then of the boycott CCBA appealed to the delegates to avoid ari’ests end imprisonment; however though formally not approved as a resolution the resistance of the two taxes was tacitly un
derstood among the people. Those attending the resumed 10th
Conference at Thayetmyo, whether lay or sangha, in secret agreed among themselves to begin a "llo-Tax" campaign against
Capitation and Tkathameda taxes. Tax collectors were oven
more determined. deports of their behaviour and conduct of
collection sounded worse than descriptions of ilasi or Japanese
Kenpaetai behaviour after an invasion in enemy torritory. The
rcyooks came w i t h the Military 1 olice (armed Indian bepoy force) and a few Indians in business or a butcher in the neighbouring
town. Then the
><vy
ook held court and upon fallui'e of residentsto pay up taxes due, the properties of the delinquents were 14
auctioned off. houses worth Us.800 were auctioned off and
the villagers would not buy each other's property of course; but the Ir.diun businessman was there to pick it up at d i s
mantled material costs. The villager's animals, his means of
13* Be khine • p.10?*
14. Han Tin, Vol.III, p.136. A villager's report at the 14th
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earning a living, his bullock carts and other movable property were also disposed off in the same manner#
Vuny of the &yooks, loyal and cruel Burmans, were called "bhwe-yin-soh" (heart-attack) by the people# They often benefitted, being in league with the monied Indian. They also collected debts for ühettyars after civil hearings# They had
summary powers and where necessary, such as a particularly
united village with a well organised wunthanu athin, more severe measures were meted out, such as declaring the association
illegal, confiscating property and building, records and accounts, prosecuting its leaders for organising an unlawful association, trying and sending them off to jail at the some timej even women were not exompt from such summary treatment and so children some times become orphans for a few years# But members of the wun
thanu athin looked after them. duph myooks or touring magis trates were called "htipyan" or "phanutpyon" (umbrella return or slipper return), from the fact that the man or woman owner was taken straight off to the Jail in towns from the place of enquiry and trial (and only the umbrella or the slipper returned to the village). These caused more staunch resistance and "boo
Athins" ("ho" Associations) came to be organised at the initiat ive of local rurel populations. These resisted not only taxation but government auction of fisheries, fallow land etc.
The leaders at the GCBA Ii.rs• were not really of matching metal, moot of them richman's sons trained in iinglond or some European, centre, not basically radical in thought or ideals but being carried along the great wave of enthusiasm as the nationalist band-wagon got dragged along the heady drive by U Cttama and his dhaoimakatikao. Those braver hacf already got off the careering juggernaut, such as Ba ie's set and had
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wisely arid unashamedly opted fox' the rewards of office rather than the dizzy heights of glory of public acclaim at boycott meetings* But lessor men remained at the helm of the GCfiA although they neither contributed towards radicalism nor could or dared to restrain it or lead towards more constructive
dix-ections. In time, bitterness would set in and at the 14th Conference in J egu in 1927 a resolution was approved which authorised the formation of a special committee to collect all the suffering of the people at British government hands, place them on record (even to etch them on stone), and printed copies, distributed to all associations and national schools and have
them read out at every meeting and occasion.^
By 1927 the village agricultural economy had reached its nadir; land had passed into Chettyar b a n d s , ^ and villagers had been disposed at the foi’mex' insistence by accommodating Myooks and their Mi's* A high percentage of owner producers
had either become agricultural labourers in their own lands or had shifted elsewhere to start life again fx'om the bottom,
often as mere coolies in towns. Their displacement was partly due to political causes a result of severe police action, but mainly due to the combined misfortunes of rapidly declining paddy prices and the lack of credit cushion. The Burmese
15* oaya Jan, leader of the rebellion in 1930, was the convenor of this coramittee.
16* banking Deport. 1930. p*199* "4-51. The four Burmese members of the committee and Professor Jovona believe the newspaper is correct in asserting that there hco been in recent years a tendency for Jhettyars in general to wish to become land ownei'o and for this purpose seize land more readily when loans are in arrears, and to continue holding it and work ing it through tenants; these members attribute the change to the increase of rents and the disappearance of difficul ty in finding tenants.
Minority view. - The Chairman and !.?r. Dawson ore not pre pared to support this view;..”
farmer lived from hand to mouth.
But the great European rice exporters formed a closed syndicate for tho purpose of rice trade called the Bullinger lool, which regulated the purchase price of paddy and export price of milled rice. Tho Chettyars after they acquired the lands in Burma brought in cheap Indian peasants and replaced and repopulated the countryside, especially the paddy lands of the Irrawaddy and Bittang valleys and deltas with these men. had it not been for the Second World War there could well be a
totally new demographic characteristic in the whole of these paddy lands; just as the almost exclusively Hon population of dynastic Burma h a d ’been shorn of these founders of the Lower Burma kingdoms, and replaced with Burman and Karen colonisers for industrialised paddy production during tho second half of
the nineteenth century.
The Martyrdom of tho fongyi»
The Buddhist religious, always monastics, always
independent, always unrelated to society except for the minimum mutual coexistnnce, unencumbered by an hierarchy, were funda mentally individualists living only by the Vinayas (or the
codes left by the earliest founders of the religion), were slow to got involved in politics because it was in realty against the Vinayas. However they took comfort in the fact that tho weif ax*© of the ,;asana, (the realm of tho faithful), rests upon the mutual devotion and service of the oangha and the faithful to each other, and not mere passive observance by the believers, but also positive action in sustaining it like the great missionary
17 emperor Asoka, and many legendary Bodhisattvas of the Oatakas. 17. hakioyanz, B., BBBR, pp.4$, 46.
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-Alien they did join in the politics of nationalism, with the pro mise that the Buddhist in servitude could not serve the " Tri- Jewels" (Buddha, Dhaanaa and Gancha) as was his bounden duty, and therefore a struggle to liberate him or the people was justified, they built up a rock-like conviction and an intrepid sense of purpose.
And since thoy had left the cares of family to others lone ago, they were the ideal liberated "soldiers of Buddha" for the struggle ahead. Inspired by the words and example of U ^ttama, and Gandhi across the Bay, and by their own success in organising wunthanu athins in the villages, with a firm base in
every village in ho venerated ponr»yi kyaung. (the village monastery, where the village monk resided and did his service to sas&na and the faithful, they led the people in ovary phase of the development of nationalism into more purposeful and better orchestrated
struggle for national liberation. Though the younger monks
started out in politics in 1919» moat of the elders, the venerable sayadaws, leading abbots of large monasteries', and of sects, the equivalents of archbishops and cardinals in Christendom, joined up end founded the General Council of the Gangha Gammeggi, (the GOGS in brief) in Lower and Upper Burma, and then in 1924 united
those into one umbrella organisation, and gained control of the lay Independence Movement, the GC3A as well as factions that splinter off the main stream.
in 1921, the spearhead of nationalist thrust was led by the dhammakatikas, in their wide ranging tour of the country side making a campaign of speeches against Dyarchy and boycott of elections to the Circle Board and Legislative Council. The
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