Challenges to ethnic harmony in Burma: a historical overview.

Abstract

Burma faced independence in 1948 as a deeply divided country. The British had ruled the area, which now was declared as “Union of Burma” in two entirely different administrative systems. The southern parts of the country were taken over gradually after the wars in 1824-1826 and 1852, and became the main geobody of “Burma Proper” or “Ministerial Burma”. The rest of the country was taken over in a war in 1885-1886, and much of this area was administered indirectly through the local Shan and Kachin chiefs as an administrative entity known simply as “Frontier Areas” or “Scheduled Areas”. Like in the Indian Subcontinent and in the Malayan Peninsula the British administrative arrangements created a serious challenge to the leaders of the new independent country. Burma Proper was basically populated by the ethnic Burmans, Arakanese, Mons and Delta Karens, whereas the Frontier Areas were populated by the Shan people, Salween Karens, Kachins, Karennis, Chins and various subgroups of the aforementioned. The same year, as the independence was granted, the Union of Burma plunged into a civil war, which continues until today. This paper discusses the ethnic categories created by the colonial authorities and it looks into how these ethnic categories have been – and continue to be - imagined, invented, manipulated and politicised for economic purposes. The paper is mainly a historical overview but points out a few continuities to the present time. The paper looks into how the Burmese authorities dealt with these issues in the first constitution of 1947 by dividing the country into ethnically based “states” and “divisions”, and how the international community of today continues supporting these ethnic categories.