History

Early Pyu and Mon Kingdoms

Straddled geographically between the great civilizations of India and China, the land we know today as Myanmar was once occupied by different ethnic groups and races hailing from India, the southern provinces of China, the Tibetan plateau and the Indochina peninsula. Earliest documented records of Myanmar dates back 2,500 years ago during the Lord Buddha's time where according to the scriptures, the first lay disciples of the Buddha were two Burmese merchants, Ballika and Tapussa, who on their way to Myanmar, chanced upon meeting the Buddha just after his enlightenment. Inspired by the stature of the Buddha, the two merchants requested for eight strands of hair from the Buddha which they enshrined later in the Shwedagon pagoda. 

Later archaeological findings suggests the area has been inhabited since at least 2500 BC though the first signs of a organized political entity appeared only in the second century AD. when a group known as the Pyu constructed city-states in Central Myanmar at Beikthano, Hanlin and Thayekhittaya. Little is known about this people whose kingdom was destroyed by Yunnanese invaders during the 10th century AD.

The Mons which may have their roots in either India or mainland Indochina are close cousins of the Khmers who built the grand Angkor wat temples. They founded a Mon kingdom with the capital at Thaton in 6th century AD holding dominion over an area stretching from the Ayeyarwady river delta westward across to Thailand and down to the Malay peninsula. For the next few centuries, the Mons continued to exert political influence and control over this region while occasionally managed to extend their suzerainty into central Myanmar when the Burmese kingdoms, ruled by the Burmans, were in states of political unrest. The rest of Burmese history was marked by endless conflicts between the Burmans and the Mons for control of the entire country with the Burmans emerging as eventual victors, having assimilated much of Mon culture and confining them to the present-day Mon state in Southeast Myanmar. 

Bagan: The First Burmese Dynasty

The Burmans were late settlers in the plains of central Myanmar, having most likely migrated from the eastern Himalayas around the 8th or 9th century, they were of Tibeto-Burman ethnicity and eventually supplanted the Pyu as the sole power in Central Myanmar. 

According to the Burmese chronicles, the Burmans founded the first Burmese dynasty at Bagan on the banks of the Ayeyarwady River in 849AD. Bagan reached its dynastic and cultural pinnacle 200 years later when King Anawrahta ascended the throne in 1044. Anawrahta consolidated the kingdom and waged wars against the surrounding vassal states, creating the first centralized government in Myanmar. The Burmans originally practised a hybrid form of Buddhism with both Theravada and Mahayana influence. It was King Anawrahta who established Theravada Buddhism firmly in Myanmar. Having being refused upon his request for the Tipitaka (the holy canon of Theravada Buddhism) by the Mon king of Thaton, Anawrahta invaded and conquered Thaton and took back the Buddhist scriptures and large numbers of Mon craftsmen and artists. This infusion of Mon culture and art into the Burman race led to an era of construction of Buddhist temples and pagodas of magnificent architecture and splendour, scattered throughout the arid plains of Bagan. 

After the death of Anawrahta, Bagan gradually went into decline. His successors, Kyanzittha and Alaungsithu built beautiful temples to add to the already rich cultural landscape, but none managed to expand Bagan's frontiers to the surrounding hills. In 1287, the Mongols invaded Bagan and sacked it after which Bagan's rule collapsed completely and with it the temples of Bagan were subjected to an inevitable decay and ruin. 

The Taungoo Dynasty

Myanmar remained in a state of anarchy for the next 250 years or so and a number of small kingdoms ruled by various ethnic groups emerged. In the south, a new Mon kingdom was founded near Mawlamyaing which was later moved to Bago where it became known as the Kingdom of Hanthawady. Around the same period, the Shan, cousins of the Thai, took over Upper Myanmar and founded the Kingdom of Inwa. Along the western coast the Rakhaing established Mrauk U, a Buddhist Kingdom. It was however, tiny Taungoo, founded by Bamar refugees from the new Shan kingdom which established the second Burmese dynasty in Myanmar.

In the 16th century a series of capable Taungoo kings extended their power north to Inwa and then south, taking the Mon kingdom and shifting their own capital to Bago. In 1550 King Bayinnaung reunified the whole of Myanmar and marched his troops to Siam, destroying it. With his death in 1581, the new Burmese kingdom went into decline and central Myanmar was soon left fragmented again without any real form of centralized control.

