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Liberal Leviathan or Imperial Outpost? J. S. Furnivall on Colonial Rule in Burma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2010

NEIL A. ENGLEHART
NEIL A. ENGLEHART*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio 43551, USA Email: neile@bgsu.edu
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Abstract

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.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , July 2011 , pp. 759 - 790
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 Furnivall, J. S. (1948). Colonial Policy and Practice: A Comparative Study of Burma and Netherlands India, Cambridge University Press: New York, p. 6Google Scholar.

2 For rare exceptions see Taylor, R. (1995). Disaster of Release? J. S. Furnivall and the Bankruptcy of Burma, Modern Asian Studies, 29:1, 45–63Google Scholar; Pham, J. (2004). Ghost Hunting in Colonial Burma: Nostalgia, Paternalism and the Thoughts of J. S. Furnivall, South East Asia Research, 12:2, 237–268Google Scholar, and idem (2005); Furnivall, J. S.and Fabianism: Reinterpreting the ‘Plural Society’ in Burma, Modern Asian Studies 39:2, 321–348Google Scholar.

3 Here focus is on Colonial Policy and Practice, because it is Furnivall's most influential work and the most elaborated version of his argument about Liberalism and the British impact on Burma. The basic argument however remains remarkably constant throughout Furnivall's successive reworkings of the material, from its first and most basic articulation in his collection of Antony Maingy's official correspondence (1929). Selected Correspondence of Letters Issued from and Received in the Office of the Commissioner of Tenasserim Division For the Years 1825–6 to 1842–3, Government Printing Office: Rangoon, through his more analytical 1939 piece from the Journal of the Burma Research Society, republished in 1991 as The Fashioning of Leviathan: The Beginnings of British Rule in Burma, Australian National University Department of Anthropology Occasional Papers Canberra, and finally in its most developed form in Colonial Policy and Practice in 1948.

4 Furnivall served in the Indian Civil Service (ICS) in Burma from 1902 to 1923.

5 See Pham, Ghost-Hunting; and J. S. Furnivall and Fabianism.

6 Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice, p. 284.

7 Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice, pp. 28, 29.

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11 Wilson notes that even when officials in Bengal appeared to be under the influence of Liberal ideology, they were often actually responding to local consequences. Wilson, Anxieties of Distance, pp. 9–10.

12 This includes all officials holding a rank of assistant commissioner or higher, and the members of the chief commissioner's staff, known as the secretariat. Data on 14 individuals was not complete and is not included in the calculations here and below. Data collected from India Office Records (IOR).

13 Source: IOR L/F/10/29; L/F/10/30; L/F/10/31; L/F/10/32; L/F/10/33; L/F/10/34; L/F/10/36; L/F/10/37; L/F/10/38; L/F/10/39; L/F/10/40; L/F/10/42; O/6/36; V/12/381; V/12/382; V/12/383; V/12/385; V/12/387; V/12/422; V/13/1140; V/13/1141; V/13/1144; V/13/1145, the Indian Army and Civil List, various volumes 1861–1876, the East India Register various volumes 1793–1901, and Ramchunder, D. (1844). General Register of the Honourable East India Company: Civil Servants of the Bengal Establishment from 1740–1842, Baptist Mission Press: CalcuttaGoogle Scholar

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16 Stokes, The English Utilitarians and India.

17 The other was Northwest Frontier Province. O'Malley, L. (1965 [1931]). The Indian Civil Service 1601–1930, Frank Cass: London, p. 53Google Scholar; Blunt, E. (1937). The I.C.S.: The Indian Civil Service, Faber and Faber: London, pp. 43–44Google Scholar.

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19 Characterization of the British administration of Burma as akin to a military occupation is thus quite apt, in contrast to most other Indian provinces. See Aung-thwin, M. (1985). The British ‘Pacification’ of Burma: Order Without Meaning, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 16:2, 245–261Google Scholar; Callahan, M (2003). Making Enemies: War and State Building in Burma, Cornell University Press: IthacaGoogle Scholar.

20 Rabitoy, N. (1975). System v. Expediency: The Reality of Land Revenue Administration in the Bombay Presidency, 1812–1820, Modern Asian Studies, 9:4, 530CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Furnivall, Selected Correspondence, p. 15.

22 Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice, p. 30.

23 Of course, administrative systems rarely, if ever, worked this way in any part of India, and Burma was no exception. See for instance Christopher Baker's account of the actual functioning of the ryotwari system in Madras in the early twentieth century, ‘Non-Cooperation in South India’, in Baker, C. & Washbrook, D. (1975). South India: Political Institutions and Political Change 1880–1940, Macmillan: Delhi, pp. 109–111CrossRefGoogle Scholar. There were of course also significant differences between the way the Burmese system worked in theory (as represented in official documents) and in practice. The Burmese ‘system’ included significant variations across time and space, and really constituted a set of systems which must be considered in the light of local context.

