Forgotten Wars_ Freedom and Revolution in Southeast Asia - Christopher Bayly [153]
control. Dorman-Smith’s departure and Knight’s interregnum had given the Burmese radicals the signal for revolt. Old friends returned to stir the political pot. Out in the districts there was an ominous tide of minor revolts and clashes between different ethnic and religious groups. Ba Maw, the former Japanese-sponsored Adipadi, returned from a brief imprisonment in Tokyo, announcing on the steps of the aircraft that his government had not been a ‘Jap regime’ but a ‘Burma regime’.34 Sarat Bose, Netaji’s brother, made a speech, closely monitored by the CID, in which he prophesied that the British would be driven out only by the shedding of blood and urged Burmese to live up to the ideals of Netaji. A thousand people heard him speak, including 300 ex-INA men in uniform.35 Burma’s Indian population remained uncertain. Most Hindu, Sikh and Christian Indians fully identified with the AFPFL, but feared that the anti-immigrant element in Burmese politics would rise to the surface in a time of crisis. By contrast, many Indian Muslims held themselves aloof from the AFPFL, which for them still had a whiff of communalism about it from the pre-war days. In Arakan, Muslims identified with Jinnah’s inchoate Pakistan, particularly after the communal riots in Calcutta in August and September. Industrial trouble spread. A few Indian radicals and workers on the partially restored oilfields heeded the call of P. C. Joshi, Secretary General of the Indian Communist Party, for a union between Burmese communists of all races and all factions in anticipation of a general Asian rising against ‘monopoly capitalism and imperialism’. Large numbers of Indian postal workers struck in sympathy with their counterparts in the subcontinent who were suffering as a result of high prices. Relations between Burmese and Chinese, usually less tense than those between Burmese and Indians, also deteriorated. The nationalist government in China pledged $5 million for the rebuilding of Chinese businesses shattered by the Japanese.36 Burmese politicians feared that this would tip the economic balance back towards the Chinese in areas where they had benefited during the war. Meanwhile, clandestine groupings such as the Black Star Society and paramilitary bodies such as the People’s Volunteer Organizations hoarded the vast numbers of Allied and Japanese weapons that had fallen into their hands over the past few years.
As India’s interim government took office in September, the fact that their big neighbour had already achieved a kind of independence goaded Burmese politicians to greater intransigence. Hubert Rance, the new governor, immediately noted that the Burmese were hostile and resentful because no grand British Cabinet Mission had bothered to visit Burma – ‘the most devastated country in the empire’.37 The Burmese had suddenly begun to appreciate the fragility of British power in Asia. Aung San’s hungry and frustrated supporters looked on impatiently as some aspects of the old regime seemed to totter on regardless. As soon as he arrived, Rance was therefore plunged into the worst Burmese political crisis since the reoccupation of Rangoon. September 1946 saw a mass movement on a scale that appalled the authorities. It only just failed to become another 1886 or 1930 rebellion, mainly as a result of the good judgement of Aung San. Large areas of the countryside were out of control of the central authorities, principally the ones that had caused trouble throughout British rule and before: the ‘badlands’ of Shwebo, north of Mandalay; the impoverished middle Irrawaddy basin with its difficult lines of communication; and the old haunts in the delta of the rebel monk of the 1930 uprising, Saya San. The anti-government forces had got their hands on automatic weapons and large reserves of ammunition that had presumably been buried since the Japanese withdrawal. Two thousand police were already on strike and the number of dacoities was soaring. In one incident in a town southwest of Rangoon 17,000 bags of rice were looted in a single raid.38 Elsewhere a Burmese district