/261/45.

56 Indian Statutory Commission, Burma Evidence (1929), Tenth Meeting, 3. IOR/Q/13/1/33, Bur-0-10.

57 Thuriya [Burmese], 16 July 1938; New Burma, 2 August 1935.

58 These claims are the subject of the next section. This article opened with an example of this rhetoric: U Paduma, ‘Bama Thway’.

59 Government of Burma, The Buddhist Women Special Marriage and Secession Bill 1939 (1939). NAM 1/15(B) 792 1939 1E-5 18 36. On the bill being brought forward, see BHRP, Vol. 2: August 1937 (1937), 378–382, 474–480. IOR/V/9/4088. On Myochit support, leftist support, and the bill's passage, see BHRP, Vol. 5: February–April 1939, 616, 601–620, 1032–1075, 1553–1606, 1721–1725, 1740–1747. IOR/V/9/4091-4094. The centrality of the ‘Marriage Problem’ to U Saw's programme is demonstrated again in 1941 when he made it an uncompromising plank of his Indo-Burma Immigration Agreement, which was a major point of contention between the British governor of Burma and viceroy of India. ‘Telegram from Governor of Burma to the Secretary of State for Burma’ (12 December 1941) in Government of the United Kingdom, Burma Office, Immigration: Indian Immigration into Burma (13 February 1941–21 November 1944). IOR/M/3/1108.

60 BHRP, Vol. 2: August 1937, 601–620.

61 U Ka, ‘Muslim Women’, New Burma, 1936, 49–52. Quoted in Ikeya, Refiguring Women, 139.

62 Burma Evidence (1929), Tenth Meeting, 9.

63 According to J. A. Berlie, the Burmese word jer bha di originates from the Persian name ‘Zavier’. Berlie, J. A., The Burmanization of Myanmar's Muslims (Bangkok: White Lotus Press, 2008), 7Google Scholar.

64 See, for example, Maung, U Thein, The Immigration Problem of Burma (Rangoon: New Burma Press, 1939), 19–24Google Scholar; New Burma, 2 August 1935; Thuriya [Burmese], 25 July 1938; New Light of Burma [Burmese], 25 July 1938; BHRP, Vol. 4: August–September 1938, 112, 122–272. For the statistics, see Government of India, Census of India, 211, 294–297.

65 The offspring of these unions were labelled ‘Indian Buddhists’ by the colonial state and their numbers increased from only 7,155 in 1921 to 12,600 in 1931—a far lower number and percentage of increase than those for Burmese Muslims. In addition, virtually all Hindus registered in Burma were Indian. Government of India, Census of India, 211, 294–297; comparisons between Hindu and Muslim unmarried male immigrants show them to be essentially identical: see Baxter, Report on Indian Immigration, 138. The lack of Burmese Hindus is also noted by the Indian Statutory Commission in Burma Evidence (1929), Eighth Meeting, A-9. IOR/Q/13/1/33, Bur-0-8.

66 ‘Zerbadees’ were often reported simply as Indians before 1931. In fact, Lord Burnham revealed during the deputation of the Burma Muslim community just how abysmal the classification of the Zerbadees was, in that, when a census official asked a person of Indian descent what his name was, ‘if he says Abdulla he will be classed under the category of Indians but if he gives his name as Maung Gye he is put in under Zerbadis’. Indian Statutory Commission, Burma Evidence (1929), Seventh Meeting, 48. IOR/Q/13/1/33, Bur-0-7. This process was finally corrected with more specific questions in the census of 1931: Government of India, Census of India, 296–297.

67 U Paduma, ‘Bama Thway’; Thuriya [Burmese], 25 July 1938.

68 New Burma, 2 August 1935. On British imperial racialization, see Sinha, Mrinalini, Colonial Masculinity: The ‘Manly Englishman’ and the ‘Effeminate Bengali’ in the Late Nineteenth Century (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1997)Google Scholar.

69 U Saw made these intentions explicit in his statement of programme and policy as prime minister in September 1940: BHRP, Vol. 8: August–September 1940, 1344–1351.

70 Chittagonians in Akyab had a sex ratio of 56 male:44 female versus the Indian average of 67.7 male:32.3 female. These data were gathered from Government of India, Census of India (Vol XI: Burma): Part II, Tables. IOR/V/15/146.

71 Siddiquee, Mohammad Mohibullah, ed. The Rohingyas of Arakan: History and Heritage (Chittagong: Ali Publishing House, 2014), 14–17Google Scholar, 25–36.

72 Census of Burma, Part 1: Report, 230.

73 BHRP, Vol. 3: February 1938 (1938), 350–370, 877–913, 1100–1155; BHRP, Vol. 4: August–September 1938 (1938), 112–161, 191–232.

74 BHRP, Vol. 5: February–April 1939 (1939), 615.

75 BHRP, Vol. 1: February–March 1937 (1937), 397.

76 U Kyaw Min writes of this camaraderie, in contrast to political rhetoric, existing as late as the ‘Long March’ in 1942. Kyaw Min, The Burma We Love, 4–6.

77 ‘Arakan Mohamedans Protest Against Census Definition: They Resent Classification as Chittagonians’, New Burma, 28 February 1941.

78 Government of Burma, Census of Burma 1941, Provisional Tables (1941). IOR/V/15/226.

79 Leigh, Michael D., The Evacuation of Civilians from Burma: Analysing the 1942 Colonial Disaster (London: Bloomsbury, 2014)Google Scholar.

