Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T04:52:13.550Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Tangled Lands: Burma and India's Unfinished Separation, 1937–1948

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2020

Bérénice Guyot-Réchard Open the ORCID record for Bérénice Guyot-Réchard [Opens in a new window]
Bérénice Guyot-Réchard*
Affiliation:
Bérénice Guyot-Réchard ([email protected]) is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in the History Department at King's College London.
Get access

Abstract

In 1937, Burma formally separated from India. The separation might seem self-evident, given India and Burma's framing as distinct, bounded spaces. Yet, in the Patkai mountains straddling them, separation was a complex process with only a murky sense of finality, more problematic and contested than generally acknowledged. The border ran through similar groups and complex networks, which posed recurring problems for local inhabitants and frontier officials. As independence neared, colonial officials unsuccessfully tried to reshape the Patkai's territorialization. Viewed from the Patkai, the narrative of an amiable divorce between two ill-suited partners crumbles. The separation was one of several partitions that created bounded spaces across South Asia during the twentieth century. Seeing Burma and India as distinct others privileges spatio-cultural hierarchies rooted in colonial frameworks, assimilated by postcolonial political arrangements and nation-state-centric scholarship. This article foregrounds the need to explore how India and Burma were made against one another and recover alternative spatialities.

Keywords

borderlandsBurmacolonialismdecolonizationIndiaintra-imperial relationsmapsPatkaiterritory
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 80 , Issue 2 , May 2021 , pp. 293 - 315
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Adelman, Jeremy, and Aron, Stephen. 1999. “From Borderlands to Borders: Empires, Nation-States, and the Peoples in between in North American History.” American Historical Review 104(3):814–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amery, Leo. 1944. “Amery to Wavell, 28 September.” In The Transfer of Power 1942–7: Volume 5, The Simla Conference, Background and Proceedings, 1 September 1944–28 July 1945, eds. Nicholas Mansergh and Ernest Lumby. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Amrita Bazaar Patrika. 1945. “Preposterous Scheme.” March 27.Google Scholar
Amrith, Sunil S. 2013. Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bayly, Christopher, and Harper, Tim. 2005. Forgotten Armies: The Fall of British Asia, 1941–1945. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bayly, Martin J. 2015. “Imperial Ontological (In)security: ‘Buffer States’, International Relations and the Case of Anglo-Afghan Relations, 1808–1878.” European Journal of International Relations 21(4):816–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayly, Susan. 2004. “Imagining ‘Greater India’: French and Indian Visions of Colonialism in the Indic Mode.” Modern Asian Studies 38(3):703–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cederlöf, Gunnel. 2009. “Fixed Boundaries, Fluid Landscapes: British Expansion into Northern East Bengal in the 1820s.” Indian Economic & Social History Review 46(4):513–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christian, John L. 1937. “Burma Divorces India.” Current History 46(1):82–86.Google Scholar
Clow, Andrew. 1945a. “Clow to Colville, 19 April.” In The Transfer of Power 1942–7: Volume 5, The Simla Conference, Background and Proceedings, 1 September 1944–28 July 1945, eds. Nicholas Mansergh and Ernest Lumby. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Coupland, Reginald. 1943. The Future of India. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Darwin, John. 2009. The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830–1970. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Das, Debojyoti. 2014. “Understanding Margins, State Power, Space and Territoriality in the Naga Hills.” Journal of Borderlands Studies 29(1):63–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elliott, Mark. 2014. “Frontier Stories: Periphery as Center in Qing History.” Frontiers of History in China 9(3):336–60.Google Scholar
