Essay on Myanmar: Read an Outstanding Essay on Myanmar

In physical dimensions, Myanmar (for­merly Burma) is the largest of the nations of mainland Southeast Asia. The country has been a “hermit” nation since inde­pendence from the British in 1948. Deeply suspicious of the West, and marked by in­ternal instability and economic stagnation, it has virtually shut itself off from the out­side world—a condition stemming from its peculiar geography, and pre-independence history of subordination of the colonial past.

Lacking ethnic coherence, the Burmans, who form over two-thirds of the country’s population, are concentrated in a comparatively smaller, central low­land “core” area bounded within a framework of peripheral ethnically diverse area of mountains. In the north, these mountains border China, to the west India and Bangladesh, to the east Laos, and Thai­land.

Myanmar extends from latitude 10°N to 28°N, and thus is the northernmost country in Southeast Asia, with a consider­able territory located beyond the tropics. The southern elongated and narrow exten­sion, the “tail” of the country runs south of the “central core” along the Malay Pen­insula—making its total length from north to south about 1,275 miles (2,050 km).

Physical Framework:

In general, the topography slopes from north to south, from an elevation of 19,296 feet (5,881 me­ters) in the extreme north to sea level at the Irrawaddy and Sittang river deltas. The country can be broadly divided into five regions based on relief features: The north­ern mountains; the western ranges; the eastern plateau; the central lowlands, and the delta of River Irrawaddy; and the southern coastal plain.

The orientation of these divisions is chiefly in a north-south direction:

(1) The northern mountains border China and are rugged and steep- sided, rising to elevations of 9,000 feet (2,743 meters or so).

(2) The western mountains adjoining India contain the ranges of Patkai, Naga and Chin and form a formidable barrier to movement to the Indian subcontinent. These mountains rise to elevations roughly equal to that of the northern mountains and continue as Arakan Yoma close to the Bay of Bengal leaving a narrow coastal plain. To the east of Arakan Yoma are the central lowlands drained by Irrawaddy and Chindwin riv­ers.

The Irrawaddy reaches the Andaman Sea through the many channels of its delta (of some 10,000 sq. miles or 26,000 sq. km). Both the Irrawaddy and the Chindwin are navigable for a large part of their lengths and make an extensive lowland. The Ir­rawaddy has been the country’s great national highway, and a major commercial artery.

(4) The eastern plateau consists of uplands or plateaus with elevations of about 3,000 feet (925 meters), drained by the Salween.

(5) The southern coastal plain is narrow and elongated, fringing on the west by the steep Tenasserim ranges that form Myanmar’s southeastern border.

The country’s climate in large measure follows the pattern of the Indian subconti­nent. It is dominated by the southwest summer-season monsoon winds, as it lies mostly in the tropics, and is adjacent to the Indian Ocean. Rainfall is heavy in a nar­row, coastal band, particularly in Arakan and the Tenasserim, occurring primarily between May and October, and averaging 200 inches (5,000 mm) annually.

As the winds cross the Arakan, rainfall decreases to between 25 and 40 inches (6501, 000 mm) in the central lowlands, the so called “Dry Zone” of the country. By mid-November the winds reverse, their direction to northeast, and are dry. The hot season begins in February and lasts until the rains start. During the hot season the tempera­tures rise to 100°F (38°C) or more in the Dry Zone, while the coastal areas are about 10°F (6°C) cooler.

Culture Patterns:

The country includes a wide diversity of ethnic groups. The geographical heart is the central lands and the original home of the Bur- mans, focusing on Mandalay in the Irrawaddy River basin. Burmans account for about 70 percent of the country’s population of over 48 million. The Irrawaddy-Sittang delta region was once inhabited by the Mon people who may have entered the country from the east, and were largely absorbed by the Burmans.

They now number about 2.5 percent of the population. Most of them have been integrated into Burman culture and no longer speak their original lan­guages. They are believed to have moved into Burma much earlier than the Bur- mans, and settled along the coast and came into contact with India, adopted Theravada Buddhism, and Indian law into local practices. The mountainous peripher­ies of the Irrawaddy lowlands form the homelands of non-Burman peoples, amounting to almost 30 percent of the to­tal population.

In the western hills along India’s borders are the various groups broadly known by the name of Chin, com­prising 2.2 percent of the population. Another important group is that of Nagas, many of whom fall on the Indian side and have been agitating for the establishment of a separate homeland for the Nagas.

