Historical Narratives and Burmanization (1824–1947)

Abstract

This chapter describes two types of history developed in colonial Burma and after. The first is the official modern history that government historians who write mass-produced schoolbooks emphasize. This history logically leads to the conclusion that Burmanized military rule is the best type of government today. Second, there is a more critical history told by professional historians that puts the new government in context. This chapter describes how these histories emerged during the British colonial times (1824–1947), during World War II, and up to the time of the U Nu government (1948–1962). The chapter discusses Ne Win’s emergence during this period, and how the Tatmadaw emerged as the central authority in the country.

1 The Multiple Historical Narratives of Burmanization

Every country has at least two historical narratives underpinning it. First and most public, there is the national narrative justifying what Anderson (1991) called the imagined community which is bounded in both in time, and by geography (see also Waters 2005). All countries today have an official history that weaves together pieces of the past to justify the present. The focus is on what is plausible given the memories of the people present—the elders who like Saw Eh Htoo’s grandfather told impressionable children about what they remember regarding their own lives, and the socio-political context they grew up in. The dramatic often plays a prominent role—which is why violence, war, and the military are important in official history. The miraculous can also be present, dramatic rescues, heroes who sacrifice for the greater good are also prominent in such national stories. Some of these heroes are mythologized in ways that may bother outsiders who claim that they are implausible to them. Or as is the case in Myanmar, ethnic heroes like the Karen Saw Bao U Gyi are ignored because the ethnic claims are inconsistent with the mythologized national histories. The main criteria for inclusion for a national history is that the narrative be first plausible to the population, and then also credible to elders, and reflect a creditability for the honored founders.

This chapter includes two approaches, which are somewhat mixed together. The first approach is about the history written by Ne Win’s historians; it is the “official history,” found in textbooks in Myanmar, or for that matter in Wikipedia. This history highlights credibly the greatness inherited from past Bamar kingdoms which have led to the natural conclusion that the Tatmadaw is the indispensable institution for the preservation of Myanmar’s sovereignty today. According to the official history, this period started in 1044 a.d. with King Anawratha. It was disturbed for the first chaotic period from 1287 to 1510. From 1510 to 1885, there were two great dynasties, established by Kings Bayinnaug (1510) and Alaungpaya (1752) respectively. The dynasties of these two great kings collapsed with the intrusion of British colonial power in the brief period from 1885 to 1942, the catastrophic Japanese occupation of 1942–1945, and ended only with the return of the glorious Tatmadaw which emerged out of the tragedy of martyr’s Aung San’s violent death. His death is still remembered by elders alive today, including by his daughter Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Anyway, that is one approach. The second approach which takes up much of the middle part of the story is that of the social historians who are less concerned with political and military glory, and more so with the ebbs and flows of population movement, social ecology, theories of governance, and so forth. Anderson in (1983/1991) Imagined Communities writes in this tradition, as does James C. Scott (2009) in his book The Art of Not Being Governed. A review of this perspective is in the middle part of this chapter.

The final part of the chapter reflects on how the histories were used to justify military power and legitimacy.

1.1 The Royal History of Burma

The story of Ne Win’s Burmanization policies involves retelling at least two narratives. First, there is the official story of three main Bamar dynasties celebrated in the textbooks, and widely told as a story of triumph. This version is one of political and military triumph, and assumes that as the majority people of Myanmar, the Bamar are central (see e.g. Aung-Thwin and Aung-Thwin 2012: 25). This story points out accurately that there were great kingdoms in the past that approximated the boundaries of today’s Myanmar, and these kingdoms were ruled by kings who were military (Tatmadaw) commanders themselves, and protected the country, and maintained peace for hundreds of years. The Buddhist kings themselves were assumed to be Bodhisata, and of course were anointed with the Barami they inherited from past lives. The kingdoms failed only when weak kings emerged, and the royal army, the Tatmadaw, fragmented. The result was fragmentation of the Kingdom, and a sort of anarchy as kings from the periphery attacked the rightful Bamar heirs to the throne whose problem was that they themselves were weak.

Senior General Than Shwe the President of Burma, expressed his belief in the martial traditions of Myanmar when he said on Armed Forces Day in 2006

Our Tatmadaw should be a worthy heir to the traditions of the capable Tatmadaws established by noble kings Anawratha, Bayinnaung and Alaungpaya. (See Lintner 2023)

The story Senior General Than Shwe assumes that like other nations, the Burmese people are ancient and have a righteous claim to rule based on legitimate claims. It also ignores other claims, which in the case of Myanmar include the Shan, Karen, Kachin, Arakan, Chin, Mon, Rohingya, and others today in various stages of revolt against righteous rule from the Bamar center. To make this point, the Burmese military erects the statues of the three great kings throughout the country. The ancient claims by military men for righteous military might are rooted in their capacity for war—today’s ruling generals look back and find warrior kings, who subdued populations, and seek to emulate them. Only when these kings were weak, they reason, did the country fall apart, and foreign invaders arrive to victimize the Bamar people. The narrative is righteous and plausible for Bamar who remember the catastrophe of British and Japanese occupation. The problem they write was that the King in Mandalay was weak.

A problem in Myanmar of course is that other groups like the Karen and Mon also assert a righteousness claiming plausibly that they are the indigenous first arrivals, with special connections to religion, linguistic uniqueness, and war. Each such group has access to written, oral, and even archaeological evidence needed to legitimate such claims plausbly.

1.2 The Three Great Dynasties Approach to Burma’s History

Ne Win and his historians did not create the three great dynasties narrative themselves. The Three Dynasties approach to Burmese history probably had its origin in the scholarship of J. S. Furnival, a British official who worked for the Indian Colonial Service in Burma from 1902 to 1931. While in the colonial service, he founded the Burmese Research Society (BRS) in 1906, which began to document the ancient history of Britain’s new colony by studying inscriptions, royal chronicles, languages, literature, archaeology, and other fragmentary resources.¹ He did this by creating a concept of a “plural society,” a concept developed first for Dutch Indonesia, but then applied to Burma. Boshier (2018: 80) writes that he did this by assuming “essentialist” categories of race, ethnicity, and identity, as indeed the Tatmadaw still does even today. By doing this, Furnival and the BRS shaped the dynastic, linguistic, and military history in a fashion that explained Britain’s civilizing role in Burma. Inadvertently, perhaps, he also provided the pieces of a narrative that could be fashioned into a plausible nationalist history after independence. Citing a British-era textbook, Gervais and Metro showed how this was used to justify the British conquest:

