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Matthew Bowser, "Containing Decolonization: British Imperialism and the Politics of Race in Late Colonial Burma" (Manchester UP, 2025)
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Welcome everyone to this episode of New Books and South Asian Studies. Today, we're speaking with Dr. Matthew Bowser about his brand new book, just out this week, September 2025, containing decolonization, British Imperialism and the Politics of Race in Late Colonial Burma with Manchester University Press. Dr. Matthew Bowser is an Assistant professor of Asian History at Alabama A and M University. He received his PhD from Northeastern University in 2020. And in addition to his book that we'll talk about today, he also has published On Imperialism in the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, the Journal of Asian Studies in the Journal of modern Asian studies. Dr. Bowser, thanks for taking the time to talk with us today.
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Thank you for having me.
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I wonder if we could start by you telling us a little about the origins of this book and this research project, Origins of this Book again, containing Decolonization British imperialism and the politics of race in late colonial Burma. I mean, what led you to researching and asking these particular questions about the history of Burma or Myanmar in this chapter in British imperialism in the first half of the 20th century?
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Sure, yeah. I mean, it's a great question. It's incredibly specific. Right. And so, you know, you always wonder how someone got there. Yeah, I first came to it in graduate school. Once you get to that point, for those that may be listening, that aren't professional historians, you kind of get a sense of the big picture, sort of what's going on in the time period that you're looking at. I know I wanted to look at the modern world. I know I wanted to do something relevant. And there's a relationship between racism, imperialism, capitalism, all of these big structures that I wanted to see how they were interconnected through the lens of imperialism. That was largely a element of my advisor, Heather Street Salter, who is just, I have to say for a second, a fantastic mentor. I couldn't have done it without her. She is really, really great. The best I could have asked for. And her first book, Marshall Ra Places, was on the British Empire in South Asia, looking at how Scottish Highlanders and the Sikhs and Gurkhas in India were both kind of treated in the same way, as uniquely prone to military service in British racial thought. Which also shows how arbitrary that was too, of course. But I. I'm so. I'm really kind of following in her footsteps there in that way. And she also published that book with Manchester University Press, so there's that also. But the reason it ended up being.
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Forgive me, was it. Was it with this Studies in Imperialism series as well?
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It was, yeah. Great.
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Sorry to interrupt. Matt, please.
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No, no, yeah, so same series and everything, too, which is great. But, yeah, no, it's. I was in grad school from 2015 to 2020, and so ethnonationalism was on my mind. Of course, being in the United States with The rise of Maga and the Rohingya genocide as well, also started in 2016, and that really brought my attention to Myanmar. Yeah. And so that's. That's really what did it. And then it kind of went from there, where I'm observing some of these similar trends, and that's kind of what started off.
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Yeah, great, thanks for that. And then, you know, just looking at this book, there's so much here, so I hope we can touch on, you know, some of what you think are the most relevant themes and key takeaways you open in the introduction with these episodes that are 80 years apart, both in the history of Burma that is both kind of revolving around religious conflict and identities, racialized identities. And there's this connection to the later Rohingya crisis that you mentioned. And it seems as though it's about who is indigenous in Burma and then who is Buddhist and non Buddhist. And it's even more complicated than that. But I wonder what do that opening episodes 80 years apart tell us about kind of the, the book more generally and, and then how do you see sort of the main contributions of, of this book containing decolonization?
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Yeah, that's great. I suppose I'm complimenting myself in here saying that it's a great place to start, but. But that's. That was Advisor's advice and everything and editor's advice. But yeah, I mean, it's a great place to start because it kind of reveals the central tension that we're looking at in Myanmar when it comes to race. And I'll switch to Burma, by the way, Burma. I kind of try to stick to the, the names of the time and so, you know, I'll kind of switch back and forth, but that's what I'm doing there. Where if you look at ethno nationalism anywhere, right, it's the usually not always the majority population, whoever the in group is, and almost always their religion is tied up with that, right? Where it's like the major cultural elements that define group of people is what the ethnonationalists will kind of absorb into their repertoire, their ideological repertoire of saying this is us and that's them. Right. And in Burma it's actually incredibly simple in that way, in that there is a majority Sino Tibetan population, descended population called the Bamar, the Burmese, right. They're the main ethnic group. Now of course, there are many, many, many, many others in the country and numerous as well. And that's the source of a lot of other ethnic tensions that it would take me a long time to get into that all of that as well. But generally all recognized to some extent as being indigenous to the region, which of course is itself a construction. I mean, obviously everyone came from somewhere else eventually. While the Indian population, the majority or Indian descended populations, the majority of whom came into the region during the colonial period, but not all of them, and that's an important distinction to make, are recognized to be outsiders because of that, that they're recent migrants, that they only came in, you know, the past 100, 200 years or so, and therefore they're not sons of the soil. And they don't belong here essentially in, in Burma. And I, my argument, basically my big argument is that this ideology emerged during the colonial period as a response to colonialism and then has kind of continued to exist in the way that. Why reinvent the wheel? Right? And so when the military junta arose after decolonization, you know, there was already a group that had very clearly been targeted as outsiders. And the junta did a very good job targeting a lot of other minority ethnic groups too. So I should not leave that out. They, they were very open season in that regard, to put it in a relatively offensive way. But the Indian populations and the Indian descended populations, particularly Islam, as kind of like a focus of anger, continued and provide a good scapegoat for them.
