Mazumder Dissertation Final
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Constructing the Indian Immigrant to Colonial Burma, 1885-1948 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements of the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Rajashree Mazumder 2013 © Copyright by Rajashree Mazumder 2013 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Constructing the Indian Immigrant to Colonial Burma, 1885-1948 by Rajashree Mazumder Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Los Angeles, 2013 Professor Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Chair The Indian Ocean arena has been a zone of circulation and network for people, capital and commodities since centuries. People from the Indian subcontinent had been traveling to Burma as part of this network as court priests, merchants, pilgrims, travelers and soldiers. During the early twentieth century this figure was transformed in the official discourse and popular imagination to immigrant, or a “bird of passage” that was seen as draining the wealth of an incipient Burmese nation. My dissertation questions the process through which the archival and linguistic category of the immigrant emerged at the turn of the twentieth century in the Indian Ocean arena. Specifically, I investigate how did the Indian immigrant come to be associated with such negative connotations. Some of the indications of this transformation were the increasing number of people who left the Indian ports on the newly introduced steamship to work in the rice industry in Burma. It ii was also due to the politics of enumeration and classification that the state imposed on the new arrivals at the Rangoon port and in the city. Instead of accepting the inevitability and the all- encompassing quality of these labels that have continued to be part of our present vocabulary, my objective is to use these particular historical developments as a lens to understand how did the word immigrant emerge? At the other end, how did this category itself create further historical change? While acknowledging the important role of the colonial economic framework, one must still ask what were the other social and political developments taking place during this period? Who were the actors in this narrative and how did they comprehend, receive, use, or reject these categories? Did the immigrant see himself/herself as a foreigner or an outsider? Bringing together volumes of colonial government archival material, popular literature, and newspaper articles, advertisements and cartoons, in English, Burmese, Bengali and Tamil, my aim is to unpack the label of the immigrant and hear and uncover the many different voices and stories about people who boarded the ship to Burma. iii This dissertation of Rajashree Mazumder is approved. Geoffrey Robinson Nile S. Green W. Rogers Brubaker Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2013 iv Dedicated to my parents, with love v TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................................... 1 • Rethinking Histories of Indian Migration ...................................................................................... 12 • Plural Society Paradigm and Historiography on Colonial Burma ................................................ 17 • Sources ........................................................................................................................................... 23 • Chapter Outline .............................................................................................................................. 29 CHAPTER ONE: “THE FAMILIAR STRANGER”: INDIANS IN THE BAY OF BENGAL IN THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD • Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 32 • Mercantile, Religious and Political Networks in the Bay of Bengal Arena ................................... 35 • Competition in the Trading World of the Bay of Bengal in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century .......................................................................................................................................... 50 • Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Expansionist Regimes .......................................................... 58 • Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 70 CHAPTER TWO: NARRATIVES OF TRAVEL: THE INDIAN PASSENGER ON THE STEAMSHIP TO BURMA • Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 73 • Steamship Companies as Agents of Empire .................................................................................. 77 • “Nirbāsana/Exile” to Burma in the Literary Imagination of the Bengali Novelist ....................... 84 • Creating the Indian Middle Class Identity in Rangoon, Burma ................................................. 106 • Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 110 CHAPTER THREE: LOW INCOME HOUSING, CITY PLANNING AND IMMIGRATION DEBATES IN 1920S AND 1930S RANGOON, BURMA • Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 112 • The Rangoon Development Trust, the “Housing Crisis” and the Question of Responsibility in the Burma Legislative Council Debates .......................................................... 119 • Debating by Numbers: Creating the Racial Stereotype of the Migrant Laborer ........................ 137 • The Lower Class Indian Migrant in the Imagined Burmese Nation ........................................... 151 • Immigration Restrictions Against Unskilled Indian Laborers Coming to Burma ...................... 167 • Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 174 CHAPTER FOUR: “I DO NOT ENVY YOU”: MIXED MARRIAGES AND IMMIGRATION DEBATES IN 1920S AND 1930S RANGOON, BURMA • Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 177 • The “Temporary” Burmese Wife and the Migrant Foreigner .................................................... 185 • “Rescuing the Burmese Woman”: The Buddhist Women Special Marriage and Succession Bill, 1937 .................................................................................................................. 199 vi • “And they swarmed our Nation!” Debates on Immigration in Burma Legislative Council ....... 214 • Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 219 CHAPTER FIVE: RETREATING MERCANTILE DIASPORA AND CLAIMS OF CITIZENSHIP • Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 220 • Colonial Expansion and Chettiar Businesses in Burma, Ceylon and Southeast Asia ................ 224 • World Wide Trade Depression and Growth of Nationalist Movements in Burma and Southeast Asia ....................................................................................................................... 235 • Nattukottai Chettiar Sangam and Quest for Political Representation ........................................ 242 • Statelessness and Questions of Citizenship: Immigrant as the New Minority? ........................... 248 • Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 265 CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................................... 267 APPENDIX ............................................................................................................................................. 284 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................................. 291 vii LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE PAGE Figure 21: “Mother India” in Chettiar Sangam Journal Dhana Vanikan (Image) ...................................... 27 Figure 2: “Mother Burma” in Chettiar Sangam Journal Dhana Vanikan (Image) ...................................... 28 Figure 3: Boundaries between East India Company’s Domains and Burmese Empire during Early Nineteenth Century (Map) ................................................................................................. 63 Figure 4: “Embarking at Madras on S.S. Erinpura for Rangoon, 1928” (Photograph) ............................... 91 Figure 5: “Leaving Port Rangoon to visit Calcutta by S.S. Arnada A.B.I” (Photograph) .......................... 98 Figure 6: “The Life of a Burmese Clerk in Rangoon” (Cartoon) .............................................................. 124 Figure 7: “The Tenant’s Problems in Rangoon” (Cartoon) ...................................................................... 126 Figure 8: Map of Rangoon (1914) ............................................................................................................ 129 Figure 9: Wright Coal Tar Soap (Advertisements) ................................................................................... 144 Figure 10: Angier’s Emulsion