The credit of devising this system is due to Colonel Raikes. I hesitated at first to go as far as he advised. There were obvious reasons against moving people in this manner; but, if it was easy to see objections to it, it was very difficult to devise a milder measure that would be successful. It proved the most effective weapon in our battery for the restoration of peace and order. The people, of course, felt the pressure of these coercive measures. It was intended that they should feel it. One of the most notorious leaders in the Sagaing Division, Min O, after his capture, declared the fining under the Village Regulation had ruined him, because the villagers, finding themselves unable to meet both the Government demands and his, and finding that the Government could enforce payment while he no longer could, turned upon him and refused to give him asylum. The moving and grouping of villages made it difficult for the gangs to get food, and compelled them to disband or surrender.
The Gazetteer of Burma, in the article on Sagaing (vol. ii., p. 188), published in 1908, records that "the strict observance of the Village Regulation ... gradually led to the pacification of the country. By the end of 1888 no less than twenty-six dacoit leaders, including Shwè Yan, had been killed and twenty-six captured, and most of their followers had come in and were disarmed. Since that time the district has given no trouble."
FOOTNOTE:
[26] Lieut.-Colonel Sir Hugh Daly, K.C.I.E., C.S.I., Resident in Mysore.
CHAPTER XII
DACOITY IN THE MINBU AND MYINGYAN DISTRICTS
The disorder in the Minbu district was similar to that in Sagaing, but I doubt if it had been of such long standing.
It differed in other respects from Sagaing. In that district the Bos formed a confederation. Each had his own village or district, from which he drew his supplies, and his exclusive rights which the others recognized. They communicated with each other and were ready to join forces when it was necessary. In Minbu the government was more autocratic, and centralized in the hands of Ôktama, who had seven or eight lieutenants under his orders. There was also another point of difference. The leaders in Sagaing and generally elsewhere, were local men, and for the most part professional robbers. Ôktama had been a Pongyi some years before, in a monastery a few miles north-west of Minbu. He professed to have a commission from some obscure prince, but laid no claim to royal blood.
He made his first appearance in Minbu in February, 1886, and induced the headmen of many villages to join him.