Franke, Marcus. 2009. War and Nationalism in South Asia: The Indian State and the Nagas. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardner, Kyle. 2019. “Moving Watersheds, Borderless Maps, and Imperial Geography in India's Northwestern Himalaya.” Historical Journal 62(1):149–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guite, Jangkhomang. 2010. “Representing Local Participation in INA–Japanese Imphal Campaign: The Case of the Kukis in Manipur, 1943–45.” Indian Historical Review 37(2):291–309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guyot-Réchard, Bérénice. 2016. Shadow States: India, China and the Himalayas, 1910–1962. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Guyot-Réchard, Bérénice. 2018. “When Legions Thunder Past: The Second World War and India's Northeastern Frontier.” War in History 25(3):328–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[ISC] Indian Statutory Commission. [1929] 1988. Report of the Indian Statutory Commission: Volume I: Survey. Delhi: Concept.Google Scholar
Jarvis, Andrew. 2011. “‘The Myriad-Pencil of the Photographer’: Seeing, Mapping and Situating Burma in 1855.” Modern Asian Studies 45(4):791–823.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kar, Boddhisattva. 2009. “When Was the Postcolonial? A History of Policing Impossible Lines.” In Beyond Counter-insurgency: Breaking the Impasse in Northeast India, ed. Baruah, Sanjib, 49–79. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Krishna, Sankaran. 1994. “Cartographic Anxiety: Mapping the Body Politic in India.” Alternatives 19(4):507–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ludden, David. 2012. “Spatial Inequity and National Territory: Remapping 1905 in Bengal and Assam.” Modern Asian Studies 46(3):483–525.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mansergh, Nicholas, and Lumby, Ernest, eds. 1977. The Transfer of Power 1942–7: Volume 7: The Cabinet Mission, 23 March – 29 June 1946. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Maule, Robert B. 2002. “British Policy Discussions on the Opium Question in the Federated Shan States, 1937–1948.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 33(2):203–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mazumder, Rajashree. 2019. “Illegal Border Crossers and Unruly Citizens: Burma-Pakistan-Indian Borderlands from the Nineteenth to the Mid-Twentieth Centuries.” Modern Asian Studies 53(4):1144–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Misra, Sanghamitra. 1998. “The Nature of Colonial Intervention in the Naga Hills, 1840–80.” Economic and Political Weekly 33(51):3273–79.Google Scholar
Nag, Sajal. 2002. Contesting Marginality: Ethnicity, Insurgency and Subnationalism in North-East India. New Delhi: Manohar.Google Scholar
Naga Club. [1929] 2013. Naga Hills Memorandum to Simon Commission. Nagaland Journal, https://nagalandjournal.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/naga-hills-memorandum-to-simon-commission-1929/ (accessed October 20, 2017).Google Scholar
O'Leary, Brendan, Lustick, Ian, and Callaghy, Tom, eds. 2001. Right-sizing the State: The Politics of Moving Borders. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pachuau, Joy L. K. 2014. Being Mizo: Identity and Belonging in Northeast India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pachuau, Joy L. K., and van Schendel, Willem. 2015. The Camera as Witness: A Social History of Mizoram, Northeast India. Delhi: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pau, Pum Khan. 2007. “Administrative Rivalries on a Frontier: Problem of the Chin-Lushai Hills.” Indian Historical Review 34(1):187–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ray, Reeju. 2019. “Interrupted Sovereignties in the North-East Frontier of British India, 1787–1870.” Modern Asian Studies 53(2):606–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sadan, Mandy. 2013. Being and Becoming Kachin: Histories beyond the State in the Borderworlds of Burma. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saha, Jonathan. 2016. “Is It in India? Colonial Burma as a ‘Problem’ in South Asian History.” South Asian History and Culture 7(1):23–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sankima, . 2007. “The Process of Merger of Mizo Hills with India.” In Making of the Indian Union: Merger of Princely States and Excluded Areas, eds. Nag, Sajal, Gurung, Tejimala, and Choudhury, Abhijit, 213–26. New Delhi: Akansha.Google Scholar
