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Successive wars and the establishment of a border between the kingdom of Burma and British India in the nineteenth century challenged Burmese conceptions of sovereignty and political space. This essay investigates how European, and more specifically Anglo-American, notions of race, nation, and consular protection to nationals, progressively informed the Burmese concepts of 'categories of people' (lumyo) and 'subject' (kyun). First, I present the semantic evolution of these concepts in the 1820s–1830s, following the annexation of the western Burmese province of Arakan by British India in 1824. Then, I argue that the Burmese concept of lumyo was progressively associated with the European concept of 'nations' in the 1850s–1860s, following the annexation of Lower Burma in 1852. Finally, I uncover developments in the 1870s, when British consular protection extended to several freshly categorised 'nations', such as Shan, Karenni, and Kachin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What Rudyard Kipling called the 'campaign of lost footsteps' was the longest campaign fought by the Victorian army. The conquest of Upper Burma, an area of 140,000 sq. miles with a population of four million, took only three weeks in November 1885 and was accomplished with minimum cost. However, the removal and deportation of the Burmese King and dismantling of all traditional authority dismantled led to growing resistance to British rule leading to an increasingly difficult guerrilla war. Though the Burmese guerrillas were characterised by the British as mere bandits or dacoits, many were former soldiers along with Buddhist monks. The extremely difficult nature of campaigning in the terrain and climate of Burma was not sufficiently appreciated by the War Office, who viewed the conflict as a 'subaltern's war' and 'police' work. Intended regime change was also not accompanied by any consideration of the likely implications. Prolonged insurgency necessitated deploying a force far larger than originally intended; though order was finally secured by 1895, the campaign proved destructive of Burmese society while British recruitment of hill tribes into the police and armed forces sowed the seeds for future divisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent humanitarian Rohingya crisis has once again put Myanmar onto the centre stage of global media attention. The aim of this paper is to look into the ethnic minority question in contemporary Myanmar. The paper has a special focus on the Muslim Rohingya community. The paper argues that problematic race relations in Myanmar today should not be viewed in isolation but should be seen as a part of a historical continuum. The British colonial policies of divide and rule, political leaders and their obsession with Buddhism in the post-independence period and xenophobic tendencies during the long years of the military junta have all collectively contributed to the very complex situation in which the country finds itself today when it comes to race relations. Meaningful democracy and economic development have been advocated as the way forward especially for the more peripheral parts of the country where there is a strong ethnic minority presence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When British judges in colonial South Asia attempted to perform their duties with detached objectivity they were also performatively enacting a particular construction of imperial white masculinity. This was an ambivalent embodied enactment. When the figure of the objective judge was confronted by critics as white and male, its claims to be objective were under threat. As a result of this ambivalence, it was an imperial white masculinity that could not name itself. Instead, it was a white masculinity constructed through a differentiation that was made with feminised, non-white bodies that were deemed partial. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

British imperial writers in Burma regularly moaned about milk. They complained about the difficulties they faced acquiring it in the colony. They were selfconscious about how their consumption of it might be viewed by the Burmese population, who predominantly did not drink cow's milk. And they worried about the quality of the supply provided by itinerant Indian dairymen, who they viewed as being neglectful and insanitary. Through these concerns the absence of milk became a marker of the colony's difference from the rest of the Raj. At the same time, the colonial government came to recognise the importance of locally-bred working cattle for Burmese agriculture. In their attempts to protect these valuable nonhuman labourers, Indian dairy herds were represented as a problem breed that threatened the indigenous stock. The threat from foreign cattle coalesced around epizootic disease and uncontrolled crossbreeding. These concerns were coterminous with official and nationalist anxieties about the Indian human population in the colony. Building on recent scholarship uncovering more-than-human geographies, this article reveals how colonial policies designed to improve the dairy industry and protect Burmese cattle contributed to the material and imaginative territorialisation of Burma, and its eventual separation from British India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the development of the governing mechanism in British Burma relating to one particular ethnic group, the Chinese, between the 1890s and 1920s. Recognizing its limited knowledge of China and the Chinese, British Burma relied in the early days on experiences from other colonies to govern its Chinese immigrants and to handle Sino-Burmese border issues. The transfer of colonial knowledge, however, proved insufficient when the state witnessed increasing localization at the turn of the twentieth century. Interlocutors and communal elites therefore replaced imperial expatriates to form the main governing body, and in turn to some extent undermined and reconstructed colonial knowledge, as well as practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

These days the rule of law is often invoked in Burma. Although its contemporary salience is partly a consequence of recent global trends, the rule of law also has lineages in the country's colonial and early post-colonial periods. To examine these lineages, this article distinguishes between its procedural and substantive conceptions. Whereas the latter conception recognizes the subjects of law as freely associating equals, the former is compatible with a range of political practices, including those that are undemocratic. The records of decisions in criminal cases before Burma's superior courts during the period of British domination suggest that some semblance of procedural rule of law did exist, and that it was compatible with the rule of colonial difference. Out of this procedural rule of law a nascent, substantive type emerged during the early years of democratic life in the post-colony, before the onset of military dictatorship. The article concludes that more effort to structure interpretations of the rule of law in history might better enable discussion about the concept's continued relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the 1901 commentary book "Paramatthadīpanī," by the Burmese Buddhist monk Ledi Sayadaw and its relationship with social change and the Abhidhamma in the British colony of Burma during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The role that print culture played in the development of Buddhist literature in Burma is discussed. The focus of Ledi's commentary "Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha (Compendium of the ultimates)" by Acariya Anuruddha is also discussed.

