Abstract
It is commonplace to use terms such as South Asia and Southeast Asia; and the usage of such terms is evident in both academic and non-academic discourse. From international relations to political science to history to the media and popular entertainment, both terms have been in use for decades and have currency of their own. We write and talk about things such as South Asian music and Southeast Asian cuisine, and intuitively we understand what such terms mean, as their meaning has been set in the respective discourses they find themselves in.
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Notes
- 1.
Among the countries that were defined as ‘Southeast Asian’ by the World Health Organisation are: Thailand (joined in September 1947), India (July 1948), Sri Lanka (July 1948), Burma (July 1948), Indonesia (May 1950), Nepal (September 1953), Maldives (November 1965), Bangladesh (May 1972), People’s Republic of Korea (May 1973), Bhutan (March 1982) and East Timor (September 2002). [See: http://www.searo.who.int/about/history/en/].
- 2.
Re: Russell H. Fifield, Southeast Asian Studies: Origins, Development, Future, in: Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 7. No. 2, September 1976.
- 3.
Giles Milton. Nathaniel’s Nutmeg, 1999, pp. 324–325. Years later the English were to take their revenge against the Dutch for denying them access to the Spice Islands, by invading the territory of New Amsterdam on the east coast of America. The English invaded and captured Manhattan, and renamed it New York; and declared that they had no reason to apologise for the deed for it was ‘fair exchange’ for their losses in the East Indies.
- 4.
See: An Act for the Better Securing the Lawful Trade of his Majesty’s Subjects To and From the East Indies; and for the more effectual Preventing all his Majesty’s Subjects Trading thither under Foreign Commissions, 1714. Act of Parliament during the reign of King George II, London. Printed by John Baskett, Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majesty, and the Assigns of Thomas Newcomb, and Henry Hills. 1719. The Act stated that any English vessel travelling to or returning from the East Indies without the legal permit of the British government would have all its goods confiscated, and brought to land; and that this also included all English vessels that were engaged in trade between the East Indies and Continental Europe.
- 5.
William Marsden, A History of Sumatra—Containing An Account of the Government, Laws, Customs, and Manners Of the Native Inhabitants, With A Description of the Natural Productions, And A Relation of the Ancient Political State Of that Island. Printed for the Author, London, 1783. [Note: All page references above refer to the 1811 edition of Marsden’s work, published by Longman, Hurst and Rees, London.]
- 6.
See: William Marsden, On the Chronology of the Hindoos, Paper delivered at the Royal Society, The Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society, London. 24 June 1790. pp. 575–577.
- 7.
Burma became a member of ASEAN in 1997, after Laos and Vietnam. At the time it was given a ranking of 0.524 on the UNDP Human Development Index, making it the lowest in the region. In 2014 Burma/Myanmar finally joined the ASEAN Regional Infrastructure Fund, as the last member of ASEAN to do so.
- 8.
By the time he was sent on his mission to Ava, John Crawfurd was already an old Indian hand who had served the East India Company in many parts of India and Southeast Asia. He had served as the British Resident at the court of Jogjakarta between 1811 to 1816, and in 1821 Lord Hastings (then Governor-General of India) sent him to a mission to the court of Siam and Cochinchina to ascertain their attitude towards Europeans and the British in particular. Between 1823 to 1826 he was based in Singapore, and though Stamford Raffles is widely regarded (still) as the founder of Singapore, Chew (2002) has argued that ‘it was not Raffles but John Crawfurd who made Singapore a British possession. Crawfurd, who had been appointed in April 1823 as second British Resident, arrived in Singapore on 27 May to take charge of the settlement. Raffles left Singapore for good on 9 June’ (Ernest Chew, John Crawfurd: The Scotsman Who Made Singapore British, Raffles Town Club, Vol. 8, July–September 2002.) In August 1824 Crawfurd negotiated the treaty between the East India Company and Sultan Hussein Shah and the Temenggung, whereby the British would be given control of Singapore. In the same year the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 led to the Netherlands giving up all claims to Singapore, thereby affording Crawfurd the time and opportunity to design and build the colony. Crawfurd encouraged further migration into Singapore, and turned it into a free port—which effectively lured more commercial vessels to the island at the expense of Dutch ports such as Batavia. Crawfurd left Singapore in 1826, and was then assigned to Burma on a diplomatic mission for the Anglo-Indian government, to negotiate with King Bagyidaw following the defeat of Burma at the First Anglo-Burmese War.