The Konbaung Dynasty

With the fall of the second Burmese empire, central Myanmar was in disarray once again and was subjected to frequent raids by the hill tribes. In 1752, Alaungpaya, an official of the last Burman kingdom at Inwa, came to power at Shwebo at the time when the Mons had just subjugated the remnants of Burman resistance. A courageous and fearful warrior, Alaungpaya was victorious in his military campaigns over the next 8 years, enabling him to defeat and drove the Mons and Shans back to their respective strongholds. Myanmar was again united under the third and last Burmese dynasty. Alaungpaya's son Hsinbyushin invaded Thailand in 1778 and levelled thoroughly the capital Ayuthaya that the Siamese decided to shift their capital to Bangkok for good. King Bodawpaya, another son of Alaungpaya, conquered Rakhaing (Arakan) and brought it back under Burman control. This proved to be the direct cause of the first Anglo-Burmese war.

Rakhaing was situated along the eastern coast of the Bay of Bengal and used to serve as a buffer state between British India and Myanmar. Its fall into Burmese hands brought Myanmar's frontiers in direct contact with India. Burman's hold over Rakhaing had been tenuous and widespread political repression led to an exodus of refugees into nearby Chittagong and Assam from where they planned to re-capture Rakhaing. This so irritated the Burmese that it prompted them to mount frequent raids across the border into British territory.

The end of the 18th century marked the height of colonialism in the East with both British and French forces attempting to crave out an empire of their own right, each not wanting to lose out to another. French exploits in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia had given the British impetus to find themselves a foothold in Indochina. Burma, with its close proximity to the British Raj and south China, would be another strategic addition to the vast British empire. Contacts between British officials and the Myanmar court at Inwa was established as early during the reign of Alaungpaya. However, the isolationist policies of the Burmese kings proved to be a hassle in British attempts to expand their spheres of influence to the east of India and relationships between the two gradually deteriorate.

In 1819, King Bagyidaw ordered a full-scale invasion of Manipur and Assam on the pretext of pursuing the Rakhaing rebels and in return Britain declared war on Myanmar. The Burmese army, equipped with war elephants and spears were no match for British cannons and rifles and after a disastrous military campaign lasting two years, they were brought to their knees by the British who imposed the Treaty of Yadanabon upon them. Under its terms, British gained control of Rakhaing (Arakan) and Taintharyi (Tenasserim). Myanmar had to accept a British resident at Inwa on top of paying a large reparation in silver to the British.

The British soon discovered that Rakhaing and Taintharyi were not  strategically or commercial useful as seaports as they originally envisioned. They renewed hostilities with Myanmar and started the second Anglo-Burmese war in 1852 over an extortion incident in Yangon in which two British ship captains were allegedly kidnapped by Burmese government officials. This time, the British annexed the whole of lower Burma which become a province of India.

In 1853, Mindon Min became King of Myanmar. He was a much wiser and capable ruler than his predecessors and under his governance, the chaotic political situation in Myanmar become stable. King Mindon moved his capital to Mandalay in 1857 and convened the sixth Great Buddhist Council there. Unlike his father, he was on amiable terms with the British and a period of relative peace and prosperity enveloped Upper Myanmar during his reign. Unfortunately, when he passed away in 1878, the throne fell into the hands of an inept and ruthless son Thibaw, and his manipulative queen who massacred many of his kinsmen in a bid to eliminate any potential pretenders to his throne.

Thibaw was a totally ineffective ruler and Upper Myanmar soon descended into political unrest under corrupt officials and armed insurgent groups. British commercial interests had now expanded to Upper Myanmar and British merchants lobbied for the full annexation of Myanmar to safeguard their economic investments. In 1885, the third Anglo-Burmese war broke out with the end result that Myanmar ceased to be a sovereign country and instead become another province of the British Raj. Thibaw and his wife were exiled to India where they passed away. Myanmar is now another new inclusion to the British empire in the Far East.

Colonial Rule

The British ruled Myanmar as they did elsewhere - commercial interests were paramount and took precedence over the rule of the land. The British applied direct rule only in Central Myanmar where the Burmans are in majority, but left the border hill regions essentially autonomous on their own. British policies were engineered towards development of Myanmar's resources and commercial potential in order to generate revenue for their state treasury. Large numbers of Indians and Chinese migrated to the major cities of Yangon and Mandalay to seek a better life much to the dismay of the Burmans who had traditionally looked down onto these foreigners. Being astute and shrewd businessmen, the Indians and Chinese soon dominate the Burmese economy with the locals left behind down the economic ladder. On the other hand, the British concentrated their efforts to develop Myanmar as an agricultural powerhouse for rice cultivation as well as its other resources such as teak, petroleum and precious stones. Expeditions were also conducted up the Ayeyarwady and Sittaung rivers in a vain attempt to discover another road to the vast market of China's southern provinces.

