The Pacification of BurmaCrosthwaite, C. H. T. (Charles Haukes Todd)
History
The Pacification of Burma
Crosthwaite, C. H. T. (Charles Haukes Todd)
Burma -- History -- 1824-1948
It was necessary to protect the Yaw Valley which was our territory,
and the Kalè country, the Sawbwa of which was our dependent and too
weak to help himself. A proposal was made by the local officer to
simplify matters by taking the Kalè State under direct administration.
It was argued that as we were obliged to defend Kalè, we might as
well administer the country and receive the revenues. Looking,
however, to its effect on the minds of the people, this appeared to
be a mistaken policy. Every Sawbwa in the Shan States might have been
degraded on similar grounds. The Kalè man, so far as was known, had
not been disloyal. In the early part of 1887 he had acted well, and in
the present affair he had not acted badly. If he had not been well
informed regarding the movements of the Chins, he was no worse than
the British officers in the district. He was suddenly surrounded and
seized. In procuring his liberty by consenting to join the insurgents
he took the best course, or what he thought the best course, for
himself. He lost no time in sending information to the nearest officer,
and he attacked the rebel gathering with his own men. To remove him
under such circumstances would have been unfair, and might have alarmed
others whose fears it was not good policy to arouse.
It was decided, therefore, by the Chief Commissioner not to absorb
Kalè, but to leave a military or police guard at or near Indin, with
supports at Kalewa. An ultimatum was sent to the Tashons, ordering them
to deliver up the Shwègyobyu Prince and other leading rebels, as well
as the leaders of the Chins who captured the Sawbwa of Kalè and raided
his villages. On the 21st of July, 1888, the Chief Commissioner (in a
minute submitted to the Government of India) recounted the events which
have been narrated, and gave his opinion that there could be no peace
until the Chin tribes had been subdued. He asked permission to take the
matter in hand as soon as the dry weather set in, and to subjugate the
Chins once for all.
The first step in the plan of campaign was to occupy in force and
permanently the difficult country lying below the Chin Hills, and to
bring it under efficient administrative control.
For this purpose the Chief Commissioner in June, 1887, asked the
Government of India to raise a frontier battalion in India for the Yaw
Valley. It was assumed, in framing the plan of campaign, that this
battalion would have been ready before the rains ended, and that it
would have been possible to hold this district firmly. To have attacked
the Chins and to have withdrawn the troops would have been to leave the
villages in the plains exposed to the vengeance of the hill-men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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