- 9.
John Crawfurd, A History of the Indian Archipelago, containing an Account of the Manners, Arts, Languages, Religions, Institutions and Commerce of its Inhabitants. Archiband Constable and co. Edinburgh, and Hurst, Robinson and co. London. 1820. From the library of Swinton Colthurst Holland, Royal Navy, Aide de Camp to Queen Victoria (1895) and Commodore-in-Charge of Hong Kong (1896), in the author’s private collection.
- 10.
By the end of his career as a Company functionary Crawfurd would have produced several books on Southeast Asia and also contributed to a three-volume study of China. See: Hugh Murray, John Crawfurd, Thomas Lynn, William Wallace and Gilber Burnet (authors), A Historical and Descriptive Account of China, Vols. I–III, Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh, 1843.
- 11.
Re: Alfred Russel Wallace. The Malay Archipelago: The Land of the Orang-Utan and the Bird of Paradise. A Narrative of Travel, with Studies of Man and Nature; Macmillan and Co., London, 1869.
- 12.
Crawfurd’s History of the Indian Archipelago (1820) was, at the time of its publication, the most extensive and comprehensive account of the history, geography, culture and languages of maritime Southeast Asia ever written in the English language—far surpassing the works of Marsden (1783) and Raffles (1817). In the introduction to the first volume he outlined the geographical extent of the region he intended to write about, and noted that the Archipelago could be divided into four distinct groups of islands, ranked according to size. The first rank consisted of the larger islands of Borneo (Kalimantan), New Guinea and Sumatra; the second consisted of the islands of Java and (oddly enough) the Malayan Peninsula; the third rank consisted of the islands of Bali, Lombok, Sulawesi (Celebes), the Moluccas and the islands of the Philippines; and the fourth rank consisted of all the other smaller islands of the region (pp. 3–7). Additionally Crawfurd divided the region into five distinct sea zones (p. 5), and introduced an explicit ethnic-cultural hierarchy that distinguished between the ‘more civilised’ and ‘less civilised’ natives of the archipelago. He maintained that civilisation had arrived to the region from the West (p. 8) and argued that the spread and development of civilised communities across the region was not equal: The islands of Sumatra and Java, along with the Malayan Peninsula were, for him, the ‘most civilised’ parts of Southeast Asia then (p. 8), while civilisation had only begun to develop in the second division of the archipelago, in places such as Celebes (Sulawesi) (pp. 8–9). The third division of the archipelago was seen as the least developed and civilised, and whose economy was at the most basic level, focused mainly on the production of cloves and other spices. Conversely the fourth division (which comprised of Sulu and other parts of Southern Philippines) was regarded as being ‘more civilised than the third, but less civilised than the first and second’ (p. 10). Here it was clear that Crawfurd’s history of the archipelago was not merely a recounting of historical data, but he had also introduced a typography that ordered and ranked the communities of Southeast Asia according to a criteria of development and civilisation that was clearly not indigenous. The first volume of the work consisted of four books divided into seventeen chapters, which looked at the physical form of the natives of the archipelago, the manners and customs of the natives, the domestic ceremonies of the natives, the games and amusements of the natives, the manner of foreign settlers, the useful arts of the archipelago, the dress of the native communities, the mode of native warfare, the development of arithmetic among the natives, the calendar and mode of calculating time among the natives, navigation among the native mariners, medicine and local music, husbandry among the native agrarian communities, the materials for food used and consumed by the native communities, standards of luxury among the local communities, items of local manufacture and items made for export beyond the archipelago.
- 13.
Crawfurd, 1820, p. 5.
- 14.
David Joel Steinberg, In Search of Southeast Asia: A Modern History. University of Hawaii Press, Hawaii, 1985, pp. 104–105.
- 15.
