Cultural diplomacy in times of crisis: the British Council’s departure from Burma during the military dictatorship (1962-1966)

ABSTRACT

In 1948, when Burma became independent, the British colonial administration left the country and was replaced by a British embassy and a British Council centre, in order to establish new diplomatic relations. Cultural diplomacy appeared as a good, informal way of furthering the embassy’s initial goal of promoting peaceful and preferential diplomatic relations between Burma and Britain after the colonial era. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, the British Council offered English classes to the Burmese public and encouraged the development of academic partnerships between the two countries. Yet in 1962, a military coup led by General Ne Win overthrew Prime Minister U Nu’s democratically elected government and disrupted Anglo-Burmese relations. In the name of strict neutrality in foreign affairs, Ne Win’s Revolutionary Council restricted all foreign cultural missions’ actions in Burma, notably their ability to teach foreign languages to Burmese students, until the British Council was eventually forced to close down and transfer some of its remaining missions to the British embassy in 1967. Based on British Council archives gathered at the National Archives in London, this article examines a forced ‘diplomatic departure’, by focusing on the impact of the Burmese internal political crisis on Anglo-Burmese diplomatic and cultural relations.

KEYWORDS:

• Burma
• British council
• colonial legacy
• English language teaching
• military dictatorship

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. For more on Britain and Burma’s post-independence diplomatic relations, see Foley, The Cold War and National Assertion in Southeast Asia.

2. Britain’s economic interests in Burma were quite important on the eve of independence, as Burma represented the biggest producer of rice in the world and exported most of its production to other British colonies in the area; Ashton, ‘Burma, Britain and the Commonwealth’, 69.

3. The ‘Government of Burma’ refers to the colonial administration in Burma. Later on, the ‘Burmese government’ refers to the government formed by the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League upon independence.

4. 2. Burma, Statement of Policy by H.M. Government, May 17, 1945.

5. 3. The Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League was known as the Anti-Fascist Organisation prior to 1945.

6. AFPFL statement, December 23, 1946, in Tinker, Burma, the Struggle for Independence, 213.

7. Darwin, Britain and Decolonisation, 298.

8. Ashton, ‘Burma, Britain and the Commonwealth’, 73.

9. The 1949 London Declaration enacted a major change in the definition of Commonwealth membership: India was allowed to become a republic while remaining within the Commonwealth, by recognising the British monarch as the symbolic head of the association; Commonwealth Prime Ministers Meeting, London Declaration, April 26, 1949.

10. Darwin, Britain and Decolonisation, 244.

11. British Council, Royal Charter, 1940.

12. The British Council was, at first, created as an autonomous body, meant to be kept ‘at arm’s length’ of the Foreign Office. In reality, most of the Council’s budget came from public funds and it worked in close cooperation with the government; Gienow-Hecht and Donfried, ‘The Model of Cultural Diplomacy’, 20.

13. D.B. Petch to A.J.S. White, January 9, 1944, The National Archives (TNA), BW 19/1.

14. See for instance ‘Burma—British Cultural Propaganda’, 1944–1946, TNA, BW 19/1.

15. Byrne, ‘Propagande culturelle ou relations culturelles’, 3.

16. J. Stewart Bingley to Tunnard-Moore, British Council, June 21, 1946, TNA, BW 19/6.

17. Ibid., 14–15.

18. Archdeacon Appleton, Government of Burma, to Sir John Clague, Burma Office, 23 July 1946, TNA, BW 19/6.

19. See TNA, BW 19/7.

20. Overseas Information Services, Report of the Drogheda Committee, November 1953, TNA, CAB 129/64/5. The report was later published as a white paper; The Drogheda Report, April 1954, Cmd. 9138.

21. See TNA, BW 19/7 and BW 19/10.

22. The April 1947 general election was the first democratic election organised in the country. Its purpose was to form a constituent assembly in charge of drafting the new nation’s constitution; Cady, History of Modern Burma, 551.

23. Constitution of the Union of Burma, September 24, 1947.

24. Egreteau, Histoire de la Birmanie contemporaine, 134.

25. Tinker, The Union of Burma, 100.

26. Ibid., 101.

27. Ibid., 213.

28. A recent study of British support to social reform in Burma and Malaysia has shown that the promotion of the Welfare State in former South-East Asian colonies was part of the British strategy to contain communist influence in the region; Mioni and Petersen, ‘Cold War and Social Protection’, 47–49.