24 Furnivall, Selected Correspondence, pp. 2, 8. Maingy did however decline to employ former officials when he thought they might not serve British interests. Ibid., p. 27.

25 Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice, p. 37.

26 Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice, p. 37.

27 Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice, pp. 37–38.

28 Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice, p. 34.

29 Furnivall, Selected Correspondence, pp. 12, 28, 44, 73.

30 Furnivall, Selected Correspondence, p. 49.

31 Lieberman, V. (2001). Trends in Burmese Economic History, c. 1350–1830, and Their Implications for State Formation, Modern Asian Studies, 25:1, 1–31Google Scholar, Charney, M. (2003). Documents on Western Burmese Economic History, SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research, 1:1, 61–73Google Scholar.

32 San, Shwe Bu (1923). The Arakan Mug Battalion, Journal of the Burma Research Society, 13:2, 135Google Scholar.

33 Phayre, A. (1841). Account of Arakan, Journal of the Asiatic Society, 117: New Series 33, pp. 680–712Google Scholar; Leider, J. (2003). Arakan Around 1830—Social Distress and Political Instability in the Early British Period, Arakanese Research Journal, 2, 5–24Google Scholar.

34 IOR L/P&S/5/213, ff 166–70: 172–4.

35 Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice, pp. 39, 42.

36 IOR P/1272 July 1879: 157. Note that much the same was true in south India. See Baker, ‘Non-Cooperation’, 111–112.

37 IOR L/P&S/5/213: 166–170.

38 Stokes, English Utilitarians and India, p. 248.

39 The annexation of Pegu gave the British access to the port of Rangoon, and Burma, for the first time, became a net generator of revenue. In fact, its surplus helped subsidize poorer provinces in India. British Burma officials continually complained of what they regarded as unfair revenue settlements with Calcutta, but the fact that they generated a reliable surplus meant that they tended to be subject to less oversight and interference. IOR V/27/244/1; P/5 November 1871; Mss Eur E254/13.

40 See for instance IOR L/P&S/5/213 ff. 166–170, 172–74 (1852); V/10/4 Report on the Administration of Pegu 1856–7: 3; P/3119 September 1888, A: 1–35; and Mss Eur E 254/12.

41 IOR Mss Eur F 83183/47: 18.

42 IOR P/2 October 1871; P/2, November 1871.

43 IOR V/10/446; San, Tin. (1970). Kyannaw Do Burokarat [I Am a Bureaucrat]. Hla, Ludu U, ed. Gyiburayapain Press: MandalayGoogle Scholar.

44 Cohn, B. (1996). Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India, Princeton University Press: Princeton, p. 5Google Scholar. See also Wilson, ‘Anxieties of Distance’.

45 IOR V/10/13 Report of the Administration of the Province of Pegu for the Year 1859–60: 4. Note that Punjabi law was followed with respect to parental authority, guardianship and bastardy.

46 IOR P/5 February 1874, A: 37–8; April 1874 Appendix A; May 1874, A: 1–4; P/6 August 1874, A: 109; P/7 January 1875, A: 47–51; P/779 May 1886, B: v–vi; July 1876, A: 17; and P/1132 August 1878, B: xxii.

47 IOR P/1986 April 1883, A: 27, 36. These positions were, however, filled by a European and an Indian.

48 IOR P/4479 March 1894, A: 21–7. The Kinwun Mingyi had been a senior official under the last two kings.

49 IOR V/10/13: 4.

50 IOR P/2 October 1871, A: 32. Note that in Bengal judicial and executive power had been fused in 1859, shifting the system away from the Bengal model and toward the Munro model. See Stokes, English Utilitarians and India, p. 239.

51 IOR P/4 July 1873, A: 31–2.

52 IOR P/5 July 1874, A: 75–8.

53 Baker, ‘Non-cooperation’, pp. 109–111.

54 See for instance the campaign diary of Captain Raikes, IOR Mss Eur B 391.

55 IOR P/1272 July 1879, A: 157. Such hereditary rights were also upheld in south India until 1918, See Baker, ‘Non-cooperation’, p. 111.

56 IOR p/4035 April 1892, A: 1–3; P/4479 February 1894, B: lxv; P/4481 June 1894, A: 5.

57 Chief Commissioner Charles Bernard, had suggested that the former tax system be retained in Upper Burma for one or two years as a bridge, to be followed by a homogenization with Lower Burma. IOR P/2660A April 1886, A pp. 4–21. However, it remained in effect until 1942.