Scott, James C. 2009. The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google ScholarPubMed
Secretary of State for Burma. 1945. White Paper on Burma Policy. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Shneiderman, Sara. 2010. “Are the Central Himalayas in Zomia? Some Scholarly and Political Considerations across Time and Space.” Journal of Global History 5(2):289–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shukla, Bhanu Pratap. 1980. What Ails India's North-East? New Delhi: Suruchi Sahitya.Google Scholar
Syiemlieh, David R. 2014. On the Edge of Empire: Four British Plans for North-East India, 1941–1947. New Delhi: Sage.Google Scholar
Tinker, Hugh. 1986. “Burma's Struggle for Independence: The Transfer of Power Thesis Re-examined.” Modern Asian Studies 20(3):461–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Schendel, Willem. 2002. “Geographies of Knowing, Geographies of Ignorance: Jumping Scale in Southeast Asia.” Environment and Planning D 20(6):647–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Schendel, Willem. 2018. “Contested, Vertical, Fragmenting: De-partitioning ‘Northeast India’ Studies.” In Geographies of Difference: Explorations in Northeast Indian Studies, eds. Vandenhelsken, Mélanie, Barkataki-Ruscheweyh, Meenaxi, and Karlsson, Bengt G., 272–88. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Walker, Lydia. 2019. “Decolonization in the 1960s: On Legitimate and Illegitimate Nationalist Claims-Making.” Past & Present 242(1):227–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walton, Matthew J. 2008. “Ethnicity, Conflict, and History in Burma: The Myths of Panglong.” Asian Survey 48(6):889–910.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zou, David Vumlallian, and Satish Kumar, M.. 2011. “Mapping a Colonial Borderland: Objectifying the Geo-Body of India's Northeast.” Journal of Asian Studies 70(1):141–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Archival Sources

Amrita Bazaar Patrika (ABP). 1945. ‘Preposterous Scheme’, 27 March.Google Scholar
[APSA] Arunachal Pradesh State Archives (APSA). 1945a. Tibet intelligence reports. Misc-35/45.Google Scholar
[APSA] Arunachal Pradesh State Archives (APSA). 1945b. Future administration of Naga Hills. Misc-34/45-AD. Additional Superintendent Lushai Hills to Governor's Secretary, “Petition of the Lakher chiefs,” 26 January.Google Scholar
[APSA] Arunachal Pradesh State Archives (APSA). 1946a. India-Burma boundary. No classmark.Google Scholar
[APSA] Arunachal Pradesh State Archives (APSA). 1946b. Press reports on the formation of a North East Frontier Province.Google Scholar
Bowman, A. I. 1984. Border patrol: Memoir of Lushai Hills and North Arakan 1942–43. British Library. MSS Eur D1071.Google Scholar
Clow, Andrew. 1945b. The future government of the Assam tribal peoples. Archer Papers. British Library. MSS Eur F236/358.Google Scholar
[IOR] India Office Records. 1937. Burma-Assam border: Extension of the control area in the Naga Hills. IOR/L/PS/12/3116.Google Scholar
[IOR] India Office Records. 1944. Tour notes of the Adviser to the Governor of Assam for Tribal Areas and States, 1944–1946. 1944 Tour notes. IOR/L/PS/12/3120. Balipara notes.Google Scholar
[IOR] India Office Records. 1945a. Currency policy in Burma: Question of termination of monetary arrangements between India and Burma. IOR/M/8/45.Google Scholar
[IOR] India Office Records. 1945b. Excluded and partially excluded areas of Assam: Constitutional position. IOR/L/PS/12/3115A. Foreign Secretary to Under-Secretary, 10 December.Google Scholar
[IOR] India Office Records. 1945c. Excluded and partially excluded areas of Assam: Constitutional position. IOR/L/PS/12/3115A. Mr. Gibson note.Google Scholar
[IOR] India Office Records. 1946a. Frontier Areas: General policy. IOR/M/4/2804.Google Scholar
[IOR] India Office Records. 1946b. Excluded and partially excluded areas of Assam: Constitutional position. IOR/L/PS/12/3115A. Donaldson draft letter, 11 February.Google Scholar
[IOR] India Office Records. 1946c. Burma Frontier Areas: Progress reports. IOR/M/4/2813. June–December 1946 report.Google Scholar
[IOR] India Office Records. 1946d. Disturbances on the Indo-Burma frontier. IOR/M/4/2845. Adams memorandum, 2 October.Google Scholar
[IOR] India Office Records. 1946e. Burma-Assam border: Extension of the control area in the Naga Hills. IOR/L/PS/12/3116. Fry to Burma, 15 November.Google Scholar
