War with Britain and the fall of Myanmar

In response to the continued expansion and even direct attacks of Myanmar, the British and the Siamese joined forces against it in 1824. The First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-26) ended in a British victory, and by the Treaty of Yandaboo, Myanmar lost Assam, Manipur, Arakan, and Tenasserim. As the century wore on, the British began to covet the natural resources of Myanmar and wanted to secure their supply route to Singapore. A vengeful new king of Burma reneged on the former Treaty and acquiesced on violence and insult against British ships and personnel, and thus started the Second Anglo-Burmese War in 1852, which ended in the British annexing Pegu province and renaming it Lower Burma. The war resulted in a revolution in Myanmar, with King Pagin Min (ruled 1846–52) being replaced by his half brother, Mindon Min (ruled 1853-78). King Mindon tried to modernize the Burmese state and economy to resist British encroachments, and he established a new capital at Mandalay, which he proceeded to fortify. This was not enough to stop the British, however, who claimed that Mindon's son Thibaw Min (ruled 1878–85) was a tyrant intending to side with the French, that he had lost the control of the country, thus allowing for disorder at the frontiers, and that he was reneging on a treaty signed by his father; and thus declared war once again in 1885, conquering the remainder of the country in the Third Anglo-Burmese War.

British Rule

Britain made all of Burma a province of India in 1886 with the capital at Rangoon. Traditional Myanmar society was drastically altered by the ending of the monarchy and the separation of church and state. Though war officially ended after only a couple of weeks, resistance continued in northern Myanmar until 1890, with the British finally resorting to a systematic destruction of villages and appointment of new officials to finally halt the guerilla activity. The economic nature of society also changed drastically. After the opening of the Suez Canal, the demand for Burmese rice grew and vast tracts of land were opened up for cultivation. However, in order to prepare the new land for cultivation, farmers were forced to borrow money from Indian moneylenders at high interest rates and were often evicted for failure to pay back the loan. Imported Indian labor ended up with most of the jobs, and whole villages became lawless dens full of the unemployed. While the Burmese economy grew, all the power and wealth was in the hands of several British firms and the Burmese people did not reap the rewards.

A new generation of Burmese leaders arose in the early twentieth century from amongst the educated classes that were permitted to go to London to study law. They came away from this experience with the belief that the Burmese situation could be improved through peaceful protest and negotiations. Peaceful strikes in the early 1920s led to a constitutional reform in 1923 that created a partially elected legislature with limited powers, but some people began to feel that the rate of change was not fast enough and the reforms not expansive enough. Some of these dissatisfied students founded a new group called Thakin (an ironic name as thakin means "master" in the Burmese language - rather like the Indian 'sahib' - and this was the term that students were required to use when addressing their British professors, whom they were coming to resent). A peasant rebellion led by Saya San that started in 1930 and lasted for two years gave the Thakin their chance. Though they did not actually participate in the rebellion, they did win the trust of the peasants and displaced the older generation of London-educated elites at the head of the Burmese nationalist movement. They staged a strike in 1936, which was notable because it was during this strike that Thakin Nu and Aung San joined the movement. The British separated Burma from India in 1937 and granted the colony a new constitution calling for a fully elected assembly, but many Burmese felt that this was just a ploy to exclude them from any further Indian reforms. Ba Maw served as the first prime minister of Burma, but he was forced out by U Saw in 1939, who served as prime minister from 1940 to 1942.

 

World War II and Japan

Burmese nationalists saw the outbreak of World War II as an opportunity to extort concessions from the British in exchange for support in the war effort, but the British would have none of it, issuing an arrest warrant for Aung San, who escaped to China. The Japanese offered him support, and he briefly returned to Burma to enlist the aid of twenty-nine young men who went to Japan with him to receive military training as the so-called "Thirty Comrades." The Japanese quickly declared Burma independent, and when they occupied Bangkok in December 1941, Aung Sang announced the formation of the Burma Independence Army (BIA) in anticipation of Japanese liberation. The Japanese duly moved into Burma in 1942 and disbanded the BIA, forming the smaller Burma Defense Army in its place with Aung Sang still at the head. Ba Maw was declared head of state, and his cabinet included both Aung Sang and Thakin Nu.

