The Emergence of Print Culture During the British Colonial Era (1824-1948), Part 1
At the time of the British conquest of Burma, the literacy rate among Burmese was about equal to that of the Irish at the time, hovering below 20 percent of the population. In 1836, the country's first newspaper, The Maulmain Chronicle, was published, followed by The Rangoon Chronicle in 1853, later renamed to The Rangoon Times. King Mindon (1853-1878, r.) was an advocate of press freedom and encouraged the creation of the first Burmese-language newspaper, Yadanapon Naypyidaw Thadinsa, featuring events at his palace. He also established the country's first indigenous press law, the Seventeen Articles, which safeguarded freedom of the press. Several Chinese-, Burmese-, and English-language newspapers were permitted to report news from around the country and internationally, interviewing politicians and interacting with foreign journalists, contrary to most of Burma's South-East Asian neighbors.
Throughout the colonial era, there was a steady increase in the number of publications in circulation. The country's first English-language newspaper, The Maulmain Chronicle, was published in 1836. In 1864, Bishop Bigandet, the Vicar Apostolic of Ava and Pegu, was instrumental in producing the first printed version of the Burmese Tripitaka. The “Sun,” which was later also published in Burmese, soon became an important outlet for voicing new kinds of Buddhist discourse on the colonial identity of the modern Burmese. In 1911, there were forty-four periodicals and newspapers in circulation and by the end of the 1930s, that number increased to more than 200 newspapers and periodicals in circulation. Newspapers like these, editorials and printed leaflets soon provided significant access to information that circulated relatively freely, facilitating new networks across the colony and even providing insight into the larger concerns of the British colonial administration.
Communication through print was initially impeded primarily by language barriers. English literacy was largely a privilege of high-class Burmese, who produced and consumed public letters and popular publications. Print knowledge was instrumental in organizing resistance to colonial rule, particularly among a young, educated elite. Many of them, but not all, had traveled to England and had become adept at promoting Burmese Buddhist causes through print leaflets, newspapers, and even research agendas published in the Journal of the Burma Research Society. Examples of such developments include the well-known Foot Wearing controversy, a debate demanding that Europeans remove their shoes when visiting sacred Buddhist sites.
The advent of colonial modernity and print circulation furthered the emergence of new kinds of public figures representing Buddhist learnedness, heightened prominence of meditation, and its lay teachers. Beginning at least with the colonial period—which started in Burma in 1823, when the British began to expand their colonial rule into Burma, over the course of three wars during the nineteenth century—Buddhist actors, institutions, and public practices have not only responded to changing political contexts, but increasingly, such movements have been closely allied with political power—either through mutual co-optation, or alternatively, through moral contestation. Buddhism became a fervent ground for anticolonial resistance and early nationalism. Monks increasingly entered political discourse with the rise of the Young Men’s Buddhist Association and similar movements seeking to affirm a Burmese Buddhist identity. Monks were also active in politics in the early 1920s, when Burmese fought for home rule, or direct representation under British colonial rule, seeking to end annexation under the British Raj in India. Colonial restrictions on public speech prohibited Burmese to assemble in numbers greater than five people, except for religious occasions. Buddhist voices of resistance also profited from a widespread mistrust of secular power, a popular sentiment that further empowered Buddhist monks to play pivotal roles at historical watersheds that shaped the nation’s future.
Burma’s history of so-called “political monks” includes narratives of resistance against the state as well as narratives of co-optation by political power, showing that monks are in unique positions to shape public opinion. U Ottama and U Wisara were prominent figures in the rise of political monks who advocated anti-colonial discourse and promoted inter-Asia networks and alliances.
The advent of print culture eventually triggered changes in the structures of Buddhist authority, including a renewed emphasis on self-reform and monastic discipline in light of the waning authority of sangha council. Monks also began writing in new genres, such as moral instructions for lay consumption and even novels, writing in the voice of an individual. Even cartoons became a site for voicing critiques and dissent.
