Burma's Road Toward Development: Growth and Ideology Under Military Rule

David I. Steinberg

• Publisher: Routledge
• Edition: 1
• Year: 2019
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Print ISBN:
  9780367168735
  9780367018863
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429724602
• Index: Politics & International Relations

A liberalization of economic policies has inspired considerable economic growth and encouraged the development of Burma's natural resources, but, according to David Steinberg, the current military government is akin to previous civilian governments in its commitment to socialism as a vehicle for development. The economic flexibility demonstrated by the government has not been matched by political liberalization, and as a result, economic growth remains a captive of administrative and policy constraints. Steinberg traces the origins and acceptance of socialist thought and planning in Burma and shows how socialist ideology has had to be tempered with pragmatism in order to make economic development possible. Looking to Burma's future, he also points out two central problems facing the country: strained minority relations, which have kept the nation from developing a sense of unity, and difficulties with political succession brought on by the military regime's preoccupation with perpetuating its own leadership.

1
The Military Coup of 1962 and Its Antecedents

The Setting

In the early morning of March 2, 1962, the Burmese military seized power through a coup d'&at. Less than two months later they had published one of the fundamental modern Burmese documents. The Burmese Way to Socialism is critical to understanding the future the military perceived for the nation. The work reflected current international trends, but it may have been more widely accepted at first because it proposed a unique, Burmese, way for the country to achieve a millennium, rather than an approach based exclusively on a world model. It expressed national individuality. Dr. Ba Maw, the doyen of prewar Burmese politicians, summed up contemporary Burma in his comments on the document. He remarked that because it was socialist it was good, but because it was Burmese it was better.

The Burmese Way to Socialism symbolizes the Burmese search for a valid position in the modern world–in economics, international relations, politics, and culture. It is now required reading in countless schools and training sessions. Its stress on the "Burmeseness" of this quest encapsulates a single overriding theme in contemporary Burmese history–the reestablishment of the Burmese experience and identity.

The destruction of the monarchy in 1885 completed the process of erosion many Burmese institutions began to undergo during the First AngloBurmese War (1824-1826). The confrontation with an aggressive and efficient Western culture, traumatic enough earlier in Lower Burma in which a money economy spread and Christianity expanded, was devastating, with the kingdom in Upper Burma being completely eliminated. The king epitomized that nation; he was also the defender of its faith, Buddhism–in fact, he was sometimes seen to be an embryo Buddha. He performed magic and mystic functions on which the safety of the state rested. His elimination, the state's subservient colonial status, the introduction of Christianity, Western education, and increased economic activity precipitated a series of reactions, some immediate, others nascent.

They were first expressed through rebellion and the appearance of numbers of scattered pretenders to the throne. Slowly they began to focus on redefining the nature of the Burmese experience–the place of Buddhism, the economic role of the state, the cultural tradition. This search became both intellectual and activist. It tended to polarize issues–nationalism versus colonialism, Buddhism versus secularism or Buddhism versus Christianity, foreign capitalism versus socialism, modernity versus traditionalism. It early became antiforeign, first antiBritish and then anti-Indian as well. Finally the search focused on defining the Burmese experience internally, the place of the ethnic majority and minorities. Those alternatives that received widespread support had a Burmese flavor, were bama-lo, "in the Burmese manner."

The alternative to colonialism was, of course, national independence. Nationalism was patently anti-British, but it also became anti-Indian, even though the nationalist movement in Burma was strongly and positively affected by Mahatma Gandhi and the India Congress party. Burma was inundated by Indians of many castes and classes. With the Indians came deeper penetration of foreign capitalism and greater economic alienation not only from an increasingly modernized industry but from the land and agriculture. The response to economic alienation was socialism, composed of two process-oriented goals: increased state production of goods and services and their equitable distribution. Modernity and traditionalism each found support. Some wealthy Burmese went off to England for proper British training and identified culturally, if not politically, with the conquerors; others found modernity through the University of Rangoon and its antecedents in Burma. Still others reexamined Buddhism in a search for answers. Some, like Saya San and other millennial Buddhists, combined traditional Burmese magical practices with Buddhism to try to revive the monarchy and bring about a new golden age on earth. As nationalism grew, so did ethnic consciousness, previously held in abeyance by the forced separate British administration of minority areas. It was perhaps more virulent as a result.

The Burmans had inchoately associated their identity with Buddhism, the faith of the vast majority of that group and a philosophy that permeated ail Burman life. As Christianity spread among some of the minorities (the Karen, Chin, and Kachin), Buddhism as a factor in Burman self-identify was specifically articulated. Buddhism could be modern or traditional, but it served to coalesce sentiment and provide focus at a time when political activity was still illegal.

The impact of colonial expansion obliterated not only the Burmese monarchy but also traditional Burman leadership on all levels. The British colonials in Burma revamped administrative power, in contrast to the Japanese in Korea or the Dutch in Indonesia, who exploited local precolonial elites for political and economic purposes. In Burma political power was primarily in British hands, but economic power and a degree of administrative authority at the middle level were distributed to Indian immigrants who arrived in Burma in the wake of the expansion.

In Burma Proper, the monarch (if not monarchical aspirations) disappeared with little trace. Burma was for Asia a relatively open society. Traditional class structure did not seem deeply rooted. The aristocracy in Burma Proper vanished, although some social stratification remained. The same was not true of the peripheral areas of Burma. The Shan and Kayah states were allowed to retain their traditional feudal hierarchies; and less formally organized tribal groups, such as the Chin and Kachin, continued under traditionally chosen leadership.

The Burmans, therefore, were forced to play subordinate roles for much of the colonial period. They were the descendants of the monarch, but had lost the most. They were subject to the British at the hierarchical apex. The Indians had vast economic power and to a lesser extent administrative position. Under the British, the ethnic minorities controlled the military. Christian and English speaking Karen were accorded special status to a degree. Burman Buddhists and the sangha ("monkhood"), however, were denied access to both political and economic power.

