Kyauktada Katha

George Orwell's book, "Burmese Days" is centred on a fictional town called Kyauktada 'in Upper Burma'. It is the story of an English timber merchant named John Flory set in the 1920s. Kyauktada is actually a district in Yangon so it seems Orwell drew his inspiration for this story from his stay at a small town called Katha ('story' in many Indian languages), on the banks of the Irrawaddy.

The book brings to life the life and times of the British colonial enterprise in the 1920s, seen through the eyes of a merchant named John Flory. He lives in a small, insular community of Britishers who are already nostalgic about the violence used to bring the natives to heel. In the words of the local administrator, "In my young days, when a butler was disrespectful, one sent him along to the jail with a chit saying 'Please give the bearer fifteen lashes'. Ah well, Eheu fugaces!"

Flory is a misfit at the  British-only club, an oddball in the sense that he is not as disdainful of the locals. An Indian doctor, Veeraswami  - 'very slimly' according to his compatriots - is a good friend with whom him enjoys long conversations. It is in these conversations that Orwell frames his views on  the Empire. Here the roles are reversed, it is Veeraswami is a a loyal subject of the empire, an admirer of all things British, while Flory is the skeptic who thinks he is living a lie -

"But my friend, what lie are you living?' 

"Why, of course, the lie that we're here to uplift or poor black brothers instead of to rob them.. Look at our schools - factories for cheap clerks. We've never taught a single useful manual trade to the Indians..."

This anti-Empire line of thought is expanded through the Veeraswami-Flory conversations:

"What was at the centre of his thoughts now, and what poisoned everything, was the ever bitterer hatred of the atmosphere of imperialism in which he lived. For his brain to develop - you cannot stop your brain developing, and it is one of the tragedies of the half-educated that they develop late, when they are absolutely committed to the wrong way of life - he has grasped the truth about the English and the Empire. The Empire is a despotism - benevolent no doubt, but still a despotism with theft as its final object..."

"The real backbone of the despotism is not the officials but the army. Given the Army, the officials and business men can rub along safely enough even if they are fools. And most of them are fools. A dull, decent people, cherishing and fortifying their dullness behind a quarter of a million bayonets."

"With Indians there must be no loyalty, no real friendship. Affection, even love - yes, English men do often love Indians - native officers, forest rangers, hinters, clerks, servants. Sepoys will weep like children when their colonel retires. Even intimacy is allowable, at the right moments. but alliance, partisanship, never! Even to know the rights and wrongs of a 'native' quarrel is a loss of prestige."

No wonder Orwell was wary of a backlash if the book were to be published first in Britain. He wisely decided to publish this book in USA instead.

I loved the flowing prose in "Burmese Days", and the way he brings out his characters - especially the Burmese ones. One particularly obnoxious one is Ko Po Kyin, "the crocodile" and his wife, Ma Kin Kin...dressed in a guangbaung of pale pink silk, an ingyi of starched muslin and, and a paso of Mandalay silk. Another interesting character is is Ma Hla May, Flory's mistress who aspired to be a bo-kadaw - a white man's wife - but is discarded as soon as Elizabeth, a young lady turns up at Kyauktada. The crocodile uses her to undermine Flory and destroy his rival, Veeraswami. 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned', especially if she turn up at the most unexpected places screaming Pike-san pay-like! Pike-san pay-like ('Give me the money') !

This is only my second Orwell book after Animal Farm many years ago. It is William Dalrymple's podcast on that led me to Burmese Days, so if you don't have the time read books do listen to this particular series on the remarkable life and times of George Orwell.

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LINKS and FURTHER READING

* Orwell and Dalrymple on English Class (2022) - https://quillette.com/2022/05/02/orwell-dalrymple-on-english-class/

* Empire Podcast - Episode 302 - https://youtu.be/s_vrCr3XW8o?si=92s71EOZ5hjpqvh6

Lighting up a Blind Spot in the East

Most South Indian middle-class families have a Burma connection. One that goes back a gneration of two when the country was an attractive destination for young men seeking employment, and for traders trying to make their fortunes.

Perhaps the first time I heard about the country was at the home of a family friend in Hyderabad in the mid 1970s. This gentleman had a large, framed picture of the magnificent Shwedagon Pagoda in his drawing room, as well as intricately woven baskets made of bamboo, mementos from his frequent visits to Rangoon.

Then there were books that told you about the country's past - Amitav Ghosh's "The Glass Palace" and the Ibis Trilogy. Short stories by George Orwell, references to the World War in books by Japanese authors, Michio Takeyama and Haruki Murakami.

What about Burma after it became Mynamar? The whole country seems to have slipped into some kind of blind-spot with hardly any news coming in directly. Nothing much except for the occasional news-stories from Western magazines about of Aung Sang Suu Kyi,  and the ongoing Rohingya refugee crisis. It was a big blind spot waiting to be filled and I was pleased to get hold of a book by Burmese born author and diplomat, Thant Myint-U.