[IOR] India Office Records. 1946f. Disturbances on the Indo-Burma frontier. IOR/M/4/2845. Rangoon to Delhi, 14 December.Google Scholar
[IOR] India Office Records. 1947a. Kachin Hill Tracts general file. IOR/M/4/2852.Google Scholar
[IOR] India Office Records. 1947b. Assam: Political reports. IOR/M/4/3102.Google Scholar
[IOR] India Office Records. 1947c. Disturbances on the Indo-Burma frontier. IOR/M/4/2845. Neary to Gibson, 21 March, and Adams to Foreign Secretary, 22 April.Google Scholar
McCall, Anthony. 1942. Correspondence between Chin Hill Officials Falam and AG McCall. McCall Papers. British Library. MSS Eur 361/64. Naylor to McCall, 22 July.Google Scholar
Mills, Phillip. 1945. A note on the future of the Hill tribes of Assam and the adjoining hills in a self-governing India. Archer Papers. British Library. MSS Eur 236/357.Google Scholar
[MNA] Myanmar National Archives. 1937a. Pre-Independence Files 11. Treatment of the unadministered areas in the north of the Upper Chindwin District. Accession number 7922.Google Scholar
[MNA] Myanmar National Archives. 1937b. Pre-Independence Files 11. Proposal to make the Limitation Act non-applicable to Chins in border suits against the people of the Lushai and Manipur hills. Accession number 5661.Google Scholar
[MNA] Myanmar National Archives. 1944a. Home Affairs Files 10_1. Reports from the Naga Hills. Accession number 187.Google Scholar
[MNA] Myanmar National Archives. 1944b. Home Affairs Files 10_1. Meeting minutes on Scheduled Areas affairs and Lt. Col. Naylor's papers. Accession number 167.Google Scholar
[MNA] Myanmar National Archives. 1945a. Prime Minister's Office Files 12_14. Scheduled Areas of Burma. Accession number 181.Google Scholar
[MNA] Myanmar National Archives. 1945b. Pre-Independence Files 6. Reorganisation of Tribal Areas in Chin Hills. Accession number 5.Google Scholar
[MNA] Myanmar National Archives. 1945c. Home Affairs Files 10_1. Naga Hills reports from Rangoon. Accession number 250.Google Scholar
[MNA] Myanmar National Archives. 1946a. Pre-Independence Files 14. Publicity in the Frontier Areas. Accession number 42.Google Scholar
[MNA] Myanmar National Archives. 1946b. Prime Minister's Office Files 12_14. Opinions of hill people about uniting with Burma. Accession number 191.Google Scholar
[MNA] Myanmar National Archives. 1946c. Home Affairs Files 10_1. Formation of Advisory Councils in the Naga Hills District. Accession number 354.Google Scholar
[MNA] Myanmar National Archives. 1946d. Prime Minister's Office Files 12_14. Poo Nyo's note on economic possibilities in the Chin Hills. Accession number 210.Google Scholar
[MNA] Myanmar National Archives. 1947a. Home Affairs Files 10_1. Monthly reports by officers in Frontier Areas. Accession number 748.Google Scholar
[MNA] Myanmar National Archives. 1947b. Home Affairs Files 10_1. Formation of a Naga State when the British administration ceases. Accession number 712.Google Scholar
[MNA] Myanmar National Archives. 1947c. Prime Minister's Office Files 12_14. Comments by officers on the Panglong Agreement. Accession number 212.Google Scholar
[MNA] Myanmar National Archives. 1948a. Prime Minister's Office Files 12_6. Meeting in connection with the matters relation to the Naga Hills. Accession number 170.Google Scholar
[MNA] Myanmar National Archives. 1948b. Foreign Affairs Files 15_3. Intelligence reports on the India-Burma border. Accession number 45.Google Scholar
[MNA] Myanmar National Archives. 1948c. Foreign Affairs Files 15_3. Request from the Socialist Manipur Hill Union for joining the Manipur hill section with Burma. Accession number 35.Google Scholar
[MNA] Myanmar National Archives. 1950. Foreign Affairs Files 15_3. Border conference Naga Hills-Assam border. Accession number 115.Google Scholar
[MNA] Myanmar National Archives. 1957. Foreign Affairs Files 15_3. Notes on the demarcation of the Burma-Assam boundary. Accession number 354.Google Scholar
[MNA] Myanmar National Archives. 1958a. Foreign Affairs Files 15_3. Note on the Manipur section of the Burma-India international boundary. Accession number 379.Google Scholar
[MNA] Myanmar National Archives. 1962. Foreign Affairs Files 15_3. Proposed survey of the areas on the Burma side of the India-Burma and Pakistan-Burma international boundaries. Accession number 509.Google Scholar
[NAI] National Archives of India. 1943. External Affairs. Claim by the Tibetan Government that Tibetan subjects settled in Bhutan should be repatriated to Tibet. 63/X/43.Google Scholar