Burmese indignation and dissent against British lordship continued to grow and sporadic rebellions broke out occasionally though they were all successfully quelled, civil unrest and strife continued to grow. During the 1920s, the first protests by Myanmar's intelligentsia and Buddhist monks were launched against British rule. By 1935, the Students Union at Rangoon University was at the forefront of what would evolve into an active and powerful movement for national independence. A young law student named Aung San emerged as the leader of a fledging resistance movement against British rule. He and his close associates called themselves thakins, or 'masters' in defiance of British dominion. Meanwhile, Burmese nationalism continued to grow with formation of political parties to campaign their cause and the British were forced to make a number of concessions towards Myanmar's self-government culminating in the separation of Myanmar from India in 1937. 

World War II

At the outbreak of World War II, Aung San and 29 others, known as the Thirty Comrades, left Myanmar to undergo military training in Japan. In 1941, they fought alongside the Japanese who invaded Myanmar. The Japanese promised Aung San that if the British were defeated, they would grant Myanmar independence. It soon apparent that Japan was intent to keep Myanmar under her rule for long and Aung San crossed over to the British side to expel the Japanese in 1945. 

Independence

Unlike his contemporary Nehru, who was educated in England, Aung San, an university dropout at Rangoon University did not find favour initially with the British aristocracy. However, his personal charisma and foresight were sufficed to convince the British that Myanmar was ready for independence and under an agreement he struck in London with the British Prime Minister Atlee, Aung San secured Myanmar's independence in 1947.

In February 1947, Aung San met with leaders from the Shan, Chin and Kachin communities in Panglong where they signed the famous Panglong Agreement, guaranteeing Myanmar's ethnic minorities their rights and autonomy in independent Myanmar. Aung San was hailed as the father of modern Myanmar and as the only leader capable enough to bridge across the wide differences between the various ethnic groups in the land. He wanted to establish a democratic, civilian government:

We must make democracy the popular creed. We must try to build up a free Burma in accordance with such a creed. Democracy is the only ideology which is consistent with freedom. It is also an ideology that promotes and strengthens peace. It is therefore the only ideology we should aim for.

However, before Aung San was given the opportunity to realize his vision for Myanmar, he and six of his Cabinet-elect was assassinated in a shower of machine-gun fire by a political opponent. The mantle of leadership was passed to his close friend U Nu, who secured Myanmar's independence from the British on 4 January 1948. 

Burmese Road to Socialism

The new government was besieged by political turmoil and civil unrest in the border regions that hampered its ability to deal with the more urgent problems of nation building and development. The Shans, Karens, Mons, Kachins and Muslims from Rakhaing rebelled against the central government rule in Yangon. These ethnic groups were well equipped with their own armies which conducted a covet guerilla war in the hills against the government. To compound matters, the defeated remnants of the KMT had withdrew into Myanmar from which they intended to crave out a stronghold for themselves to prepare for a reconquest of China. 

In 1962, General Ne Win staged a coup and replaced the civilian government under U Nu with a Revolutionary Council under his charge. Ne Win's new military government suspended the constitution and instituted authoritarian military rule. The country was closed off from the outside world as Ne Win led Myanmar into a gradual and inevitable decline with an isolationist policy of governance he called 'The Burmese Road to Socialism'. In 1981, Ne Win retired as president of the republic though he continued to wield tremendous influence behind the scenes.

Political & Civil unrest

The country's economy and standard of living continued to decline under the military government's rule. In 1988, huge demonstrations led by University students broke out in Yangon, demanding the end of military rule and for fresh elections to be held. Under mounting pressure, Ne Win retired from all positions in the government in July 1988. A newly formed State Law & Order Restoration Council (SLORC) imposed martial law under the leadership of General Saw Maung, commander in chief of the armed forces, and promised to hold National Assembly elections in May 1989. The SLORC also changed the country's official name from the 'Union of Burma' to the 'Union of Myanmar'.

The opposition quickly formed a coalition party called the National League for Democracy (NLD) under the leadership of the charismatic and popular Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of war hero Aung San. Despite promises of a fair election, SLORC embarked on a campaign of intimidation and fear to quash any support for the opposition. Long suspicious and intolerant of Suu Kyi's outspokenness, SLORC placed her under house arrest in 1989.

The election was held in May 1990 in which NLD took 392 of the 485 contested seats. However, the SLORC reneged on its initial promise to honor the election results and barred the elected members of parliament from assuming power. The military raided NLD leaders and arrested many key leaders. Suu Kyi's confinement in her own home were to continue till 1996 before she was released.

SLORC refusal to recognize the results of the 1990 elections was met with worldwide condemnation and denouncement and this continued to serve as a stumbling block in Myanmar's efforts to open its economy to the outside world. As pressure from the U.S. and European Union continued to mount on Myanmar with economic sanctions and boycotts, Myanmar turned to China and ASEAN for financial assistance to salvage it from a disastrous economic collapse.

In 1997, SLORC changed its name to the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). Despite internal political unrest and external isolation, SPDC remains firmly in power as of date and looks like to sole undisputed ruler of Myanmar in the next decade.