It has typically been stated that intelligence is the world’s second oldest career. Whether or not or not that’s true, Myanmar can not lay declare to being amongst its earliest practitioners. In Asia, that title most likely lies with the rulers of the Indian subcontinent, or maybe the Chinese language. For instance, the Rg Veda, believed to have been written round 1400 BCE, refers to spasa, or “watchers”, who preserve mankind beneath surveillance on behalf of the god Varuna. Kautilya’s Arthashastra, most likely composed within the 2nd Century BCE, recommends the creation of a secret service and encourages covert actions.[1] It describes two broad classes of agent, stationary spies and roaming spies. Each had been to be employed in opposition to enemies, overseas and home, and used to establish the loyalty of the inhabitants.[2] The Chinese language treatise generally known as The Artwork of Warfare features a chapter about espionage and the employment of spies. It states, amongst different issues, that “the top purpose of spying in all its 5 varieties is information of the enemy”.[3] The e-book is historically ascribed to the strategist and thinker Solar Tzu (start identify Solar Wu), who most likely lived in the course of the Jap Chou interval (771-256 BCE). Different descriptions of spying and spycraft in early China are actually thought of classics of the style.
Myanmar historians can not cite any books that match these works, however they’ll level to the organised use of spies from an early date.
Previous Myanmar information refer, immediately or not directly, to espionage or secret operations of 1 sort or one other. For instance, the Royal Orders of Burma listed as important for the dominion individuals who might act as sit na, or the “ear of the military (spy)”.[4] Spies are additionally talked about (albeit in passing) within the Glass Palace Chronicle of the Kings of Burma.[5] The hoard of official paperwork seized by the British military from the royal palace following the autumn of Mandalay in 1885 contains one titled “{Qualifications} for Secret Brokers”. It reads partially:
Secret brokers are generally known as para and wish the next qualities;
The power to penetrate the actions of others that they want to preserve secret
The power to seek out cowl for their very own secret actions
An unwavering loyalty, even after they obtain items from one other king, extra maybe than they obtain from their very own masters.[6]
This doc additionally refers to “secret brokers of the particular sort generally known as yatharahavanna”. They had been distinguished by having “the job of spying within the guise of retailers, or of monks”.[7] In different phrases, they had been members of a cadre specialising in clandestine intelligence assortment utilizing disguises and different kinds of subterfuge.
It’s not tough to seek out particular examples of intelligence exercise in the course of the time of Myanmar’s kings.[8] In 1569, for instance, the Toungoo dynasty King Bayinnaung (reigned 1550–1581) employed a spy to assist recapture the Siamese capital of Ayutthaya, after a revolt in opposition to Burmese rule. Based on the American scholar Victor Lieberman, in the course of the seventeenth century the Burmese capital of Ava was “honeycombed with spies”.[9] Earlier than invading Siam (now Thailand) once more in 1765, King Alaungpaya (reigned 1752–1760) despatched “a staff of brokers” to spy out the land. “Monks, villagers, retailers, deserting troopers and paid spies had been despatched to Ayutthaya to evaluate Siamese army power and the soundness of Ayutthaya rulers”.[10] Each King Bodawpaya (reigned 1782–1819) and King Bagyidaw (reigned 1819–1837) reportedly despatched the Muslim scholar Sayagyi U Nu (start identify Mohamad Kassim) to India on spying missions, beneath cowl of a seek for spiritual books and scriptures in Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu and Persian. It has even been instructed that Bodawpaya’s conquest of the Arakan kingdom in 1784 was due partially to intelligence offered by Nu, after a mission to Bengal.[11]
Earlier than the British started their three-part annexation of Burma (as Myanmar was then recognized) in 1824, the Konbaung dynasty (1752–1885) employed an in depth system of spies and informants to maintain abreast of developments across the nation and to guard themselves from political rivals. Certainly, in keeping with the historian C.A. Bayly, the Konbaung kings developed “highly effective and complex inner espionage techniques”.[12] Most Burmese settlements and rural areas had officers appointed as “royal listeners” or “royal ears” (na hkan or nakandaw), whose job it was to maintain the king and his senior courtiers properly knowledgeable. The British envoy John Crawfurd known as them “authorised spies”.[13] These officers, generally described misleadingly as royal scribes, had “sacrosanct powers of investigation”.[14] To cite Lieberman, amongst different duties;
the royal spies, as their title implied, bore main accountability for monitoring the loyalty of the governor and for warning Ava of official abuses that had been prone to trigger unrest.[15]
Two governors had been apparently executed on the power of na hkan studies. In 1758, Alaungpaya appointed a particular officer generally known as the Chief Golden Royal Spy to oversee brokers based mostly at provincial courts and different energy centres. One British historian has additionally listed as “spies” these Burmese officers generally known as ataukdaw, or “royal assistants”, who had a accountability to maintain the king knowledgeable.[16] King Mindon (reigned 1853-1878) reportedly discovered them to be unreliable, nevertheless, prompting him to make use of 1000 former monks, generally known as lubyandaw (“the nice returned”), to carry out this operate.
