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of the AFPFL, however, he would command a wide range of political cadres and working-class activists as well as the numerous members of the People’s Volunteer Organizations, paramilitary bodies that were now becoming home for those members of the BNA who were rejected by or resisted joining the British-officered force. The PVOs, a loose melange of armed men biding its time on the fringes of the state, and sometimes hostile to it, inherited the traditions of the paramilitary nationalist volunteer groups of the 1930s. It also prefigured the emergence after independence of armed bands of dubious loyalty prowling the countryside.30 On resigning his military role, Aung San had written to Mountbatten that he would have preferred to continue as a military officer, but his colleagues had decided he would have to lead the AFPFL as a civilian. Striking a warning tone, he told the British supremo that he ‘would always retain an affectionate corner in my heart in spite of all the vicissitudes that may or may not arise between Burma and Britain in the political sphere in the future’.31

Aung San had some contact with people on the left of British politics, notably Tom Driberg. The MP and war correspondent first met him and other members of the newly recognized Patriotic Burmese Forces at Mountbatten’s headquarters in Kandy in early September 1945. Driberg had formed a good impression of Aung San, describing him as ‘a slight, boyish figure with a surprisingly deep voice; physically and mentally agile with an irrepressible sense of humour and a gift for cynical wisecracking which he exercised impartially at the expense of his Burmese friends and of the British.’32 Soon afterwards Driberg flew into Rangoon with Mountbatten. He had a vivid impression of swooping down to central Burma’s ‘flat green, soggy plains overwhelmed by angry monsoon clouds’ in unbearable heat. He visited the Shwedagon pagoda and was surprised to find that the numerous book and trinket shops that filled the temple’s lower levels were still selling Japanese military propaganda magazines.33 The state of the city appalled him; it was as bad or worse than anything he had seen in Calcutta. Even Burmese employees of the civil affairs administration lived in ‘wretched shacks 6 foot by 6 foot with bamboo walls, palm thatching’ and no latrines. Driberg was invited by Aung San to sit on the platform with him at a political rally in a central Rangoon park attended by some 10,000 people. The rally had become a huge picnic for the city’s workers. Even the few remaining buses had forsaken their normal routes to bring people there. The lawns surrounding the large central meeting hut were ‘jammed and strident with musicians, red banners, sweetmeat vendors and family parties. The heat was overpowering.’34 Driberg had plenty of time to absorb the atmosphere: Aung San and others made characteristically lengthy speeches in English, which were then translated into Burmese, Tamil and Urdu.

Driberg’s less public encounters left an equally strong impression on him. At a dinner in the Rangoon Orient Club, Driberg joined Mountbatten, Dorman-Smith and Burmese politicians of the older generation, the latter catching his attention with their ‘dainty pink and mauve head dresses’. Aung San was there too, but he had been relegated to an obscure corner of the room and his presence was not recorded on the menu card.35 Mountbatten refused to go along with the slight. He told the dinner’s organizers that he would not speak unless Aung San was moved to the top table and invited to speak too. This had an immediate effect and Driberg was left admiring the ‘acumen of this prince of Battenberg’ who understood so well ‘the new nationalist forces’ in Asia. The deep divisions among the British on how to proceed were brought home to him, too. He spent a ‘fascinating evening’ with Mountbatten and Dorman-Smith, noting the governor’s fury over the way that the supreme commander was now courting Aung San just as he had courted Nehru. The two men bickered over copious quantities of drink: ‘Each time one of them went