Myint-U's book "Where China Meets India" is bit like walking across the street to visit a reticent neighbour, and realising that you own house looks so different from the other side! You are reminded that parts of your own house belonged to them not so long ago, and vice versa. The Burmans once ruled over the Assam valley, and kings of tiny Manipur once invaded and subjugated the rulers of Mandalay.

China too looks like a completely different country when viewed through the eyes of a neighbour.  I learnt, for instance, that Yunnan, the Chinese province bordering Myanmar is as ethnically diverse, with a per-capital GDP which is among the lowest in China. Over the past few decades, China's Western Development Strategy seeks to remedy this disparity by connecting its poorest, land-locked provinces to the sea, through Myanmar.

Getting all the local tribes and communities - most of them mutually hostile - was certainly not easy. The process of assimilating non-Han Chinese has been a work-in-progress for the past 1000 years or more. The Yao were brought to heel in the 1450s in a war in which the Chinese killed 7300 and took as many, or more, PoWs; The Miao lost out in the Battle of Mount Leigong in 1726 where more than 10,000 Miao had their heads chopped off  and 400,000 starved to death; Ditto for the Buyu in 1797. And then there are groups like the Naxi who owe their musical skills to a band left behind by the Mongol invader, Kublai Khan. Another community which has managed to keep its traditions is the Musuo people living north of Lijiang. Among the matrilineal Musuo,  women are strong and dominant, engaging in 'walking marriages', very similar to the "Sambandham" system practiced by Nairs of Kerala.

A lot of water has flowed down the Irrawaddy since then. Burma is now Myanmar, its capital has moved from Mandalay and Rangoon to a newly purpose-built capital city of Naypyidaw. After years of international sanctions trade is on the upswing, and the country is trying to lower its dependence on China.

Perhaps the day is not far off when we too can drive across from Guwahati to Mandalay, or just take a ferry from Kolkata to Yangon/Rangoon.

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LINKS & REFERENCES

* Myint-U, Thant (2011): WHERE CHINA MEETS INDIA - Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia, Faber and Faber, 2012 URL - https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/12151572-where-china-meets-india

* Literature - Japanese connection - https://www.mmtimes.com/news/literary-sun-rising-over-golden-land.html

* Wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar










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* Myint-U, Thant (2011): WHERE CHINA MEETS INDIA - Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia, Faber and Faber, 2012

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https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/12151572-where-china-meets-india

India's War

Over the past few weeks two different authors launching two very similar sounding books: "India's War" by Srinath Raghavan and "India's Wars" by Arjun Subramaniam. Except for the pudgy looking elephant on the Srinath's book, both would have had similar covers too.

I picked the author was more familiar - Srinath. There are already a lot of glowing book reviews in the magazines and newspapers so let me just stick to the points that I found interesting or fascinating.

"India's War" makes a very interesting start with the author's curiosity getting piqued at the Indian Military Academy. At IMA, officer cadets were divided into groups named after distant, strange-sounding places in foreign lands. Battlefields where Indian units fought - and won - many significant victories.

Victories and defeats. The book does not attempt to whitewash battles where the British Indian Army suffered significant defeats. I liked that. I also liked the way in which the Germans and Japanese were given due credit for adopting significantly better strategies and tactics. Details of the logistics and costs involved in ramping up an army from 50,000 to 2.5 million, and the travails of moving the divisions from one corner of the world to another, makes fassinating reading.

It was also good to know that the supposedly "progressive" princely state of Travancore, under Divan Sir CP Ramaswamy Aiyer, fared no better than British Bengal when it came to providing foodgrains for its citizens. While the former starved for the want of imported rice from Burma, the latter just shipped off whatever it as reserve-stocks for British soldiers in Europe. During the Famine in Travancore (1941-43), a sack of rice cost Rs. 65. An Indian soldier fighting in North Africa or Southern Europe received a monthly salary of Rs. 17 while the British tommies in the adjascent trenches got Rs.67 - three times the salary for the same work.

Unknown names also came to the fore: Maruyama Daisaburo, the spy who lived in Gandhi's Wardha ashram in the 1930s went on to set up a superb school for espionage in Penang. And then there was Lt Gen Mutaguchi Renya, Commander of the 15th Army in Northern Burma. If it were not for the misclculation he made for for the main offensive "Operation U-Go (8 march 1944) and  Op Ha-Go (to stop and destroy the 5th and 7th Indian Division along the Mayu Ridge), the war could have turned out very differently indeed!

Orwell's Burma

Random surfing has its perks - I was looking for information on the cyclone in Myanmar and ended up with a hanging.

Latest reports say that over 80,000 people would have died after Cyclone Nargis hit the Irrawaddy delta last Saturday. There is still no news from our friend DKK Oo in Yangon. So I was just looking up the net when I stumbled on some accounts of George Orwell, from his days as an officer with the British Burma Police.

His essay, “A Hanging”(1931), was particularly moving. The thoughts that cross a man’s mind when he sees a nameless convict being walked fifty yards from his jail cell to the gallows. Thoughts that momentarily reflect empathy, humanity and guilt; sentiments that are so easily obliterated in another moment by the prison-routine, black humor and a shared bottle of whiskey.

Another good one - Shooting an Elephant.