Finding George Orwell in Burma by Larkin Emma

Author:Larkin, Emma [Larkin, Emma]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 2006-03-06T00:00:00+00:00

IF YOU LOOK at a British map from Orwell’s time in Burma you will see a strange star-shaped structure just north of Rangoon. It is large in comparison to anything around it on the map, and is enclosed by a circle. The star indicates a series of halls that fan out from a central tower and are surrounded by a wall some twenty feet high. This is Insein Prison, designed by the British to be the colony’s most secure lock-up. Insein—pronounced like ‘insane’—was named after the town and district in which it is located, and is now present-day Burma’s most notorious jail.

Orwell moved to Insein town in September 1925, and was based there for six months. At the time, the British police force was still struggling with the increase of crime throughout Burma. Insein was among the most volatile districts, with the highest rate of violent crime and the lowest number of convictions. From 1925 to 1926 there was a staggering 68 per cent rise in the number of murders there. The authorities tried a variety of means to quell the seemingly inexplicable bloodlust. More members of the police force were recruited to surveillance work in order to keep a closer eye on History Sheeters, and a special emphasis was placed on the conviction and punishment of violent criminals. One government report suggested establishing a penal colony for habitual offenders. The idea was to put all the ‘bad hats of Burma’ on to a boat and dump them on a deserted island called Cocos Island, where they could either be re-educated into respectable citizens or live out their days in harmless isolation. Another report touted the ‘advantages of a sound flogging’ through wider use of the Whipping Act (at least thirty strokes; fifty for particularly brutal crimes). ‘In Burma we are dealing with a Mongolian race,’ the report stated by way of explanation, ‘and Mongolian races appear to have always found an element of cruelty in their punishments necessary.’ The easiest method for tackling crime, however, was imprisonment, and the British jails were filled to overflowing. Every year some 20,000 criminals were locked up, and in 1921, a few years before Orwell arrived in the district, Insein Prison was home to 2,335 of ‘the worst men in Burma’.

As a policeman, Orwell must have visited Insein Prison a number of times, and he describes the horror of British-run jails in Burma in The Road to Wigan Pier: ‘The wretched prisoners squatting in the reeking cages of the lock-ups, the grey cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been flogged with bamboos, the women and children howling when their menfolk were led away—things like these are beyond bearing when you are in any way directly responsible for them.’

Insein Prison was built to hold 2,500 prisoners. Today some 10,000 are crammed within its walls. Among the criminals incarcerated in jails across Burma are an estimated 1,500 political prisoners. These include students, writers, doctors, teachers, members of the NLD, and monks and nuns who have been arrested for voicing their disagreement with the regime.

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