It’s a miserably wet day in Delhi, so I’m using this as an opportunity to catch up on my blog, which has been neglected for the past few weeks. I’m in Delhi, instead of Yangon, in order to use the National Archive of India. This is the first time that I have used this archive….
Author: jonathansaha
Prisoners and Pariah Dogs
Many things have changed in Yangon since I first visited as a wide-eyed PhD student back in 2008, but the city’s street dogs remain a ubiquitous presence. Although, they have had their own share of difficulties since then. In 2013 the city’s authorities were accused of poisoning them in order to beautify the streets in…
Spotting Tourists in Colonial Burma
To mark my immanent trip to Burma, I thought I’d write a quick post about the history of colonial tourists. By the twentieth century, British tourists were common in the colony. It was one stop on the established route followed by holiday-makers visiting British India. For colonial officials, these globe-trotters were easy targets for ridicule….
Political Animals
I have just finished reading a story in which a community of pigs stage a revolution. No, not George Orwell’s Animal Farm, but a play called Sukra written by the Burmese nationalist U Nu in 1937. The play was published by the Nagani Book Club, a leftist nationalist publisher in the colony, and has been…
Marx’s Animal Other, Part 2
A few weeks ago I wrote a post exploring how animals appeared in Marx’s Capital, Volume 1. I drew attention to how Marx claimed that there was a fundamental difference between human and animal labour, and then suggested that other aspects of his argument could be used to historicise the division between humans and animals….
How to Post a Tiger
Over the last couple of weeks I have stayed in Bristol, London, Durham, Sheffield, Grimsby and Cambridge. Arranging places to stay and booking train tickets has been both tiring and expensive. I have had to rely on the kindness and generosity of friends and family. But then yesterday, whilst I was researching in the Centre…
Smells Like Empire
Historians who have studied the senses have written about the racist claims, often made in colonial and slave societies, that people of colour smelt unpleasant. I have certainly come across such statements in the writings of some British imperialists regarding the Burmese. In addition to being a way of distancing themselves from colonised populations, describing…
Marx’s Animal Other
As well as doing research during my research leave, I have been reading Marx’s Capital, Volume 1 alongside David Harvey’s free online course (which I strongly recommend) – because this is what I count as fun these days. I’m only up to chapter seven, but I am already finding new angles on my own work….
An Elephant’s View of Empire
A few months ago I wrote a blog post about a travel book on Burma purporting to have been written by a dog. Yesterday, whilst I was researching in the British Library, I read a similar book written from the perspective of an elephant from Burma. It was published in 1930 as part of a…
Medical and Imperial Utopias
When I was last in Yangon I bought a copy of Colonel M. L. Treston’s Health Notes Medical and Sanitary. It was printed by the Government of Burma and was intended to advise future British officials. Although not dated, since Treston is described as the Inspector-General of Civil Hospitals, a post that he took up…
Learning About Elephants in Empire
The primary reason for my recent research trip to the London Metropolitan Archive was to learn about the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation’s employment of elephants. The largest file that I went through dealt with attempts to improve the health of these animal workers during the inter-war years. These were collaborative efforts between the colonial state…
Rebellion in Burma, Indian Nationalism and the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation Ltd.
This week I visited the London Metropolitan Archives to consult the records of the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation, Ltd. From the late-nineteenth century, this company was the biggest and most influential timber company operating out of Burma. Throughout the colonial period and into the mid-twentieth century, Burma was widely recognised as the world’s principal source…
Colonizing Animals 