The River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma (46 page)

The British had also to consider their obligations in the hill regions, the Scheduled Areas, which had been administered separately from Burma proper and whose people had fought so heroically for the Allied side throughout the war. The stated policy was not to abandon them and to include them in a future Rangoon government only if they wished. In the brilliant cool sunshine of early 1946 Dorman-Smith went up to Myitkyina, for the first time since he had flown out of that town with his wife and pet monkey nearly four years before. He noticed that one of the leading Kachin chiefs was wearing the handsome Savile Row dinner jacket he had left behind. He also noticed that the town was largely obliterated. The Kachins seemed nevertheless in high spirits, certain that the British would soon recognize their sacrifice and meet their promises of money and assistance, for schools and hospitals and a better life for their children.
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By now London was getting a little nervous. Why not early elections? Some of the old politicians and Burmese civil servants began regaining a bit of confidence, saying that Aung San would not win a majority. Some even suggested that an arrest of Aung San would help things along and that he would be quickly forgotten if detained. But for others, including British military analysts, the picture was very different. Aung San had his private army as well as the loyalty of his ex-officers in the Burma Army. Whatever the extent of his popular following, he could cause considerable trouble if he wanted to. And Indian troops would simply not be available to crush any Burmese uprising. There were two options. One was to somehow bring Aung San on board, whatever it took; the other was to use the non-Indian troops available—four British battalions, four Gurkha battalions, eleven thousand West African troops, and whichever Burmese remained loyal.
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But the option to use force would be done in the face of a empty treasury at home and likely American displeasure at the new United Nations. It was not impossible to keep Aung San in check by force, but with growing headaches in Palestine and India, it was not an attractive proposition. Muddling on and leaving hard decisions for later seemed like the best thing to do.

For Aung San the calculation was different. He had remained as single-minded as ever; only independence mattered, come what may. There was nothing else to negotiate. And every day his single-mindedness and steely nature won him an ever-rising popularity, among all classes
and all parts of society. He was drawing enormous crowds and had become a hero to his people. But he knew he was walking a tightrope. He was sitting at the top of a huge and unwieldy coalition, of Communists and Socialists, militia leaders and student-politicians, old and new colleagues, army officers and businessmen. How long could that continue? He had to play his hand sooner rather than later.

Around this time a strange sort of friendship developed between Aung San and Dorman-Smith. Aung San tended to become melancholy and sometimes turned to the Irish organic farmer to talk about his loneliness. He had no friends, he said, and found it difficult to make friends. Dorman-Smith asked him how he could say that “when you are the people’s idol?” “I did not seek to be that,” said Aung San, “but only to free my country. But now it is so lonely,” and saying this, he wept. Dorman-Smith tried his best to comfort him, but it was no good. “How long do national heroes last? Not long in this country; they have too many enemies … I do not give myself more than another eighteen months of life.”
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LONDON LOSES ITS NERVE

Then came the test. As a legislative council was meeting for its first session and speeches were being made by rival politicians against the league, one council member, a former Thakin and one of the Thirty Comrades who had trained with Aung San at Hainan Island, stood up and accused his former commander of murder. In the early months of the war he and Aung San had marched into the Tenasserim on the coattails of an advancing Japanese division. At a village near Moulmein they had found that the village headman, an Indian, had remained in contact with the British and was preparing to organize a local resistance. Aung San arranged for the man to be tried by a court-martial and sentenced to death. The battle novice Aung San then tried to personally carry out the sentence, striking the man with a sword, but, failing to kill him, ordered another soldier to finish the job.

The story was all over the London as well as the Rangoon press, and a formal police inquiry was automatically begun. On 27 March at a meeting at Government House, Dorman-Smith canvassed the opinions of his chief lieutenants, and they were divided. The chief secretary
to the government, Sir John Wise, said that they would legally be obliged to arrest Aung San if a formal complaint was made, but the inspector general of police argued that this would lead to rebellion. He also reminded the governor that a pardon of all wartime offenses was being discussed. The commander in chief of Burma Command, the top British military officer in the country, said that an arrest of Aung San would lead not just to rebellion but to a mutiny from within the Burma Army and that there would be no Indian troops to deal with the consequences.

Aung San quickly heard of what was happening. He was not unhappy. This would force the issue and reveal once and for all whether the British were really going to try to stay. He saw what was going on in the world. Two weeks before, Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Vietminh guerrillas, had been elected the president of North Vietnam, and the Yugoslav partisan commander, Josip Broz Tito, was setting up his new government in Belgrade. The UN Security Council had held its first session, and Clement Attlee had just promised India independence as soon as a new constitution could be agreed on. History would forgive nothing but decisiveness.

The next morning Aung San walked into Sir Reginald’s office and told him as politely but directly as he could that the story about the murder was correct and that he accepted full responsibility. The governor warned that he might have to arrest him. Two weeks later an order arrived from Whitehall telling him to do just that, and the police were instructed to comply. In the Dutch East Indies, thousands had already died in fighting between Indonesian nationalists and the returning Dutch regime. Burma seemed on the eve of a similar war, perhaps one that would eventually drag in the Chinese and the Americans as well. But then, just as policemen had gone out to serve the order, a new order arrived from London, canceling the first. Over those twenty-four hours London had lost its nerve.

Dorman-Smith then decided to press home the issue and wrote to his superiors that at this point nothing other than the establishment of a provisional government under Aung San would calm tensions. He recommended immediate elections for a constituent assembly that would pave the way for unconditional independence. The world had changed, and Aung San had positioned himself just right. Dorman-Smith was asked to come back to London and would be made the
scapegoat for a year of inattention by Clement Attlee and his government. He was soon replaced as governor by Sir Hubert Rance. The British were getting ready to quit Burma.

