The Rice Industry And The Economic,Social And Cultural Change In Burma During The British Colonial Era

In the1750s, GongBang dynasty was established in Burma, the Burmese unifying the whole country. Upper Burma, Manipur, Rakhine, Lower Burma, Tenasserim were brought into the territory of Burma. Simutaneously, this was a period with great changes in the whole world. For instance, Britain was carrying on changing very prosperously via the industrial revolution. Britain needed badly some raw material origins and a great market for its products so as to promote its political and economic reform in its own country. The preponderant resources and broad markets in Burma made the English colonists long for conquer it in order to make Burma an ideal granary, because Burma has a unique geographical conditions and maritime climate for rice growing. By three Anglo-Burmese wars Burma Gradually got a colony of Britain.With a series of operations, Lower Burma became a primary rice export zone in the world.The export economy in the delta in Burma increased rapidly,only to thrive the rice farming and the correlated industries in Burma, accelerating the development of some modern cities.The economic barycenter shift occurred, from Upper Burma to Lower Burma.The vicinage was intensified. Simultaneously, with the coming of colonists, lenders,industrialists,and other immigrants and by their participating in the industrial chain, the traditional hierarchical structure collapsed, giving birth to the newly-developing classes.New classes went on the historical stage and performed their duty. The social landscape took on a new and even fundamental characteristic.Besides, the development of rice industry in Burma has an enormous and dual influence on the modernization process of Burma. On the one hand, it changed the out-dated industrial structure, urged this calamitous country to accept some new elements which were fit for the modernization, such as the practice of capitalist production relations, the tortuous development of market-oriented economy, the Collision of modern thoughts and the conflict between the classes.Of course, these new elements promoted radically the liberation and independence for the national state and provided a reference coordinate for its modern construction.On the other hand, the narrow, cruel, hypocritical and misshapen policies from the colonists made a great obstacle for the economic and social development of modern Myanmar.This article has five chapters. The first chapter analyzes the conditions of the traditional society of Burma and the rice planting in feudal society before the colonial rule. The second analyzes the development process, the causes and the feature of the rice farming during the colonial period. The next chapter then analyzes the forming and influence of the landlord land ownership. The fourth will describe the correlated industries, such as the acquisition, process, transport and trade of rice (or paddy).The last chapter will assess the influence on Burmese social and cultural aspects from an angle of the capitalism production relations.This article primarily takes the development of the rice industry in the modernization process during the colonial period as the main object of study. The first purpose is to tease the history of the rice industry; the other is to explore a study method of knowing the modern Burma, get rid of the dilemma of the "hero" history, establish a micro historiography paradigm and to attach importance to the historical individuals who are neglected in the traditional history study, evaluating their real historical value from their own facts.