80 Maung Bah Oh, The Memorandum of the Burma Muslim Community to the Royal Statutory Commission, 1, in Government of the United Kingdom, Indian Statutory Commission, Burma Memoranda (1929). IOR/Q/13/1/7, E-Bur-977.

81 Ibid., 2.

82 Ibid.

83 Burma Evidence (1929), Seventh Meeting, 46.

84 British concerns about communal representation in Burma are discussed in Government of the United Kingdom, Indian Round Table Conference: Joint Select Committee; Papers Regarding Amendment of Police Powers, Paragraphs Dealing with Special Branches and Agents, 8 Dec 1932–29 Nov 1934 (1934). IOR/L/PO/6/85; when a Hindu-Muslim riot did break out in Burma in 1939, Sir John Clague, I.C.S., confided to Under Secretary of State, David Monteath: ‘The Hindu-Muslim riots are an example of the kind of trouble which an Indian community is apt to give its hosts.’ Government of Burma, Public and Judicial Department, Indians in Burma: Annual Reports of the Agent of the Government of India in Burma (1943), 14. IOR/L/PJ/8/212.

85 Slight, John, The British Empire and the Hajj, 1865–1956 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015), 1–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Tagliacozzo, Eric, Southeast Asia and the Middle East: Islam, Movement, and the Longue Duree (Singapore: NUS Press, 2009)Google Scholar; Bose, Sugata, A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chaudhuri, K. N., Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

86 A good recent discussion of this appears in Chapters 6 and 7 of Ayesha Jalal, Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam since 1850 (New York: Routledge, 2001).

87 David Taylor Monteath, ‘Minute Paper B2336/90’ (1940), 1, in Government of the United Kingdom, Burma Office, Hindu-Muslim Riots in Rangoon 27 Jan 1940–27 Aug 1940 (1940). IOR/M/3/989; U Pu confirms this connection in a House of Representatives debate, saying: ‘I tried to separate the Burmese people from the Hindu community because some Hindu elders were trying to rope in the Burmese people.’ BHRP, Vol. 5: February–April 1939 (1939), 991; see also Amrith, Crossing the Bay of Bengal, 188.

88 The Separation League, Memorandum Submitted to the Indian Statutory Commission, iv; U Saw, Burma after Separation: Address by the Hon. U Saw, M.H.R. (Prime Minister of Burma) at a Meeting of the Study Committees of the Empire Parliamentary Association, Held at the House of Commons, Westminster, on 22nd October, 1941. The Rt. Hon. L.S. Amery, M.P. (Secretary of State for India and for Burma) in the Chair (London: Empire Parliamentary Association, 1941), 4–5.

89 Wolfe, Traces of History, 9.

90 Ng Thein Pe, ‘Indo-Burma Conflict’ in NAI, Department of Education, Health and Lands, Overseas Section, 92-1/38-L&O. Also quoted in Amrith, Crossing the Bay of Bengal, 188.

91 ‘Beginning of Socialism in Burma’, New Burma, 22 September 1937.

92 Anonymous, ‘Rangoon University Strike’, 6–7. During the Rangoon University student strike of 1936, the students make fun of U Saw when he comes to speak to them, fixating on his flimsy grasp of the English language. Whenever his name came up, the students would start chanting ‘KOM-MITE’ for his mispronunciation of ‘committee’.

93 Smith, Burma, 54.

94 Government of Burma, Burma Intelligence, Notes on Thakins.

95 Government of Burma, Final Report, 2–7.

96 Thuriya [Burmese], 16 July 1938.

97 Ibid.; New Light of Burma [Burmese], 19 July 1938.

98 Thuriya [Burmese], 21 July 1938; New Light of Burma [Burmese], 21 July 1938.

99 New Light of Burma [Burmese], 23 July 1938; Progress, 23 July 1938; Thuriya [Burmese], 23–26 July 1938.

100 Government of Burma, Final Report, 12.

101 Ibid., 12–13.

102 Ibid., 12–15.

103 Ibid., 12–42.

104 Ibid., 45–222; Government of Burma, Fresh Outbreak of Indo-Burmese Riots, September 1938 (1938). NAM 1/1(A) 5764 1938 815D(M) Pt. 5 325 7.

105 Government of Burma, Final Report, 281–286. The British estimate of Rs 2,063,802 would have roughly come out to £154,785.15 in 1938. The Indian estimate of Rs 5,444,460 would have been £408,334.5.

106 ‘Daily Situation Report on Communal Troubles in the Districts Dated the 5th September, 1938’ in Government of Burma, Fresh Outbreak of Indo-Burmese Riots.

107 Government of Burma, Interim Report, 11–48.

108 BHRP, Vol. 4: August–September 1938, 331–333.

109 BHRP, Vol. 5: February–April 1939, 425–427.

110 C. F. B. Pearce, ‘Letter to J.C. Walton, Esq., CB, MC, Burma Office, London’ (15 September 1941) in Government of the United Kingdom, Burma Office, Visit of Premier U Saw to UK.

111 Government of the United Kingdom, Burma Office, Subversive Activities in Burma: Arrest, Prosecution and Detention of Dr. Ba Maw and Others under Defence of Burma Rules; Interpretation and Exercise of Powers of Detention (1942), 17. IOR/M/3/897.

112 Aung San, ‘Presidential Address Delivered to the First Congress of the AFPFL’ (20 January 1946) in Burma's Challenge (South Okklapa: Tataetta Sarpay, 1946), 62, 79, 82–84.

113 Constituent Assembly of Burma, The Constitution of the Union of Burma (Rangoon: Superintendent, Government Printing and Stationery, 1947).