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By now political instability, the protests and strikes, the stillborn reconstruction, and the absence of any real law and order meant the country was a mess. Banditry was a problem almost everywhere in a country awash in guns and martial spirit and with a standard of living far below that of the 1920s. Rice was in short supply, with government price ceilings and diversion of part of the crop to famine-stricken India. The Irrawaddy Flotilla Company, the lifeline of many backwater towns, was forced to discontinue service in the delta because of fears over security. Armed guards had to be assigned to all trains, buses, and boats. On 8 June even
The New York Times
reported that revolution was imminent.

Against this backdrop, the British House of Commons held its first proper debate on Burma, and the government’s Burma policy was attacked from both sides. Erstwhile journalist and alleged Communist spy Tom Driberg led calls from within the Labour Party in favor of working with Aung San and the nationalists, blaming not Dorman-Smith but the old Burma establishment at Government House and the Pegu Club, who, he said, were simply incapable by their background and training of understanding the new forces around them and of being anything but patronizing in their attitude toward the Burmese. On the Conservative side, Captain Leonard Gammans said that the real mistake was not having arrested Aung San sooner as a Japanese collaborator. Restore law and order, by force if necessary, and the Burmese would regain confidence in British rule. There was no real alternative; if the British pulled out now, someone else would come in. The government, while not quite taking Driberg’s line, said that the best course forward now was working with Aung San toward a speedy independence.

On 2 September, Pandit Nehru’s provisional government took power in New Delhi. As talks continued on possible partition, Nehru made clear again that the Indian Army could play no role against Aung San. Sir Hubert Rance had just arrived as the new and last governor and was welcomed by a wave of strikes, including a police strike that soon spread, first to all government workers and then to the railways and oil industry. By late September all business and administration was
at a standstill. A giant demonstration in Rangoon denounced the White Paper. Aung San knew he was gaining ground and prepared for a national strike to underline his position.

Governor Rance acted fast to show the Burmese things had changed. He met with the league on 21 September, and within two weeks a deal was made. There would be a new executive council with himself as chair and Aung San as deputy chair as well as the member in charge of defense and external affairs. The league was well represented, but other political groupings, including those of minority groups, would also be there. Aung San would be the de facto prime minister of a provincial government.

A national strike was averted, but Aung San made certain he would now set the pace. On 10 November he issued a four-part demand, including elections in April 1947, the inclusion of the hill regions in the whole process, an agreement that Burma would be independent by 31 January 1948, and a relook at economic reconstruction issues and in particular the role of British companies. Having come this far, Aung San also knew that he now needed the British to see things through and hold the country together. An armed rebellion at this point would mean that everyone would lose. He also needed to reassure minority peoples—in particular the Karens—that he could be trusted and that there would be no discrimination in an independent Burma. The lessons of India were close at hand, where vicious communal rioting in Calcutta was soon overshadowed by partition, a million refugees, and tens of thousands more dead across Bengal and the Punjab. And Rangoon was volatile. Militia commanders declaring loyalty to Aung San threatened violence and local strikes, and demonstrations continued, including one that nearly invaded the Secretariat building. With Aung San’s agreement, West African troops were sent in to patrol Rangoon, and this had good effect, but the situation was far from calm.

U AUNG SAN GOES TO LONDON

Prime Minister Attlee was now ready to accept anything, including full independence for Burma outside the new British Commonwealth. In a speech to Parliament just before Christmas holiday, he said: “We do not desire to retain within the Commonwealth and Empire any unwilling
peoples. It is for the people of Burma to decide their own future … For the sake of the Burmese people, it is of the utmost importance that this should be an orderly—though rapid—progress.” He proposed inviting Burmese representatives to London to discuss a new policy. Churchill, now the opposition leader and mindful of his father’s legacy, replied that the government was throwing away “what has been gained by so many generations of toil and sacrifice … this undue haste that we should get out of Burma finally and forever.” He hoped for delay and a chance for Britain’s friends in Burma to regain the initiative. Attlee responded that both India and Ireland were examples of the British doing the right thing too late.
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Aung San and the other delegates arrived by air to a poorly heated London in the middle of a freezing cold January. For some like Tin Tut, educated at Dulwich and Cambridge, London was familiar territory, but for Aung San, wearing a greatcoat against the unfamiliar climate, it was his very first time in the West. Tin Tut, the brightest Burmese official of his generation, quickly found himself Aung San’s deputy, and together they made speedy progress and were in a good mood. By 27 January there was an agreement. The interim government would be respected as a full dominion government (like Canada and Australia) and would control the Burma Army as soon as all Allied forces were withdrawn. A constituent assembly would be elected as soon as possible, and the final constitutional document would be presented to the British Parliament for approval. A portion of this assembly would become the provisional Burmese Parliament and would decide whether or not to remain in the Commonwealth after independence. Financial matters and the question of a future military alliance would be left to later talks. Britain would nominate Burma for membership in the United Nations.

The main problem for Aung San now was not with the British but with rivals at home. His closest colleague, Than Tun, left the league and as the leader of the Communist Party began warning of a sham independence, one that would leave the country to the mercy of British commercial interests and Anglo-American military domination. From the right, U Saw, the prewar prime minister, began making similar noises. A few months before, unknown assassins had tried to kill U Saw but only managed to blow out an eye. He blamed the league and began plotting his revenge.