In this post, Htet Hlaing Win argues that successive governments in Myanmar have never wanted to serve the people, taking cue from pre-modern rulers of Burma who believed in serving and protecting Buddhism rather than the people — with disastrous consequences for the citizens during the Covid–19 pandemic. The exception, unsurprisingly, was the decade of quasi-democratic rule from 2011–21 when civilian concerns were at the forefront.
From late June to early August 2021, the Covid–19 pandemic ravaged Myanmar for the third time. The last two happened in 2020 when the NLD government was in power and the country was relatively peaceful except in the northern Rakhine State and northern Shan State where occasional clashes occurred between the military and ethnic armed forces and elections had to be cancelled. Nevertheless, the NLD government was relatively successful in preventing the spread of Covid. Despite the charges of genocide and the disgrace of NLD’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi in the international arena for the Rohingya genocide, the NLD party remained popular among the local populace and the government was able to pool human and material resources to counter the advent of the pandemic. In 2021, however, the situation of the country had changed dramatically. The country was being governed by the military junta who wrested power in a coup, having recently put down popular protests in a violent manner. Moreover, new armed resistance groups were starting to pop up around the country to suppress which the military employed a huge amount of resources. In this context, when the number of Covid–19 patients increased and death toll rose, people were left to care for themselves.
Local aid groups stepped into the place vacated by the government and distributed food, medicine and, most importantly, oxygen. The military junta intervened instead to impose restrictions on allocation of oxygen and medicine. As a result, thousands of individuals died because of their inability to receive proper medical treatment in time. There was outcry and criticism, both domestic and international, over the military government ignoring its basic duty of care for its citizens.
However, if we look back at the country’s modern history, it is clear that what the military did in those fateful days during the pandemic was identical to Burmese political culture in general, and the duty and responsibility of Burmese rulers in particular. In this post, I will outline the duty and responsibility of the government as described in official historiography and imbibed by the Burmese government and show that this conception is unlike the modern Western concept of government as a provider of service and protection; this, I believe, will offer new insights into Myanmar’s current crisis.
*
Most of the population of what is now called Myanmar is centred around the Irrawaddy Valley, an area which was ruled for a millennium by Buddhist rulers. Even though the surrounding highlands were filled with ethnically diverse people, different from their plain-dwelling counterparts (as James Scott and other scholars had demonstrated), they did not build kingdoms or produce chronicles. The kingdoms which emerged in Irrawaddy Valley were Buddhist since the beginning of the second millennium; their rulers built pagodas, donated food, clothing, land and slaves to monasteries and styled themselves as defenders of Buddhism. Indeed, dozens of centuries-old pagodas can be seen scattered throughout Myanmar. After the last Burmese-Buddhist Konbaung (Alaungpaya) Dynasty (1752–1885) was destroyed by Britain and King Thibaw deported to India, a feeling of insecurity without a monarch became widespread amongst Buddhist — for themselves and especially for the religion.
Consequently, Buddhism was at the foreground of the anti-colonial struggle and lowland Burmese-Buddhists were at the helm of it. Buddhism and its protection was also given priority in post-independence official historiography. Young Men’s Buddhist Association (YMBA), an organisation founded to promote Buddhism, is recognised as the earliest organisation in the country’s anti-colonial movement. In 1920, student leaders gathered at Shwedagon Pagoda and decided to protest against the newly passed Rangoon University Act. When they decided to open a new national university, they did it at a monastery near Shwedagon Pagoda (Photo 1). Dr Ba Maw (1937–39), when being sworn in as the premier of Japanese puppet state of Burma, pledged to govern according to rules as practiced by the righteous monarchs of the past, and to protect Buddhism. These events are, at least in official historiography, watershed moments in Burmese history.
Photo 1: U Aria Monastery ( ဦးအရိယကျောင်း), Bahan Township, Yangon where students opened a new national university in 1920 © Author, 2024; copyright information below.
