Chit Hlaing is a former President of the Republic of Burma, serving between 1924 and 1930. He is currently the leader of the "General Council of Burmese Associations" party, commonly known as the "GCBA". He is also a key figure in the liberal "National Democratic Front" in Burmese politics.
As the first President of an independent Burma, Chit Hlaing assumed leadership during the Burmese Revolt, guiding the nascent nation's provisional government in their struggle against the British. His term in office notably saw the establishment of the Burmese constitution, the hosting of the Pegu Conference and the wagng of the disastrous Burmese-Siamese War of 1928/29. Whilst Chit Hlaing is well-regarded among his peers and renowned since the days of British colonial rule as the "Uncrowned King of Burma", his poor handling of the post-independence provisional government and Burma's defeat in the war against Siam saw him lose the election of 1930 to his rival U Ba Pe.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Chit Hlaing was born on June 9th, 1879, in Amherst, in the countryside of the Moulmein Division of British controlled Burma. His hometown was a sleepy resort with a large Anglo-Burmese community, having previously been an administrative centre for the British colonists along the Tenasserim coast. His family was intimately tied to this Anglo-Burmese community, as his grandfather had been a Constable in the civil service who later retired to become a teakwood merchant, passing the business down to Chit Hlaing's father, U Thar Nyin, who was an early sponsor of Buddhist schools and nationalist societies in late 19th century Burma. The family's incredible wealth and British connections meant that the young Chit Hlaing was soon able to pursue an education in law at an English university, departing for London in 1895. He returned in 1902, having passed the bar, and immediately set about practicing law in his colonized homeland. Chit Hlaing was an early member of the Young Men's Buddhist Association, or the Y.M.B.A, led by U May Oung. Utilizing his family's wealth and his father's nationalist sympathies, Chit Hlaing helped the YMBA secure funding to create a Moulmein branch of the organization in 1906, and thus he rose up their ranks despite his relative youth.
The Trial of the Irish Buddhist[]
Chit Hlaing's early career in law seemed bereft of any real excitement, until 1911, when he became a leading figure in the defence of the Buddhist monk U Dhammaloka, during his second sedition trial. Dhammaloka an Irish migrant labourer who had converted to Buddhism while in Burma and become a revolutionary voice of anti-imperialism, travelling through much of Asia and promoting Buddhist solidarity among nationalist movement. He had been a thorn in the side of the British Empire since he arrived in Burma around the 1870s and had faced a major sedition trial in 1904, but come 1910 the Empire had redoubled their efforts to prosecute the "Irish Buddhist". Dhammaloka and Chit Hlaing had known each other since the beginnings of the 1900s, and Chit Hlaing had previously defended the monk in the press, after he was arrested on numerous occasions, but never in court. In October of 1910, Dhammaloka was preaching in Moulmein and once again ended up arrested. This time the Colonial Governor seemed ready to throw the book at him. Chit Hlaing volunteered to be his lawyer and while the subsequent trial did see Dhammaloka charged as guilty of sedition, it did secure a great deal of national sympathy for the Irish Buddhist, and a great deal of attention for Chit Hlaing. Among other things, Chit Hlaing had succeeded at promoting the trial as a nationalist cause by publishing transcripts from it in Burmese newspapers, most notably United Burma, who's owner Pranjivan Mehta had been one of the financiers of Dhammaloka's defense sum. Pranjivan Mehta was also a member of the Indian National Congress and the head of its Burmese branch, being a personal friend of Mahatma Gandhi. Slowly but surely the pieces fell into place as Chit Hlaing secured his place as a leading figure within Burmese nationalism, making the right connections and popular appeals to advance his career.
The Uncrowned King of Burma[]
A photograph of Chit Hlaing, taken during one of his terms as President of the YMBA.