29. It was in reality a Commonwealth initiative; Foley, The Cold War and National Assertion in Southeast Asia, 35.

30. B.C. MacDermot to Sir Angus Gillan, 23 April 1948, TNA, BW 19/14.

31. J.E.V. Jenkins, Representative’s Annual Report, 1951–1952, TNA, BW 19/7.

32. J.E.V. Jenkins, Representative’s Annual Report, 1953–1954, TNA, BW 19/7.

33. J.E.V. Jenkins, Representative’s Annual Report, 1952–1953, TNA, BW 19/7.

34. Riley, General Election, 1945.

35. Pennycook, The Cultural Politics of English, 148.

36. The importance and prestige of English in the sphere of education, as the gateway to a career in the colonial administration, was directly inherited from Lord Macaulay’s principles in the 19^th century; see Lord Macaulay, Minute on Education, 2 February 183, in Sharp, Selections from Educational Records, 110.

37. Hillman, ‘Education in Burma’, 529.

38. The right to a free education was guaranteed by the 1947 Constitution; Constitution of the Union of Burma, September 24, 1947.

39. UNESCO Educational Mission to Burma, Report on Some Aspects of Curriculum Development, 31.

40. Kambawsa College was re-opened after Burma’s independence by the Shan State authorities, with the support of the British Council; Tinker, The Union of Burma, 201.

41. Matriculation examinations were fairly similar to the A-levels: they were taken at the end of secondary education by students who wanted to attend university.

42. Government of the Union of Burma Education Enquiry Committee, interim report, February 3, 1959, National Archives Department (NAD), AG 4/5, Acc. 17452.

43. Shan State Government, Implementation of Educational Policy of Government, December 28, 1949, NAD, AG 3/13, Acc. 530.

44. See for instance J.E.V. Jenkins, Representative’s Annual Report, 1953–1954, TNA, BW 19/7.

45. J.E.V. Jenkins, Representative’s Annual Report, 1950–1951, TNA, BW 19/7.

46. H.T. Lawrence, Representative’s Annual Report, 1959–1960, Appendix A, TNA, BW 19/10.

47. H.T. Lawrence, Representative’s Annual Report, 1957–1958, TNA, BW 19/7.

48. H.T. Lawrence, Representative’s Annual Report, 1959–1960, TNA, BW 19/10.

49. J.E.V. Jenkins, Representative’s Annual Report, 1950–1951, TNA, BW 19/7.

50. J.E.V. Jenkins, Representative’s Annual Report, 1953–1954, TNA, BW 19/7.

51. In the early 1960s, there were also some attempts at cooperation between the British and the Americans, who had also been involved in ELT in Burma since the late 1940s through the United States Information Service. An Anglo-American Joint Committee for English Language Teaching was formed in 1960 to exchange ideas on how best to teach English in Burma. Although the British had long perceived the Americans as rivals in the field, they started expressing a wish for the development of collaboration in TEO in the late 1950s, especially to be able to rely on the United States’ important financial means, to meet the considerable demands for ELT in South-East Asia. Britain’s change of heart was directly linked to the Cold War context, as communist powers (the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China) had started launching cultural and educational efforts of their own in Burma in the latter part of the 1950s.

52. Butwell, U Nu of Burma, 96. The Britain-Burma Defence Agreement in particular, signed between Clement Attlee and U Nu in 1947 and enabling the British to maintain a military presence in Burma after independence, was rejected by the communists; Attlee and Nu, Britain-Burma Defence Agreement, August 29, 1947.

53. Egreteau, Histoire de la Birmanie contemporaine, 131.

54. See reports by the MI5’s security liaison officer posted in Rangoon between 1951 and 1954; TNA, FO 371/101004 and FO 371/106680.

55. Memorandum on General Ne Win’s visit to London, September 1962, TNA, PREM 11/4650.

56. H.T. Lawrence, Representative’s Annual Report, 1958–1959, TNA, BW 19/7.

57. Gordon Whitteridge, Ambassador’s Annual Report, January 26, 1963, TNA, FO 435/17.

58. Egreteau, Histoire de la Birmanie contemporaine, 139–140.

59. Lowe, Contending with Nationalism and Communism, 123.

60. Revolutionary Council, The Burmese Way to Socialism, April 28, 1962.

61. Steinberg, Burma/Myanmar, 66.

62. ‘Four years in South-East Asia, 1960–1963’, Memorandum by Frederick Warner, 28 November 1963, TNA, FO 371/177824, in Hyam, ed., The Conservative Government, 266.

63. Gordon Whitteridge, Ambassador’s Annual Report, January 26, 1963, TNA, FO 435/17.

64. Egreteau, Histoire de la Birmanie contemporaine, 144.

65. Ashton, ‘Mountbatten, the Royal Family, and British Influence’, 82.

66. According to censuses conducted in the late 1950s, the Burmese language was the native language of only about 30% of the total Burmese population; see for instance Trager, ‘The Propaganda Battle’, 63.