The Konbaung dynasty, of which King Bagyidaw was a member of, was in fact started around the same time that the British made their presence felt in India: In 1752 Alaungp’aya rose to power and in 1757 (the same year that Clive triumphed at the Battle of Plassey) he defeated the forces of the Mon-speaking kingdom of Pegu. From 1757 to 1769 Burma was constantly at war, against the Tai-speaking peoples of the Shan plateau region, against invading Chinese forces from the North, and against the Siamese to the East. Burma reached the peak of its power with the defeat of the Siamese kingdom of Ayudhya in 1767, and the Burmese were ruthless in their military campaign: Ayudhya was sacked and burned to the ground.
- 16.
Steinberg, 1985, p. 31.
- 17.
William Dalrymple, The East India Company: The Original Corporate Raiders, The Guardian, London, 3 March 2015.
- 18.
Steinberg, 1985, p. 105.
- 19.
Crawfurd, 1829, appendix 1, p. 1.
- 20.
Crawfurd, 1829, p. 1.
- 21.
John Crawfurd, Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the Court of Ava in the year 1827. Henry Colburn, New Burlington Street, London. 1829.
- 22.
Crawfurd, 1829, p. i.
- 23.
Crawfurd, 1829, p. i.
- 24.
Rana Kabbani, Imperial Fictions: Europe’s Myths of the Orient, Pandora-Harper Collins, London. 1988. p. xi.
- 25.
Crawfurd includes the entire mission statement given to him by the company in the appendices of his work. See: Crawfurd, 1829, Appendix 1, pp. 1–7.
- 26.
Crawfurd, 1829, Appendix 1, p. 4.
- 27.
The instructions handed to Crawfurd were about as clear as mud. He was expected to make further demands on the Burmese, but not to the extent of arousing resentment or suspicion at the Court of Ava. At the same time the Company was unwilling to enter into any commercial dealings which might not be of lasting economic value. It was evident that the East India Company and the Colonial government in India did not entertain high hopes of an economically prosperous and rewarding relationship with Burma at any time in the future. And on that somewhat pessimistic note the statement concluded that ‘in the existing uncertainty, with regard to the ultimate disposal of our territorial acquisitions on the Martaban and Tennasserim coast, his Lordship in Council would be unwilling to enter into any complex commercial arrangements which, after all, might prove to be of any practical value’ (Appendix, p. 4).
- 28.
Crawfurd, 1829, pp. 96, 145.
- 29.
Crawfurd, 1829, pp. 97, 147, 255, 263.
- 30.
Crawfurd, 1829, p. 105.
- 31.
Crawfurd, 1829, pp. 107, 147.
- 32.
Crawfurd, 1829, pp. 337–338.
- 33.
Crawfurd, 1829, pp. 244–246.
- 34.
Crawfurd, 1829, p. 246.
- 35.
Crawfurd, 1829, p. 130.
- 36.
Crawfurd, 1829, pp. 129–130.
- 37.
Crawfurd, 1829, p. 132.
- 38.
Crawfurd, 1829, pp. 133–141.
- 39.
Crawfurd, 1829, pp. 133–134.
- 40.
Crawfurd, 1829, p. 53.
- 41.
Crawfurd, 1829, pp. 52–56.
- 42.
Crawfurd, 1829, p. 55.
- 43.
Crawfurd, 1829, p. 55.
- 44.
Report in the New York Sun, New York, 9 April 1835, p. 4, column 1.
- 45.
Steinberg, 1985, p. 108.
- 46.
Steinberg, 1985, p. 181.
- 47.
Steinberg, 1985, pp. 182–183.
- 48.
By the 1880s the news reports that came from Burma had grown more lurid and grisly in form and content: The 13 April 1880 edition of the St. Louis-Globe Democrat featured a headline story—taken from British sources—that 700 innocent civilians, including foreigners, had been buried alive in Mandalay in an obscure ritual that was intended to ensure the health and safety of King Thibaw who was said to be ill. [Re. Buried, Not Burned: The Awful Fate of Mandalay’s Unfortunates. In: St. Louis-Globe Democrat, 13 April 1880, p. 3. column 1.]
- 49.
Punch, 31 October 1885, p. 215.
- 50.
Steinberg, 1985, p. 110.
- 51.
