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1940 Report on Indian ImmigrationIn 1939 the Governor of Burma appointed a Commission of Inquiry to examine the question of Indian immigration into Burma. It was prompted by communal disturbances in Burma during the previous year due to “the existence of a serious misapprehension in the minds of many Burmans that Indian immigration was largely responsible for unemployment or under-employment among the indigenous population of Burma” (Joint Indo-Burmese Statement - See Page 8 of Part B). The Commission was headed by James Baxter, Financial Secretary, Tin Tut, Barrister-at-Law and member of the Indian Civil Service, and Ratilal Desai MA.[After the war Tin Tut became Financial Adviser to the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League and accompanied Aung San to London in January 1947. His assassination in Rangoon in 1948 is discuss ed on pages 399-400 of the enthralling study, published in 2007, of the end of Britain’s Asian Empire: “Forgotten Wars” by Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper.]I attach extracts from the Report of the Commission completed in October 1940 and published in Rangoon in 1941 by the Government Printing and Stationery Office. The Report made recommendations (not attached) which were generally accepted by the Governments of Burma and India as a basis for neg otiation and were finalised in an Agreement between the two Governments. The Agreement provided that the existing Immigration Order of 1937 would be treated as withdrawn from 1 April 1942, while Indian immigration into Burma would be subject to the new rules contained in the Agreement with effect from 1 October 1941. On 8 December 1941 the UK declared war on Japan, and the rapid invasion of Burma by Japanese forces meant that the Agreement never came into effect.We present in two parts:Part A · - Preface to the Report · - Chapters I (Int roductory), II (Growth in Indian Population) and III (Birthplace)Part B · - Chapter VII (Arakan) · - Joint Statement of the Governments of India and Burma· - Text of Indo-Burma Immigration Agreement 1941 · - Note by Harold F Dunkley, Legal AdviserThe Report is available in at least 20 Libraries around the World including the UK, US, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland and Myanmar.It is particularly worthy of note that:1. 1. Nowhere in the Report, nor in the scores of papers associated with the report in the National Archives and the British Library in the UK, does the designation “Rohingya” appear anywhere at all. From 1824 to 1948, the term was not used by the British administrations of either India or Burma.2. 3. 2. “There was an Arakanese Muslim community settled so long in Akyab (Sittwe) District that it had for all intents and purposes to be regarded as an indigenous race.” (Paragraph 7). This theme of the “indigenous” nature of Muslims permanently resident in Arakan is repeated in the Report and provision is made in Article 19 of the Agreement for Indians (whatever their religion) born in Burma to acquire domicile.· 3. Paragraph 67 of Chapter VII on Arakan h ighlights the concerns of Arakanese who “maintained that Chittagongian penetration is steadily continuing and is resented not only by the Arakanese proper but also by the settled Chittagongians…..All the witnesses agreed that immigration from Chittagong should be restricted”. Derek Tonkin
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