DISARMAMENT: TROUBLE IN PAGYI
It was in Rangoon at this time that I made up my mind to disarm the
whole province, Upper and Lower, rigorously, as soon as possible. I
wrote to Lord Dufferin on September 30, 1887, as follows: "I am of
opinion that the time has come for the complete disarming of the whole
province, except perhaps on some exposed frontiers. The firearms in
the hands of dacoits are evidently much fewer, but they continually
replenish their stock by taking arms from villagers and Burman police.
I would temper the measure in the Lower province by giving arms to
selected Karens and Burmans, who should enrol themselves as special
constables. As the Burmans hate nothing so much as signing any
engagement to serve for a term, few of them would enrol themselves.
"I should fix the number of such special police myself, for each
district."
The Baptist missionaries, I feared, would not look upon the scheme
with favour. The loyalty of the Karens and the benefits of their
organization under their missionaries, to whom the Government, as I
have said on a former page, owes much, were not questioned. But it was
not admissible that the Government of Burma should prefer one race
more than another, and I had been warned by one of the missionaries
themselves that Burman ill-will had been excited by the preference
given to Karens in raising bodies of police auxiliaries during the
disturbances.
By laying down conditions, fair and necessary in themselves, which men
of the one race were likely to accept, but would be less acceptable to
the other, as much discrimination was made between Karens and Burmans
as was needful or decent.
In Upper Burma, Sir Charles Bernard had ordered the withdrawal of
firearms from the villagers, soon after the annexation. It was not
possible to carry it out effectually at that time. It was not until
1888 that I had arranged all the details and could put the orders fully
into force. It is admitted generally to have been a beneficial measure,
and to have helped very much to pacify the country and to put down
dacoity. It is a pity that the disarmament of Lower Burma had not been
enforced many years before. But no accumulation of facts are enough to
destroy a prejudice, and for a long time my action was violently, I
might say virulently, denounced in the Press and in Parliament.
The wisdom and necessity of this measure has come, I think, to be
admitted by most people and was never doubted by my successors, who
wisely disarmed the Chins at the cost of a serious rising and a hill
campaign. The number of firearms taken from the villagers amounted
in the years 1888 and 1889 to many thousands. Most of them were very
antiquated and fit for a museum of ancient weapons. But they served
the purpose of the Burman brigand, and not a few good men, British and
Indian, died by them.
The Village Regulation was passed on October 28, 1887. It established
on a legal basis the ancient and still existing constitution of Upper
Burma. While emphasizing the responsibility of the village headman, it
gave him sufficient powers and the support of the law. It also enacted
the joint responsibility of the village in the case of certain crimes;
the duty of all to resist the attacks of gangs of robbers and to take
measures to protect their villages against such attacks. In the case
of stolen cattle which were traced to a village, it placed on it the
duty of carrying on the tracks or paying for the cattle. It gave the
district officer power to remove from a village, and cause to reside
elsewhere, persons who were aiding and abetting dacoits and criminals.
This enactment, the genesis of which I have given in a former chapter,
was framed in accordance with the old customary law and with the
feelings of the people. It strengthened our hands more and gave us
a tighter grip on the country than anything else could have done.
Without the military police no law could have done much. Without the
Village Regulation, the military police would have been like a ship
without a rudder.
When the open season of 1887-8 began, the administration was in a
strong position to deal with the disorder still prevailing. It was
prepared as it never had been before. There was the law enforcing
village responsibility, and enabling the magistrate to deal summarily
with the persons who were really the life of dacoity; those who, living
an apparently honest life, were the intelligence and commissariat
agents of the gangs. All the details of disarmament had not been
settled, but every opportunity was taken of withdrawing arms, and in
the case of dacoit leaders or their followers, or of rebel villages,
the surrender of a certain number of firearms was made a condition
of the grant of pardon. Lastly, the military police organization was
complete, and the physical force needed to enforce the law was thus
provided in a ready and convenient form.
The rains were over, and I anticipated that the dacoits would again
become active. I also thought it probable that the inexperienced police
would meet with some disasters.
The country now in the Thayetmyo district, frequented by Bo Swè, was
quieter. He was a fugitive with a diminished following. Early in
October we were cheered by the news of his destruction. The Viceroy
wired his congratulations.
It may seem unworthy of the Government of a great country to rejoice at
the death of a brigand whose influence did not extend over more than a
few hundred square miles. It was not the man's death, but all that it
meant. A sign of the coming end--slowly coming, it may be, but still
the coming end--of a very weary struggle with a system of resistance
which was costing us many good men and a lavish expenditure of money.