Steinberg notes that the administrative and economic systems of British Burma ‘developed in the shadow of British Indian practices and were justified in the name of nineteenth-century liberalism’ (p. 180). Each region of the British Burman colony was first made a division of the colonial government in India, and in 1862 these were brought together under a Chief Commissioner based in Rangoon. Up to the First World War British Burma was treated and governed as an extension of British India, and during this period the colony witnessed the arrival of large numbers of migrant workers and traders from the Indian subcontinent who were encouraged to relocate to Burma to help develop its economy. The long-term legacy of this policy was the generation of feelings of hostility and suspicion between the ethnic groups in Burma, directed towards Indian migrants in particular who were seen by the Burmese as collaborators in the British colonial enterprise. Unsurprisingly, when Burman-Buddhist nationalism began to emerge by the 1930s, among the first groups targeted by the Burman nationalists were the Indian migrants who were regarded as tools of the British Empire.
- 52.
Steinberg, 1985, p. 175.
- 53.
Basil Davidson, The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State, James Curry, London. 1992.
- 54.
Bastin, 1965, p. vii.
- 55.
Thomas Stamford Raffles, The History of Java, in two volumes. Black, Parbury and Allen, publishers for the Honorable East India Company, Leadenhall Street; and John Murray, Albemarle Street, London. 1817. References to the introductory essay by John Bastin come from the 1965 edition published by Oxford University Press, Oxford and Kuala Lumpur. 1965.
References
Bastin, John, Introduction to Thomas Stamford Raffles, The History of Java, in two volumes. Black, Parbury and Allen, publishers for the Honorable East India Company, Leadenhall Street; and John Murray, Albemarle Street, London. 1817. Re-published by Oxford University Press, Oxford and Kuala Lumpur, 1965: page numbers.
Chew, Ernest. John Crawfurd: The Scotsman Who Made Singapore British, Raffles Town Club, Vol. 8, July–September 2002.
Crawfurd, John, A History of the Indian Archipelago, containing an Account of the Manners, Arts, Languages, Religions, Institutions and Commerce of its Inhabitants. Archibald Constable and co. Edinburgh, and Hurst, Robinson and co. London. 1820: page numbers.
Crawfurd, John, Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the Court of Ava in the year 1827. Henry Colburn, New Burlington Street, London. 1829.
Crawfurd, John, Hugh Murray, Thomas Lynn, William Wallace and Gilber Burnet (authors), A Historical and Descriptive Account of China, Vols. I-III, Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh. 1843.
Dalrymple, William, The East India Company: The Original Corporate Raiders, The Guardian, London, 3 March 2015.
Davidson, Basil, The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State, James Curry, London. 1992.
Fifield, Russell H. Southeast Asian Studies: Origins, Development, Future, in: Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 7. No. 2, September 1976.
Kabbani, Rana, Imperial Fictions: Europe’s Myths of the Orient, Pandora-Harper Collins, London. 1988.
Marsden, William, A History of Sumatra – Containing An Account of the Government, Laws, Customs, and Manners Of the Native Inhabitants, With A Description of the Natural Productions, And A Relation of the Ancient Political State Of that Island. Printed for the Author, London, 1783.
Marsden, William, On the Chronology of the Hindoos, Paper delivered at the Royal Society, The Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society, London. 24 June 1790.
Steinberg, David Joel, In Search of Southeast Asia: A Modern History. University of Hawaii Press, Hawaii, 1985.
Wallace, Alfred Russel, The Malay Archipelago: The Land of the Orang-Utan and the Bird of Paradise. A Narrative of Travel, with Studies of Man and Nature; Macmillan and Co., London, 1869.
An Act for the Better Securing the Lawful Trade of his Majesty’s Subjects To and From the East Indies; and for the more effectual Preventing all his Majesty’s Subjects Trading thither under Foreign Commissions, 1714. Act of Parliament during the reign of King George II, London. Printed by John Baskett, Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majesty, and the Assigns of Thomas Newcomb, and Henry Hills. 1719.
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Noor, F.A. (2018). An Imperial Divorce: The Division of South and Southeast Asia in the Colonial Discourse of the Nineteenth Century. In: Saran, S. (eds) Cultural and Civilisational Links between India and Southeast Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7317-5_18
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