After Independence in 1948, those Burmese-Buddhists who participated in the freedom struggle became the rulers of newly liberated Burma; they were greatly influenced by Buddhist teachings from monarchial days. Since then, religious matters, especially relating to Buddhism, figure prominently in the country’s politics and Burmese politicians frequently display their religiosity. Even during Ne Win’s rule (1958–60; 1962–88), when socialist imagery could be seen everywhere, scholars mostly agree that the political ideology of the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) was a mixture of Buddhist and Marxist elements. Marxist–Leninist terms were adopted into Burmese political jargon with words borrowed from Pali scriptures. Indeed, a giant hand-fan, made by bundling together peacock feathers, donated by Ne Win to Shwedagon Pagoda when he served as the chairman of BSPP, is now on displayed in the Pagoda’s museum.
After Independence, Buddhism remained prominent in Burmese politics. Monks pushed U Nu’s government to include Buddhist teachings in school curriculum and the government’s decision to make Buddhism a state religion sparked outrage and protests from non-Buddhist minorities. U Nu’s grand project of building the World Peace Pagoda and a huge cave with the intention of holding state-sponsored religious ceremonies garnered criticisms from international communities for wasting precious resources. At the height of BSPP’s rule, according to R. L. Huang, some business organisations disguised themselves as religious organisations to avoid being nationalised or disbanded. These events indicate not only that Buddhism remained an important matter but also that successive governments took significant interest in its promotion.
Another important point to note here is that post-Independence Burmese governments have seen themselves as successors of pre-colonial kings, and took it as their responsibility to protect Buddhism. For instance, just six years after Independence, U Nu held a monumental ceremony called the Sixth Buddhist Council which lasted from 1954–56. According to accepted myth, the first four councils were convened in India while the fifth was sponsored by King Mindon, Thibaw’s father, in Mandalay, the last royal capital in the mid-18th century. The primary aim of these councils was to purify Buddhism by purging Pali scriptures of later additions and interpolations, and publish a standardised version of them.
Mindon, the patron of the Fifth Buddhist Council, is usually portrayed in Burmese history books as the most religious of Burmese kings and the Fifth Buddhist Council, together with the construction of Kuthodaw Pagoda with its hundreds of stone inscriptions inscribed with words from Pali scriptures, are considered the greatest achievements of his reign. By convening a successor Council, U Nu can be considered as taking over the responsibilities of a pious monarch whose main duty is considered to be safeguarding Buddhism from threats, both external and internal, and the World Peace Pagoda can be seen as U Nu’s Kuthodaw. Other leaders also initiated similarly grand religious projects. Ne Win build Mahavijaya Pagoda in Yangon and Than Shwe announced the Uppatasanti Pagoda, a replica of Shwedagon, to be built in Naypyidaw, his new capital.
The point I am trying to make here is that, historically, a Burmese ruler’s main duty is not to his subjects but to Buddhism and that post-independence Burmese leaders continued this trend.
*
On the other hand, Myanmar’s public welfare, education and healthcare systems have always been weak. Before the British arrived, public healthcare was unheard of and monasteries were the sole providers of education for boys which was mainly about learning to read and write, doing basic arithmetic and memorising passages from Pali scriptures. Although the British made some efforts to implement viable public healthcare and education, rebellions, the two World Wars, lack of cooperation from the Burmese and their own obsession with resource extraction doomed the enterprise from the beginning.
After Independence, U Nu initiated a new welfare state project called ‘Pyidawtha Plan’ but did not have much success. Authoritarian rulers who succeeded U Nu also initiated grand mega-projects but living conditions of the general populace did not improve much. The state’s inability to respond to its citizens’ needs was evident in the aftermath of the disastrous Cyclone Nargis which hit the delta area, including Yangon, in May 2008. When local aid groups and international organisations offered their assistance, the government, concerned about security, besieged them with restrictions on where they could/not operate and who they could work with. The military junta’s preoccupation with security was a harbinger of the Covid–19 crisis in July 2021 when neglect and restrictions on the part of the regime took many lives.
However, obsession with religious and spiritual matters continued; for instance, when a new white elephant was found, the event was widely circulated on state medias and the elephant was bequeathed a permanent place to live, staff for its care and a grand Pali title. Historically, white elephants were considered to confer the monarch who possessed them with blessing and grace and a person who causes the death of a white elephant could find themselves in serious trouble. Bayintnaung, a Burmese king of Toungoo Dynasty (mid-16th c.–1792) even went to war with the king of Siam because the latter refused to give him a white elephant.
