The Pacification of Burma

by C. H. T. Crosthwaite

Hence it came about that in districts where there was little activity on the part of British officers, and where the chief civil officer failed to get information, very little was heard of the dacoits, simply because the people were paying their tribute to the leaders, who did not need to use coercion.

Sagaing was one of the worst districts in this respect. It had been under the domination of brigands for years before Thebaw was dethroned. It was held by a score of dacoit leaders, who had a thousand men armed with guns at their call. Each had his own division, in and on which he and his men lived, leaving the villagers alone so long as they paid their dues, and punishing default or defection with a ruthless and savage cruelty that might have made a North American Indian in his worst time weep for human nature. It was brought home to us by hard facts that the question was whether the British Government, or what may be called the Bo Government, were to be masters. The people were, everything considered, wonderfully well off. They found our officers ready to accept their excuses and to remit taxation, or, at the worst, to enforce a mild process of distraint or detention against defaulters. On the other side were the Bos, with fire and sword, and worse if their demands were refused or if aid in any form was given to the foreigners. If the people would have given us information, the dacoit system could have been broken up in a very short time. As they would not, the only course open was to make them fear us more than the dacoits.

In Sagaing no measures hitherto taken had made any visible improvement. Persuasion had been tried. The display of a strong military force occupying the country in numerous posts had no effect. The soldiers seldom saw or heard of a dacoit. The experiment was made of allowing influential local Burman officials to raise a force of armed Burman police on whom they could depend. This succeeded in some cases. But on the whole it failed. The Burmans gave up their guns to the first gang that came for them, or allowed them to be stolen. We could not afford to arm the enemy. I came to the conclusion that the Deputy Commissioner would never get his district into order.

Colonel Symons, working with Mr. Carter, had done very good service in reducing the troublesome country of Pagyi in the Lower Chindwin into order (see p. 85). I asked Sir George White to let me have Colonel Symons's help again. He readily agreed. I sent him, with Mr. Carter, to put Sagaing in order, giving Mr. Carter full powers under the Village Regulation and ample magisterial powers, but reserving the ordinary administrative work to the Deputy Commissioner. At the same time, Mr. Herbert Browning, Assistant Commissioner, was posted to the Ava subdivision to work with Captain Knox, of the 4th Hyderabad Cavalry.

The Sagaing military police battalion was placed under Colonel Symons's orders, and thus unity of command was assured.

Captain Raikes was at this time acting as Commissioner of the Central Division, in the absence of Mr. Fryer, who had taken leave. Captain Raikes was a man who knew Burma well, and was keen and energetic in his work. He came to the conclusion, and Colonel Symons agreed with him, that the severest pressure must be put on the villagers.

A great obstacle in our way was, as has been said, the refusal of the villagers to assist us. But an equal obstacle was their zeal in giving assistance and information to the brigands. The powers of the Village Regulation had been used elsewhere, under my instructions, to remove persons who gave assistance in any way to the dacoits, and with excellent effect. The proposals now made to me by Colonel Symons and Captain Raikes went beyond anything hitherto done. They represented that so long as the relatives and sympathisers of the brigands remained in their villages, no progress was possible. The gangs would be fed and furnished with immediate news of the movements of police or troops, while no assistance would be given to us. The people themselves told our officers that they could not help us. If they did, the dacoits' relatives informed against them and their lives were taken. Hardly a day passed without some murder of this kind.

It was proposed, therefore, to issue a proclamation to all villages believed to be in league with the dacoits, informing them that unless the men belonging to the village who were out dacoiting surrendered within a fixed time, all their relations and sympathisers would be ordered to leave the village and would be removed to some distant place out of reach of communication. At first the people thought this was a mere threat, and little notice was taken of it. When they found that it was to be enforced, and that the relations and friends were actually being deported, the effect was magical. Concurrently with this action the dacoit gangs were hunted incessantly from jungle to jungle and village to village, and severe fines were imposed on villages which harboured the outlaws or withheld information regarding their movements.

The results were better than I had dared to hope. Many dacoits surrendered in order to save their people from being removed. The villagers came forward with information, and put police and soldiers on to the tracks of the gangs. Small parties of dacoits could no longer move about without danger of being attacked and captured by the people they had preyed upon so long. Whole bodies of men came in and surrendered with their arms. At the end of 1888 few members of the Sagaing gangs were at large, and the district was reduced to order. In Ava the success was similar; and the districts of Yeu Shwèbo and the Lower Chindwin had likewise benefited from Colonel Symons's labours.