Bringing to light the first known Urdu primary source on Islam in colonial Burma, this essay examines the polemical encounter with Buddhism in the years surrounding the Third Anglo–Burmese War. Using the model of religious economy, the Urdu Sayr-e Barhma is contextualised amid the religious pluralisation and competition that accompanied colonisation as a multitude of religious ‘entrepreneurs’ and ‘firms’ rapidly entered the colony. Among them was the Indian Muslim author of Sayr-e Barhma, which provided a detailed account of the history, language and theology of Burman Buddhists and included an account of a public debate which, it claimed, culminated in the conversion of the Thathanabaing (Primate). Against the long-standing historiographical emphasis on the economic roots of anti-Indian sentiments in colonial Burma, this essay points to the religious dimensions of these enduring antagonisms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article uses the mixed marriage debate in 1920s and 1930s Rangoon as a lens to understand how the figure of the Indian immigrant was created in the official discourse and popular imagination in Burma.As the discussion on mixed marriages unfolded amongst lawmakers and in the Burmese public sphere in the early twentieth century, it perpetuated the stereotype of the avaricious Burmese woman and the Indian was portrayed as a single male temporary worker who was in Burma for employment and left the woman once he returned back home. The problem of abandoned women as a result of inter-racial marriages was, in reality, a larger problem of Indian immigration into Burma. In 1940, with the Indo-Burmese immigration agreement, marriage or cohabitation between Indian male immigrant and women belonging to the indigenous races of Burma was made a condition for cancellation of a permit or visa granted to a migrant Indian male. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In general, during the nineteenth century the British were indifferent to the condition of the insane in colonial Burma. This was most apparent in the Rangoon lunatic asylum, which was a neglected institution reformed reluctantly and episodically following internal crises of discipline and the occasional public scandal. However, whilst psychiatry was generally neglected, British officials did intervene when and where insanity threatened the colonial order. This occurred in the criminal courts where the presence of suspected lunatics was disruptive to the administration of justice. Insanity was also a problem for the colonial regime within the European community, where erratic behaviour was viewed as a threat to racial prestige. This paper shows how, despite its neglected status in Burma, psychiatric knowledge contributed to British understandings of Burman masculinity and to the maintenance of colonial norms of European behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Histories of colonial rule in Burma have noted the difficulties the British government had in ruling the population of that country and the state's reliance on the colonial army to suppress uprisings. However, the role of intelligence in sustaining colonial rule has been neglected in the historiography of Burma. This article discusses the efforts by the colonial state in Burma during the years 1933–35 to develop an intelligence-gathering bureau that reported on the affairs of the indigenous population with a view to preventing the outbreak of anti-government disorder. It illustrates the reliance of the colonial government on information gathered from indigenous informers in order to rule the country and the limitations of over-reliance on that intelligence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses British colonial law, justice and local governments in the Burma delta from 1890 to 1910. An overview of the British administration of Burma, including Great Britain's toleration of misconduct by government officials, is provided. The rule of law, including its relationship with British colonialism, is discussed. British attitudes on colonialism are also discussed. An overview of the lower courts of Burma, including the judge Maung On Gaing's embezzlement of money from his court and the suspicion of bribery of the magistrate Maung Gyi, is also provided.

According to the existing studies on Myanmar's economic history, agricultural land in the Lower Myanmar delta was transferred from ‘agriculturists’ to ‘non-agriculturists’ under British colonial rule. However, a clear distinction could not be drawn between the agriculturists and non-agriculturists as was generally thought with respect to their economic activity. More importantly, the categories could be applied interchangeably. The purpose of this study is to reconsider the very concept of ‘agriculturist’ as a colonial category in British Burma by exploring the hitherto unused register of holdings (Register IA, U pain hmatpoun sayin). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Prostitution in Burmese society, as in many South East Asian countries, is a taboo subject. Unlike prostitution in countries such as Thailand, however, prostitution in Burma does not attract strong media or scholarly debate. The state and the media in Burma, during both colonial and post-colonial periods, have tended and tend to see the problem of prostitution as one of 'others'. Colonialism, a decline in morality and the corruption of women influenced by modernity or Western culture have often been portrayed as the culprits. This article analyses the Burmese terms for prostitutes and examines how prostitution was portrayed by the print media between 1942 and 1962, during which time the press was thought to have enjoyed a certain degree of freedom. Seen as a threat to the British troops during the colonial period, prostitutes were subject to controversial medical screenings; yet, seen as victims of modernity during Burma's parliamentary period (1948-62), they were often left on their own to 'resurrect' their morality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