The English conquest came not to destroy but to fulfill. Racial character cannot develop so long as government is unstable …. Thrice they achieved a measure of unity [Anawratha, Bayinnaung, Alaungpaya]. [But] it was seldom a true unity, for whenever it was more than nominal it was maintained by means so terrible that they destroyed the end; and it seldom lasted for the bond was purely dynastic and broke thrice. (Gervais and Metro 2012: 32 citing Harvey 1926: 185)

The “Three Dynasties” approach to Burmese history was adapted from writers like Furnival who in turn adapted it from earlier Chronicles which underpinned the dynasties of the upper Irrawaddy River drainage in the area just south of today’s Mandalay. For roughly 500–800 years, powerful kings from capitals near Mandalay subjugated vast areas via tributary relationships. The history Furnival framed provided historical legitimacy first for British rule. But after 1948 Furnival's account was adapted by the newly independent Burmese government of the Bamar-dominated AFPFL by focusing on the victories of three dynasties which plausibly were Bamar, and blamed defeats and disorder during the interregnums on perfidious outsiders (like the British), and the weakness on the kinglets who arose on the borders. An even more forceful a Bamar narrative by the Psychological Warfare Directorate starting in the 1950s, which created in the 1950s and then adapted by the post-1962 Ne Win government which had named its own national army after the forces fielded by the King (see Boshier 2018; Gervais and Metro 2012).²

The three dynasties were King Anawratha’s Pagan (1044–1287), King Bayinnaung’s Toungoo (1510–1752), and King Alaungpaya’s Konbaung (1752–1885). The new Burmese books were historically grounded and analytical, just like the British were. Both also provided a credible and creditable explanation for why the Tatmadaw were the natural heirs and protectors of Burmese sovereignty after 1948.

But the endurance of these accounts is also a direct product of the Burmanization policies of the 1960s, which spread textbooks, film,³ and later the television of Ne Win’s government broadcast into the countryside. The accounts are today found in textbooks, Wikipedia, and memorialized in museums as an ideology that assumes nation, Buddhism, and the military are central. The dynasties are assumed to be Burmese Buddhists, Burmese linguistically and culturally, have strong militaries, and occupy the same territory as today’s Myanmar. The kings were known for their might, and the fact that their “territory” extended beyond what is now Burma, and into parts of India, Thailand, Laos, and southern China.

Note too though, that there is an important difference with respect to how the interregnum between the Pagan and Toungoo (1287–1510) was framed. In the British texts, it was the lack of “true unity,” but for Ne Win’s schools this would be the time when non-Bamar took over, creating chaos and suffering, all because the Bamar king was weak. The area that is now Myanmar subject to foreign invasion, and disintegration, conditions they argued, re-occurred after independence, and continue today.

As the times when the three dynasties were intact, Ne Win’s historians pointed out that the map of the three Burmese Dynasties was roughly the same, or even larger, them today, there were multiple military victories, and the kingdoms dominated the region, receiving tribute from the highlands and beyond. The rice fields were abundant, and the glory of the Buddhist kings and their royal military ensured good lives for the people. The period of disorder began with the arrival of Mongol invaders in 1287 which precipitated the fall of Pagan in 1297. Among the policies emerging from the destruction were those of Ava, Mrauk U, Shan States, and Hanthawaddy, which seem to the modern Tatmadaw to be what modern-day EAOs are establishing today. Shifting alliances resulted in a constant war which ended, only when the Toungoo Dynasty emerged to unify the upper Irrawaddy Valley in 1510, and founded what would become for a time the largest Empire in Southeast Asia. Deterioration resulted in the emergence of the Konbaung Dynasty in 1752, which then marched across Southeast Asia, re-unifying the Burma Kingdom in 1752, conquering Rakhine, and Ayutthaya (Siam). This ended in 1824 when the expanding British East India Company first invaded.

The Burmanized history continues with the catastrophe of the three Anglo-Burmese wars (1823–1825, 1854–1855, and 1884–1886), and the ultimate exile of the Konbaung King Mindon to India in 1885. The occupying Indo-British forces were for Ne Win’s historians yet another catastrophe, a result of weakness on the part of squabbling Konbaung rulers. The result was a loss of control over the economy, restrictions placed on the practice of Buddhism, and the rapid expansion of British Christian missions in the highlands. This was quickly followed by the even larger catastrophe of World War II, in which British Burma was a battleground for Japanese, British, Chinese, and American armies. The only thing rescuing Burma at that time, according to the new narrative, was the reborn Burma Independence Army (BIA) of General Aung San, which invaded Burma with the Japanese in 1942, negotiated peace with first the Japanese, then the British, before again forcint the British to announce independence in 1948. This in turn was the basis for independence on January 4, 1948, a date kept even after the revered General Aung San was assassinated in this telling, the British of course tried to double-cross the Burmese by attempting re-colonization, but through the skills of General Aung San and the unity of the Burmese people led by the army, independence was scheduled for January 4, 1948, a date which even held after what were believed to be British agents assassinated Aung San and his new cabinet in July 1947.⁴

2 A Social History: Pre-independence, Conquest, and British Colonialism

But there is another form of narrative to tell about Burma, the idea that as Benedict Anderson (1983/1991) wrote: National identity is in fact new, even though it is usually rooted in righteous assertions about ancientness. Anderson and other writers point out that today’s claims of national identity are in fact relatively recent, and simply project backward contemporary claims of legitimacy, claims that would probably be unrecognizable to the people who actually lived at that time. The national identity they write is a new form of identity, replacing older claims rooted in dynastic realms, religious spheres, geography, professions, and a variety of other salient categories.

National armies like the Tatmadaw, by this reasoning, are relatively new. As Anderson points out, an army that is loyal to a modern nation is different than one loyal to a feudal leader. Armies were traditionally loyal to nobility, and/or fought in the name of a god or an earthly prince, rather than a national identity with fixed boundaries. This was the case, Anderson points out in places as diverse as Italy, France, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Nation and government/state were not joined until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as “nation-states,” and typically emerged in concert with what Anderson describes as “print capitalism” and literacy. Rather than nations, there were dynasties which ruled, and peasantries paid tribute to groups that were able to extend threats, and/or offered protection. Various forms of such feudalism rooted in settled agriculture were found across Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas.