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Thank you. How do you, how do you see this in terms of your, you mentioned one of your arguments being, or part of your argument being that it was British colonialism that facilitated the emergence of a kind of ethnonationalism over time. And I think you mentioned sort of midway through the book, somewhere in tracking the history over the decades, you mentioned going back into the 1820s, I think perhaps even the kind of original move by British administrators to try and classify, you know, people essentially based on religious marker.
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Right.
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When that hadn't been done before, when they go to counting for censuses and, and things, they start making this distinction. And at least that's one kind of way it begins, I guess.
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Well, yeah, and I, I would say interestingly enough, actually, that maybe not right. And so what I mean by that is, is that's actually a way that people have thought about it for a very long time. The initial people who, like, you know, scholars who looked at, you know, the history of racism, you know, these kinds of movements in any colonial context, the traditional divide and rule kind of point of view is that, you know, the colonial administrators came in, they said, okay, you're this one kind of people, you're this kind of people. And then that people started to roll with that, interestingly enough, I would say that for a very, very long time. And this is actually crucial to the argument. So you kind of set me up very well there. Did no one care, essentially? And I don't mean no one cared. But, you know, the Indian National Congress and the Burmese, like the nascent Burmese nationalist movement worked very, very closely hand in hand. A scholar at mit, Sana Iyer, who I've had a couple conversations about with this, does research on actually that earlier period where there was no such tension on kind of a big political level between The Indian and again, indigenous, quote, unquote, Burmese population. They work together very well. And you know, of course, obviously, to some extent, when you have a migrant population coming into a country who generally maintain their own language, at least for the first generation, stayed in, you know, relatively, you know, in group communities and such, and, you know, obviously had community worship and all of that with different religions. Not Buddhism, which is the majority religion in Burma, Myanmar, it was Hinduism, Islam, that. You'll have a little bit of tension with the local population, obviously, just kind of naturally. But that's the thing is that we need to watch that word naturally. I think that's what most scholars in the past kind of assumed, that it's like, oh, well, of course they're going to come into conflict because they're different and obviously different. Right. And I would say no, I would say that politics and ethno nationalists love to depict it that way, that they're. That they're tapping into the true concerns of the people when in reality they are creating those concerns. Right. They're saying, look at this flood of migrants. Look at all these people coming in. They're taking your jobs, they're ruining your life, they're the cause of all your problems. This is something that emerges in the 1930s, I would argue, with the Depression and the past. This was seen as kind of like a natural process. I can't get too much into it because I'm kind of already going on tangents here, but Furnival was a scholar, John Furnival, he was a former colonial administrator and then he became a scholar of Burma. And his big argument that's been hard to shake is that in the 1930s, just because of the Depression, the Indians and the Burmese came into economic conflict with each other. And so automatically, just naturally, just, you know, just auto. Like, just by nature of being different. That's how tension started between the two groups. And I would argue. No, I would argue. No, I would say that wasn't inevitable. Right.
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And I enjoy quite a bit as a historian, how you make this point continually in the book that. That key developments were not inevitable, because that's something I always raise in my teaching, for example. Right, so lay out this history for us, Matt. Here you're looking from about 1929 to 48 specifically, and then you have an important conclusion that takes us since 48. But you sort of start here roughly with partition in Burma and then the rise, or at least the mainstreaming. Right. Of. Of burmese ethno nationalism. 1929. Ish. Right.
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Yeah, yeah. No, that's great. Actually, this interview has proceeded in an interesting way. If I want to get meta here, where I had like a intro written up, where I was like, okay, here's my main points that I want to get to. This is perfect. We're going into it exactly the right way because that's the thing. You end up getting more into it than you expect once you start talking about it. It's so complex. So, yeah, let's just tell the story. I do this chronologically in the book. I'm a huge fan of chronology. I love the way it works because it's already there for you. Just go in order. Right. And so, yeah, what we're looking at in 1929 is, as I mentioned, a relatively unified movement, a cosmopolitan nationalist movement in Burma where largely led by Buddhist monks who had a lot of clout in society by being kind of like mentors to the population as a whole for a variety of historical reasons, working directly with the Indian National Congress. And so they had a common enemy. It was very easy for them to direct their attention at the British, to focus on constitutional changes like that was being gained in India, and to kind of push for independence in that way. Tensions around labor, you know, existed, of course, but the main move was unionization, essentially. You know, making sure that workers were paid equitably would erase the problem of migrant laborers being brought in to essentially undercut wages and such. You can have two reactions to that. Freak out and attack the migrant laborers or make sure they aren't artificially underpaid. Right. If they aren't artificially underpaid, then there's no demand. Right. And sure, that might cause problems back home across the Bay of Bengal where those workers need work. Right. That's why they're coming. But you're fixing your IM to a large extent. You're fixing your immigration problem there by destroying the reason that so many people are being imported. Right. By simply making sure everyone is paid equitably. We have no issue. Right. Essentially, at least on the Burmese side. And so that was generally the understanding, the correct understanding, I would argue, if you're looking materially at the situation. And then in 1929, the British Indian Statutory Commission came to Burma. It was a promise that was made in 1919 in India that all of the provinces of India would be toured by the statutory commission and reassessed for their progress towards self government. At the time, Burma was a province of India, and so they came there as well. But part of their agenda was to separate the country, to make It a separate colony. And you could argue that they had many real reasons for this. Right? Like many actual reasons. But you know, nefariously speaking, they wanted to separate the Burmese and Indian anti colonial movements. Right. It would be a lot easier to deal with either location by essentially breaking them apart and, you know, divide and rule. Right is the classic expression for this. Now I didn't see any direct evidence of that necessarily, that that was like the plan or anything, but when these gu are talking about it, that's kind of the thing that they're saying. They're like, well, this is a different group of people, let's treat them differently. You know, these issues shouldn't be tied together, blah, blah, blah. And that's effectively what they're saying. Right. And so when this commission comes, that's what they're there to do essentially and assess progress forward towards self government. But you know, of course that's, you know, they already have their assumptions about what, what that's going to be. And so ultimately the majority of the Burmese anti colonial movement boycotts the commission because they say, you're not here for a serious purpose. Right? You're here to partition us from India and to screw up our politics. And so the only people that show up to the statutory commission are the ethnonationalists, those who've been arguing throughout the 1920s, let's get the Indians out, they're bad. And of course they say, yes, please, partition us from India, you know, ensure that we're separate. And the statutory commission basically comes back with a report that says, well, it seems like 100% of the Burmese don't like Indians. And so that's what we're going to do. We're going to carve the country off. And ultimately that's what happened. Right. And so my argument there right from the start is we're amplifying the ethno nationalists here. They're actually not a majority, but they're the only people the British are speaking to.