67. Egreteau, Histoire de la Birmanie contemporaine, 145–146.

68. W.R. McAlpine, Representative’s Annual Report, 1962–1963, TNA, BW 19/10.

69. Although the Bandung Conference had symbolically marked Burma’s advent on the international stage, the imposition of a military regime a few years later corresponded to Burma’s almost complete disengagement from foreign affairs. According to Whitteridge, Ne Win’s obsession with limiting foreign powers’ interference in Burma’s internal affairs was particularly linked to China’s influence over Burma. Aware of the ‘the long-term threat from her giant neighbour’, Burma needed to maintain a strict position of neutrality on the international stage, so as to resist external pressures; Gordon Whitteridge, Ambassador’s Annual Report, January 26, 1963, TNA, FO 435/17.

70. Lowe, Contending with Nationalism and Communism, 122.

71. W.R. McAlpine, Representative’s Annual Report, 1962–1963, TNA, BW 19/10.

72. W.R. McAlpine, Representative’s Annual Report, 1963–1964, TNA, BW 19/10.

73. All foreign cultural missions were submitted to the same restrictions and censorship, although W.R. McAlpine, the British Council Representative in 1962, acknowledged the existence of ‘a bias against the West’, as American and British cultural missions were the first victims of the military coup; W.R. McAlpine to the Director of the Personnel Department of the British Council, 13 February 1963, TNA, BW 19/15.

74. Memorandum on Ne Win’s educational policy, 1963, TNA, BW 19/15.

75. W.R. McAlpine, Representative’s Annual Report, 1962–1963, TNA, BW 19/10.

76. Revolutionary Council, The Burmese Way to Socialism, April 28, 1962.

77. W.R. McAlpine, Representative’s Annual Report, 1962–1963, TNA, BW 19/10.

78. Ibid.

79. Egreteau, Histoire de la Birmanie contemporaine, 147.

80. Memorandum on Ne Win’s educational policy, 1963, TNA, BW 19/15.

81. D. Hardwick, Representative’s Annual Report, 1964–1965, TNA, BW 19/10.

82. W.R. McAlpine to the Director of the Personnel Department of the British Council, 13 February 1963, TNA, BW 19/15.

83. Ibid.

84. W.R. McAlpine, Representative’s Annual Report, 1962–1963, TNA, BW 19/10.

85. Gordon Whitteridge to Alec Douglas-Home, June 3, 1963, TNA, BW 19/10.

86. W.R. McAlpine, Handing-over Notes, July 1964, TNA, BW 19/11.

87. Ibid.

88. W.R. McAlpine, Representative’s Annual Report, 1963–1964, TNA, BW 19/10.

89. Ibid.

90. D. Hardwick, Representative’s Annual Report, 1965–1966, TNA, BW 19/19.

91. W.R. McAlpine, Representative’s Annual Report, 1963–1964, Appendix C, TNA, BW 19/10.

92. British Council Report, April 26, 1962, TNA, BW 19/15.

93. There are precedents to this. For instance, British Council specialist Christine Okret-Manville explains that, when a British Council centre opened in the Soviet Union in 1945, the British Council Representative received diplomatic status as a form of protection; Okret-Manville, ‘La politique étrangère culturelle’, 406.

94. W.R. McAlpine, Representative’s Annual Report, 1963–1964, TNA, BW 19/10.

95. D. Hardwick, Representative’s Annual Report, 1965–1966, TNA, BW 19/19.

96. Richard Allen, Valedictory Despatch, November 1, 1962, TNA, BW 19/15.

97. Trafford Smith, Ambassador’s Annual Report, January 2, 1968, TNA, FO 435/17.

98. W.R. McAlpine, Representative’s Annual Report, 1963–1964, TNA, BW 19/10.

99. Central Office of Information, The Colombo Plan for Co-operative Economic Development in South and South-East Asia, October 16, 1950, TNA, BW 1/254.

100. Akita, Krozewski and Watanabe, ‘Introduction: The Colombo Plan’, 1.

101. Adeleke, ‘The Strings of Neutralism’, 604.

102. Trafford Smith, Ambassador’s Annual Report, January 2, 1968, TNA, FO 435/17.

103. Ibid.

104. Memorandum by Robert Cecil, February 27, 1963, TNA, BW 19/15.

105. Lowe, Contending with Nationalism and Communism, 133.

106. British Council, Life Stories, Past, Present and Future, June 2016.

107. See British Academy and École Française d’Extrême-Orient, Language Choice in Higher Education.

108. Ibid.