“Burmese” or Bamar identity in the modern sense probably first emerged, in the context of British colonialism, and the conquest and eventual exile of the Konbaung Kings to India in 1885. The British then divided the country into “ethnicities” based on bureaucratic census categories British ethnographers and census takers assigned to different “tribes.” They did this primarily based on language classification schemes, and an assumption that this corresponded with territorial boundaries, a “prince,” and a census category (see Ferguson 2015; Scott 2009; Winichakul, Thongchai 1994). Generally, the classification system indicated that 70% or so of the population was lowland Burmese Buddhist, and the other 30% was a variety of other categories rooted in linguistics, place of residence, and religion.

To facilitate administration, the British divided groups into “tribes” or “ethnicities,” to whom were assigned an administrator, boundaries, and a responsibility to manage natural resources. In the populous center of the country, there was “direct rule” by British officers and their Indian subalterns from the British Indian Civil Service, who replaced the exiled court officials from Mandalay. The British imported tax collectors, police officers, jailers, military officers, health officers, and surveyors from their older Indian colony.

However, in the highlands, locally identified traditional leaders were anointed as “princes” by the British and permitted to govern in the context of British supervision. In particular, the British allied princes were granted rights to license teak, gem mining, and pay minor royalties to the British raj. Unlike with the lowland Bamar which were ruled via Indian civil service with its police officers, judges, soldiers, and prisons the highlanders could administer their traditional justice.

Justification for the colonial enterprise was based in Great Britain’s own historical myth of dominance, as described in Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden.” British Burma’s history emerged in this context as justification for British rule using reasoning like that described in Kipling’s poem (see also Gervais and Metro 2012: 31). The British origin story, whether for the lowland Bamar, or the highland “tribes” stretched back to the presumed need for Queen Victoria as their protector.

As in many decolonized states, the new Union of Burma, gained independence, and needed to develop a new ancient national story which put their own ancestors at the center, and remove the colonizer as a plausible and just ruler. The righteous story needed to deal with the artificial boundaries, census categories, and trading regimes the British colonial power left behind. In essence, how would the new nationality “Burmese” be defined, and what rights and responsibilities would the new government have to protect this identity, and project its power?

2.1 The Administration of British Burma

The British launched three Anglo-Burma wars to occupy Burma during the nineteenth century. The first Anglo-Burmese war took place in Rakhine state (1824–1825) and resulted in British dominion over Rakhine itself, and Tenasserim in the west. The Second Anglo-Burman War was in 1852–1853, and lower Burma (including Rangoon) was occupied. The final occupation of upper Burma was in 1885 when the Konbaung Dynasty was defeated and exiled to British India. In 1885, the British replaced the feudal Burmese rule, with the Indian Civil Service. The legal system means of enforcement, and personnel were brought by the established Indian Civil Service to Burma, which governed Burma as a province of India until 1937–1938. Most importantly, for the British perhaps the goal of administration was the establishment and maintenance of markets that would integrate Burma into the world economy.

Philosopher/historian Maung Maung Gyi (1983: 71–72) wrote that from a Burmese perspective, the British were notable for their scrupulous observance of noninterference with the people's lives and respect for property and commercial activity. The British also treated the colonized people as subject of the Queen, and not as the personal property of a local ruler, as the Burmese Konbaung Dynasty had assumed. He wrote that the Burmese people appreciated the British administration's predictability, which they equated with excellence, even though they were not entirely reconciled with foreign administration which after all involved being told what to do by British and Indian officers. But from the perspective of the peasant, the relationship of the subject to the state did not change much. Individuals could still be called on to serve the bureaucracy as labor corvee and taxpayers, even as the arbitrariness of the Konbaung rule disappeared. Michael Aung-Thwin (1985) elegantly called this “order without meaning,” which can perhaps be defined as administration without the meaning of a national identity.

Also, part of the British economic interest were economic and migration policies. Migration from other provinces of Britain’s Indian Empire was encouraged, particularly to Arakan/Rakhine which was the last province to be incorporated into Konbaung Burma in the 1780s, and the earliest part of modern Burma conquered by the British in 1825. Indian civil servants were imported to administer Britain’s new Burmese colony called on to develop rice exports. Also beginning in the 1820s the British imported Indian farmers from Bengal, particularly to Arakan. Other Indians arrived in Rangoon to organize the purchase and export of Burmese rice to India, particularly after the conquest of that region of Burma in 1854. The result was that the Indian clerks, police, artists, soldiers, and money lenders dominated commercially. These people reinforced British colonial administrative and economic goals; at independence in 1948, the British capital Rangoon had a population that was 50% Indian, along with large numbers of Chinese traders. Only a minority was Bamar-speaking. By this time too, Rakhine State had a long-established population of Muslim Rohingya, many of whom were descendants of nineteenth-century immigrants from Bengal.

2.2 Direct Rule

The application of British rule of law was not uniform throughout the new colony. In the central areas where the Konbaung were the strongest, royal retainers, military officers, and others who ran the kingdom were replaced with members of the Indian Civil Service who applied the laws and policies of India under a policy of “direct rule.” Meanwhile, in the remoter areas of the colony, local leaders who in the past were nominally subordinate to the Konbaung were permitted to manage their policies themselves, on the condition that British companies be granted licenses to exploit the teak and other natural resources. In these remoter areas, the British policies were for “Indirect Rule,” policies which granted local nobles more powers of government.

Finally, the British also changed the relationship between the government and the Buddhist sangha monkhood which had been subsidized by the Konbaung government. The British did not interfere with the Burmese Buddhist cultural norms and practices in Burma, but they ended the temple subsidies that the Burmese kings had provided. As Furnivall (1948: 7) noted, this is because British colonial policy reflected primarily economic aims, not the religious interests of the royal dynasties.

