The twofold challenge for Karen Baptist intellectuals in colonial Burma: A national claim and its failure

Two years after the Anglo-Burmese War, with the British colonial takeover of Burma complete and yet still subject to outbreaks of rebellions, a small group of Karen Baptist intellectuals in Rangoon who formed the Karen National Association (KNA), attempted to assert a political claim to Karen nation...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Southeast Asian studies (Singapore) Vol. 53; no. 3; pp. 488 - 511
Main Author: Fujimura, Hitomi
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.10.2022
Subjects:
Anniversaries
Baptists
Buddhism
Collaboration
Colonial administration
Colonialism
Delegates
Intellectuals
Languages
Leadership
Letters (Correspondence)
Loyalty
National identity
Queens
Rebellions
Rites & ceremonies
Statehood
Myanmar
United Kingdom
India
United Kingdom > UK
Myanmar (Burma)
ISSN:0022-4634, 1474-0680
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Two years after the Anglo-Burmese War, with the British colonial takeover of Burma complete and yet still subject to outbreaks of rebellions, a small group of Karen Baptist intellectuals in Rangoon who formed the Karen National Association (KNA), attempted to assert a political claim to Karen nationhood. This article focuses on two letters, in English and Sgaw Karen, presented by Karen delegates on the occasion of the ceremony to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887 in Rangoon, to investigate the colonial politics of loyalty and national claim. It argues that the letters were written for two different audiences, and by doing so the Karen Baptists were asserting dual claims; one directed at the British colonial authorities and the other, the wider population of Karen in Burma, with their multiple Karennic languages and religious and other affiliations. Both appeals failed to get the desired responses, however. This article then discusses the contradiction that this assertion of Karen nationhood alienated the Baptist leaders from their own diverse community.
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ISSN:0022-4634
1474-0680
DOI:10.1017/S0022463422000613