Bo Swè was ridden down by a party of Colonel Clements' Mounted Infantry
belonging to the Lower Burma command. He and his men were surprised in
a ravine, and many, including Bo Swè, killed.
There were still left the broken remnants of the leader's following.
Active officers, with special powers and sufficient police, were placed
in charge of the Northern subdivisions of the Thayetmyo district on
both sides of the river, and order was established before the end
of 1887. But in Upper Burma the districts of the Southern Division
remained in a very bad state. Ôktama was still master, especially in
the valley of the Môn. I had not found the right men for Minbu, and the
weakness of the civil administration was represented as an evil, not
without reason, by the military commanders.
The following extract from a letter dated 1st of October, 1887, from
the Commissioner of the Southern Division will give a better idea of
the state of things than mere general phrases:--
"On 16th August, Po Saung, an informer, was caught and killed by Bo
Cho's gang in Pagan.
"On 29th August, Yan Sin, a dacoit who had submitted, was caught and
killed by Nga Kway in Pagan.
"On 5th September, at Kôkkozu village in Pauk, the dacoits tried to
catch the thugyi, but failed, and caught and murdered his wife.
"Su Gaung, a mounted police constable, was shot while carrying letters
between Myingyan and Natogyi on 16th September.
"In Lindaung, Pagan district, the thugyi was murdered a month ago
and Thade's gang on 10th September attempted to capture his son, but
failed, and plundered the village.
"On 29th September, Nurtama in Minbu, which is the headquarters of the
Kyabin Myoôk, was attacked. The Myoôk's and seven other houses were
burned; no one was killed. The Myoôk lived here in fear of his life for
some time. He sleeps at night at Sinbyugyun, on the other side of the
Salin Creek, and if he sleeps at Nurtama he does not sleep in his own
house, but in a little post which he has built. He has taken a guard of
ten men from Sinbyugyun.
"On 24th September at Sagyun, in Myingyan district, Custance's
interpreter and the thugyi of Welôn were breakfasting in the village;
they were attacked, and the interpreter killed, his head being nearly
severed from his body. The thugyi escaped with a slight wound."
More than one attack was made on Yénangyaung, the village near the
oil-wells, with the object of killing the Burman headman. The raiders
did not secure him, but they carried off his wife and daughter and set
fire to a number of boats, loaded with oil. The military police (a few
raw Punjabis without a British officer) were flurried and did nothing.
These attacks made them nervous, and shortly afterwards, taking a
forest officer, who was going down the river with a white umbrella[22]
over his head, for a leader of rebels, they fired volleys at him until
he and his crew had to get out of the boat and cling to the side of it.
Fortunately the men shot badly and no one was hit. The forest officer
complained loudly of the indignity he had suffered, which he thought
was not within the letter of his bond. It was believed that the men who
had made the attack on Yénangyaung had come from the right bank of the
Irrawaddy River. There was a patrol launch on this part of the river,
and it had called several times at Yénangyaung before the attack. We
had not enough boats to patrol a long stretch of river effectually, and
it was easy for the dacoits to watch the steamer as it went up or down
and time their crossing. The Commissioner, therefore, collected the
boats on the right bank and put them under guards until confidence was
restored. The towns on the left bank below Pagan were reported to live
in dread of attack.
Meanwhile trouble broke out in the Chindwin district, on the west of
the river. Two leaders of revolt had appeared in this region. One was
the Bayingan, or Viceroy, of the Myingun Prince whose name has already
been mentioned. He was known to have left the Mandalay district with
the object of raising a disturbance in the Chindwin. The other was a
person called the Shwègyobyu Prince, who at the time of the annexation
had been a vaccinator in the Government service in the Thayetmyo
district. He must have been a man of considerable character and
ambition, for when the war began he went up to the Chindwin country and
established himself at Kanlè, in the difficult hills of the Pondaung
range. He assumed, with what right is not known, the style and title of
"Prince," and proceeded to enrol men to resist the foreigners.
While we were congratulating ourselves on the destruction of Bo Swè and
his gang, news came down that Pagyi was up. As yet we had not been able
to occupy this region. It was a country of hills and ravines, densely
wooded and also very unhealthy. It had been impossible to find civil
officers to administer it, or men, either soldiers or police, to occupy
it. The people had always more or less managed their own affairs under
their own headmen, and as a temporary makeshift we had endeavoured
to continue this arrangement. One, Maung Po. O, had been appointed
an honorary head constable, and had hitherto maintained order in the
south-west corner of Pagyi, and Maung Tha Gyi, an influential headman,
held a similar position in the north-west and had done well and had
acted with loyalty. The villages under Maung Tha Gyi, a group of small
hamlets of twenty to thirty houses each, lay in the thick scrub jungle
on the spurs of the Pondaung range.