The publicity Chit Hlaing gained from his defence of U Dhammaloka and the great deal of money his family kept funnelling into the YMBA helped to consolidate his political following. He was a great proponent and benefactor of the systems of political patronage that saturated the Burmese nationalist movement, helping his close friends to rise up alongside him and brokering alliances with new comrades. His connections to the Indian business community in Burma and the Chettiyar landlords were the most notable one, alongside his ties to Rakhine bankers like Htoon Aung Gyaw. This earned him a great deal of ire from Bamar supremacists and xenophobes such as U Ba Pe, who criticized Chit Hlaing and his family as effectively being in the pocket of the Indian business lobby. In 1917 a meeting of the YMBA was held in Moulmein, where Chit Hlaing was granted the annual position of President for one term. After his term was up, he pursued another one in 1919 at the annual YMBA meeting in Panthein. At this point he had earned the nickname of "Thamada", or "The Uncrowned King", for his immense influence. His populist rhetoric, support for the rural "Wunthanu" or "Patriotic Citizen" associations, and the nationalist Pongyi (Monks) all contributed to this growing base of support. Chit Hlaing appeared to be a name tied to prosperity, nationalism and progress, known by every Burman, but what was less known was the fact that Chit Hlaing was gradually bankrupting himself with the money he kept donating to the YMBA. His rise to prominence was not without its pitfalls, as his financial difficulties now made him more and more dependent on funds from his Indian business friends, while his rapid attempts to take control over the YMBA alienated its more conservative leadership such as U May Oung.
The University Strike of 1920[]
Around the start of 1920 the English intellectual Mark Hunter helped draft a bill to the Governor's Legislative Council in Burma, that was to reform the local Rangoon College into an independent University and overall rehash the Burmese system of education. Hunter's vision was for a streamlined, westernized, Christian and modern way of education for Burma, favouring an expensive and more exclusive set of methods that would only really benefit the Anglo-Burman upper class. This naturally drew the alienation of the lower to middle class Burmese masses, particularly those who had been clamouring for genuine reforms to make education more accessible. Soon enough, both students and teachers at various centres of education in Burma had gone on strike, protesting the bill. During the strike Chit Hlaing and U Ba Pe's political rivalry, grew, as Chit Hlaing wrote pamphlets and articles supporting introducing a new, pluralistic university bill that would allow for both Buddhist, Secular and Christian education, as well as urging that provisions would be made to fund student housing and offer more funding to schools. U Ba Pe on the other hand wrote his own political declarations, prioritizing Buddhist education over secular or Christian education. His proposals for amending the bill and to resolve school funding was to push for shorter terms, expanding courses on Burmese history and literature, as well as increasing admittance numbers.
Eventually the Legislative Council relented to the Strike, and a Committee of National Education was established, chaired by Joseph Augustus Maung Gyi and attended by many of loudest voices of Strike leaders, such as U Ba Pe, Chit Hlaing, Ba Lwin, Pho Latt and U Razak. The committee would prune the worst excesses of Western cultural chauvinism from the University Bill, allowing it to pass with less political pushback from the native Burmans. Among the amendments was the foundation of an intermediary college in Mandalay, as well as government recognition of native run schools. Chit Hlaing dissented against the opinion of most of his colleagues though, criticizing the very nature of the Committee of National Education and accusing it of being a mere compromise. In his eyes, the strike had ended too soon, just as the Burmese nationalists were becoming able to extract further concessions from the government. This continued to tear a rift in his relationships with more conservative and moderate figures. The YMBA had never endorsed the strike, and these boisterous, uncompromising words from Chit Hlaing proved to be the last drop from them. Despite his charisma and money, Chit Hlaing had now become a security risk for the YMBA, threatening to bring down punishments from the Colonial Government upon them if he was allowed to continue using them to amplify his platform. U May Oung and his followers delivered what was effectively an ultimatum to the Thamada, declaring that he would be persona non grata if he continued to use his position in the YMBA for his radical agitating. Chit Hlaing soon arranged for a meeting in Pyay, where large portions of the YMBA split off to form the General Council of Burmese Association, or GCBA. He ultimately decided that the YMBA was no longer an effective platform for the Burmese independence movement.