The upper Irrawaddy valley and the northern hills are occupied by groups such as the Kachins that straddle the frontier with China. The Karens, constituting 6.2 per­cent of the country’s population, have settled in significant numbers in the cen­tral lowlands, although ethnically and linguistically they are Tibeto-Burmans in origin.

They are the most sophisticated of the non-Burman groups and were pushed by the Burmans into the Irrawaddy delta and the adjacent territory. Additionally, during the British colonial rule, there were sizable communities of South Asians and Chinese, but many of these people left at the time of World War II, and in 1963, when commerce and industry were nation­alized.

The official language of Myanmar is Burmese which belongs to the Sino-Ti­betan family. The Shan language spoken mostly in the eastern plateau region be­longs to the Tai family. The language spoken by the Mons is related to the Mon- Khmer languages. During the colonial period, English was the official language, but Burmese continued as the primary lan­guage.

Both Burmese and English were made compulsory subjects in schools and colleges. Burmese, Chinese and Hindi (a north-Indian language) were used in com­merce. Although English ceased to be the official language after 1963, it was retained as an important language used by the intel­ligentsia.

The country had one of the highest rates of literacy in Southeast Asia (83 percent) during the British rule, par­ticularly among the females (nearly 90 percent) but literary levels have declined somewhat on account of economic and po­litical stagnation that followed the post-colonial period.

The Shans form the largest non-Berman community comprising 8.5 percent of the population, are concentrated primarily in the lower portions of the plateau and hill-territory in the east adjoining China and Laos. The Shan region comprising ap­proximately one-fourth of Myanmar’s territory, has traditionally been ruled by several hereditary chieftains (Sawbwas), who enjoyed semiautonomous status. The Shans have little ethnic-linguistic affinity with the Burmans, but most often share the Buddhist faith with them. They have, like other minorities (the Chins, Kachins. Nagas and Karens) considered the possibil­ity of secession but have not posed a serious threat to the central administra­tion.

Except for a small number of Chris­tians and Muslims, almost all of the ethnic Burmans are Buddhists. According to offi­cial sources, nearly 90 percent of Myanmar’s population in 1983 professed Theravada Buddhism. The Karens are di­vided between Buddhism and Christianity. The other hill peoples are mostly animists, although most of the Kachins and Chins profess Christianity intermingling it with a degree of animistic practices. In all Christians and Muslims form nearly 5 and 4 percent respectively of the country’s population.

Economic Activity:

Today Myanmar’s economy is one of the least developed in Southeast Asia. Prior to World War II, Burma was a thriving British colony—a prime exporter of rice, timber, and miner­als. During most of the British rule, the prosperity of the Burmese, together with that of the immigrant laborers and mer­chants from India and China, seemed assured. And its physical geography ap­peared to be unusually favorable for the development of economic well-being and national cohesion.

World War II severely disrupted its economy and left most of the economic facilities inoperative. By the 1960s, economy nearly collapsed. All large industrial enterprises, the banking system, insurance, foreign trade, and domestic wholesale and retail trade were national­ized by the administration. Ever since, strict regulations enacted hostile to foreign investment and skepticism of the foreign labor, internal political strife and suppres­sion of various ethnic and tribal groups, have largely resulted in Myanmar’s eco­nomic decline.

Basically, Myanmar is an agricultural country, and agriculture accounts for about 70 percent of the labor force, and 62 percent of the value of gross domestic product. Rice cultivation predominates in the delta region, but a wide variety of crops are grown in the Dry Zone, and the peripheral hill and plateau regions where forestry and shifting agriculture are also practiced. About one-half of all cultivated land is devoted to rice cultivation.

The to­tal production amounts to about 21 million metric tons annually. Rice produc­tion of Irrawaddy delta provides much of the country’s export earnings. During the colonial period, the indigenous labor-force was considered insufficient to support the largely rice-based economy; Indian and Chinese immigrant-labor was recruited during the early part of the 20th century, which by 1942 made up about 13 percent of the country’s population. But by the late 1940s and early 1950s most of the In­dian community left the country.

In addition to rice, several crops in­cluding corn, wheat, millets, cotton, peanuts, sesame, legumes, tea, tobacco, sugarcane and some jute are grown. Most of Myanmar’s irrigated land is in the Dry Zone, and most of it is planted in rice, and jute.

Nearly two-thirds of Myanmar’s culti­vated area is in the hill and plateau lands that lie peripheral to the Dry Zone and the Irrawaddy delta, and is home of many of the country’s non-Burman ethnic group. They usually practice shifting cultivation (called taungya in Burmese), although sed­entary agriculture has recently been on the increase with the advance of agricultural technology and central planning.

