THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE

THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE

In the early years of the 20th Century there were protests throughout British Burma. The first major uprising was in the 1930s, led by a farmer called Saya San who aimed to force out the British and crown himself king. He attracted thousands of peasants to his cause and it was only suppressed by the British with great difficulty. However, suppressed it eventually was, culminating in Saya San and over one hundred other rebels being hanged.

Following Saya San, most organised dissent was instigated by monks and students, both against colonial rule and in response to Indian and Chinese immigration. These students referred to each other as thakin - a term for ‘master’ usually reserved for the British - as a way of stating their claim to be the true masters of the country. Their first major protests erupted around 1938, known as the 1300 Revolution due to the date in the Bhuddhist calendar. Strikes by employees of the Burmah Oil Company led to nationwide protests. The British crackdown claimed 33 lives, including 13 unarmed protestors shot dead in Mandalay.

Aung San, he was also the editor of the student newspaper at Rangoon University and president of the All Burma Students’ Union. At 26 years old he left with 30 others to Japan, there to seek support for the struggle against colonial rule and to receive military training. They returned with the invading Japanese in 1941. These 30 former students were now the first troops of the Burmese Independence Army (BIA).

The Japanese invasion of British Burma was swift and clinical. The Imperial Army first entered the country in mid January 1942, at Victoria Point, the southernmost tip of mainland Burma. By March 7th the Allies were retreating from a burning Rangoon, and by May the Japanese had taken full control of the country. Myanmar History - Aung San BNA - Sampan Travel Burma had now joined the theatre of war, and it soon became clear to Aung San - now General or ‘Bogyoke’ Aung San - that the Japanese had no intention of relinquishing their control over the country. The BIA came to regard the new occupying force as worse than the British. Aung San said that though under the British the Burmese had been handled like oxen, under the Japanese they were treated as dogs. Led by Aung San, the BIA renamed themselves the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League (AFPFL) and turned their sights upon those who were supposed to be their country’s saviours.

Under the command of General Slim, with the assistance of the BIA and the many guerilla forces amongst the Kachin, Chin, and Kachin who had remained loyal to the British, the Allies eventually drove the Japanese out of Burma in 1945. In January 1947, General Aung San visited British Prime Minister Clement Atlee at 10 Downing Street and negotiated terms for Burma to gain independence within the year. Back in Burma, Aung San met with Shan, Chin, and Kachin leaders (but not the Karen with who relations had been sorely tested during the war) to sign the Panglong Agreement, bringing them into the independent Union of Burma but also promising that these ethnic races could dictate their own political future if they were unhappy with the situation after a decade. On the 19th of July 1947, an armed group of paramilitaries of Aung San’s political rival U Saw broke into a meeting of the Executive Council chaired by the General, and assassinated him and six of his cabinet ministers, including his older brother Ba Win. Aung San was only 32.

Despite his short life, Aung San’s leading role in bringing about Burmese independence and thus shaping modern Myanmar cannot be understated. Of this, Maurice Collis, a British administrator in Burma during colonial rule, wrote:

‘His coming […] was a symptom of the age. […] so it is always in the careers of great men. They appear when the moment is ripe. The British were all set to grant Burma her liberation. They had their plan how this should come about, and wanted the satisfaction of carrying it out themselves. The role of liberator was in the air; there was rivalry for it. Dorman-Smith planned for years in the hope of filling it. Mountbatten was not indifferent to its attractions. Atlee and the Labour Government recognized that it would suit them to perfection. On the Burmese side there were many competitors, Paw Tun for one and U Saw for another. Yet the historical process which produced all these would-be liberators had its central figure in Aung San.’

U Saw was swiftly arrested and hanged by the British. Much mystery still surrounds the assassination. Due to the fact that weapons had recently been sold to U Saw by low-ranking British officers, there are conspiracy theories that the assassination was an act of the British Government. Others point the finger at the Burmese General Ne Win, who would later cease power.

Aung San continues to be regarded as a national hero today, celebrated as the ‘architect of Burmese freedom.’ The 19th of July, ‘Martyrs’ Day’, remains a day of national mourning. Although it is anyone's guess how Aung San would have ruled if he had been given the chance, due to his success as a unifying figure directly after WW2, many believe that much of the civil conflict and strife that the country has since suffered might have been averted had he lived.

Following the assassination, U Nu, the country’s foreign minister during Japanese occupation, was asked to lead both the AFPFL and the government, and the following year was sworn in as the country’s first Prime Minister. At midnight on January 4th 1948, Sir Hubert Rance, the last Governor of British Burma, met with Burmese politicians in Fytche Square (now Maha Bandoola Square) and in the presence of cheering crowds the Union Jack was lowered for the final time and the new flag of the Union of Burma was hauled up in its place. Burma had left the British Commonwealth and become an independent nation once more.