Little Change in Rural Burma: A Case Study of a Burmese Village (1960-80)

Abstract

Since 1960, rural Burma has borne witness to three consecutive governments which came up with their respective rural development programmes. The clean AFPFL (U Nu's faction of the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League), after overwhelming victory in the third national election in February 1960, took over from the caretaker government which ruled Burma from 1958 to 1960. Then, in March 1962, the Revolutionary Council overthrew the constitutional government. The rule of the Revolutionary Council government lasted until 1974 when a new constitutional government was installed. Although all of these three governments formulated their own rural development programmes, they had one common goal, that is, to transform rural Burma into a modern and prosperous socialist society. This study describes and analyses the changes which have occurred in rural Burma within this larger political setting. This is a longitudinal study of a Burmese village, Mayin, situated in lower Burma. It attempts to trace the extent to which social and economic changes have taken place in the village over two decades,