The Pacification of Burma

by C. H. T. Crosthwaite

The Indians, again, were recruited locally. The police officers who recruited them had no experience of the Indian races and did not know one caste from another. The most unfit men were taken. They were not much looked after, and their officers did not know the Indian languages or understand their customs.

When the risings took place in Shwègyin and elsewhere after the annexation, the Burma police showed themselves to be absolutely untrustworthy. More Indians were enrolled and the mischief increased. The Burman knew he had behaved badly and was not trusted, and became more untrustworthy, while the Indians were not under proper discipline, scattered about as they were in small parties, and were in any case quite useless for detective or ordinary police purposes. The only exception to this condemnation of the indigenous police that could be made was, I think, the armed frontier guard in the Thayetmyo district, who were stationed and housed with their families on the frontier of British Burma.

It was clear that the working of the police force in Lower Burma required thorough investigation, and that its constitution would have to be recast. As necessary subsidiary measures, the country would have to be thoroughly disarmed, and above all a village organization must be created and the joint responsibility of the village for certain crimes enforced.

A committee was appointed to consider the best method of reforming the civil police force of Lower Burma. I took in hand the question of thoroughly disarming the whole province, and a bill dealing with Lower Burma villages on the lines of the Upper Burma village regulation was framed.

These matters would take some time. The Indian police, however, could be improved at once. It was decided to remove all Indians from the civil police, and to enroll them in a regiment under a military commandant, similar to one of the Upper Burma military police battalions in formation and discipline. Their headquarters were to be at Rangoon, and the men needed for other districts were to be sent from Rangoon and treated as detachments of the regiment. They were to be enrolled for three years under a Military Police Act, which was passed in 1887. Pending the report of the Committee and the measures that might be taken on their advice, it was necessary to act at once in the most disordered parts of the province. Especially in portions of the Shwègyin district in Tharawaddy, and in the northern townships of Thayetmyo the dacoit gangs were strong and active. The ordinary district staff seemed helpless and unable to make head against the brigands, to whose exactions the peasants had become accustomed. They found it easier to make terms with the criminals than to help a government that was unable to protect them.

I adopted the plan of selecting a young officer known for his activity and character, and placing him in charge of the disturbed tract, giving him a sufficient police force and magisterial powers, and making him independent of the Deputy Commissioner of the district, who continued to conduct the ordinary administration. This special officer had no other duty than to hunt down and punish the gangs of outlaws. He was to be always out and always on their tracks, using every means in his power to make friends with the villagers and induce them to give him information and help against the common enemy.

This policy succeeded, and the disturbed districts were brought into line. The late Mr. Henry Todd Naylor,[15] of the Indian Civil Service, distinguished himself especially in this work, and won a well-merited decoration from the Viceroy.

I had made up my mind to dispense with the services of the Special Commissioner for Lower Burma as soon as possible. The appointment was undoubtedly necessary at first, when communications were bad, but as the province settled down the need was less and the saving of labour to me very little. The responsibility remained with me. I was bound to know everything that went on, and in such matters as the condition of the province the Government of India expected me to intervene personally.

The work and exposure since the annexation were beginning to tell on the members of the Commission, especially on those who had sustained the heaviest burdens of responsibility and had been most exposed to the climate, and I was hard pressed for men to fill the places of those who wanted leave.[16] An accident happening to the Commissioner of Tennasserim, I decided to send Mr. Hodgkinson there and to take the Lower Burma work into my own hands.