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“BURMESE DAYS�:
As Indictment of British Raj

It is said that British Imperialism bad its staunchest supporter in Anglo-Indian fiction (The term refers to the fiction the British wrote on Colonial India). Writers like George Orwell, however, provide exceptions through their indictment of the imperial structure Orwell served as a police officer in Burma from 1922 to 1927.

The British Raj as a polity was not unknown in history. But by virtue of its stature and splendour it became a unique institu­tion. But like all its predecessors it was vulnerable as its rationale could be questioned. Orwell takes up this issue in his “Burmese Days� set in colonial environment. There is implicit dialectics in the novel through the presentation of the white community in Kyauktada in Upper Burma. Most members of the group reveal the mentality of the typical empire-builder. They are saviours sent to lift the east from primitivism. Their superiority in civiliza­tion and race has been divinely ordained, at least genetically determined. The social club in the town is strictly for whites; when the suggestion for admitting natives is made, Ellis, one of the members, bursts into red-hot anger. “Ellis really did hate the orientals � hated them with a bitter, restless loathing as of something vile or unclean.� Orwell adds that Ellis was intelligent and served his firm well, but he was one of those Englishmen “who should never have been allowed to set foot in India.�

This revealing comment exposes one of the bases of Orwell’s indictment of British colonialism. The Index to a good administration is rapport between the ruled and the ruler. The colonials, however, believed in maintaining distance, both at the social and official levels. This artificial segregation created hostility amongst the subjects. More significantly it enervated the whites themselves. In his “The Road to Wigan Pier,â€� Orwell remarks that “every Anglo-Indian is haunted by a sense of guilt which he conceals as best he can.â€�² The empire-builder unavoidably earns the hatred of the natives, but he cannot quit his job, usually well-paid. Ellisâ€� aggressive racialism is perhaps a cloak to cover up a crack in his certitude. Such is the debility that when the club is later attacked by the Burmese none of the members, excepting Flory, who does not share their attitudes, rises to the occasion.

Through Flory, Orwell presents a character in dilemma. He is sensitive with a psychosis disturbed by an ugly birthmark on the face. Unlike his co-cloonials he is not impressed with the Raj’s grandeur. Nor is he a champion of the ruled, for, with all his sympathy, he is repelled by their ignorance and subservience. Torn between conflicting sentiments he has no armour of complacency to sustain him; feeling lonely, he seeks companion­ship with Elizabeth Lackersteen, a new addition to the white community of Kyauktada. Unfortunately the lady adopts the colonial code uncompromisingly. When Flory tries to interest her in the Burmese way of life she shows aversion, and wonders how he could talk with Eurasians the very shape of whose skull “betrays their unregenerate character.� The irony is that with all her pride Elizabeth is not above hunting for a husband. Matrimony is her only livelihood. With the closed mind of Ellis and company she goes by correctness and rejects Flory on finding that he has a Burmese concubine. The young man commits suicide later when his mistress, instigated by a ruthless native, who has his own game to play, creates a scene in the church. Colonial environment seems to have meant death to sensitive souls.

The claim was often made that British imperialism brought civilisation to the east. Anti-Raj writers challenged this assump­tion. Progress, certainly on the material side but almost a blight on the spiritual side. The menial servants in Kyauktada exchange notes on the beating they receive from their white masters: Flory’s mistress is unhappy when discarded only because association with a fair-skinned man is a prestige symbol in her community. Even Dr. Veerasamy, of a class better than these, fails to raise above toady admiration for the Raj. The social snobbery of the town’s Sahibs is accepted by him as due to their racial superiority.

To many the British Empire seemed to rest on the army for its existence and continuance. This in their eyes exposed the hollowness of the imperial structure, for no system could be noble which derived its strength from physical might. The police superintendent in “Burmese Daysâ€� is unhappy that he has not killed “a fellow yet, not even a dacoit.â€� Verrall, the army officer, is utterly remote from the realities and responsibilities of colonial rule. Horsemanship and physical fitness are the two gods Verrall knows. “Everything else in life including the civilian side of it he holds in contempt. It is in the fitness of things that he should be absent on the one and only occasion when he would have been usefulâ€�. ³

Many colonial novels have become obsolete since the system from which they derive has disintegrated. The structure of “Burmese Days� with its basis in Flory’s tragedy no doubt carries reference to British imperialism. But the actual agent of the young man’s destruction is psychological, his inability to achieve an identity wider than that of his group. Lacking the mental and moral calibre needed for it, Flory is caught in ambivalence which, being emotional rather than intellectual, hastens him to his doom. Men like him would be victims in any kind of environment. This invests Orwell’s novel with enduring human interest.

¹ George Orwell, Burmese Days (Middlesex, Penguin Books. 1944). P 23.
² Qtd. John Atkins, George Orwell (London, John Calder 1954), P.69.
³ Allen J. Greenberger, The British Image of India (London, Oxford University Press, 1969). P.91.