Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0062/00628.txt

Text File | 1991-06-24 | 33KB | 508 lines

$Unique_ID{COW00628}
$Pretitle{261}
$Title{Myanmar (Burma)
Chapter 1B.   Diplomacy and Reform under King Mindon, 1853-78}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Donald M. Seekins}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{british
burma
burmese
lower
king
government
rice
indian
royal
mindon}
$Date{1983}
$Log{}
Country:     Myanmar (Burma)
Book:        Burma, A Country Study
Author:      Donald M. Seekins
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1983

Chapter 1B.   Diplomacy and Reform under King Mindon, 1853-78

     Like his contemporary, the reformist King Mongkut of Siam (1851-68), King
Mindon had spent most of his adult life in a Buddhist monastery before
ascending the throne. He was a scholar and a peaceful man, perhaps the only
Konbaung ruler to practice the Buddhist principle of ahimsa (non-harm),
preferring to refrain from violence rather than repenting of it. This was
revealed from the very beginning in his refusal to order a blood purge of
Pagan Min's former supporters. His reign of a quarter of a century was
characterized by a conciliatory attitude toward the British, a desire to
extend diplomatic contacts to other Western countries, a program of modest
reform, and an active promotion of the Buddhist religion. Like other newly
installed kings, he moved his capital, this time from Amarapura to a location
a few miles away at the foot of Mandalay Hill. At Mandalay, the "Cluster of
Gems," an old prophecy held that 24 centuries after the Buddha, a center of
Buddhist learning would arise and flourish. The king built a palace of teak
enclosed by square walls two kilometers long on each side, and by 1861 the
entire project was completed.

     King Mindon's moderate rule was a welcome respite for Burmese and British
alike after the vagaries of Tharrawaddy and Pagan Min. In dealing with the
British, however, Mindon faced problems not known to his predecessors. Because
of the annexation of Lower Burma, his kingdom was cut off from the sea, making
economic and diplomatic relations with countries other than Britain extremely
difficult. A mission sent in 1854 to Calcutta to raise again the question of
the reversion of Lower Burma received Dalhousie's brusque reply that "as long
as the sun shines, Pegu [Lower Burma] shall remain British." Commercial
interests, now based in Rangoon, pressed more rigorously for the opening of
the kingdom to increased trade, exploitation of its natural resources, and
development of a river and land route to the supposed riches of southwest
China markets. These, and the perceived threat of a growing French presence in
Indochina, confirmed the British in their treatment of the kingdom as a
denizen of that ambiguous region between independent status such as Siam
enjoyed, with its own embassy in London, and the vassalage pure and simple of
the Indian princely state.

     Mindon felt that the future of his kingdom depended upon the
modernization of its institutions and with the support of his most influential
minister, the Kinwun Mingyi, initiated a reform program aimed at strengthening
the position of the central government. One of his most ambitious measures was
the establishment of fixed salaries rather than appanages for royal
officials-instead of being supported by their districts they would receive
remuneration from the central government. Regional governors were appointed to
supervise the district governors, and the powers of the district chiefs and
village headmen were curbed by giving their judicial responsibilities to
provincial judges. Mindon established the thathameda, a tax on households with
variable assessments to take into account years of bad harvest, fires, or
natural catastrophes, in order to raise revenue for the reforms. Its success
was impaired, however, by the opposition of the district chief and village
headman "gentry" class and the determination of officials to continue being
supported by their jurisdictions.

     Mindon authorized a system of coinage to replace barter and payment in
kind; a royal mint was established, and weights and measures were
standardized. The overall economic policy that he envisioned could be
described as a kind of state capitalism: royal monopolies on all exportable
commodities would be maintained, and international trade would be controlled
by the government. The profits from exports would be used to support the
government, and historian Maung Htin Aung suggests that the king hoped that
these would be sufficient in the future to relieve the people of all direct
taxation. A "controlled" economy of this sort was clearly at variance with the
ideas of British merchants in Rangoon; they were further rankled by his policy
of buying goods directly and more cheaply at Calcutta rather than through
them.

     Mindon set up a ministry of industry, headed by one of his sons, the
Mekkara Prince. A number of textile mills, rice and wheat mills, sugar
refineries, and factories, producing small industrial goods such as glassware
and pottery, were built. To improve transportation he purchased river
steamers. A telegraph system was strung, linking Upper Burma to the outside
world through the British system in Lower Burma. Telegraphers were trained,
and a Morse code was devised for the Burmese language.

     The king did not see modernization as inconsistent with a basic
commitment to the Buddhist religion; its integrity seemed threatened by the
spread of missionary activity in Lower Burma and the refusal of the British
authorities there to grant patronage to the sangha. Mindon held annual
examinations on the Pali scriptures, built a number of pagodas and monasteries
in his new city, and supported both the orthodox Thudhamma sect and a group of
reformist monks headed by the Shwegyin Sayadaw. He donated a hti, or
jewel-encrusted golden umbrella, to be placed on top of the Shwedagon Pagoda
in Rangoon but to his disappointment was prohibited by the British from coming
down to dedicate it. Contacts that had been disrupted by years of war were
reestablished with the sangha of Siam. His greatest enterprise, however, was
the convening of the Fifth Buddhist Council at Mandalay between 1871 and 1874
to produce an authoritative text of the Pali Tripitaka, or scripture. The
entire Tripitaka was carved on 729 stone tablets and displayed in the Kuthodaw
Pagoda, east of Mandalay Hill. The council marked the zenith of his prestige
as a Buddhist monarch, as the fourth council had been held more than 1800
years earlier in Ceylon.

Commercial and Diplomatic Relations

     Although there was no official British representative at Mandalay during
the first years of Mindon's reign, cordial relations were maintained with the
commissioner of Lower Burma, the scholarly Major Arthur Phayre. Although the
king continued to refuse to recognize the annexation of Lower Burma, he
concluded a commercial treaty with the British, signed in 1862. It provided
for the reciprocal abolition of some customs duties; the freedom of traders,
both British and Burmese, to operate unrestricted along the coast of the
Irrawaddy; and, most significantly, the posting of a British political agent
at Mandalay.

     A second commercial treaty, signed in 1867, had important strategic, as
well as economic, implications and represented substantial concessions on the
king's part. Remaining customs duties were further reduced, the export of gold
and silver from the kingdom was permitted for the first time, and royal
monopolies on all products except oil, timber, and rubies were abolished, thus
cutting the ground from under Mindon's "state capitalism." A British residency
was to be established at Bhamo, near the Chinese border, and the Burmese
government agreed to assist the British in opening up an overland trade route
to China. The British-owned Irrawaddy Flotilla Company was allowed to send
ships up the river to Bhamo. These provisions, allowing for British activities
within the Burma-China border area, seriously compromised the kingdom's
independence, as did a further provision that the Burmes