[NAI] National Archives of India. 1945a. External Affairs. Delimitation of the Indo-Burma boundary in the Naga area. 92-NEF. Summary of conclusions, 27 April.Google Scholar
[NAI] National Archives of India. 1945b. External Affairs. Delimitation of the Indo-Burma boundary in the Naga area. 92-NEF. Clow to Caroe, 27 March.Google Scholar
[NAI] National Archives of India. 1945c. External Affairs. Delimitation of the Indo-Burma boundary in the Naga area. 92-NEF. Record of the meeting.Google Scholar
[NAI] National Archives of India. 1945d. Proposed reorganisation of the North East Frontier. Delimitation of the frontier between Assam and Burma. 224-CA/44. Summary of conclusions reached at a conference on 24–25 April.Google Scholar
[NAI] National Archives of India. 1946a. External Affairs. Proposed prohibition of opium smuggling in the Assam Tribal Areas. 45-NEF/47. 24 December.Google Scholar
[NAI] National Archives of India. 1946b. External Affairs. Tibetan intelligence reports. 162-CA/46.Google Scholar
[NAI] National Archives of India. 1946c. External Affairs. Delimitation of the Indo-Burma boundary in the Naga area. Revision of the Indo-Burma boundary adjoining the Lushai Hills so as to bring the Lakher Tribe under one administration. 92-NEF. Dayal note, 12 April.Google Scholar
[NAI] National Archives of India. 1946d. External Affairs. Extension of administration to Sema villages in the Naga Hills Control Area. 322-CA. Godfrey note, 13 February.Google Scholar
[NAI] National Archives of India. 1946e. External Affairs. Delimitation of the Indo-Burma boundary in the Naga area. 92-NEF. Mills to Weightmann, 2 July.Google Scholar
[NAI] National Archives of India. 1946f. External Affairs. Delimitation of the Indo-Burma boundary in the Naga area. 92-NEF. Secretary to the Governor of Assam to Governor-General's Secretary regarding the petition of the Lakher chiefs for a separate Lakher subdivision, 21 January.Google Scholar
[NAI] National Archives of India. 1947a. External Affairs. Intimation that all correspondence relating to the Tribal and Excluded Areas and States in Assam should be addressed to His Excellency the Governor. 87-NEF/47. 22 July.Google Scholar
[NAI] National Archives of India. 1947b. External Affairs Proceedings. Press report regarding decision of Lushai Hill Tribes to join Burma. 90-NEF/47.Google Scholar
[NAI] National Archives of India. 1948. External Affairs Proceedings. Proposed delimitation of the undemarcated boundary between Burma and Assam in the Naga areas. 15(7)-NEF/48.Google Scholar
[NAI] National Archives of India. 1949. External Affairs. Reports regarding the enlistment of Lushais (Indian residents) in the Burma Army. 148-NEF/49.Google Scholar
[NAI] National Archives of India. 1954a. External Affairs. Survey of maps, publications, etc. concerning the Survey of Burma. B/54/19910/4.Google Scholar
[NAI] National Archives of India. 1954b. External Affairs. Certain outstanding matters dealing with Burma's debt to India. B/54/2251/4.Google Scholar
[NAI] National Archives of India. 1955. External Affairs. Request from the Govt. of Burma regarding the exchange of one pice coins. 18/2/55/BC/B.Google Scholar
[NAI] National Archives of India. 1968a. External Affairs. Lok Sabha question by Shri S. R. Damani regarding Indo-Burma Boundary Commission. S1/125/73/68.Google Scholar
[NAI] National Archives of India. 1968b. External Affairs. Lok Sabha Starred Question by Shri S. R. Damani regarding India-Burma Boundary Commission. 25(73)-SI.Google Scholar
[NAI] National Archives of India. 1973. External Affairs. Indo-Burma Joint Boundary Commission meeting. HI/162/6/73.Google Scholar
Nichols-Roy, J. J. M. n.d. Hills Districts of Assam. British Library. MSS Photo Eur 336.Google Scholar
Pawsey, Charles. 1947. Pawsey to Adams, 9 April. Archer's official activities in the Naga Hills. Archer Papers. British Library. MSS Eur F236/76.Google Scholar
Reid, Robert. 1942. Letter, 5 January. Letters and Papers of Sir Robert Reid as Governor of Assam. Reid Papers. British Library. MSS Eur E 278/4.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Noel. n.d. “Singing in the Rain.” Unpublished manuscript. British Library. MSS Eur F690.Google Scholar
Verrier Elwin Papers. 1942. Unsigned letter. Miscellaneous newspaper cuttings. British Library. MSS Eur D950/31.Google Scholar