Despite what Maung Maung Gyi wrote about how people appreciated British bureaucratic efficiency, the Burmese-speaking people of the former King’s territories disliked the foreign rule whether by Indians or British. Sporadic revolts began in response to British policies soon after the conquest, with the earliest revolts organized monks who insisted that shoes be taken off in Buddhist temples, a regulation British personnel disobeyed. The Young Men’s Buddhist Association took up the independence cause in the 1910s. Strikes also occurred by dissatisfied, port workers, students, and rural farmers in the 1930s. In this context, a nostalgia for the not-so-distant days of self-rule before 1885 emerged. Elders and monks who witnessed the humiliation of the exiled King Thibaw, began to identify values of “Burmeseness,” in opposition first to the British, but also the Indian civil officers who were in charge of day-to-day regulation of society. This identification was rigidified by British administrative census requirements that every person in their colony identify as either Burmese, or tribal (see e.g. Anderson 1983: 164–170). James Scott (2009: 238–246) in particular tied this to an “ethnogenesis” seen across the British empire where British state-building became a “cosmopolitan ingathering” in which new identities emerged from the preexisting categories. Taylor (2009: 124–148) describes well how new class and ethnic formations emerged in the context of the rapid growth of Rangoon in particular in interaction with the Burmese-speaking hinterlands and the migration of workers into southern Burma in particular.

2.3 Indirect Rule

Preexisting divisions in Burma were rigidified by British colonial policies, starting with the ethnicization of first the Burmese, and then the “tribes.” Meanwhile, “Burmese” young people already in the 1890s reacted with hostility to the British as colonial rulers. In reaction, the British refused to recruit the ethnic Bamar into their administration, preferring to import Indians who already understood their bureaucratic system. When it came to hiring locals, they sought out minorities like the Karen, Chin, and Kachin who shared the British distrust of the Bamar.

Large portions of the Karen, Chin, and Kachin were also particularly open to Christian missionaries who stood in opposition to the Bamar Buddhists. Thus, most of Britain’s colonial employees were from non-Burmese “tribes,” especially the Karen, Kachin, and Chin. These non-Burmese were concentrated in the hill areas, and in the case of the Karen, in lowland areas near the Bay of Bengal, particularly around Bassein.

While promoting Karen and other minorities into the colonial service, the British also encouraged missionaries to spread the Christian gospel among Burma’s people beginning in the early 1800s, including in areas ruled by the Konbaung Dynasty before 1885. Most of the missionaries were English-speaking from Great Britain and the United States, but also included local teachers like the Karen leader Dr. San C. Poe who were trained abroad and returned. The conversion process they offered is what must have attracted Saw Eh Htoo’s own Karen great-grandparents in the late nineteenth century.

The Christian missions also provided material advantages to the newly baptized highlanders, including schooling in their own languages and English, health care from missionary doctors, and training for locals as nurses, medical assistants, and doctors. The ethnic people considered the missionaries their saviors of sorts, because they were freed from the Bamar oppressors, especially the enslavement, labor corvee, and other forced service to Bamar monarchs which they had long endured. Thus, the minorities were not hesitant to ally with the Indo-British administration. In exchange, the British appointed them to the police and low-level jobs.

3 Burmese Nationalist Narratives in Response to British Colonialism

The Burmese nationalism created by the new Tatmadaw remembered the ancient Burmese monarchical values as “our king, our palace, and our country,” but one in which the King was no longer just head of a dynasty, but what Anderson might call “first among the Bamar” (see Anderson 1983/1991: 19–21). Anti-colonial sentiment among the Bamar quickly developed into a hate-oriented narrative focused on the British colonizers, and their allies (see Smith 1991: 48–50).

A major literary figure, the renowned Burmese sage was Thakin Kodaw Mine (1876–1965) emerged as a source of anti-British sentiment. His anti-British colonial novels and poems became the foundation for developing Burmese nationalism via literary devices. He created the concept “Thakin and Kyun,” (master and slave) which referred to the British as people who enslaved the Burmese people. His point was that the British considered the Burmese as their slave (Kyun). Thakin Kodaw Mine defined the Thakin (Master) in his book Thakin Dika. In this Burmese-language book, he defined Burmeseness, and its relationship to Burmese Buddhism, Culture, and Practices (Thakin Kodaw Mine 1965). Dr. Than Tun (2008: 11) emphasized that this restoration of the Burmese spirit included hatred of foreigners, particularly the Chinese and Indians.⁵

There were at least three social mobilizations among the ethnic Bamar which would be used in the post-1962 narrative to engineer political transition back to the days of the Burmese military monarchy. The first group were the monks who sought to protect their prerogatives from British domination which insisted that the government not support religious institutions, even while encouraging British and American Christian missions established churches in the highlands. Demonstrations in the 1890s were focused on the refusal of British colonizers to take off their shoes in the sacred areas of Burmese temples. Monks became a potent part of any Bamar-speaking coalition after World War II.

Second, there were urban student movements that grabbed onto modern ideas of governance and justice. These began in the 1920s, after the establishment of Rangoon University. Aung San, U Nu, and Ne Win all emerged from this milieu, and students still remain a source of idealism and discord in Myanmar. The urban student movements were soon associated with labor movements in 1930s Rangoon. Riots between 1930 and 1939 putting Burmese and Indian workers against each other. These urban movements formed the core of what would become the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League (AFPFL), and its breakaway Burmese Communist Party after the World War II.

Students of course would be at the center of demonstrations repeatedly after the 1962 coup, most notably in 1988, and also in much more recent years.

Third, there were rural peasant rebellions such as that of the Saya San in the 1930s. In each stage, the protagonists involved in the revolt steered the course toward a new national identiy “Burmese.” This also developed a nationalist spirit, which would challenge the dominant Burmese urban and military culture. The rural-based tat (pocket armies) have roots in such traditions, and continue today in the form of “People’s Defense Forces,” which have turned on the Tatmadaw, and the rulers from Naypyitaw.

How were these resentments expressed? Monks, students, peasants, and others all had their own motivations. Each began to generate grievances against British rule, and all would express new forms of Burmese nationalism.

3.1 Monks

Monks witnessed the deportation of King Thebaw from the palace in 1886. The monks had enjoyed funding and protection from the Konbaung Kings, who financed the construction and maintenance of temples. The monks sought to protect their prerogatives from British domination which insisted that the government not support religious institutions, in a context of a formal separation between religion and government. The British separation between church and state was seen as hypocritical by Buddhist nationalists who saw the British Raj encouraging British and American Christian missions to establish churches, schools and hospitals, particularly among formerly dominated minorities like the Karen, Kachin, and Chin.

The first demonstrations by monks were focused on the refusal of British colonizers to take off their shoes in the sacred areas of Burmese temples. Such demonstrations were typically peaceful, even as the British responded harshly with arrests, trials, and imprisonment. Later demonstrations would be organized by the Young Men’s Buddhist Association (YMBA) which organized demonstrations and opposition to the British beginning in the 1910s (Sarkisiyanz 1965: 128).

