Politics in Late Colonial Burma: The Case of U Saw

Abstract

It has been assumed that the politicians and political organizations of late colonial Burma were mere shams behind which the real affairs of government were conducted by British governors and civil servants. It also has been assumed that what mass politics there was among the Burmese in the 1930s was dominated by nationalist youth, especially the Thakins, and monks who were untainted by contact and collaboration with the British and those Burmese who associated with them. Those members of the Burmese political élite who attempted to work in government and party politics during the last pre-war years, therefore, have been seen at best as mere reformers and at worst as callous opportunists.