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Right? That's what came out in your reading of the sources. Right? Is that basically they didn't end up, or the anti separationists didn't participate in the, in the study of the surveying, essentially. Right. Or they weren't around when everybody was being consulted sort of about opinions on the issue.
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That's right. And I don't want to spend too much because, you know, we could spend the whole time on this. But really briefly, in 1932 there was an election held, a legislative council election, which was like the kind of national elections of the time historians, forgive me for saying national and the anti separationists won in a landslide. And the whole point of the election was to say, who has the mandate here? Right. Because the anti separationists were basically saying, hey, like, we are the majority, even though you didn't hear from us on the commission. And so the British said, okay, well, let's hold an election and see. And they were by. By orders of magnitude. And so the British just ignored the elections after that. And so they were like, oh, whoops, well, we're still going to do it. That was effectively. That's the short version. They're like, well, yeah, but who knows? Elections aren't always totally accurate. Right. Like they kind of just brushed it off.
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An important harbinger of things to come in their approach there too, as well. Right. And then tell us about the rise to power of the Myocheet. If I'm pronouncing this correctly, Pardi, led by you saw this figure that is important throughout this history and the construction of what you call a racial regime into the 1930s there in Burma.
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Yeah, that sounds good. That's a great transition to the next chapter. And what comes after this is basically the subject of the rest of the book. Yeah. USA was a political figure that was part of this anti separationist movement. What was unique about him was that he was revolutionary. And I'm going to put several caveats on that term momentarily, in the sense that he wanted to take radical measures, right? Active direct action kind of measures to fight against the British. Most of the Burmese elite politicians were willing to work through the constitutional methods, sit in Parliament, make discussions, things like that. Right. He wanted to take direct action, but his direct action was specific, Right. In the sense that it wasn't economic, it was racial. And his point of view basically came out of this anti separationist movement where he saw, or rather separationist movement, where he saw that there was energy to be built around fighting against Indian migration. His point of view was that any method that would break down colonial rule and achieve independence for Burma was valid. And he kind of took it as his personal project to attack the Indian migrant population as the central focus of the Burmese nationalist movement. His point of view was that what better way to organize the public than to get the foreigners out of our country? And by that he meant the British, but he mainly meant the Indians. Right. If we could do that, if we could work on that, if we could get that done, then we'll build the movement that's necessary to push the British out as well. That was his point of view. And so the party that he founded was Miochet, which was basically a combination of the words race and like loyalty or love. And so it, you could say Patriots Party. That's how it's been translated in the past. But I think saying like race, love, right, is kind of, it says a lot more about what his intentions were with this party, which is essentially saying let's get the foreigners out, right? That was the focus of his movement and rival movements were arising, I mean out of the anti separationist coalition. We have basically social democrats, again, the leftists will understand this breakdown. We have like the social democrats who are basically saying like, let's work within the British system. Let's work through constitutional methods, but you know, make sure that people have a minimum wage welfare, you know, kind of ensuring that there, where there's fixes to the economic system that make it a little less exploitative. And then we have the socialists and the communists, right, who are saying let's undertake revolutionary methods to overthrow the British by force. And that's mainly the socialist and communist is at the moment. But they're also building worker support, they're trying to carry on unionization campaigns, they're trying to carry on mass movements of labor and such. And so we kind of have these two poles here, right, where we have. And again, just like they were before, the anti separationists would become this movement of socialists and communists. They're the majority by far. This group was called the Thakins. They were, it means masters in Burmese. The point of them was that word was that that's what the British required themselves to be called. That was like the, it's like a sahib in India. And so they were appropriating that, right? And so to, to conclude, right, with this very long winded point, those are our two poles there, right? We have the socialists and communists who are pushing for an active revolution, right? They want to overthrow the government and at the same time want to organize labor and make sure that everyone is all boats are raised. Essentially. USA is essentially attacking the problem from the racial angle and saying no. The number one project we should be working on is removing the Indian migrant so that the Burmese will be better off by comparison.
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To further complicate the political picture there you've got the figure of Dr. Boss saw. Am I getting this? Yeah, forgive me. In his, in his political party that's kind of on the social democrat level, right, Pushing for serious reforms, but not kind of fully revolutionary, let's say.
