Burmese Days: Boundaries and Tensions in Colonial Burma

Key Terms:
*Nation-State: a circumscribed territorial space with a single government that assigns rights and responsibilities
*Imperialism: process of expansion and assertion of domination over contiguous and non-contiguous territory
*Colonialism: organization and experience of ruling territories
*Colonizer and Colonized: beneficiary of ruling power vs subject to power of colonial state

I. Expansion and Transformation of British Presence in India and Burma
A. From East India Company to Imperial Raj, 1700-1858
1. used military might to consolidate position in region up to 1820 while accommodating traditional elites and cultural practices
2. after 1820 Liberal reformers sought to make India in the image of Britain—outlawed certain customs, reorganized land ownership ; annexed provinces adjoining kingdom of Burma in 1824 and 1852
3. rebellion in 1858 led to a reversal in policy; Indians treated as a race apart, accelerated territorial expansion, annexed Burma to India in 1885. (Map of Burma & Slides of British India before and after the 1857 Mutiny)

B. Twilight of the Imperial Raj, 1890-1934
1. colonial policies contradicted British principles of equality before the law, free trade, political rights
2. agreed to devolve some power to colonial subjects in exchange for support during World War I in 1923 and intensified mass campaign for home rule and independence
3. Burma separated from India in 1935; assumes control over internal government

II. George Orwell’s Burmese Days (1934)
A. Eric Blair to George Orwell (Image of National Identity Card with George Orwell)
1. born in India, attended boarding school in Britain before returning to India to serve as a police officer and resigned after five years to become a writer (Image of Orwell as a Baby with Ayah and Image in Police Officer Group)
2. published first novel Burmese Days in 1934 (Image of Cover of Novel)
3. contributed to debate in British society about the legitimacy of the British empire: A Thankless Noble Burden or Pretext for Economic Exploitation

B. Tensions of Rule in Colonial Burma
1. boundaries classify people either as colonized and colonizer:
a) spatial boundaries-residential and commercial, public and private (Orwell references, pp. 15, 17, 18 & 52)
b) social boundaries-race, class and gender
2. contingent nature of British power made colonial and colonized categories flexible:
a) relied on Burmese men and women to support economy and distribution of power (Orwell references, pp. 11, 50 & 52-55)
b) used knowledge of the power and prestige to enhance position in the colonial hierarchy (Orwell references, pp. 11, 46-47, 51 & 54-55)
c) institutional, social and spatial boundaries transgressed by Burmese and Britons in daily life (Orwell references, pp. 15, 36, 52, 56-61, 62, 73-74, 101 & 125-129)
3. rules and rituals police and reproduce colonizer and colonized identities:
a) restricting contact and forms of communication (Orwell references, pp. 15, 36, 49 & 52)
b) dress and food ways (Orwell references, pp. 20 & 26)
c) group rituals and social practices (Orwell references, pp. 51 & 73-74)
d) imagining “home”(Orwell references, pp. 20, 23 & 25-26).