A leader named Bo Sawbwa, who was acting in the interests of the
Shwègyobyu Prince and had fortified himself in the jungles south of
Pagyi, attacked and carried off Po. O. At the same time Maung Tha Gyi
suddenly threw off his allegiance to the British, collected men, and
fortified a position near one of his villages. He was reported to
be ready to join the Shwègyobyu Prince, who ever since his gang was
dispersed in 1886 had been harboured by a circle of villages in the
west of Pagyi.
On receipt of this intelligence every precaution was taken. Sir George
White sent Colonel Symons to take command of the military operations,
and I selected Mr. Carter as the best man to accompany him as a civil
officer with magisterial powers.
Captain Raikes was Deputy Commissioner of the Chindwin district at the
time. He was away on leave, and Mr. W. T. Morison,[23] of the Indian
Civil Service, Bombay Presidency, was acting for him and was at Alôn,
the district headquarters on the left bank of the Chindwin River. Mr.
W. T. Morison was a young officer of five or six years' service and had
been in Burma a very short time. He was one of the young men, of whom
there were not a few in Burma, who took instinctively to the work.
On the 2nd of October he crossed over to the disturbed tract and
joined Lieutenant Plumer, who, with a detachment of the 2nd Hyderabad
Contingent Infantry, was at Hlawga, a march west from the river.
Mr. Morison wrote at once to Maung Tha Gyi, ordering him to come in.
Tha Gyi, who was at one of his villages, Chaungwa, about sixteen miles
from Hlawga, sent an evasive reply and began to collect men and arms.
Mr. Morison decided to try to surprise him. On the morning of the
8th of October, Lieutenant Plumer and Mr. Morison, with twenty-one
Mounted Infantry, from the military police battalion, and the Hyderabad
Contingent, left Hlawga soon after midnight, and surprised Chaungwa at
four o'clock in the morning, when it was still dark.
The village, when day broke, was found to be on the west bank of a
deep ravine, at the bottom of which was the only cart-road. On the
steep bank on which the village stood strong fortifications and
entrenchments, commanding this cart-road, had been built; trees had
been felled and thrown across, and the road covered with bamboo spikes.
Our men were led by an excellent guide, who took them through the
jungle across the ravine and up to one of the enemy's outposts.
Twenty-one men could not surround the village, but they rushed it,
killing one only and capturing six. The leaders, who were found to have
been the Bayingan and Maung Tha Gyi, escaped. Nine ponies tied near the
house occupied by the former were taken, and in the house were found
twenty royal battle standards, many arms, and much correspondence.
After a halt for rest, the main body, fifteen rifles with the prisoners
and captured ponies, were sent off. Lieutenant Plumer and Mr. Morison,
with a jemadar and six mounted military policemen and a Burmese
interpreter, remained behind, hoping that some of the enemy would
return and fall into their hands. The Burmans, however, were not so
simple. After a short delay the two British officers and their men
set out to follow the main body. The moment they reached the ravine
a volley was fired from the perpendicular bank opposite the village.
Maung Po Min, the interpreter, was shot in the leg, his pony killed,
and Mr. Morison's hand was grazed by a bullet. Mr. Morison, who was
well mounted, took Po Min up behind him, and they all scrambled up the
western bank of the ravine, hoping to be able to see the dacoits and
return their fire. A few volleys were fired at random, as the enemy
could not be seen; and then, fearing further ambuscades, the small
party took a jungle track, hoping it would lead round into the main
road lower down. The village of Chaungwa is on the spurs of a low range
of hills. The jungle is of the densest, and cut up in every direction
by deep ravines, and they had no guide. The track was evidently taking
them in a wrong direction. They resolved to leave it and make as nearly
due east as they could.
[Illustration: OUTER BAMBOO STOCKADE OF BURMESE FRONTIER VILLAGE.]
The rest of the story can best be told in Mr. Morison's own words,
taken from a letter to the Commissioner of the Central Division, dated
Camp Kyadet, the 13th of October, 1887:--
"After about fifteen minutes the dacoits, who had followed us,
opened fire on us from about 50 yards in the front, they being quite
concealed. After one volley they would retire, allow us to go forward
200 yards, then go round in front and give us another volley. We had
at each volley to dismount and try and return their fire as best we
could. But from first to last the dacoits were invisible and under
complete cover, and, knowing the jungle, had time to go ahead, lie
in wait for us, and take aim. This continued for over an hour. Our
horses were completely done out with going down and up the precipitous
ravines, and the ravines became at last quite impassable for horses.