Although fish is the second most im­portant element in the Burmese diet after rice, marine fisheries are not well devel­oped. The country has a valuable and rich resource of timber, and forestry is impor­tant as a source of foreign exchange. Its hill and plateau areas are estimated to possess a bulk of the world’s exploitable teak sup­plies. The forests are owned and regulated by the state. Forest products account for nearly a quarter of the nation’s export earnings, whereas the agricultural prod­ucts, primarily consisting of rice, make up for another 30 percent or so.

Myanmar’s mineral endowment is considered to be one of the richest of mainland Southeast Asia. Minerals and gems account for about 10 percent of ex­port by value (a decline from 40 percent in 1940 due primarily to depletion in petro­leum production during the last fifty years). Silver, lead, zinc and copper are mined in northern Shan Plateau; and tin, tungsten in Tenasserim area.

Rubies and sapphires are also extracted in Shan Pla­teau. Oil and natural gas are produced in the Irrawaddy for domestic purposes; their production has substantially decreased as most of the refineries located north of the Irrawaddy delta, were destroyed during the World War II by the Japanese. Coal is found in the upper Chindwin valley. Hy­droelectric resources of the nation are fairly extensive; the administration has built several hydroelectric plants in north­ern Arakan state, and near Mandalay, but there remains a good deal of unutilized po­tentials.

Industrialization before independence was very meager. Yangon, Myingyan (in the Dry Zone) and Arakan states were se­lected by the government to be the new areas for industrial development. Textile factories were located in these centers. Yangon has also steel processing and phar­maceutical plants.

The administration encourages the cottage industries by pro­viding subsidies. Manufacturing remains underdeveloped and accounts for less than one-tenth of the GNP. The principal manufactures include refined petroleum products, cement, sugar, peanut oil, fertil­izers, textiles, paper, food (mainly rice mills), and lumber.

The Irrawaddy River, navigable year round up to Myitkyina in the north, is the major transport artery of the nation, and essential to rice trade which is largely de­pendent on water transport. The Chindwin is navigable for about 500 miles from its confluence with the Irrawaddy be­low Mandalay.

The various streams of the Irrawaddy delta are navigable. The coun­try has a railroad track of about 2,000 miles—the major one connects Yangon, the chief port with Myitkyina in the north—and runs parallel to the Irrawaddy.

Myanmar is a land of villages. Only a quarter of its population was listed as ur­ban in the mid-1990s. With the exception of a few large cities such as Yangon (pre­viously Rangoon), Mandalay and Moulmein the towns essentially are ex­tended villages. Yangon (population 2.5 million) is the capital, a transportation and commercial hub, the chief port and the largest city of the nation.

Its rise from a small fishing village until the 19th century to a large metropolis has resulted primarily from its former position as the world’s largest rice and teak port. Sited nearly 20 miles (32 km) up stream at Yangon River, it has the advantage of controlling the rail and road approaches to the Irrawaddy val­ley. The port is deep enough for ocean-going vessels.

Well-located on the delta to the northern and southern parts of the country by roads, rail lines, and water­ways, it has dominated its external trade and passenger traffic. Major industries lo­cated in and around the city include rice mills, textiles, paper, and fertilizers.

Prospects:

Today one of the least devel­oped of the Southeast Asian nations; Myanmar has slipped enormously in world economy since independence. Min­eral and oil exports have sharply declined and rice and teak exports trended down­ward during the last three decades. Due to decades of experimentation m centralized planning, and isolationist policies, the na­tion has suffered heavily. The ordinary Burman today is little; if at all better off than its pre-independence counterpart.

Potentially, Myanmar has several ad­vantages over many developing nations. It is self-sufficient in its food requirements, and possesses abundant forest and mineral resources. The basic problems confronting the country are: recovery of pre-independence export trade in rice, teak and oil; nurturing of mining and manufacturing; political integration of non-Burman mi­norities and the resuscitation and rejuvenation of the disorganized economy in general. Solution of these problems de­pends largely on government policy regarding the management of economy, particularly in matters of prioritization, the foreign investment in trade and indus­try and distribution of land ownership.

In 1988, large-scale discontent over admini­stration’s socialistic policies based on political centralization and military rule led to a massive revolt and serious disrup­tion of the administration and the demand for the creation of a more liberal, and democratic government.

A recent partial liberalization of the economy and a more open-door policy toward the ASEAN (As­sociation of South East Asian Nations) and Japan have brightened some prospects for the economy, but the military government still clings tenaciously to the insulating, re­strictive, and outmoded policies that have brought the nation to economic stagnation and political instability.