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“A New and a Better Cunning”: British Wartime Planning for Post-War Burma, 1942–43

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2011

Nicholas Tarling
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Extract

The framing of British policy towards India in the twentieth century sought to reconcile its prime importance in the dependent empire with its political aspirations through some kind of evolution towards the status afforded the settler dominions. Though British policy towards other dependencies was rarely co-ordinated — even so far as concerned a region like “Further India” — it was influenced by their relationship with India. India in a sense defined the limits of those policies: they must not go so far as to undermine the British position in India by untoward example; nor, on the other hand, must they make so little advance as to alienate the Indians and inhibit the availability of Indian forces. For Burma the inter-relationship was particularly close. Burma had been acquired from India, partly in order to protect British commerce based in India, but mainly to provide for the security of British India. It had been administered from India. Indian commerce, Indian labour, Indian moneylending had as a result established new ties. But India also influenced the reshaping of the constitutional as well as the administrative structure. Working both within and outside those structures, Burman nationalism was itself influenced by developments in India, though directing its criticism at Indian, even more, perhaps, than at British economic exploitation. The Burman nationalists insisted that the constitutional advance of Burma must at least keep pace with that of India.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , March 1982 , pp. 33 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1982

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References

1 Statement by Wedgwood Benn, 20 Jan. 1931.

2 See, e.g., Walton's memorandum, 12 Nov. 1942, L/PO/236, India Office Records.

3 Taylor, Robert H., “Politics in Late Colonial Burma: The Case of U Saw”, Modern Asian Studies, X, 2 (1976): 175–77Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., pp. 189–90.

5 Taylor, Robert H., “The Relationship between Burmese Social Classes and British-Indian Policy on the Behavior of the Burmese Political Elite, 1937–1945” (Ph.D. thesis, Cornell University, 1974), p. 629Google Scholar.

6 Ibid., p. 627.

7 Moore, R.J., Churchill, Cripps, and India 1939–1945 (London: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 4Google Scholar.

8 Ibid., pp. 8–9.

9 Ibid., pp. 32–36.

10 Ibid., p. 42.

11 Ibid., pp. 64 ff.

12 Ibid., pp. 103 ff.

13 Ibid., pp. 135, 137.

14 Taylor, article, p. 190; thesis, pp. 622–31.

15 “Atonement before Absolution”, Journal of the Sam Society, LX, 1 (Jan. 1978): 22–65Google Scholar.