58 Houghton, B. (1913). Bureaucratic Government: A Study in Indian Polity, King: London, p. 7Google Scholar.

59 IOR Mss Eur E254/13.

60 IOR P/3 July 1872; P/5 April 1874, P/5 July 1874; P/5850 December 1900; MSS Eur 254/30.

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62 These consequences were not confined to administration. For example, when the British identified the primary mosquito vector for malaria in India, they initiated drainage projects in Burma on the assumption that it was also the major vector in Burma. In fact, it was not, and these projects actually increased the incidence of malaria in Burma by increasing habitat for the local vector. See Richell, J. (2006). Disease and Demography in Colonial Burma, National University of Singapore: Singapore, p. 264.

63 The village system was considered so successful in Upper Burma that it was extended to lower Burma in 1891. IOR V/10/506.

64 IOR P/349 September 1888, p. 2.

65 IOR P/3119 September 1888, A: 1.

66 Cady, History of Modern Burma, p. 144.

67 IOR V/10/4 Report on the Administration of Tenasserim and Martaban Provinces for the Year 1856–7: 11.

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69 Because of resource and manpower limits imposed by war, information is not available for 1940–1942. This data is from 1939.

70 Only three of these had served in the Indian Army, with the others serving in the regular army in World War I. None were ‘military civilians’ in the traditional sense, having resigned their commissions to enter civil employ.

71 O'Malley, Indian Civil Service, p. 247.

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74 A number of Furnivall's colleagues in Burma were also Fabians. See Pham, J. S. Furnivall and Fabianism, p. 327.

75 A number of senior figures in colonial politics were members of the Fabian Society, including Arthur Creech Jones (who served as Secretary of State for the Colonies), Sidney Olivier (Governor of Jamaica and later Secretary of State for India), Sidney Webb (Secretary of State for the Colonies and later Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs) and Leonard Woolf (who served in the Ceylon Civil Service).

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77 Ibid., p. 13.

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80 Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice, p. 51.

81 Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice, p. 16.

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85 Furnivall, Selected Correspondence, pp. 12, 28, 44, 73.

86 Toe Hla, Money-lending and Contractual Thet-Kayits, pp. 130–132, 204–211.

87 Thant Myint-U, Making of Modern Burma, p. 44.

88 Toe Hla, Money-lending and Contractual Thet-Kayits, pp. 73, 75.

89 Saito, ‘Rural Monetization’.

90 Lieberman, ‘Trends in Burmese Economic History’; idem, Strange Parallels, Chapter 2.

91 Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice, pp. 15–6.

92 See for instance Symes, M. (1800). An Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava Sent by the Governor-General of India in the Year 1795, W. Bulmer: London, Chapters 1 and 2Google Scholar; Sangermano, F. (1969 [1833]). A Description of the Burmese Empire, trans. Tandy, William, Kelley: New York, Chapters 12, 23Google Scholar; Toe Hla, Money-lending and Contractual Thet-Kayits; Lieberman, Trends in Burmese Economic History; Thant Myint-U, Making of Modern Burma, Chapter 2.

93 Compare Toe Hla, Money-lending and Contractual Thet-Kayits, pp. 85–92 with Milgrom, P., North, D. & Weingast, B. (1990). The Role of Institutions in the Revival of Trade: The Law Merchant, Private Judges and the Champagne Fairs, Economics and Politics 2:1, 1–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

94 Toe Hla, Money-lending and Contractual Thet-Kayits, pp. 92–100.

95 Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice, p. 16.

96 Toe Hla, Money-lending and Contractual Thet-Kayits, pp. 110–111.

97 Prasertkul, C. (1989). Yunnan Trade in the Nineteenth Century: Southwest China's Cross-boundaries Functional System, Chulalongkorn University Institute of Asian Studies: BangkokGoogle Scholar; Thant Myint-U, Making of Modern Burma, Chapter 2.

98 Symes, Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava, Chapter 4.

99 See Charney, Documents on Western Burmese Economic History. David, Washbrook (2007) has noted a similar vitality in the Indian economy in this period in, India in the Early World Economy: Models of Production, Reproduction and Exchange, Journal of Global History 2:1, 87–111Google Scholar.

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101 As Washbrook observes of south India, ‘the global impact of the British Industrial Revolution. . .affected most of the rest of the world similarly, whether it was “colonized” or not’. Washbrook, D. A. (2004). South India 1770–1840: The Colonial Transition, Modern Asian Studies, 38:3, 508Google Scholar.

102 Pham, J. S., Furnivall and Fabianism, pp. 323–324.

103 Furnivall, ‘Some Problems of Tropical Economy’, pp. 161–184.

104 Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice, p. 548.