Furnivall's plural society and leach's political systems of highland Burma.(Colonial Policy and Practice: A Comparative Study of Burma and Netherlands India)(Political Systems of Highland Burma: A Study of Kachin Social Structure)(Book review)

Colonial Policy and Practice: A Comparative Study of Burma and Netherlands India. By J.S. Furnivall. New York: New York University Press, 1956 (1948).

Political Systems of Highland Burma: A Study of Kachin Social Structure. By Edmund R. Leach. Boston: Beacon Press, 1965 (1954).

Keywords: Plural society, Burma, political systems.

Furnivall and Plural Society

John Sydendam Furnivall could be classified as a "critic of empire" who favoured reforming British colonial rule so that it would "be ruled with more concern for the welfare of its native inhabitants ... rather than ... those of [British] capitalists" (Porter 2006, p. xxiv). A "reluctant imperialist", he did not see colonialism as inherently bad, but rather that it "should be a passing phase governed in the meantime to improve the welfare of the natives until the time shall arrive when, part by part, it may be developed into a normal and national life of its own" (ibid., p. xxxi). By the time he wrote Colonial Policy and Practice then, Furnivall was already arguing for the colonial government to start preparing the conditions for eventual self-rule in Burma.

Being a former Indian Civil Service (ICS) administrator in Burma of more than twenty years, a lifelong Fabian socialist and, after resigning from the ICS, a "pro-Burmese" activist engaged in promoting reforms in the interest of the Burmese all did have some bearing on his writings (Pham 2004; 2005). Furnivall was not a 'racist', he did not subscribe to racial superiority ideas, (1) but yet, like his fellow ICS officers, could not extricate himself from the paternalism that imbued the ICS. Perhaps because he was a "critic of empire", scholars of Southeast Asian societies have yet to closely scrutinize his writings for their "orientalist" elements; for example, Furnivall's usage of the "colonial category of 'race' was not just a way of examining society [for] it maintained the structure of colonialism itself" (Pham 2004, p. 268).

Colonial Policy and Practice brings together four recurrent themes found in Furnivall's writings; (i) colonialism and its deleterious effects on the dependencies, (ii) the disparity between colonial policy and practice, (iii) his concern about the welfare of the natives, and (iv) how to re-integrate the unstable social order--plural society--created by colonial rule. Even though he was already an outspoken critic of colonialism and well known for his pro-Burmese views, the Government of Burma commissioned him to do this study at the end of 1942.