The Buddhist Sangha of course remains a strong political player in the twenty-first century. In 2007, the monks were at the forefront of the “Saffron Revolution” which would be an important factor in the establishment of the Constitution of 2008, and subsequent liberalization. Buddhist monks in the 2010s were also among the most nationalistic elements of Myanmar’s semi-democratic society, and in the interest of Bamar Buddhist nationalism, incited their parishioners against the Rohingya, and others they deemed as foreigners.

3.2 Students and Urban Workers

A second source of Burmese nationalism was the universities, which provided leadership of the resistance against the British, and the Japanese, and later led the country to independence. Before World War II, young students at Yangon University initiated demonstrations and boycotts against the University administrators, challenging the colonial policy on education. Out of this, a revolutionary spirit developed among the young nationalists who demanded state autonomy and political rights. They did this through institutions they created like the Dobama, and the Nagani (Red Dragon) Reading Group which published books in the Burmese language. Aung San, a charismatic student was the leader of this group, which called themselves the “Young Thakins” a reference to a British insistence on whites being addressed by a Burmese word that means roughly “master” and referred to the poetry of Thakin Kodaw Hmaing. Eventually, this led them to plot revolution against the British. These young student leaders studied. Marxism, promoted Burmeseness and Buddhism, and ended up cooperating with Japanese fascists. Thus, national heroes such as Aung San admired Hitler and Mussolini in their writing (Aung San 2013: 55). But their basic goal though was to expel the British and restore the Burmese golden day.

3.3 Peasant Rebellion

A third origin of rebellion against the British came from the peasant countryside, and was led by local leaders such as Saya San. Saya San was a local politician, a monk, and eventually proclaimed himself King, He led a peasant rebellion in 1930–1932, which resulted in the death of at least 1300, the imprisonment of 6000, and the execution by hanging of 125 by the British, including Saya San. The arrests and imprisonments were undertaken by an army that included a majority of Karen and Indian soldiers, and a few ethnic Burmese. Bamar society remembers these deaths and executions, and it is a central part of the nationalist narrative today.

The focus of the rebellion was on British tax collections which had replaced traditional tributary payments. Traditional tribute payments meant that when harvests (or prices) failed, tribute payments declined proportionately; typically, payments were not in cash, but a fixed proportion of the rice harvest (see Herbert 1982).

Under the new British market system, cash tax assessments were fixed, and when the price of rice fell during the global Depression of the 1930s, tax rates remained the same both for the small farmers and for the landless laborers. Indian money lenders took advantage of the situation to make money off of the impoverished. Peasants in the Irrawaddy Delta and the rice growing areas north of Rangoon went into revolt, and Saya Sen led the peasant rebellion in 1930–1932 (see Taylor 2009: 199–200). This left the peasant population subdued later in the 1930s, but also primed to support the BIA when they invaded British Burma in early 1942.

The leadership of the peasant movement was steeped in Burmese Buddhist mysticism. Saya San himself was an alchemist, seeking potions to protect his troops, and the rebellion. In crowning himself King, he drew on the imagery of the Galon (a Phoenix representing the Burmese), and a Dragon (i.e. Great Britain).

Disorder in the restive colony resulted in the administrative separation of British Burma from India in 1938, so the Governor was then appointed from London, rather than Calcutta. Arrests were made in 1940 of intellectuals like future Presidents Ba Maw, and U Nu for plotting to overthrow the British government—they would be released only when the Japanese-BIA force invaded later in 1942. Aung San escaped the arrests, and already in China, where he would make contact with the Japanese.

4 World War II and the Emergence of Bamar Identity and Hegemony

Aung San was a student leader at the University and led the group to revolt against the British during his University days. His colleagues called themselves the Thakin group and explored a range of ideologies. Aung San himself was most closely aligned for a short time with the pro-communist ideology group. But there was also a pro-liberal group that worked together for independence. Aung San and others also admired and studied the fascist nation-building of Mussolini and Hitler, Communist revolutionaries, and American revolutionary traditions.

Aung San’s first intention though was not ideological, but was to liberate Burma from British colonial rule, and in practice, he had little interest in the international politics, except as it would help his cause. Aung San and his colleagues also believed, particularly in the context of the arrests of leaders like Ba Maw and U Nu, that armed revolution was the only way to expel the British. In this context, Aung San left for China hoping to contact the Communist Party there. But instead, he connected with the Japanese army in 1940, the most powerful army in Asia. The connection in 1941 led to military training in Japan for Aung San and the “Thirty Comrades.” On Hainan, the “Thirty Comrades” received the standard Japanese military basic training, plus instruction in command, combat, espionage, and guerilla warfare (Callahan 2003: 48).

Aung San and the “Thirty Comrades” were recruited by the Japanese Colonel Keiji Suzuki to train for a liberation army. After a short training period, Aung San was appointed leader of a patriotic force, later known as Burma Independent Army (BIA) (Tun Zaw Htay 2017: 19–20). The Japanese smuggled them back to the border via Thailand in 1942 and then marched into Burma with three military columns of the Japanese army via the border crossing and Kanchanaburi, Thailand. The BIA force massacred civilians on their way back into Burma, especially in the HpaHpun area where many Karen (Kayin) were living. Perhaps another 1800 were massacred in the Irrawaddy River Delta near Myaungmung (Callahan 2003: 75). This was to have long-term consequences because it meant that the Karen population was suspicious of both the Japanese, as well as the thirty Bamar comrades and their Burmese speaking force. Many Karen remember this.

After reaching Burma, General Aung San and his Japanese counterpart recruited many young Bamar-speaking men to join the BIA to oppose the British. In this way, the BIA became an ethnically based army. The BIA accompanied the Japanese troops that drove the British from Burma in 1942. As a reward, the BIA was allowed by the Japanese to set up a puppet government, and expand the army, which quickly became the most important institution in the country. By 1943, an officer training school was established in Mingaladon north of Rangoon, where Japanese officers trained soldiers selected by General Ne Win, and President Ba Maw. Candidates were selected for “mental toughness” which reflected both physical toughness, but also the capacity to kill and commit atrocities when ordered to do so. The process also assessed loyalty to the BIA, effectively eliminating ethnic soldiers because so many of the Burma Rifles had remained with the British, and retreated with them to India. Communists were also not considered, despite an uneasy alliance begun at the beginning of the war. Harsh Japanese training methods were introduced. The result was an extremely cohesive officer corps, well-trained in fighting, mental toughness, and Japanese discipline (Callahan 2003: 58–63).

