The Pacification of Burma

by C. H. T. Crosthwaite

As it was necessary to take special measures against the Yoma gangs, an officer, who had been ten years in the police in Lower Burma and had done excellently in the adjacent district of Thayetmyo, was appointed to work on similar lines in Taungdwingyi.

He was in this matter independent of the Deputy Commissioner, who, although senior to him in the Commission, was much his junior in years and experience. One of the chief duties assigned to him was the removal of villages from which dacoits received their supplies. He removed those lying nearest the hills which harboured the brigands. No doubt the gangs were inconvenienced and exasperated by this measure. In April, 1889, the village of Myothit was attacked and the police post burnt. In May a large body of dacoits under the standard of Buddha Yaza, a pretended prince, who in preceding years had a large following in the Eastern Division, gathered in the Pin township in the north of the district east of Yénangyaung. A party of military police led by two Indian officers attacked them successfully, but they collected again in a stronger position and a second attack by one hundred rifles (military police), led by the Assistant Commissioner and the Assistant Superintendent of Police, neither of them trained soldiers, failed; but soon afterwards the gangs were again met and dispersed.

On the 1st of June, 1889, a small body of dacoits was encountered by Mr. Dyson, Assistant Commissioner, who had with him a party of police. A fight ensued, in which Mr. Dyson was killed. The man who led this gang was killed afterwards and his followers surrendered. But this was no compensation for the loss of a promising young officer who could be ill spared.[30]

There was a force of police in the district quite able to hold it, if they had been properly handled, and they were supported by Mounted Infantry. There was evidently a want of some controlling authority which was not to be found in any of the local officers. Just at this time Colonel W. Penn Symons, who had been working in Sagaing, succeeded to the command of the Myingyan district, and at my earnest invitation he went to Magwè and assumed control over the operations for reducing the district to order. All civil and police officers were placed under General Symons absolutely so far as the operations were concerned.

A proclamation was then issued offering a pardon to all who were out, excepting only those who had committed murder and certain named leaders, on condition that they submitted and returned to a peaceful life. This proclamation had some effect, and more than 150 dacoits surrendered with their arms. Most of the men who came in belonged to the Pin and Yénangyaung townships.

In July (1889) I was able to devote a fortnight to this troublesome district and to meet General Symons at Magwè. With him and some of the local officials I marched round the district, going from Magwè to Taungdwingyi, and then up the east to the north, ending at Yénangyaung on the north-west.

I found the country in a better condition than the reports of crime had led me to expect. Going north from Taungdwingyi a good deal of land was lying untilled. But elsewhere every possible field was ploughed and sown, and cattle were plentiful and in good case. This part of the district was a fine open country divided into big fields with thorn hedges. There were, however, here and there tracts of very difficult scrub jungle broken by ravines from which it would be difficult to drive dacoit gangs.

I had the principal men collected to meet me at all the halting-places and had much consultation with them. The people came readily with their petitions and spoke with perfect frankness of their grievances.

As a problem in administration the conditions differed much from those hitherto dealt with. In Sagaing, Minbu, and elsewhere, the lawlessness was universal and chronic. In Magwè the gangs were small and consisted mainly of professional criminals, not of peasants who had joined well-known leaders either to save their own lives and property or to resist the establishment of a foreign Government. Some of the leaders even were well-known outlaws from Lower Burma, and it was asserted that there were natives of India with the gangs. But only in one case was this substantiated. A native of India, a man of the sweeper caste, had been captured and he was in the Magwè jail. A note written a few days after I had left Magwè will give the impressions I brought away from my tour.