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That's right, that's right, yeah. And I mentioned that was who I was referring to at the very beginning when I said the Social Democrats are there, that's him. And he does achieve in the first election held. So this new constitution that came with the separation, the partition. And once again, I didn't mention this earlier, but the partition of course is something in and of itself, right. That every time there's a partition now we've created a new border and we're saying, okay, now the Indians definitely are outsiders because now we're not in India anymore. Now we're our own geo body, to use a fancy word. Right. But no Obama, the part of that election was, or part of that constitution was fully representative elections. And so you get a prime minister, you get, you know, a Senate and House of Representatives that is generally speaking pretty much empowered as much as an independent country. Except for the fact the governor could veto anything. The governor could step in at any time and say, never mind on things, he could influence legislation, et cetera. He gets to decide the elections just like the king in the uk kind of serving the executive role there where like yes, the prime minister is selected out of the biggest party, but you know, really the governor, the British governor is picking, you know, who's really going to be the prime Minister. And so Bama ends up winning the first election through a coalition, which means that he's in a coalition with the Europeans, the British in the Parliament, the, the Indians and a bunch of business constituencies. The businesses got their own seats in the government. And so he wasn't going to get anything done essentially. And so yeah, he was doomed from the start. In short, yeah, there was no way his government was going to pass anything. And that's how he was hamstrung. And of course like any social democrat, you know, we could, we could hate on the social Democrats little. He put himself in that position. Right. You know, he's. By trying to work within the system. No offense to Bernie, of course.
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Right, right. And then a point you make in that chapter, chapter two also is that and this is a point that's repeated throughout the book and I think it's important to note again where you say on page 54 to set you saw as movement in this global context. It was clearly part of an international ethnonationalist zeitgeist in the 1930s. And you mentioned this key work by Julia Adne Thomas and Jeff Elie, their edited collection and others that have laid this out. So yeah, the 1930s. You know, you and I were talking about this a little before we started Here, this zeitgeist of ethnonationalism.
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Yeah, yeah, let me take a second. So this is, this is what I was talking about at the beginning about like my kind of bigger, more big picture kind of argument here. I think this is a good time to bring it up. And also the reason I said that was serendipitous is because if I brought it up at the beginning, I'd be getting too into the reeds. It'd be like, what is this even about? You know. So this is the perfect time to bring it up. Yes, I've kind of softened my language a little bit by calling USA's movement ethno nationalist. I originally said fascist, but I stopped using that term because it's too controversial. Simply put, like scholars are very protective about that word, essentially meaning that it's like usually referring to specifically Europeans. And so I've kind of backed off from that because that's fair. But yeah, kind of my bigger point of view on this is that nationalism, ethnonationalism in particular seems to have a symbiotic relationship with capitalism. We've seen in the initial rise of fascism in the west in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as its second rise in the 21st century that we're currently in within right now that when capitalist economics are driving populations to the point of revolution, when enough is enough, people are starving to death. In Burma at this time, you know, we see that all around the world it's the Great Depression, right? But in Burma at this time, it's just as bad or worse where people are losing their land from foreclosures, people are starving, they're out of work, you know, there's huge unemployment. Right. That you could have a socialist communist revolution. Right, where, where, where these economic issues are the direct focus of the movement or I've, you know, generally speaking, what we see in this moment is the alternative is ethno nationalism that we can uplift the racial in group as opposed to all other groups, and that this provides an exhaust valve essentially for that revolutionary energy where putting it crudely, all of that violent pent up energy doesn't go against the economic elites who are responsible for all of these problems and doesn't actually change the system that is responsible for all of these problems, but rather takes all of that energy out on immigrants and perceived outsiders, which of course creates an enormous amount of political energy and power for the ethnonationalist party itself, which is ultimately obviously the end in and itself of, of these parties. Right. To gain their own power. I call this passive revolution in the book, as opposed to active revolution, which would be that which would like actually overthrow the economic structures that we're talking about. Passive revolution was building on, building on.
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The Gramsci distinction there, right?
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Yes, yes. Antonio Gramsci, who of course coined the term in prison, put in prison by Benito Mussolini. Right. And so of all the people who talk about this, he's, you know, probably someone who understands it the best, who basically said that Mussolini's movement, that's what it did, that there was a very real revolutionary effort to change the material conditions in Italian society. And the fascists, Mussolini and his allies subverted that by essentially having this ultra nationalist movement that focused on Italianness, Italian power, the in group, all of that. Obviously the Nazis are in Germany are a much better example of, of this ethnic racial thing. Right. But all fascists are, are, are the same in this way, in that the focus shifts from economic issues. Right. We need to transform the structures that are creating poverty in our society and instead saying, let's fix poverty for us. Right. And of course, us being defined as, you know, the fascists would like, obviously. And so, yeah, I'm arguing that this is part of this larger movement because. Not because of inspiration or even direct connection necessarily, though there was some, but rather that the Great Depression created this moment and you basically have a choice and you're either going to have a revolution or you're going to have fascists. Right. And that's oversimplifying enormously. Right. But in a colonial situation where the British get to decide to some extent who wins, that's what we're looking at here. Right. And they're going to pick one over the other and the choice is going to be relatively obvious for them.
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And then by 1938 and, you know, the violence of the ethnonationalist movement and mobilizations turned into the anti Indian. Would you characterize it as pogrom of 1938 that you note sort of had a pretty long afterlife. I mean, it's usually sort of periodized, what as a matter of a few months, but it seemed to kind of go on and on. Pogrom of 38 and its aftermath.
