Abstract
In 1929 the organization of secret village societies (Galon Athin) was started by U Yar Gyaw, better known as Saya San, in preparation for his “Galon-Army’s” uprising. Saya San attracted a wide following among the G.C.B.A.’s rural adherents. A faction of this “General Council of Burmese Associations” had in 1928 included Saya San on its commission sent to the Tharrawaddy district to investigate the economic grievances of peasants.1 In 1930, the financial burdens that the world depression was imposing upon Lower Burma’s peasants made taxation obligations a hardship. Therefore, the cultivators of the Tharrawaddy district presented a petition, requesting the reduction or postponement of that year’s taxes from the Acting Governor. This dignitary was Sir Joseph Maung Gyi, leader of a party called after a residential suburb and sponsored by the British Business Community.2 So he refused and ordered stern measures to be taken to collect the taxes from the indebted or destitute peasants.3 The next day (December 22, 1930) Saya San’s uprising began with peasant revolts in the Tharrawaddy district.
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References
Great Britain, The Burma Round Table Conference, Plenary Session, Proceedings [= Cmd 400A] (London, 1932), pp. 79f.
Maung Maung Pye, Burma in the Crucible (Rangoon, 1951), pp. 7, 27.
Ba U, My Burma, pp. 103f.; Maung Maung, p. 22.
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G. E. Harvey, British rule in Burma, 1824–1942 (London, 1946), pp. 73–74.
Cf. W. E. Mühlmann, Chiliasmus und Nativismus. Studien zur Psychologie, Soziologie und historischen Kasuistik der Umsturzbewegungen (Berlin, 1961), p. 44.
See page 160, note 1.
Origin and causes of the Burma Rebellion, 1930–1932 (London, 1934), pp. 26ff., cited by Akademiïa Nauk S.S.S.R., Institut Vostokovedeniïa, Birmanskiï Soïuz. Sbornik statei (Moscow, 1958), pp. 84f. I could not find the source cited.
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Cf. Maurice Collis, Trials in Burma (London, 1938), pp. 192ff., 273f.
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Ba U, op. cit., pp. zogt.
C. V. Warren, Burmese Interlude, pp. 92ff. There seems to be no other published record of this “Rebel Oath” except the translation made from the Burmese original by Warren, a Forest Assistant of a British teak firm, who happened to be involved in the British military actions against Saya San’s peasant revolt.
Ibid., p. 143.
Cf. Indian Law Reports: Rangoon Series, Vol. IX (Rangoon, 1931), p. 418 (“Aung Hla vs. King-Emperor”); Maung Maung Pye, p. 28.
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Great Britain, Parliament, House of Commons, Debates, Vol. 254 (June 22, 1931), p. 11.
C. V. Warren, Burmese Interlude, p. 64.
Ibid., p. 148.
Ibid., pp. 91f., 96.
Ibid., p. 60.
Maung Maung Pye, p. 28; Maung Maung, pp. 23f.
Cf. G. E. Harvey, British rule in Burma, p. 75.
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Cady, A history of modern Burma, p. 377.
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Cady, A history of modern Burma, pp. 319, 367.
Ibid., p. 251.
Ba U, op. cit., pp. 781.
Burma Gazette, Part iii (1922), pp. 41ff.
cited by A. D. Moscotti, «British Policy in Burma, 1917–1937: A study in the development of colonial self-rule» (unpublished Dissertation : Yale University, 1950), p. 29.
Cady, A history of modern Burma, p. 227.
Burma, Report of the Land and Agriculture Committee, Part II : Land Alienation (Rangoon, 1949 reprint), pp. 52–55.
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Sarkisyanz, E. (1965). The Setkya-Min Idea and Saya San’s Peasant Revolt of 1930–1932. In: Buddhist Backgrounds of the Burmese Revolution. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-6283-0_22
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