Why is Burma left out of maps of British India so often?

by xoxonicxoxo

It's been 70 years since partition and I'm watching a BBC show about the partition of India and Burma isn't included at all in the maps or the show. Also, other maps I've seen have left it out of the British Raj. Was it not an integral part of the British Raj?

keyilan

It depends on when the map is from, and the motivations of who made it. But also, you'll see Burma included often not as part of British India, but as it's own colony, like Ceylon as well. In the 1880s, British Burma was not as large as British Burma later. So maps from that period or earlier may not have included Burma, or as much of Burma as you'd expect. But check the labels/legends; Often if included, it won't be labeled exactly as such.

Maps from 30 years later will definitely show Burma, roughly as Myanmar is today, but then not necessarily as part of India. In fact Burma was never formally a part of India. The (British) Indian government was responsible for it in many aspects, but formally it was not really a major part of the colony, but was rather its own thing. Significant migration happened as Indian workers made their way into Burma for work, and you'll still find large populations in places like Pyin Oo Lwin, the former British summer capital, and of course the large Indian section of Yangon which still exists as such today. So while there were some connections between the two, they were less formal than if Burma were an integral part of British India. Indian cultural influence is and has been apparent for centuries, but politically they weren't as integrated.

In 1937 Burma was even more clearly split off from India for administrative purposes. That is, it was made more formal and explicit, as a number of people would have considered them together, and the British government sought to stop that. Of course by 1942 Japan had moved into Yangon, and eventually Burma fell to the Japanese (albeit incredibly briefly), thus ending British rule there, and soon after Britain left India as well.