As for the British, the army retreated to India with military units they had formed, including the Karen Rifles, Chin Rifles, Gurkha Rifles, Kachin Rifles, and the few ethnic Bamar soldiers who fought with the British.⁶ In this way the older ethnic antagonisms of the colonial era were further rigidified.

Already in 1944, it was apparent that the Japanese were not going to grant the puppet government the authority over the country the BIA had fought for. The alliance between the BIA and the Japanese occupation army began to deteriorate. By 1944, Aung San and his war cabinet were plotting to expel the Japanese from Burma because the Japanese did not give them the independence they expected. In this context, the BIA sought alliance with the British-commanded colonial troops then in India to drive the Japanese from Burma's soil (Aung-Thwin and Aung-Thwin 2012: 235–238).

The BIA switched sides, in an uneasy alliance was made with units composed of ethnic minorities, including the three ethnic regiments allied with the British.⁷ As for the reconstituted Burmese National Government, a secret agreement led the former BIA units to switch sides, and join the British invasion of India on March 27, 1945.

The BIA at this time began was already associated closely with Bamar ethnicity, and instituted policies to keep the command “pure.” The de facto language was Burmese, and not English, and Japanese was used in military training exercises. As Burmese soil was turned into a battlefield, every young person was connected to an armed organization (South, 2008: 22–27). Thus, post-independent Burma would stand on a fragile stage because of many armed groups who kept their arms to protect their own self-defined people group.

5 Rebellion, Independence, and More Rebellions

The British, including their units of the King’s Burma Rifles, invaded Burma from India in March 1945, driving out the Japanese in cooperation with the BIA. As for Burma itself, it collapsed into a sort of anarchy, with many small units of pocket armies (tat) briefly emerging to fight back against occupiers (Callahan 2003: 82–85).

Aung San’s party was renamed the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League, in a nod to the anti-Japanese sentiments. The British, along with their allies among the Karen, Kachin, and Chin units were back in Burma in mid-1945, and by the end of 1945 were reinstalling the British government over the objections of General Aung San. But Aung San by then commanded an independent army of several hundred thousand troops, and led the AFPFL. As a compromise, in 1946, Aung San was appointed Premier of British Burma, as the country prepared for independence which was scheduled for January 4, 1948. In the meantime, on July 19, 1947, Premier Aung San along with his cabinet were assassinated (Callahan 2003: 87–113).

But broader issues in South Asia also drove British policy, which was focused on a need to withdraw not only from Burma, but also its massive Indian colony, and Ceylon/Sri Lanka. India and Pakistan (East and West) were granted independence following pressure from Gandhi and Nehru’s Indian Congress Party, and Jinnah’s Muslim League in August 1947, and Sri Lanka became independent on February 4, 1948.

Burma became independent on January 4, 1948. Unlike the other colonies, Burma cut all formal ties with Great Britain, did not join the British Commonwealth, and immediately sought to chart a neutral foreign policy. The victorious AFPFL had reason to be suspicious first of the British, But also their American allies, and the Indians who were remembered as the subalterns that subjugated Burma. Independent Burma was also wary of China which was then in the last stages of its own Civil War, and Thailand which had served as a base for the Japanese, and after World War II and which quickly became base for the American CIA clandestine oerations in Burma and southern China after World War II.

5.1 The Communist Rebellions

After the 1930s Saya San peasant revolution in Burma, Marxist ideas spread among the young nationalists (Than Soe Naing 2018: 90), and Marxism was seen as a path to national liberation. Young nationalists, whether of a fascist, communist, or nationalist bent, studied Marxism with NaGaNi (Red Dragon) publisher. They translated Marxist texts into Burmese. The most outstanding Burmese Marxists included Thakhin Soe, and Thakin Than Tun, both of whom would become allies of Aung San. Thakin Nu, and Thakin Aung San were also on the Communist Party roster following its founding in 1939 (Win Tint Tun 2014: 33), and for a brief time in 1938, Aung San was General Secretary of the Communist Party of Burma.

The Communist Party of Burma (CPB) was the first threat to the post-independent government in Burma, particularly in the north where they captured territory after the end of World War II, and in the months after independence in 1948. This happened even though, the Communist Party had deep roots in the independence movement. However, the Communists viewed independence differently. The Communists viewed the war as focused on the elimination of capitalist exploitation from Burma, i.e. the people and firms who cooperated with the British, Chinese, and Indians to export rice, gas, teak, and other wealth, while the people remained poor. As for the AFPFL of Aung San and U Nu, they viewed Burma as being a wary international player which would remain engaged with the global marketplace.

In negotiations with the British, there was an uneasy alliance between the AFPFL and the Communist Party of Burma (CPB). Than Tun and Thakin Soe composed a manifesto for the Communist Party while imprisoned in Insein Prison by the British in 1940. Than Tun (1911–1968) advocated for an anti-fascist policy, and viewed both the Soviet Union and Great Britain as Allies. Minister of Labor in Baw Maw’s 1943 government, Than Tun was deeply involved in moving away from the alliance with Japan.⁸

Following World War II, the Communist Party began to organize laborers in the city, and peasants in the countryside. This resulted in a classic tension, often found in Communist Party movements regarding how to relate (or not) to capitalism. What compromises could be made? This tension featured in how the CPB evaluated the newly independent government, and in particular foreign relations.

The CPB was particularly effective in organizing workers just after the war, and general worker strikes in 1946–1948 both in the countryside and the cities. At the height of this agitation, Aung San expelled the CPB from the AFPFL (Tun 1994: 158–159). At that time, the party had peasant unions, which had one million paid members (see Lintner 1990: 9) and were organizing massive strikes, and was a competitor for power with the AFPFL.

Under pressure from the departing British government, and at odds with the AFPFL, the CPB fled to the highlands, organizing themselves into two Communist factions, Red Flag, and White Flag. The White Flags wanted to cooperate with the government as it moved toward independence, while the smaller red flag party wanted to take up arms against the new government. The new Minister of Home Affairs, U Kyaw Nyein framed the Communist Party as a threat and expelled them in a fashion that triggered the rebellion (Waters Tony 2005: 91–92). U Kyaw Nein claimed that the “Goshal Thesis” was a recipe for revolt and rebellion, even though after Goshal’s thesis,⁹ was not yet widely distributed (Lintner 1990: 12–13). In this context, the Communists began the first rebellion of what would become the Burmese civil war. The BCP were to remain the primary opponent of the Rangoon government until 1989.

