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By Root 4385 0

sympathy with his new Labour masters, was less genial than he seemed on the surface. Two men in particular seemed to stand in the way of his desire for a moderate Dominion of Burma under the British crown. One was Aung San, a national leader, but one still being pressured by his own communist allies and at times seemingly doubtful of his political touch. His rhetoric became more violent towards the year’s end as the provisions of the detested White Paper still seemed to be in place. The governor, he claimed, had become ‘fascistic’, ironically the AFPFL’s most derogatory term of abuse.47 The other obstacle to Dorman-Smith’s plans was ‘Dickie’ Mountbatten, whom he instinctively disliked as a royalist radical, too flippant for high imperial office. Then there were the other big egos flitting in and out of this little political world. U Saw’s imminent return was to be followed in mid 1946 by that of the ex-Adipadi Ba Maw, released from detention in Tokyo by the British. Who knew how much political support he could muster among those who still had a pang of nostalgia for the Japanese days? Would Thakin Nu, Buddhist nationalist and minister under Ba Maw, return from religious retreat to strengthen the nationalist centre against the old politicians and the left? And what of the communists? Thein Pe, the communist leader who had fled to India in 1942, was anxious to reassert his influence over the young comrades drilling and polishing their weapons in the villages. Thakin Soe, who was even more hard line than Thein Pe, was already dug in, Mao Zedong-like, into his ‘base areas in the countryside’.

Across the country, in the hills and minority areas, dozens of spokesmen for newly armed peoples were waiting to stake their own claims for power and autonomy in Burma’s dimly prefigured future.48 The ‘frontier areas’ had always had a separate administration since the onset of British rule and, whether deliberately or not, this had fostered a sense of difference between Kachin, Shan, Karen and Chin peoples and ‘ethnic’ Burmese. The war had made the difference starker. The British had clung on in the northern hills, whether in the guise of Chindits, Force 136 or lone British officers, such as Hugh Seagrim who had died trying to shield the hill peoples from Japanese atrocities. British special forces had also released thousands of weapons to guerrilla armies of the hills, viewing the BNA askance even when it had come over to the Allies. The situation with the principal minority of the Burmese plains, the Karen, was similar. Many of the 1.5 million Karens had been Christian since the nineteenth century, an enduring source of suspicion to their Burmese neighbours. They were widely literate in English and often spoke it at home or sang English hymns in their Baptist churches. In some cases they even praised God in Welsh. Many wore clothes typical of the respectable people of the English countryside, floral skirts or grey flannels, rather than the traditional Burmese longyi. For generations they had lovingly tended and passed on a special history which asserted that they had been Christian even before they received the Gospel. Persecution by the Burmese Buddhist kings reinforced this consciousness of being a separate people. The British, who had commercial interests in the Karens’ teak forests as well as the rice-producing plains, cultivated this sensibility. They fostered conservative Karen notables such as Sir San C. Po, author of the pre-war Burma and the Karens,49 and awarded the community special constitutional recognition. The war had brought particular hardship. In 1941 gangs on the fringes of Aung San’s Burmese Independence Army had massacred several hundred Karens in the delta. Isolated Japanese and Burmese atrocities against them and other minorities continued throughout the war. When the British returned the Karens received them with enthusiasm, inviting British soldiers into their churches and homes. For their part, the British applauded the formation of the Karen National Organization in 1945 and put substantial amounts of money