Burma in Indian History

Myanmar, a country that is historically still known as Burma. A country that is double the size of Rajasthan, slightly smaller than Texas, and can fit two Germany(s) inside, is the largest country in Southeast Asia. A country that was once part of British India for five decades and has the burial site of the subcontinent's last Mughal Emperor—Bahadur Shah Zafar. A country whose history is overlooked and ignored in the chapters of Indian history, even though it was an important wing of the nation for 113 years - slightly over one whole century - was a crucial front during World War II’s Indian battlefields, and held close ties with medieval Indian kingdoms. This post shall deep dive into the questions that are never asked and the answers no one needs to know.

If one looks at the various events that took place in 19th-century India, the whole subcontinent was changing at every such moment. The British forces, with their classic method of assisting the oppressed royalties to fight against the oppressors, thus bringing both under the blanket of the British Empire, were working remarkably well, be it in the Punjab region, Sindh, Assam, or Burma. They would help disputed figures among various South Asian dynasties, pretend to assist them and become their saviors, and then engulf both the victim and bully under their so-called 'protection' or, as it is known in political terminology—suzerainty. And so, when Manipur and Assam were under Burmese invasion by the Konbaung dynasty, with Assam, the East India Company saw this as a marvelous opportunity to intervene, divide, and take over not just the entire Brahmaputra Valley but also annex Burmese states to permanently keep a check on the rising French to the east and the Chinese in the north. But while the English were scheming, weren’t the locals aware of this advancement? Weren’t they cautioned or alarmed by the changing politics of their regions, that too at the hands of a foreign power who had little to nothing to do with their internal matters? There might have been certain individuals who tried warning the locals about what the future might look like. They might have been aware of the British takeover of the Mughals and Marathas and may have warned them of the bigger enemy. With that thought, there would have been several such unknowns who would have anticipated the upcoming wrath of the colonizers, but the surroundings didn’t bother to pay much attention as they were engaged with the short-term benefits they were getting.

Yar Kyaw or Saya San
Leader of the Saya San Rebellion (1930-32)
(1876-1931)

It's interesting to note that throughout the 113-year period, Burmese revolutionaries wanted Burma’s independence from the British, not aimed at the independence of India as a whole. A justified cause, as Burma was technically an independent sovereign, got into British Indian territory through politics. The Indian National Congress, India's sole representative in politics, didn't take any significant part in Burma's freedom struggle, although there were occasional revolutionary activities in Burma against the British. Names such as Saya San, U Ottama, and U Wisara played key roles in Burma's independence struggle. Some Indian revolutionaries, particularly those influenced by socialist and nationalist ideals, supported Burmese nationalists against the British. Indian laborers and businessmen in Burma also sympathized with the movement, as they too suffered under colonial rule. However, the Indian National Congress did not actively participate in Burma’s independence movement. This was partly because Burma was never fully integrated into India’s national consciousness, despite being governed as part of British India for 113 years.

One reason why Burma's independence struggle is largely absent from Indian history books is that India itself was undergoing rapid political and social changes during the same period. The nationalist focus was on resisting British rule within India, and Burma, despite its historical connection, was seen as a separate struggle. When Burma was separated from India in 1937, the political ties weakened further, and by the time both nations achieved independence, their paths had completely diverged. In fact, not just the Congress, but even the Muslim League had sidelined Burma when, in 1948, a section of the Rohingya Muslim community suggested offering the Mayu region (a Muslim pocket close to Chittagong) to East Pakistan along with a call since 1946 to join the upcoming nation. The Muslim League leader Mohammad Ali Jinnah himself dismissed the plea, maintaining a strict non-interference policy in Burmese matters.

By the 1930s, there was a considerable number of the Indian diaspora (about 7% of the total Burmese population) in Burma, particularly in the Rangoon region. The increase in population was also one of the key reasons for the country's separation, as it had resulted in numerous clashes between the Indians and native Bamar communities. The 1930 Rangoon and Maymyo (Pyin Oo Lwin) riots and the 1938 clashes at Surti Bazaar, a Muslim neighborhood of Rangoon, made it quite evident that Burma didn’t encourage much warmth toward the increasing Indian population. And that’s primarily because the country had been forcefully annexed, and so when in 1941–42, Japanese aggression had reached the easternmost wing of British India, it was time for Indians to leave. Similar to the migration between India and Pakistan, the departing Indians from Burma had to face brutal hardships, risking their lives at the hands of the merciless Japanese, fleeing over hundreds of miles of Burmese territories, and settling in Assam and Bengal provinces of India. Adding to this, when in early 1941 Indians did try to migrate, the British, fearing they might lose a good number of laborers for their administration, set a blockade at a place called Taungup, a small harbor close to Ramree Island from where there were plans to put Indians onboard for sailing to Calcutta. The blockade was lifted in 1942 as the bigger threat, the Japanese, had distracted the British, and eventually, Indians had to move back to their homeland, a migration that got overshadowed by an even more gruesome chapter of Indian history—the partition of India.

Mona Chandravati Gupta
(1896-1984)

But for the time it was part of India, several famous personalities had Burmese cities as their hometowns. The First Lady of India to the 10th President K.R. Narayanan, Mrs. Usha Narayanan (born as Tint Tint), was born in 1922 in the Burmese town of Yamethin, close to Mandalay. Mona Chandravati Gupta, founder of various pre-independent NGOs such as Zeanan Park League (1931) and Women Social Service League (1936), later to be merged together post-1947 as Nari, was born in Yangon (or Rangoon) in 1896. Popular Indian actress Helen Ann Richardson, or popularly known as simply Helen, was born in Rangoon in 1938, the same year Burma separated from British India.

Thibaw Min
Last King of the Konbaung Dynasty 
(1859-1916)

As we all know, the last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, took his last breath in Rangoon on November 7, 1862. Interestingly, the last King of the Konbaong Dynasty (which itself was the last ruling dynasty of Burma), Thibaw Min, died in the Indian city of Ratnagiri on December 16, 1916. And the coincidence doesn’t really end here; both Kings were sent to a distant land in exile by the British, where they spent their last days. This is just a poetic coincidence that sounds romantic, strange, and fascinating to believe.

This omission of Burma in Indian history reflects a larger issue—how easily historical narratives are shaped by what a country chooses to remember. The shared past between India and Burma, which includes colonial rule, migration, and wartime cooperation, has faded from public memory. Perhaps because once borders were drawn, both nations chose to look inward rather than backward. Today, the situation between India and Burma, or Myanmar, is, if not too complicated, not too simple as well.