16 Note, 10 June 1942, Burma File 275/42, India Office Records, London.

17 Draft, n.d., L/PO/236.

18 W.P. (42) 346, 7 Aug. 1942, CAB 66/27, Public Record Office; L/PO/236.

19 Memorandum, 30 July 1942, Ibid.

20 Amery to Cranborne and Wood, 7 Aug. 1942, Ibid.

21 W.M. 111 (42) 3, 12 Aug. 1942, CAB 65/27; L/PO/236.

22 Telegram, 8 Sept. 1942, 684, L/PO/236; BF 229/42.

23 Note, 14 Sept. 1942, R 8/1/5, India Office Records.

24 Memorandum, 4 Nov. 1942, L/PO/236.

25 Monteath to Dorman-Smith, 9 Nov. 1942, MSS Eur. E. 215/2, India Office Records.

26 Memorandum, 12 Nov. 1942, L/PO/236.

27 Draft, 19 Nov. 1942, Ibid.

28 Draft, 20 Nov. 1942, Ibid.

29 Draft, 23 Nov. 1942, Ibid.

30 Telegrams to Governor, 27 Nov. 1942, 1131, 1142, Ibid.

31 See Collis, M., Last and First in Burma (1941–1948) (London, 1956), pp. 194–95Google Scholar.

32 Telegram, 8 Dec. 1942, 924, L/PO/236.

33 Dorman-Smith to Amery, 31 Oct. 1942, Eur. E. 215/2.

34 Dorman-Smith to Amery, 1 Dec. 1942, Ibid.

35 Amery to Dorman-Smith, 29 Dec. 1942, Ibid.

36 Telegram to Governor, 17 Dec. 1942, 1190, L/PO/236.

37 Amery to Dorman-Smith, 16 Dec. 1942, Eur. E. 215/2.

38 Telegram, 29 Dec. 1942, 980, L/PO/236.

39 Memoranda, 4, 5 Jan. 1943, Ibid.

40 Note, 5 Jan. 1943, Ibid. See also Walton to Hughes, 7 Jan., Ibid.

41 Note, 30 Oct. 1942, BF 275/42.

42 Baxter to Walton, 29 Jan. 1943, L/PO/236.

43 Telegrams to Governor, 4 Feb. 1943, 58, 59, Ibid.

44 Maw, Ba, Breakthrough in Burma (New Haven, 1968), p. 306Google Scholar.

45 Telegram, 9 Feb. 1943, 78, L/PO/236.

46 Draft, L/PO/236.

47 Telegram to Governor, 13 Feb. 1943, 79, Ibid.; also Eur. E. 215/3.

48 Minute, 11 Feb. 1943, L/PO/236.

49 Amery to Wood, 13 Feb. 1943, Ibid.

50 Wood to Amery, 22 Feb. 1943, Ibid.

51 Note on Ibid.

52 Memorandum, 3 Mar. 1943, L/PO/236.

53 Amery to Wood, 8 Mar. 1943, Ibid.

54 Statement, 8 Aug. 1942, Ibid.; also BF 220/42.

55 Arnold to Binns, 22 Dec. 1942, BF 130/43.

56 Minute by Walton, 14 Aug. 1942, BF 229/42.

57 Telegram to Governor, 27 Aug. 1942, 989, Ibid.

58 Proforma letter, 10 Oct. 1942, Ibid.

59 Walton to Michie, 18 Nov. 1942, BF 130/43.

60 “Study of Long-Term Policy In Regard to Relationship between Government of Burma and European Firms”, Ibid.

61 Memorandum, 20 Jan. 1943, Ibid.

62 Michie to Walton, 3 Feb. 1943, Ibid.; also R 8/8/2.

63 Minutes, 6, 8 Feb. 1943, BF 130/43.

64 Note of discussion, 17 Feb. 1943, Ibid.; also R 8/8/2.

65 Michie to Walton, 22 Feb., 11 Mar. 1943; Walton to Michie, 5 Mar., R 8/8/2.

66 Dorman-Smith to Amery, 23 Feb. 1942, Eur. E. 215/4.

67 Amery to Dorman-Smith, 10 Mar. 1943, Eur. E. 215/3.

68 Michie to Walton, 3 Mar. 1943, R 8/8/2.

69 Meeting, 18 Mar. 1943, M/5/39, India Office Records.

70 Enclosure in Michie to Walton, 29 Mar. 1943, Ibid.

71 Walton to Michie, 31 Mar. 1943, R 8/8/2.

72 Monteath to Dorman-Smith, 26 Apr. 1943, Eur. E. 215/3; M/5/39.

73 Monteath to Michie, 3 Apr. 1943, Eur. E. 215/3; M/5/39.

74 Michie to Monteath, 9 Apr. 1943, M/5/39.

75 Michie to Monteath, 20 Apr. 1943, Ibid.; Eur. E. 215/3.

76 Walton to Monteath, 20 Apr. 1943, M/5/39.

77 WP (43) 131, 29 Mar. 1943, CAB 66/35; L/PO/236.

78 Minute, 13 Apr. 1943, L/PO/236.

79 Stanley to Amery, 2 Apr. 1943, Ibid.

80 Minute by Amery, 2 Apr. 1943, Ibid.

81 Grigg to Churchill, 7 Apr. 1943, PREM 4/50/3, Public Record Office.

82 WM 54 (43) 3, 14 Mar. 1943, CAB 65/34; L/PO/236.

83 Amery to Dorman-Smith, 15 Apr. 1943, Eur. E. 215/3; L/PO/236; partly in Collis, p. 191.

84 Amery to Dorman-Smith, 19 Apr. 1943, Eur. E. 215/3; L/PO/236.

85 Walton to Dorman-Smith, 12 May 1943, Eur. E. 215/3.

86 Dorman-Smith to Monteath, Apr. 1943, Eur. E. 215/4.

87 Hughes to Walton, 7 May 1943, R 8/8/2.

88 Tait to Chairman, 18 Mar. 1943, sent 7 May, Ibid.

89 Dorman-Smith to Walton, 12 Apr. 1943, Eur. E. 215/4.

90 Dorman-Smith to Amery, 22 Apr. 1943, Ibid.

91 Tin Tut to Dorman-Smith, 18 Apr. 1943, R 8/8/1.

92 Amery to Dorman-Smith, 26 May 1943, Eur. E. 215/3.

93 Dorman-Smith to Amery, 8 Apr. 1943, Eur. E. 215/4.

94 Dorman-Smith to Monteath, Apr. 1943, Ibid.

95 Dorman-Smith to Amery, 25 Mar. 1943, Ibid.