5.2 The Karen Rebellion

The ethnic revolt of the Karen, are significant factor in Burma’s prolonged civil war. Karen ideology was not Communist, but nationalist. Before the British occupied Burma, the Burmese Kings with their city-states and empires, only controlled areas where their authority was established. The meaning of Burma for the Karen essentially meant “where the King living in Mandalay/Ava/Pagan rules in the Irrawaddy.”

The Karen and the Shan were identified as the largest minorities by the British census takers. The Shan were a highland group speaking a language similar to Thai who had arrived in the region about 1000 years ago, similar to the Burmese (Ferguson 2021: 3–8). When the Shan arrived there were a number of other groups there, of whom the Karen were numerous. Karen narratives recall that they arrived from the north in about 500 BC, and settled in the lowland and highland areas of what is now Burma. They spoke a language that was different from the later arriving Burmese. During their period of rule, the Burmese turned the Karen into a lower caste, and established forms of bondage in which the Karen were required to serve Konbaung nobles. Residentially, they were intermixed with Bamar-speaking people in the Irrawaddy Delta, and in the mountains along the Thai border.

The Karen people traditionally lived in both the lowlands and highlands. In places, there were concentrations of Karen, and in other places, they were interspersed with Bamar. Their experience of persecution by Burmese kings and their armies alienated the many Karen from Burmese rule and meant that a number of Karen leaders supported British annexation during the nineteenth century (see Alwyn 2021).¹⁰ Karen fled from the lowland Burmese kings repeatedly; memories of torture and murder by the Konbaung King’s soldiers were legendary when the second Anglo-Burma war broke out in 1853 (Alwyn 2021). Karen fled to Yangon, which the British then governed in order to take refuge (Saw Win Bet 2018: 2). More recently, The Burma Independent Army (BIA) led by Aung San massacred the Karen people in Hpapun township and Myaungmya township during the Japanese invasion (Morrison 1946: 70–186). These atrocities led to doubt among Karen people that coexistence and “Union” with Burmese people was possible, and reinforced their affinities with the British.

A large minority of Karen were receptive to Christian missionaries who brought literacy, health care, and other benefits from Britain and the United States. In this context, Karen cultural institutions thrived. Literacy in the Skaw and Pwo dialects became widespread. Schools were established with support from the British government to teach Karen and English (see Thako and Waters 2023). Karen cultural institutions were established in Rangoon, and the British established offices for Karen Affairs. Karen churches and Buddhist temples thrived.

Beginning in the 1920s, the Karen moved into a favored role in the British Burma civil service, and much of the army became staffed by first Karen, and then other minorities, at the expense of the ethnic Burmese, whom the British excluded. Thus, Karen officers and soldiers were responsible for violently quashing the Saya San rebellion in the 1930s. The Karen-dominated King’s Rifles units also supported the British when the Japanese attacked. A number of the units retreated with the British to India, while others stayed to organize resistance cells. Others were victims of massacres committed by Japanese and BIA troops. In exchange, the Karen believed that the British promised to grant independence to a Karenistan which would be independent of Burma.

When the first Burmese Constitution was written in 1947. The Constitution named the federal state the “Union of Burma”, though it was not really a “Union.” The Karen, Mon, and Rakhine did not have their own states (Than Soe Naing 2018: 212), and so were not invited to the Panglong meetings led by Aung San to negotiate federalism. Only the Shan, Karenni, and Chin were permitted to do this. Massive Karen demonstrations began shortly after January 4, 1948, declaration of independence, calling for the establishment of an independent Karenistan.

The Karen objected to the nature of the new Burmese state, which was focused on Burmese identity, i.e. they resisted incipient Burmanization. In General Aung San’s speech of 1947, he asserted that the non-Burmese groups had small populations and asserted they were incapable of managing their area anyway (Aung San Speech 2013: 441–462). He said that he might consider Mon and Rakhine to have their own states, but ignored the Karen. In the end, the Mon, and Rakhine demanded to have their state, but the AFPFL was not willing to extend independence to any of them, asserting that despite what the Constitution said, the Union could not be diminished. In this context, the Karen and Mon revolted in 1949. On January 31, 1949, the Karen National Union revolted, demanding

• 1. Surrender is out of the question

• 2. The recognition of the Karen country must be completed.

• 3. We shall retain our arms.

• 4. We shall decide our own political destiny.

5.3 Other Revolts: Mon, Kachin, Etc.

The Karen National Union (KNU) was the first ethnic armed organization that revolted against the central Burmese government. The conflict between the Karen and Burmese nationalists already started during the colonial period. Mon stood with other ethnic people and the British to drive out the Japanese from Burma, and after World War II, they united again to restore the Mon identity in Burma (South 2003). In 1948, Mon demanded the AFPFL recognize Bago district and Taninthary district as a Mon state (Nai Pan Tha 2014: 74), and formed, their Mon National Defense Organization (MNDO) in 1948 in Zar Tha Pyin village. Later, they allied with KNU (Nai Pan Tha 2014: 103–120). In 1949, MNDO already controlled some areas (see South 2003: 99–108).

Meanwhile, in the north, there were two Kachin groups, one was cooperating with the APFL government, and the other was the first Kachin armed leader known as Naw Hsai, who organized No. 1 Kachin Rifle and No. 3 Kachin Rifle for revolution (Win Tint Tun 2014: 125). These Kachin Rifles were assigned by the departing British to eliminate the Communist in the north, but then turned against the new AFPFL government.

Meanwhile, Shan leaders agreed to live with Burma proper under the 1947 constitution, which indeed included an “opt-out” after ten years clause for both the Shan States, and Karenni State. Chin, Kachin, and Arakan demands for autonomy were also recognized. Nevertheless, Karenni, Pa-O, and in the west Arakan ethnics would also raise pocket armies (tat) and initiate revolts in the years immediately after independence. More such self-defense tat emerged too in an anarchic region which would involve invasions by Chinese before and after the 1949 Chinese Revolution concluded (see Ferguson 2021: 14–15, 56–58).