J. S. Furnivall, in his influential account of the impact of British rule in Burma 1824–1948, argues that British officials laid down a Liberal administration that exposed the colony to market forces, monetized the economy and devastated communities. However, there is little evidence that British administrators actually thought in Liberal terms: they relied heavily on institutions inherited from the Burmese monarchy, and when they introduced new administrative methods these were drawn from other parts of British India and only indirectly influenced by Liberalism. Furnivall's view of the ideological origins of British administration, in turn, distorts his reading of the impact of British rule, as illustrated by recent work on the pre-colonial economy showing that it was in fact more monetized and commercialized than he claims. If his account of the pre-modern economy is not viable, Furnivall's claims about the impact of British colonialism in Burma demand re-evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Between 1895 and 1921, the early history of Burma rested on a false premise: that the three oldest inscriptions found in Burma were genuine. Who forged these inscriptions? Why did they do so? By whom were the forgeries exposed? The answers to these questions prompt troubling thoughts about how state power impinged on the autonomous pursuit of knowledge during the high noon of the British Empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the significance of Buddhism in the insurgency that followed the annexation of the kingdom of Burma in 1886, demonstrating that Buddhism was a critically important part of the Burmese polity and identity. Moreover, it indicates that opposition to the British after the full colonisation of Burma was not only instantaneous, but also fuelled primarily by Buddhist sentiment. This challenges the prevailing notion that anti-colonialism in Burma -- Buddhist-inspired or otherwise -- was a twentieth century phenomenon. Beginning with the pre-colonial era, the article explores the intimate connection between Buddhism, the Burmese polity and the national psyche. The critical importance of the Buddhist king is emphasised in particular. When the kingdom of Burma was annexed in 1886, opposition to the British manifested itself instantaneously in the form of rebellions and insurgency. This period, sometimes referred to as the "pacification", has been often ignored in studies. The article, using British colonial documents, shows clearly the importance of Buddhist sentiment in these uprisings as a response to the abolition of Burma's last Buddhist king. Buddhist themes present in translated rebel proclamations, as well as the widespread participation of Buddhist monks corroborate this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces an English version (translator unknown) of a Burmese law report: Judge Hpo Hlaing's ruling in Ma Hla v. Ma Wa, delivered in Mandalay in 1877. The judgement contains a paragraph dealing with the sources of Buddhist Law which appears to be a riposte to work published earlier that year in Lower Burma. That the judge was Burma's leading political philosopher gives special resonance to his views on law. His list of five law reports from the Pali canon and related texts is of interest. A reading is advanced in which the five cases link to Burmese ideas about legal pluralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the staying power of the military dictatorship of Myanmar (Burma), in power since 1962 and rumored many times to be on the verge of falling. In an effort to explain this, the article examines the origins of the regime in the anti-colonial movement against British rule and Japan's war-time occupation of Southeast Asia, and the regime's relationship with Burma's multi-ethnic, mostly Buddhist society. It further examines the pre-colonial social structure upon which Great Britain imposed its rule in 1886 and how Britain treated Burma within its empire, noting that here is the foundation for the centralized logic of power, both repressive and divisive, of today.

A flurry of scholarly interest in Burmese legal history occurred between 1882 and 1885. Before 1882 it had been assumed that Burma had its own distinctive, Buddhist, legal tradition. A new theory was announced: that Burmese Law was a late offshoot of the Sanskrit legal literature typified by Manusmrti. I shall argue that the new theory was not supported by persuasive evidence. The new theory, I suggest, partook less of scholarship and more of propaganda in support of the annexation of Upper Burma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the description of the Thai Army's advance into Burma's Shan states in the book "Thai Military History in the Greater East Asia War," published in 1997 by the Thai Armed Forces Education Department. The book discusses Thai military-diplomatic history during World War II. The description in the book will be compared to descriptions in Thai, Japanese and Chinese documents in order to examine the patriotic, commemorative character of the book and of Thai historiography.

Focuses on the implications of Burma's Fisheries Act of 1875. Introduction of the auction lease system in the 1870s; Alteration of the inland fisheries, the inn; Withdrawal of leases from the innthugyis; Domination of the fishing industry by the capitalists.

As the British entered the Mizo hills (part of the Indo-Burmese range of hills, then known as the Lushai hills) to chase the headhunting tribal raiders and try to gain control over them by securing a foothold in the heart of the hills at Aizawl, they witnessed an amazing ecological phenomenon: a severe famine apparently caused by rats. The Mizo hills are covered extensively by various species of bamboo, which periodically rot, flower and seed. The bamboo seeds appeared to be a delicious food item for jungle rats, which emerged in massive numbers to devour them, and the consumption of bamboo seeds seemed to produce a vast increase in the rodent population. Once the millions of rats had exhausted the bamboo seed, they began to attack the standing crops in the fields. As they devoured the grains the resulting scarcity of food led to massive hardship, starvation and deaths.... [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]