Preindependence nationalist ferment and World War II overturned this power hierarchy. Although a few wealthy Burmans emerged as political savants, products of the British educational system, more important for Burma's future was the formation of nationalist leadership from two Burman constituencies: the newly articulate Rangoon student population and the sangha. There was no rigid dichotomy between student modernists and Buddhist traditionalists. Many students were ardent Buddhists: some were modern, others traditional. Socialist ideals sometimes mixed with Buddhist philosophy in the 1930s. There were Marxist monks and monarchical pretenders. As war threatened, student activism was transformed in part into incipient military leadership as key former students received clandestine Japanese military training. Political and economic elites were transformed by World War II. Mass political organizations developed, a more representative Burmese military evolved, and the beginnings of a shift in economic power occurred as large numbers of Indians fled to their homeland.

On independence, mobility in Burmese society became more widespread. Education became free, and it was possible, indeed common, to find leadership emerging from working and peasant families. The newly created political process, including politicized labor unions, provided avenues for advancement. Greater emphasis on the sangha created greater opportunities for individuals who made even temporary commitments to monastic life. The military attracted volunteers from all classes. No firm cleavages developed among the emerging elites of the late colonial period. Students, politicians, and the military were all associated in the struggle toward the common goal–independence–although splits were to develop later.

The forces shaping Burma's civilian administrations were drawn generally from the Burman population. On the periphery, traditional elites in the Shan and Kayah states continued to exercise limited political (much greater social) control; they did so on sufferance from the center. Other ethnic leadership adjusted to the new recruitment process into the national elite. They educated their children at the university, joined the Burman-dominated administration, or engaged in the political process under overall Burman leadership. The Karen, feeling downgraded in status and abandoned by the British, found expression either through rebellion, which continues today, or through Burman-controlled political institutions.

The Role of the Military, 1948–1958

The Burma army on the eve of World War II was more an embodiment of British colonial attitudes than of Burmese reality. Until the 1930s, British policy excluded Burmans from the armed forces. They were thought to be "unreliable, insubordinate and unfitted generally for military service."¹ Put another way, the Burman troops might align themselves with the Burman population, and it was the Burmans with whom the British forces had to fight. Thus the British, basing their administration on an Indian model, recruited from the "martial races" of the hills.

The Burmans comprised only 12.3 percent of the armed forces in the early 1940s, whereas the largest groups in the military were the ethnic Karen (27.8 percent), Kachin (22.9 percent), and Chin (22.6 percent). The remainder were British, Anglo-Burmese, and others.² During World War II, some of these forces retreated into India as the Japanese advanced; others melded into the rural hill populations. Following the British reentry into Burma in the closing months of the war and the surrender of Japan, 5,200 troops of the patriotic Burmese forces eventually merged with the regular Burma army.³

The modern Burma army had its origins in World War II and in the nationalist Burma Independence Army (BIA). The BIA was formed in 1941-42 by the Thirty Comrades, led by Aung San, who had received Japanese training and returned to Burma with the invading Japanese army. Their goal was independence for Burma, and they hoped to achieve it by cooperating with the Japanese in their anti-British struggle. The Japanese helped reorganize these forces into the Burma Defense Army (BDA) and later in July 1942 into the Burma National Army (BNA), the military arm of the Japanese-sponsored pseudoindependent state. After their expectations of real independence from Japan vanished, the BNA forces, numbering 20,000 to 30,000 during the war, turned against the Japanese, joined with British troops, and engaged in the reconquest of Burma.

Aung San negotiated with the British to organize the military on a "class company basis," keeping ethnic separatism within the military intact. He felt that such organization would enable an independent Burma to cope more successfully with its growing minority problems.⁴ In 1947, the Burma army was composed of fifteen regular battalions, fifteen military police battalions, and some irregular troops, a very small force with which to face the diverse rebellions that erupted soon after the inauguration of the new state.⁵

The crisis of military leadership first became apparent immediately on independence with the outbreak of the Karen insurrection. Some of the Karen battalions joined the rebels, and the chief of staff of the Burma army, General Smith Dun, a Karen loyal to the government, was forced to resign.⁶ General Ne Win, his deputy, took over command of the troops. Subsequently, the leadership of the military would remain in the hands of the Burmans.

After the first years of independence, in which pitched battles were fought against the Karen, the military engaged almost exclusively in a series of small-scale guerrilla-type actions against the communist groups, the Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) forces in the Shan State, and the ethnic rebels. Since then, the military has not fought many major coordinated actions, and has limited capacity to do so, although the combat experience of the Burmese forces in small-group actions has been continuous and extensive.

In 1960, the military was still a small organization. It had grown to about 131,000 men, of whom 125,000 were in the army, 3,000 in the navy, and an additional 3,000 in the air force.⁷ By the late 1970s it totaled approximately 160,000 men.

The position of the military in Burmese society was more important than the number of troops. The close interaction between the military and nationalist activities of World War II moved the military into one of the four prime areas of social mobility in Burmese society, along with politics, the monkhood...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Maps, Tables, and Charts
• Preface
• Glossary
• Measurements and Exchange Rates
• Introduction
• 1. The Military Coup of 1962 and Its Antecedents
• 2. The Economics of Political Inversion, 1962-1972
• 3. The Reassessment of Priorities, 1972
• 4. The Constitution of 1974 and Bureaucratic Change
• 5. Income and the Social Sector
• 6. Agricultural Potential and Performance
• 7. Economic Performance: Industry and Trade
• 8. The Development Outlook for Burma
• 9. Conclusions: The Burmese Road Toward Development
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index