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Yeah, yeah. So this is, this is where we're getting into the third chapter here and Right. This is the outcome of this basically usage. Big and I, I speak of him kind of as like a avatar of this party. He really was just like any ethno nationalist party as we've seen. There's kind of like a big guy you know, who's kind of like, you know, sort of leading the way here. And, you know, kind of his move was to take action on this anti Indian problem and so to stir up tension however he could. As. As I've kind of been implying throughout, to some extent, this, this hatred towards the Indian population was relatively artificial. There was a lot of tension between the Burmese and Indian communities, especially growing into the 1930s, as the anti, as the. Sorry, I keep saying that the separationists in that controversy won. Basically, they won the new constitution from their point of view. And so they could argue, you know, we have the best method towards the future and everything. And so as anti and Indian tension is building, USA basically uses whatever he can, like kind of provocations to push people into direct violence. And this ends up happening in 1938 when basically they find a pamphlet, an argument between two, like, religious people essentially, which is incredibly, incredibly normal. And, and, you know, it's like something that happens in literature a lot in, in the region especially, but around the world where, you know, it's like, hey, Buddhism and Islam, two religions. Let's talk about how they're different. Let's talk about how they're, you know, it's kind of like a dialogue, like a Socratic dialogue between the two. And, you know, it's like an argument that's carried out in this, in this literary debate that was just, you know, like it could have been interesting, you know, if you read it, if you're interested in religion, but they blew it up into the Muslims are trying to take over Burma. That's, that's basically what it ended up becoming. And, you know, we've seen how this can happen with politics, where it gets into the media at this point. That means the physical press, right? And the Buddhist monks who are sort of leading the nationalist movement, a lot of them are buying into this, saying, hey, Muslims are trying to, you know, this huge Indian migration into our country is turning our country Muslim, essentially. And so they're eager also to find this kind of scapegoat. And so this religious debate comes out and they start driving around through the city in Rangoon saying, hey, hey, they're attacking. They're attacking our religion. They're attacking our religion. You know, you need to defend Buddhism and make sure it stays the majority religion in this country. And there ends up being a mass meeting about it in July 1938, where basically the entire point of the meeting, you know, and these meetings were extremely common, right, where it would be like, you know, fight against colonialism, fight against the oppressor. This time it's Muslims are here to take our country from us and we need to stop them. And this eventually kind of snowballs, as these types of things tend to do, where when the march starts, where they start to march, they march right to the Indian quarter and you know, being all pent up, they start attacking people essentially. And this huge riot breaks out throughout the city and it becomes a pogrom, basically, where Indians need to flee, you know, hide in their homes, kind of try to stay safe however they can. As you know, these rioters are basically ripping through the city trying to find blood essentially. There's horrible stories from this event where, you know, pigs heads are thrown into mosques, mosques are set in fire with the worshipers inside, kind of these horrible things. And we don't really hear about this as much before my work on it because it was somewhat unremarkable in the past where scholars were like, oh, yeah, there was this, you know, riot in 1938 that was about Islam. But you know, there was a lot of tensions between the Burmese and Muslims. You know, eventually something like this was going to happen. You know, kind of like that same thing where it's like, no, this was a very targeted, specific effort, just more.
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Long standing religious tensions there. That's just how it is, right? The kind of essentializing discourse.
- [37:05]
A
Yeah, it's what happens, right? Yeah, yeah, of course. You know, there's lots of Muslims, there's lots of Buddhists. Eventually they're gonna fight, right? It's like, no, not necessarily. And so, yeah, and I argue. Yeah, you mentioned there's this afterlife to it that's basically, arguably that's my main point is that it wasn't even about the riot itself. It's this movement that was built from it. Right. USA's power almost entirely comes from this becoming a main thing that we're doing now. You know, like a lot of pickets throughout the country for years to follow are basically pickets of Indian businesses. It was a way of mobilizing people essentially. And this diffused in a lot of way that revolutionary energy that people were feeling. You know, think about it, you're in some random village in the north of Burma. You, you, you were, you lost your land to, and I mentioned this in the book, generally Indian creditors too, which is an unfortunate outcome of the way the economy worked at the time. And so you're mad about that, you lost your land, you're poor, you don't have a job, and then these monks come by and say, hey, the Indians are here to kill us and they're here to take our religion. And you think, hey, I was, I was foreclosed on by an Indian landlord. Yeah, let me get in on this. And then you start picketing Indian businesses, you start, you know, attacking Indian homes and shops and things. And from. And the British do nothing. The British don't care for the most part. And so from your point of view, this is a great outlet to, you know, release some of that anger, some of that tension where basically you have free reign. You can kind of go for it. Because the British, of course, have. The traditional interpretation has been that they bigger fish to fry. But my argument would be this isn't threatening to them. Right. This is something that doesn't really bother them. If they avoided direct violence, that would be the only time that the British would step in with the police is if there was direct violence. But if they voided direct violence, they could harass the Indian population for as long as they liked.
- [39:03]
C
And as long as the. You mentioned this at one point in the book. As long as the economic wheels continue to churn there in the way that the, that British imperialism seems primarily concerned about.
