द इण्डियन स्ट्रगल / भारतीय स्वाधीनता संग्राम (नेताजी सुभाष चन्द्र बोस - ऐतिहासिक विश्लेषण)

158 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE
Burmans generally have no idea or intention of fighting for
their freedom and they think that once the Indians are
eliminated from Burma, everything will be all right for them.
The hpongyis or priests on the contrary, are politically-
minded and they follow the policy and tactics of the Indian
National Congress. When I was in Burma, the uncrowned
king of the Burmans was Rev. U. Ottama, a priest.¹ The
impression that I had during my stay there was that the
priests had the largest following in the country. They had
boycotted the Burma Legislature since 1920 and they did
not have their representatives there. That led the Govern-
ment to think that the Burmans really wanted separation from
India, as the English-educated Burmans generally were
saying. The recent elections have shown, however, that the
people are against separation. The significance of the last
elections will be understood better when it is remembered
that they were fought on the basis of the old electoral roll and
that the request of the anti-separationist party for a revision
of the electoral roll prior to the elections, was turned down.
Among the separationists (the English-educated Burmans) as
also among the anti-separationists, it is very difficult to have
a united party, because personal considerations play an
important rôle in Burma. The priests who are anti-separa-
tionists are on the whole a compact party. Among the
English-educated Burmans, when I was in Burma, there
were several parties, the most important of them being the
Twenty-One Party²—so called because twenty-one persons
joined together and formed the party. The Nationalist Party
in Burma is called the G.C.B.A.—that is, the General Council
¹ Rev. U. Ottama is now an exile living in Calcutta and is not allowed
to return to Burma. His health is completely shattered as a result of
repeated incarceration. When I was in Burma an interesting incident
took place. Rev. U. Ottama was in prison and a rumour got afloat that
he had been secretly transported to a prison in India. In the Burma
Legislative Council, questions were put on this point. The Home Member,
himself a Burman, felt annoyed at the questions and replied that U.
Ottama was one of the ten thousand criminals in his jails and he could
not be expected to know where he was confined at the time. At this in-
sulting reference to U. Ottama, all the non-official members of the Legis-
lative Council walked out as a protest. They resolved to dissolve their
separate parties and start a united party—called the People's Party.
² The policy of the Twenty-One Party was to work the Constitution,
while that of the G.C.B.A. was to boycott it.