*
Burmese rulers are not only obsessed with the religious aspects of Buddhism, it is also used as a political weapon since colonial times. In March 1902, U Dhammaloka, an Irishman who was ordained as a Buddhist monk in Rangoon the previous year, confronted an Indian policeman and insisted that he remove his shoes in the precincts of Shwedagon Pagoda, considered one of the holiest sites in Myanmar and to tread on its grounds with one’ shoes on is an offence. This ‘shoe problem’ became a part of the emerging anti-colonial movement when nationwide protests occurred after Sir Reginald Craddock, Lieutenant-Governor of Burma, inspected Shwemawdaw Pagoda in Pegu (which had recently collapsed due to severe earthquake) without removing his shoes.
This tendency to politicise Buddhism was also inherited by post-Independence politicians. When the newly-founded military (Tatmadaw) wrestled with communist forces in the countryside, politicians in Rangoon published cartoons and tracts which portrayed the communists as atheists and enemies of Buddhism. This trend re-emerged when Myanmar’s armed conflict intensified after the military coup in February 2021. Members of the newly emerged People’s Defence Forces (PDFs) were depicted as bent on destroying Buddhism, and a video of an MNDAA soldier smashing a Buddhist pagoda with a sledgehammer was circulated widely among military supporters.
The Thein Sein (2011–16) and NLD (2016–21) years broke out from this pattern. During this decade sanctions imposed on the country were cancelled, foreign investments flooded Myanmar which led to spectacular GDP growth and restrictions on freedom of speech and communication were loosened. The governments embarked on socio-economic reforms and Burmese people, at least those living in urban centres, enjoyed prosperity. Roads throughout the country (which were scattered with potholes due to years of neglect) were repaved and improved while regular power cuts, a feature of Burmese life, was reduced, at least in big cities like Yangon and Mandalay. Yangon’s dilapidated public transportation system saw improvement with the introduction of the Yangon Bus Service (YBS) and new airconditioned buses from China were imported to serve the people of Yangon. In addition, the country’s outdated railway system was updated with technical assistance provided by foreign countries, especially Japan. In spite of the jailing of journalists and activists and proliferation of conflict and violence in border areas, for the first time in history, Burmese people were given a glimpse of a better future.
On another level, this decade can be seen as an anomaly in which the governments broke out of the well-established pattern by genuinely listening to the populace and, in however limited an extent, attempted to fulfil their hopes and needs, not focusing their energies solely on defending Buddhism. Although it is true that both Thein Sein and NLD governments continued to hold state-level religious ceremonies, they (especially the NLD government) based their legitimacy largely on their capacity to address and cater to people’s needs.
Since 2021, the trend has reverted to pre-Thein Sein years, with the military chief Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing carrying on the fashion of putting religion before the welfare of the people, and constructing gigantic religious buildings. In 2023, several military officers and their families, led by their Chief and senior monks consecrated a gigantic Buddha statue, reportedly weighing 1,700 tonnes with a height of 25 meters. In stark contrast to the lack of intervention during the July 2021 health crisis, the junta spent millions of dollars on its construction. Allegations that the primary purpose of the statue is to satisfy the junta chief’s megalomaniac dream are targeted at Min Aung Hlaing, lamenting the waste of money and resources which could be put to better use. Min Aung Hlaing is equally preoccupied with white elephants; in 2022 he gave a white elephant calf a Pali name in a ceremony held in Naypyidaw. There were even speculations that he would convene a Buddhist Council. In fact, the military’s commander-in-chief was merely following in the footsteps of his predecessors, whose primary duty was not to the people they governed but to Buddhism itself. Indeed, after the coup, Myanmar’s politics, after a decade of anomalies, can be said to have returned to its ‘normal’ condition.
*
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent the views of the ‘South Asia @ LSE’ blog, the LSE South Asia Centre or the London School of Economics and Political Science. Please click here for our Comments Policy.
This blogpost (including photographs) may not be reposted by anyone without prior written consent of LSE South Asia Centre; please e-mail southasia@lse.ac.uk for permission.
Banner image © Man carrying Oxygen Cylinder, Yangon, 2021, The Irawaddy; used by author with permission.
*