- [39:16]
A
Right, that's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess I've never said that so far. I'm so, you know, obviously, you know, from doing a book project that, you know, you get so deep into the reads that you forget to mention some of the main, like most, you know, biggest points. That's what the British care about. And, and moving into the final chapters here, because I realize that we're, we're. We're moving quickly through our time here. You know, the British, that's their main focus. That's all they care about. Right. They care about their geostrategic objectives in the region. They care about making sure that the British maintain a military presence in the region to some extent. And mainly they care about British business, the British extractive economy in the region, staying productive, wealthy, you know, producing an enormous amount of wealth through rice, teak and oil that's produced in the region. Right. As long as that, I keep primarily agricultural.
- [40:09]
C
Right, Matt?
- [40:11]
A
Yes.
- [40:11]
C
There's no real industrial base there at this, at this point.
- [40:16]
A
Right.
- [40:16]
C
In Vermont.
- [40:18]
A
Yeah. And even the oil production, which is interesting, is largely paraffin wax and like other kinds of oil extracts rather than like petroleum. Right. And so, yeah, it's mainly rice that they're producing in the country, but a huge proportion of the world's rice was coming from Burma until World War II, when kind of these supply lines Got cut really bad.
- [40:37]
C
Wow. So tell us about then the Galan government. And by 1940, and I suppose we should mention that by 1939, if I'm not mistaken, in China and kind of in Asia, if we want to think of it that way, World War II had begun. And then in Burma, the kind of what ultra repressive and ethno nationalist Golan government is in power from 40 to 42.
- [41:12]
A
Yes, yes, yes. And so this is kind of like the. Again, the chronology helps here, right? This is kind of the outcome of what we just talked about where. Right. And so this is why the book is called Containing Dog decolonization. We are 40 minutes in and I'm just getting to that. Let me say the reason the book is called that is that that's the British focus, right? They're trying to make sure that their system stays in place after their demise. They know they're on the way out. They know that they, you know, they have basically an independent government underneath them now. And so they know that this is the beginning of the end for them, especially as World War II begins. And so they're really, really focused now on replacements. Who's going to be the best group to leave behind here? And again, as I mentioned, this is basically the political breakdown. We've got the Thakhines who are really coming at them economically. There's a huge oil strike where all of the oil workers march to Rangoon. It totally drives oil production to a halt. Right. This is driving them nuts. This is where all of their attention is. Right. They are so mad about this. And then this movement ends up also growing into an anti war movement. Because when you think about it, in 1939, 1940, 1941, like during those couple years, this is a war in Europe right now. Of course, there is the Japanese invasion of China at the time as well, but that's just China. In Europe, it's the Nazis and the Italians versus the. It seems like World War I again, basically. And so to the Thakians, who are led by a revolutionary leader named Aung San, who ends up becoming a very, very big deal, he ends up becoming like the revolutionary leader who's thought of as the father of the country. He leads an anti war movement that's basically a workers movement growing right out of that previous unionization and strike effort, which basically says, hey, we're not participating in your war until we get a guarantee of independence. Which is the same thing that Nehru and his allies are carrying around in India. Right? And the problem in Burma that Indians didn't have because they were pretty united in that regard for the most part, was that the British in Burma have a guy, right, that they can use to suppress this movement. And so that's basically they have usa, right, where in Burma they, they need to repress this anti war movement. But if they just started trying to arrest everybody, it would spark the revolution that they feared, right? And they had no way of putting that down. And so USA is an indigenous person. He is a leader of an ethno nationalist party that has gained a significant amount of clout from all of this movement that we've seen. Obviously most of it being racist, you know, activity for the most part, but nevertheless a significant amount of clout. They basically steer him into power essentially. And no future election is held, right? There's supposed to be an election for the Senate and House of Representatives, just like the parliament in the uk anytime there's an issue with the government. And so when Bama's coalition government collapsed, that would have been time to hold another election. Right? Now the constitution had five years, and so they technically had five years as according to the rules. But they could have called a snap election, you know, when the government collapsed. But instead what they did and the coalition government collapsed for a variety of reasons, by the way, I can't get into it anyway, right? Mostly because of the pogrom, actually, and their failure to deal with it. But basically the majority party ended up being kind of consolidated under this guy named UPU who is basically a proxy for USA and then USA ends up ousting him anyway about a year later. And so it's usa and basically the British government know this. They know he was behind the pogrom. They know all of their documents say it. Obviously in their private correspondence, they straight up just say, yeah, we know he did it, you know, but. But they basically said like, otherwise, he's a pretty good politician. He's putting down these workers revolts, he's trying to keep the economy functioning, he's trying to keep us in the war, you know, he's trying to support us. He's not like these radicals, you know. And so usa, as part of his own political project that he would be doing regardless of whether or not the British were there, is arresting all of the revolutionaries, right? For him, these are his political enemies too. And so basically what we're looking at is the British can sit back, put their feet up on their desks and say, oh, well, there's nothing we could do. I mean, this guy is going nuts. But you know, that's him, right. That's not us. And obviously, meanwhile, they're signing all of the arrest orders, Right? They're absolutely thrilled about this. They're trying to manipulate the high court and the other kind of courts in the country to kind of push this stuff, stuff through. There's a lot of questions among Burmese lawyers, right, where they're saying, like, hey, these arrests, there's no warrant, there's no, you know, any kind of reasoning for these arrests, what's going on. And basically usa, like any strongman, like any dictator, is saying the courts are the ones that are wrong. And the British say, well, who? I mean, he's the Burmese prime Minister. We're not saying it, you know, and so they get away with it, essentially, courts are wrong.