It soon became apparent that Japanese promises of independence were merely a sham and that Ba Maw was just a puppet. As the war turned against the Japanese, they declared Burma a fully sovereign state in 1943, but this was just another facade. Disillusioned, Aung San began negotiations with Lord Mountbatten in October 1943 and officially joined the Allies with his renamed Burma National Army (BNA) in March 1945. During this period, Aung San successfully created a broad-based coalition of political parties called the Anti-Fascist Organization, renamed the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL), to govern the country. The Japanese were routed from Burma in May 1945.

The defeat of the Japanese brought a military administration and demands to try Aung San as a traitor for his early collaboration with the Japanese. Lord Mountbatten realized that this was an impossibility considering Aung San's hold on the BNA and his popular appeal and sent the conciliatory Sir Hubert Rance to head the administration, who was able to win back the trust of both Aung San and the general populace. After the war ended, the former civilian governor returned, and Aung San was duly arrested. This nearly touched off a rebellion, but the British backed off and sent Rance back to restore order and faith. Negotiations began for Burmese independence, which were completed successfully in January 1947. The agreement left both the communist and conservative branches of the AFPFL dissatisfied, however, sending the communists underground and the conservatives into opposition. Another who was dissatisfied by the agreement was U Saw, who felt that Aung San had conceded too much in the negotiations. Consequently, he engineered the assassination of Aung San and nearly his entire cabinet in July. Thakin Nu was asked to form a new cabinet, and he presided over Burmese independence on January 4, 1948.

 

Independent Burma

Burma was left impoverished and devastated by the war and therefore opted for a policy of neutrality in world affairs. There were still many internal difficulties in the first years, including successive insurgencies by the communists, former supporters of Aung San, and Karen tribesmen. The jungles of northern Burma were also briefly home to a division of Nationalist Chinese forces after the Communist takeover of that country in 1949. Burma did accept some foreign assistance in rebuilding the country in these early years, but continued American support for Taiwan finally resulted in the country rejecting all foreign aid. Burma strove to be impartial in world affairs and was one of the first countries in the world to recognize Israel and the People's Republic of China.

By 1958, the country was largely beginning to recover economically, but was beginning to fall apart politically due to continual disagreements among the top leaders of the AFPFL. The situation became so unstable that U Nu invited army chief of staff Ne Win to take over the country. Ne Win successfully stabilized the military situation and paved the way for new general elections in 1960 that returned U Nu with a large majority. The situation did not remain stable for long, however, as Ne Win launched a coup in March 1962, arrested U Nu and several other important government officials, and declared a socialist state run by a Revolutionary Council of senior military officers.

U Ne Win (as he was now called) quickly took steps to transform Burma into a true socialist state. A one-party system was established with the new Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) in complete control. Commerce and industry were nationalized, but the economy did not grow at first as the government put too much emphasis on industrial development at the expense of agriculture. In April 1972, Win and the rest of the Revolutionary Council retired from the army, but continued to run the country through the BSPP, and a new constitution was promulgated in January 1974 that resulted in the creation of a People's Assembly (Pyithu Hluttaw) that held supreme legislative, executive, and judicial authority, and local People's Councils. Win became the president of the new government.

In December 1974, the biggest anti-government demonstrations to date broke out over the funeral of former UN Secretary-General U Thant. U Thant had been U Nu's closet advisor in the 1950s and was seen as a symbol of opposition to the military regime.

In the 1980s, the economy began to grow as the government relaxed restrictions on foreign aid, but by the late 1980s falling commodity prices and rising debt led to an economic crisis. This led to economic reforms in 1987-88 that relaxed socialist controls and encouraged foreign investment. This was not