British Burma - The Tensions of a Plural Society
The growth of commercial rice cultivation and industries based on the extraction of natural resources fostered the development of a plural society. There was some Chinese immigration after 1852, but the great majority of immigrants during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries came from the overpopulated and famine-prone regions of Bengal and Madras in India. In Burma a great deal of labor was required during rice planting and harvesting seasons. Because the country could not supply sufficient labor, migration from India was encouraged. By the end of the nineteenth century, India supplied most of the workers for Lower Burma's rice mills and dockyards and in other modem industries.
Most Indian migrants remained in the country for only a few years, long enough to acquire savings with which to establish themselves back home; yet natural catastrophes in Madras and Bengal would swell the volume of net migration. Furnivall notes that by 1918 some 300,000 laborers had come into Rangoon, making it second at that time only to New York as a port for immigration. The Indian population of Lower Burma increased from 297,000 in 1901 to 583,000 thirty years later, or from 7 to 10 percent of the total delta population.
Before the first decade of the twentieth century, however, the abundance of land, a shortage of labor, and good international markets for rice created a prosperity in which social tensions between Burmese and Indians were largely muted. The price per bushel of paddy rose steadily between 1875 and 1908. Burnmese saw themselves as independent cultivators, possessing a relatively high standard of living. They shunned the low-paying migrant labor or mill jobs, which brought desperately poor Madrassis or Bengalis from the subcontinent. Chettiar control of capital was not seen as oppressive as long as the market for rice was good and loans could be easily repaid.
Society in colonial Burma assumed a "three tiered" structure in which the British and other Westerners occupied the top managerial, administrative, and professional positions. On the second tier, Indians and, to a lesser extent, the Chinese operated retail shops, held skilled and unskilled jobs in the modern sector, and dominated the lower levels of the engineering and medical professions. Railroad workers, telegraphers, telephone operators, and mail carriers were almost all Indian. Furnivall relates how the latter, ignorant of Burmese script, had to get villagers to read and point out addresses. Indians held more than 50 percent of all government jobs in Lower Burma in 1931. Travelers to Rangoon and other large cities would have had difficulty distinguihing them from cities on the subcontinent. Rangoon's population in 1931 was 50 percent Indian, with lower percentages of Chinese, Indo-Burmese, Eurasians, and Europeans. Burmese comprised only 36 percent. English and Indian languages, rather than Burmese, were spoken in the streets and offices. On the lowest tier the Burmese were found in the villages-unwilling, or unable to enter the modem sectors of the economy on even the most menial level.
This arrangement might have remained relatively stable if it had not been for a change in economic conditions. The "rice frontier" was being filled up, marked by declines in the amount of new delta land being opened up after 1902. Population growth began to outstrip economic growth, and fluctuations in the price of rice after 1908 created new and unstable conditions. Burmese cultivators, dependent on the Chettiars for loans, faced foreclosure with increasing frequency. The Chettiars, though themselves not agriculturists, acquired from their former debtors land that they operated as absentee landlords. These farms were often operated by Indian tenants.
As Burmese farmers fell in status from owner to tenant and migrant laborer, the colonial government attempted with limited success to shore up their position by restricting landownership by absentee landlords, regulating mortgage terms and rents, and establishing the cooperative bank and local cooperative societies to provide credit on reasonable terms. By 1915 there were some 1,250 local cooperatives, and 10 years later they had increased in number to over 4,000. The system was plagued by poor management, however, and by the end of the 1920s was virtually bankrupt. Foreclosures continued. Whereas in 1901 only 17 percent of the cropland had been owned by absentee landlords in the delta region, by 1930 this figure had increased to 30 percent, and by 1940 it was 67 percent.
In the best years of the private enterprise system, when the "rice frontier" was being opened up and the moneylenders, Burmese or Indian, had not become too oppressive, the people enjoyed greater freedom and mobility and a higher standard of living than they ever had under their own kings. Yet the system, as well as the administrative reforms contained in the 1889 Burma Village Act and the disestablishment of the sangha, eventually undermined village coherence and community. Under the traditional system, common lands had been maintained for the benefit of all. These now tended to be taken over by private owners for their own use. Elaborate methods of cooperation involving the use and maintenance of irrigation systems or mutual aid during planting and harvest time broke down. According to Furnivall, village cultural life suffered a decline as villagers neglected to support festivals, religious ceremonies, and the traditionally popular puppet and theatrical performances. The most marked symptom of social instability, however, was the sharp rise in banditry and violent crime. British officials admitted that before the establishment of their rule, Burmese villages and districts had been relatively peaceful. As traditional social restrictions broke down, however, the Burmese gained a reputation for violent crime - resorting to their razor-sharp dah (knives) to settle even the most trivial dispute.
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