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By Root 4637 0

Muslims, who were mostly of Indian origin, and Burmese Buddhists had been very high since the Depression. In 1942 the incoming BIA had been immediately drawn into settling local scores as the British fled to the north. In her petition for the trial of Aung San, Abdul Rashid’s widow gave a vivid account of his brutal last days. Denounced by the villagers, he had been thrown into a locked cart with a pig and starved for eight days. Though there is no independent evidence of this, the story’s very existence, with its emphasis on an insult carefully tailored for a Muslim, illustrates the depths of the hatreds involved. Then, the widow continued, Aung San ‘took him to the Thaton football ground and in the presence of thousands of people, speared him to death with his bayonet after crucifying him to the goal post’.120 Aung San did not deny the killing, though he later told Dorman-Smith that he had been incapable of the degree of resolution alleged by the widow. He had certainly intended to kill the man himself, because it was his order that had condemned him, but he had bungled it ‘and almost collapsed after the first stroke’. His subordinates had to finish off the headman.121

In early April, Aung San gave a lengthy response to these accusations in the legislative council.122 The context, he said, was the mass looting and murder which accompanied the BIA’s entry into southern Burma in 1942. He had tried to stop the score settling, but neither he nor Suzuki, the senior Japanese liaison officer with the BIA, had been able to do so effectively. Aung San said that it was important to try to restore order by punishing those who really had been guilty of abuses under the old regime. He claimed that British administration had failed and therefore it was incumbent on the nationalists to form an administration. Besides, ‘in such slave countries as Burma, it cannot be said that conformity with the law is justice’. Abdul Rashid was one who had abused the slave people. He was a ‘wicked man who had ill treated the villagers’ and had indulged in despicable looting ‘for his own stomach’.123 Aung San declared that his conscience was clear, but as he made his statement, he appeared to lose his way, muttering, ‘I forget, I forget…’ He also added: ‘To confess the truth, however, though this measure is not at all regular, yet it was rough and ready justice to suit the time and the conditions prevailing in the country.’ This statement earned him some respect from the more open-minded of the British officials.124

Despite the governor’s desire to act decisively, other British authorities in Burma were in two minds about prosecuting the case. For a start, there were procedural problems. Only six people of the 500 or so present at Abdul Rashid’s killing had come forward to give evidence, and they were all Indians. Also the government doubted its ability to shield Indians from the inevitable reprisal attacks should the case come to trial. Even the archdeacon of Rangoon, George Appleton, who doubled up as the government of Burma’s director of public relations, could partially excuse Aung San. He should perhaps have been ‘arrested and executed’ a year ago, but once Mountbatten had treated him ‘respectfully’, the British had effectively condoned his crimes. His arrest now would have ‘repercussions comparable to those of the INA trials in India’. Besides, added Appleton, there were racial factors involved: ‘In Burma people do not generally think in terms of justice and reason, but in terms of personalities and relationships.’ Aung San’s crime, and certainly his version of it, was ‘understandable’ and less heinous than many committed during the war, especially given that he was ‘an emotional and in some ways fanatical man’.125

Dorman-Smith, however, refused to relent. This was a struggle of wills between his authority, the AFPFL and London. Once the petition of Abdul Rashid’s widow was in the public domain, he decided on a struggle to the death, effectively handing victory to Aung San. Why was he so inflexible? It was this phase in Dorman-Smith’s career