- [46:20]
C
Well, you know, and you make this point in the introduction laying out what's kind of the key arguments of the book. They continued imperialists did British imperialists in this case to support USAU and ethnonationalists because as you say, quote, to counteract real transformation. I mean, that goes along with the bludgeoning, the revolutionaries. So tell us then about World War II and under Japanese occupation, Burma. What are a couple of key highlights from those few years?
- [47:00]
A
Yeah, and actually I'm realizing that I'm running low here, so let me cut right to the chase, right, which is basically that, yeah, I mean, the idea of containing decolonization was that USA was their best man, right? That he was the one that was kind of pushing this movement forward. They would have been very, very happy with handing power over to him upon independence because he would suppress the revolutionaries, he would take care of that problem and that basically it could hand over the extractive Burmese economy exactly as is to the Burmese. Right. That's the ethnonationalist dream. Now the IN group has control of the economy. It's just as extractive, it's just as horrible. People are going to be just as poor. But we're in charge now, right? That's basically the idea. Right. And by the way, the idea with any. Not the nationalist, right, that's kind of the trick that they play, which is that people will be just as poor, but, you know, at least still have some ethnic clout. Right? But he ends up getting arrested because he's pretty mercenary. And so he pretty much sees the idea that he will become the British selection upon decolonization. But In World War II, early days, especially when the Japanese first attacked Pearl harbor, they sweep through South Southeast Asia at the exact same time and the British have No, like remain behind forces there at the time, like they are just retreating. Right. They have absolute, these are like ramshackle administrations that have like 10 troops, you know, obviously generalizing there. And so the Japanese attack Pearl harbor actually as USA is coming back to Burma from state visits to the UK and, and, and the US and he's Hawaii on his way back across the Pacific. And so he witnesses that. He sees the Nazis basically winning in Europe at this time with the blitz and everything. Like this is before the turn, right. And so he calls the Japanese, literally, I'm not kidding, he calls them on the phone from a hotel room in Portugal. MI6 has phone tapped, wiretapped his phone. New thing at the time. And they throw him in prison for the rest of the war. And so he kind of screwed up there. It's kind of like a fun little story that happens in, during World War II that he kind of screws up and calls the Japanese, tries to get in contact with them and switch sides essentially. But lots happens back in Burma where essentially the Thakkins who were the revolutionaries, end up basically switching sides as well for a little while. They end up, well, not switching sides. I mean, they were never with the British in the first place, but they end up basically running the Japanese puppet administration for the most part, but for the entire time. And there's plenty of evidence of this, of course they would say for the entire time. Right. But there is a lot of evidence that for the entire time they're working underground with the British against the Japanese. You know, the enemy of my enemy is my friend kind of thing, trying to get them overthrown, trying to, you know, deal with this. Because the Japanese are of course in many ways far worse in practice, you know, especially during wartime.
- [50:02]
C
Even though they had this kind of, even though they had this kind of Pan Asian discourse in, in perception, in some ways, among others in the region. But there started to be, as I understand your research, some arguments by many on the left and in Burma that no, no, we can't, we have to align ourselves with the, with the, you know, anti fascist and anti racist right.
- [50:31]
A
Even if that means temporarily the British and the Americans. Right. Long run, that's not a good, you know, bet in that regard. But during the war it absolutely was. Yeah. And what's interesting too is that you could see this objective right away. Ang San, the leader of that movement, was actually trying to get to Yannan in China, which was Mao's headquarters supporters. Chairman Mao. Right, future Chairman Mao. And so actually he wasn't trying to get to the Japanese. The Japanese just caught him on the way. And then he was like, oh, yeah, no, that's. Yeah, Jeff, Japan, sure. You know, but that was actually where he was trying to get to. And yeah, Ba Ma was pretty much the only one who truly bought into the. Even privately, we don't know if he really bought into it, but he was the only one that was really like the Pan Asian guy. He ended up becoming the puppet dictator during the war.
- [51:21]
C
And.
- [51:21]
A
But you could see why, because he was the social democrat who was super against the British. Like, that was his whole thing. And so whoever was fighting the British was fine. And so if he needed to become a fascist to fight the British, whatever, you know, that was basically his point of view. Now, history has of course, not looked kindly on that decision. Right. But I would say the Thakkins remained relatively. I guess correct would be the wrong word because that would imply that there's a. There's a correct, a right or wrong. But they kind of have threaded that line very well.
- [51:53]
C
I think ultimately after World War II, you know, it's. It's a contained decolonization. You. You argue there. And in terms of British imperialism and their goals with the burgeoning independence and anti colonial movement there.