Corruption and Coalition Building[]
Chit Hlaing's formation of the GCBA initially seemed to aid his meteoric rise, but the group proved susceptible to political schisms. U Ba Pe and U So Thein, two leading members of the right wing of the nationalist movement, had joined Chit Hlaing in establishing the group, but made their distaste known very early for how the Thamada and his followers were managing it. U Ba Pe presented a list of grievances at a prepatory meeting in late 1920, meant to plan for the next year's annual conference. Among the three main complaints was first and foremost the matter of the GCBA's presidency. The YMBA had operated on a basis of an annually elective leadership, but one of Chit Hlaing's main plans for the GCBA was to install himself as the lifetime president of the organization. Secondly, there were suspicions over how the group's finances would be handled, as Chit Hlaing and the Rakhine banker Htoon Aung Gyaw made use of their positions as the GCBA's main bankrollers to privately control the party's treasury. Finally, U Ba Pe also made note that many leading GCBA members had not organized themselves with any local branch but were still permitted on the GCBA's organizing council, simply by virtue of being in Chit Hlaing's good graces. These complaints managed to effectively voice the irritations of the GCBA's rank and file membership, exposing the fact that the GCBA appeared to be nothing more than a bigger version of Chit Hlaing's already existing political patronage network. U Ba Pe proposed a series of reforms that he claimed would resolve these problems, but which simultaneously shifted more power to his own political clique. The demands were rejected at the preperatory meeting, then reissued the following year at the actual annual conference, where Chit Hlaing quashed them again. As a consequence, U Ba Pe and a number of close followers split off from the GCBA to form the right wing Nationalist Party.
Despite the loss of U Ba Pe, the GCBA was able to coalesce into a functional political party, in larger part due to the influence of the nationalist monk U Ottama and his General Council of Sangha Sameggi. Ottama was brought on by Chit Hlaing as an advisor and even if he rejected any official position in the GCBA, he helped to secure support and funding from the Burmese monkshoods. As the 1920s continued, the number of Wunthanu Associations continued to grow, expanding the GCBA's reach both in the urban cities and the rural countryside. Chit Hlaing began to regularly tour around the country, visiting villages personally to recruit more supporters. His political organizing drew the ire of the British authorities, leading to numerous arrests. Additionally, as his finances declined further, Chit Hlaing approached the point of nearly becoming a tax fugitive, struggling to repay the numerous loans he had incurred and fees he had been levied by the colonial authorities.
Assuming leadership during the Burmese Revolt[]
Whilst many of Chit Hlaing's detractors have criticized the GCBA's corrupt structure, it is likely that the Burmese Revolt would not have been possibly without its political network. The thousands of Wunthanu Associations contributed to a spider's web of gunrunning, secretive communications and insurrectionary planning that stretched across the whole of Burma. Though these Associations had previously only been used for self-defence and political coordinating, that all changed after U Ottama's murder in 1924. The Wunthanu Associations began to act with "revolutionary spontaneity", without any official instructions from the GCBA leadership, organizing impromptu militias, followed by acts of sabotage and insurrection throughout the colony. Recognizing the essence of this moment, Chit Hlaing stepped forward and secured the reins of control. He had previously seen the YMBA falter and his fellow nationalists compromise too quickly, so he knew that this nascent revolt would need a thoroughly ideologically committed, well-organized leadership. Throughout the late autumn and the winter of 1924, he put together the National Coalition Group, the prototype for a Burmese Provisional Government, and helped to organize the militant Ye Tat and Tatmadaws that would carry out the revolt. Following the Rangoon Uprising of January 1925, the National Coalition Group formally declared the creation of an independent Burmese Republic. Chit Hlaing was selected by a revolutionary council to serve as the first President of Burma. One of his first policies was to attempt to broker peace with the YMBA and gain their support for the Burmese Revolt, offering U May Oung the position of Vice President as a symbolic gesture.