So after a consultation we determined to leave our ponies and make our
way east on foot. Shortly after leaving the ponies one of the men, Amir
Mahomed, was shot dead in the head from one of the usual ambuscades.
That the others of our party escaped appears a miracle to me. However,
after about two hours, _i.e._, about 10 a.m., the firing ceased, and we
managed, exhausted as we were, to get clear of the jungle by 2 p.m.,
going 200 yards at a time and then lying down to rest. We arrived at
Mintainbin at 4 p.m. and Hlawga at 6. Our loss was thus one man killed
and seven police ponies, with saddles and bridles, left.... The men
behaved well throughout the affair."
If the ponies had not been left there would have been little chance of
the men escaping from the jungle with their lives.
Unfortunately, the mass of the Bayingan's correspondence was in one of
the saddle-bags abandoned with the ponies. Some of the documents saved
were copies of notices to noted leaders in many districts of Upper
Burma and the Shan States. The following is a translation of one of
them:--
"I, the Bayingan Prince, brother of the Myingun Prince, write to the
Chief Bo Nyo U and other Chiefs in Sagaing as follows. I have been to
all Sawbwas, Bo Gyôks (Chief Bos), and other Bos of the north, south,
and east, and have given orders and administered oaths which they have
taken; they have promised to serve loyally, and we intend to drive the
British from Kani and Pagyi and take Alôn, Shwèbo, Dabayen, &c., and go
up to Mandalay in month of Tazaungmôn."
Careful inquiries showed that Maung Ba, the Bayingan Prince, arrived
in Pagyi in the end of September and came to Maung Tha Gyi. Since his
arrival he had been corresponding with the Shwègyobyu Prince and other
Bos in this part, and had actually sent over to Yaw for assistance.
He had friends in Alôn and elsewhere. A letter from Kin Le Gyi (a
maid-of-honour to Supayalat, who had since the war taken contracts
for public works in Monywa and elsewhere, and had been trusted by the
British officials) was found in the Prince's house, saying that she was
going up to Alôn to see how the troops were disposed and what all the
officers were doing, and that she would write to him on her return.
This is very characteristic of the Burman woman.
On the 12th of October Morison was back at Kyadet, in the south of
Pagyi, where there was a military post, and consulted with Major
Kennedy, commanding the 2nd Hyderabad Contingent Infantry, who arrived
with a reinforcement of seventy rifles. They decided to telegraph for
more troops. This request had been anticipated.
Unfortunately, Major Kennedy did not wait for the reinforcements.
Hearing that the Bayingan and Tha Gyi had taken up a position
at Chinbyit, about twenty miles from Kyadet, he left with a few
Mounted Infantry. He was accompanied by Captain Beville, Assistant
Commissioner, who had been posted to the district to enable Mr. Morison
to return to his headquarters at Alôn. The rebels, who were in strength
and in a good position, stood, and both Major Kennedy and Captain
Beville were killed. The rebels lost forty men, killed. The seventy
rifles, under Lieutenant Plumer (2nd Hyderabad Contingent Infantry),
came up in time to complete the defeat of the enemy.
It was reported at the time that the leaders had escaped. Afterwards
it was found that Maung Tha Gyi and the Bayingan Prince had both been
killed.[24] Nga Pyo, a notorious rebel and dacoit leader, was present,
but did not expose himself, and lived until 1889, to be assassinated by
a colleague. Whether the Shwègyobyu Prince was there is doubtful.
The action at Chinbyit cost us much. Lord Dufferin wrote: "It is too
distressing to think that so slight an affair should have cost us the
lives of two valuable officers." Their lives were not thrown away. The
loss inflicted on the enemy was severe, and the death of the Bayingan
prince put an end to a troublesome organization.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] The white umbrella is a token of royalty.
[23] Wm. Thomson Morison, C.S.I., member of Executive Council of the
Governor of Bombay.
[24] Mr. Carter records in the official diary of his work in Pagyi with
Colonel Symons, under date 27th of November, 1887: "At Chinbyit visited
scene of late fight. The villagers pointed out the skeleton of the
Bayengan. The body had been left where it had fallen, a few bushes and
stones being placed over it to keep off dogs and vultures."