6 The Life and Death of Prime Minister Aung San

General Aung San was the undisputed leader of the Burmese (Bamar) independence movement at the end of World War II. He deftly created a path between the retreating Japanese, and British who were determined to re-colonize Burma from India. He did this by defying the British Governor-General Dornan-Smith, even offering to surrender and be put on trial for the murder of a Muslim headmaster he executed during World War II. The test of wills was resolved in General Aung San’s favor, when Dornan-Simth was removed by Governor General Admiral Mountbatten of British India in 1946. In this test of wills, Aung San won; Admiral Mountbatten replaced Dornan Smith with General Hubert Rance. Aung San was then appointed Prime Minister of British Burma, with the expectation that he would be elected as the first President of Burma following independence on January 4, 1948.

6.1 Aung San as a Politician

In the context of the victory of his army, General Aung San then stepped down to from the military to form the AFPFL and seek governmental power. He was appointed by British Admiral Mountbatten in September 1946, as the Premier of British Burma, and permitted to assemble a cabinet in preparation for independence. It was Mountbatten’s hope that the appointment would lead to the quelling of the general strikes being promoted by the CPB. Aung San’s APFPL government was confirmed in an election in April 1947 which many Karen and others boycotted. Aung San preached a model of government emphasizing the importance of a strong leader and “one nation, one state, one party, one leader.”

As a measure of firmness, Aung San expelled the CPB from the APFPL. He used the metaphor of the Buddhist Stupa, of a society rooted broadly in society, but with a sharp peak representing the leader (see Zöllner and Ebbighausen 2018: 44–47).¹¹ One way of thinking of this is that he skillfully, took advantage of the accumulated charisma (Barami) that came with his successes as a student organizer in the late 1930s, Japanese military training in Hainan in 1941, invasion of Burma from Thailand in 1941–1942, his role as Ministry of Defense in the wartime State of Burma, and his deftness in switching sides from Japan to Britain at the end of the war.

The final hat trick for Aung San though, was to persuade the Shan princes, Chin Tribes, and Kachin that they should side with the Burmese in demanding independence from Great Britain. This he managed to do at a meeting in Panglong, Shan State, in February 1947 by promising future referenda for the Shan and Karenni, and federalism for the rest. Notably missing from the conference were representatives of the restive Karen, the popular Burmese Communist Party, and the Arakan peoples.

So, there were at least two major issues unresolved, as independence came close. The Karen boycotted the meeting, because they believed British promises made to Karen military officers that an independent Karenistan would be established in the western highlands, and much of the Irrawaddy Delta where there were substantial Karen populations. The second of course was the role of the Burmese Communist Party in the new state. These thorny questions were still unresolved when a former Prime Minister of British Burma (1940–1942), U Saw, organized the assassination of Aung San at a meeting of his cabinet on July 17, 1947. The AFPFL had to instantly reorganize following the deaths of not only Prime Minister Aung San, but also three of his cabinet ministers.

Appointed by the British Governor General as Prime Minister was the courtly U Nu, a AFPFL stalwart who had been a leader of the Thakin movement, imprisoned by the British in 1940, and then Foreign Minister in the war-time State of Burma that was allied with Japan. Deeply religious, U Nu also widely respected, he nevertheless did not bring the charisma to the Premiership that Aung San had. Aung San meanwhile joined the pantheon of great warrior kings, becoming an enlightened one in the AFPFL pantheon. The new Burmese chroniclers called him called him “the fourth legendary king who unified the country, after Anawratha, Bayinnaung, and Alaungpaya” (Zöllner and Ebbighausen 2018: 50).

And this was to have consequences almost immediately after U Nu was sworn in as Prime Minister of an independent Burma on January 4, 1948, and the Shan leader Sao Shwe Thaik was sworn into the ceremonial office of President. The British flag lowered in Rangoon. But Burma would again soon be at war.

6.2 The Hagiography of Aung San

This chapter started with noting that part of nation-building is the creation of a national narrative, in which one hero naturally leads to another, legitimating the claims of those in power. General Ne Win's Ministry Defense in the 1950s, under military rule, took the philosophy created the Directorate of Psychological Warfare, and created the Bamar-centric history that would fit so well with the 1962 goals of Ne Win’s post-coup government.

Ignoring all others kings, they asserted that the ancient history of Myanmar started with King Alaungpaya, and extended until 1885 when the British conquered. The interregnums where the kings were weak, they claimed, led to challenges from the periphery. In this context, challenges from the Communist Party, Karen armies, and other rebels were a threat by the periphery to the center.

The martyred General Aung San was easily slipped into the pantheon of Bamar heroes by the new government, and his role would be highlighted for decades. After all, in his short career he managed to defeat both the British and Japanese and create a Burmese vision for a new Myanmar. He obviously possessed the Barami that was needed at the time to create a new nation. School children in independent Burma learned about his heroism and the outstanding leadership of the Thirty Comrades which of course included Ne Win, who would be presented as his heir. His picture was in every government office, and on the paper money, where every Burmese was reminded of Aung San’s role in the rebirth of the great Burmese nation of first the civilian U Nu, and then Senior General Ne Win.

Aung San of course had much in his life to celebrate. The U Nu government in the 1950s issued banknotes with his picture, dressed in a civilian shirt. By the 1970s there was a new Burma in which General Ne Win and his soldiers were at the center. These bills were switched out and replaced with Aung San’s picture in his military uniforms, both Japanese and Burmese. This is when students like Saw Eh Htoo were learning about the glories of the modern Tatmadaw, and the centrality of Ne Win and his military-dominated government in the interest of national security.

And of course, this is one reason why Aung San’s daughter Aung San Suu Kyi, herself the heir of Barami, grasped onto her role as an activist and politician so quickly and firmly in 1988 (Myat 2019). The crowds came to see her, and she announced that she had come to honor her father’s memory as the founder of both the nation and the Tatmadaw itself. And so, what could the military do when she threatened their power as the guardian of the Burmese nation? The military worship of her father dissipated, and as Salem-Gervais and Metro (2012) wrote, the role of the three great kings was highlighted. Aung San’s picture disappeared from the currency in the 1990s in the 1990s after his daughter challenged her father's military heirs, and his role in the independence movement diminished but never disappeared. After all, there was still a habitus which placed Aung San’s memory at the center of the nation, a memory that his daughter promoted, and so his picture again began to reappear on in government offices, and celebrations of nationalism. It even came to a point that in 2020, just before the 2021 coup, his picture again appeared on the 500 and 1000 kyat notes.