- [52:13]
A
Yeah. And so that's how I'd conclude. Yeah, this is. I have a couple minutes to wrap it up. I think I can do it. It, which is that after the war, right, we have the situation that we have in many other Southeast Asian countries where the British, despite everything we just talked about, right, World War II kind of completely wipes the slate clean. Where almost when I was writing the book, I was like, oh, like everything I just said basically is meaningless now because now it's a completely different story from here on out. But it's not, though, at the same time, in the sense that everything I was just talking about with you saw arresting all of the revolutionaries, putting them in jail, that was mainly in the long run a failure because once the Japanese move in, all of those revolutionaries end up getting freed from prison, end up serving in the Japanese public government for a while while subverting them. But then after the war, that subversion ends up leading them to become the most popular movement in Burma anyway, right. It's called the Anti Fascist People's Freedom League, that is led by Aung San and the Thakines and these revolutionaries that I was talking about. And so they end up in the saddle anyway, essentially, where they essentially have all of the popular support. And by all, I mean, this is unprecedented after World War II resisting the Japanese. They had pretty much universal support in Burma, as far as we can tell. Like, we didn't take surveys or anything, but. And so USAD failed, essentially. And so that kind of defeats the point that I was making earlier that he's throwing everyone in prison. You know, he's. He's amplifying his ethno nationalist movement to this fever pitch, right, where he's kind of like. Like put into the saddle by the British. The war kind of ruins all that for him. And now he's effectively out. And now the. The communists, essentially, for the most part, are in. But, you know, they also have to make a coalition. The ethno nationalists are also in their coalition. You know, this is united front. And so they're trying to work with everybody here. And effectively, what happens is when the British come in, they're right back at it. The ethno nationalists, whether other guys, right, they're trying to get usad out of prison. They're trying to bring him back. They're saying, he's not a traitor. Don't worry about him. You know, they bring him back, and they're really counting on him. In all the documents at this time after the war, they're like, the antifascist People's Freedom League is quite a mouthful is the league is totally a united front. We can't resist them. You know, every demand they make is followed up by mass movements that we can't control, right? We're totally out. Like, we're. We're doomed here. And so all of their private documents are like, all we need is USA back. We need to get him back. We need to get him back. You know, that's what they're saying constantly. And so they are into this guy after everything. They're like, this is our man. Who cares if he starts killing Indians again? This is the guy who can suppress the communists, right? And so they're pushing for him. They're pushing for him. They're pushing for him. Long story short, they fail. Essentially, the Aung San and the communists and this league are too popular, essentially, and they ultimately fail to push usa. You know, despite his overconfidence, he's constantly saying, oh, once we get me back into power, I. I got it. You know, everyone loves me, but it's basically not true. Right? And so speaking for the people here, the people know what's right, right? You know, I mean, the people know what they're doing. They know that USA was a failure, but the British really want him, and that's the point basically that I'm making is, is that's telling, right? That that's. That's their pick, right? That's their guy. And so basically what happens is Aung San succeeds. They ended up getting their constitution. They write it up and everything. They have their talks with Clement Atlee. They're planning for decolonization in early January 1948. In July of 1947, USA ends up assassinating Aung San. And so that's my argument in chapter seven, the final chapter, basically, which is that that was the last play indicate in. In containing decolonization, right? That they. They tried their best right up until the end. I would argue that ultimately it's contained. Decolonization question mark, right? I would say ultimately they. They failed. That ultimately the league ended up in power after decolonization. I would. In the epilogue, I. I point out how it's very. To all of this interference and all of this trouble and the death of Aung San. And so I argue that that destabilized essentially what was a very, very powerful coalition. And what led to its ultimate collapse a couple about a decade later was that the figurehead, the main guy gets assassinated by usa, His. His traditional historical enemy that has been our character throughout the story, right. Of. Of the ethno nationalists. And I make a case that the British were totally. The British colonial officials on the ground. Not necessarily at the labor government in London, but the colonial officials on the ground who had been invested in this project the whole time. They're the ones who were behind the assassination. We have lots of documents. The Thatcher government actually in the 80s looked into this and so their documents kind of laid out, did we kill Aung San? Was basically the question. And they essentially say, not the big names, not people in London, but effectively on the ground. Yeah, they basically backed him up. They said, hey. Well, they. A British captain made sure that USA had the arms that he needed. There were a couple other people that he was in touch with. He threw a liaison on the British council. I argue that the former governor Darwin Smith kind of was the one who gave him the go ahead, who said, hey, we'll protect you. He was wrong because he didn't have that much clout in the labor government, obviously. But that there were serious British officials that were behind that were helping us all with this, basically saying this is the only way we can get the independent Burma that we want. Right. And so that was kind of the last move in this. In this chess game here.
- [58:03]
C
Well, that's probably a good place, Matt, to End what is a fascinating and power packed book and I was telling you before, I think it's one that I've learned more about than just about any other than, I mean one that I've learned more from rather than just about any other I've read in a while. What are you working on next? What's next in the research pipeline perhaps for Dr. Matthew Bowser?
- [58:35]
A
Yeah, that sounds good. Yeah. Good place to conclude. Expanding the case study essentially. And so, yeah, Burma is incredible. It's been incredible to be kind of like a part of the research community because it's so small. The people who do research on Burma, especially in the Western Academy. Yeah. To expand from there. It's looking at this as a big picture. I mean this is happening. The British are doing the same exact thing in Malaya at the same time. Right. Which would eventually become Malaysia and Singapore. Their motive there is the same, which is that like if we push the ethno nationalists into power, we can defeat the communists. Right. That's, that's the story again and again and again. And basically I think I'm probably going to do something like that where I look at that on a bigger scale, maybe not just even in Southeast Asia. Right. And say that immediately after World War II, we have this ethno nationalist moment. Even though fascism is defeated in World War II, we can't have the communists take power or the capitalist world system that we just saved is over. Right. And so who's the best rivals of the communists during the Cold War? Right. Which is the main story to follow. It's racist, right? It's, it's the racist. That's generally who they back. And so yeah, you could take this, this story and make it bigger. And so that's basically the plan.
- [59:57]
C
We will be looking out for it. Matthew Bowser, we appreciate your time today, folks. The book is containing Decolonization, British Imperialism and the Politics of Race in Late Colonial Burma, out now, just released this week with Manchester University Press. Thanks for joining us everyone. On new books in South Asian studies.