Along with these officers, the king employed spies and informers in a position to journey up and down the nation. A bit of just like the mewras (“runners”) of Mughal India, they carried messages and reported on native developments. The king additionally appointed “news-writers”, most likely just like the akhbar nawis of India, to gather and transmit data.[17] The social distinctions between bizarre peasants and state army and labour teams helped to advertise mutual surveillance, a follow strengthened by the authoritarian nature of the regime. Some brokers had fairly particular duties. After the British started their conquest of Burma in 1824, for instance, Burmese spies had been typically encountered in and round army camps, attempting to gather intelligence about strategic plans, unit strengths and troop actions.[18] After the institution of a British Residency in Mandalay in 1826, it was accepted that its Burmese guards routinely reported to the palace on the arrival of holiday makers and the actions of overseas officers.
Spies additionally went overseas to collect data, primarily about Burma’s neighbours, but additionally on European nations. The Burmese court docket despatched spies “to the Tipu Sultan in Mysore, to the Marattas, to Nepal and to the imperial court docket in Delhi in addition to to British Bengal”.[19] As Thant Myint U has written;
Secret brokers included monks, nuns, court docket officers and members of the royal household, specifically girls members. Masseurs had been prized as spies, presumably as a result of they typically discovered themselves aware about indiscreet dialog.[20]
An official Burmese delegation was despatched to the UK in 1872. Whereas described as a diplomatic mission, to make formal representations to the British crown on behalf of King Mindon, it was additionally seen as an intelligence gathering train.[21] As well as, the Burmese had a “surprisingly wealthy cartographic custom” and there have been quite a few native maps that the monarch and army officers might seek the advice of.[22] In addition they had entry to some European maps though, as famous under, till the late nineteenth century these had been of restricted worth.
All these types of data assortment, collation and evaluation, a course of described by Solar Tzu as “the divine manipulation of the threads”, had been intently managed by the king, princes and royal councillors in what one Myanmar watcher has known as a “formal intelligence institution”.[23] For many of the nineteenth Century, this equipment was persistently underestimated by the British, largely attributable to an absence of intelligence of their very own in regards to the nation they had been attempting to overcome.
Evidently, the mere existence of such a construction didn’t assure correct or balanced studies, and certainly some Burmese despatches which fell into British fingers in the course of the three Anglo-Burmese Wars had been discovered to be self-serving, or in different methods deceptive. Stories typically trusted the power of brokers to interpret advanced, unfamilar and quickly altering developments. Additionally, concern of retribution persuaded officers to inform the king what he wished to listen to, not what was actually taking place. In the course of the Third Anglo-Burmese Warfare in 1885, for instance, King Thibaw (reigned 1878–1885) was advised that the Burmese had scored a serious, if expensive, triumph at Minhla on 17 November, when it had in truth been a decisive British victory. Related studies adopted the autumn of Myingyan on 25 November. It was additionally related that Burmese rulers had been typically distracted by native crises and the necessity to defend themselves from jealous rivals and interlopers. Intrigues at court docket may very well be fairly troublesome and time-consuming. Consequently, in the course of the early days of contact between the 2 nations, “Burmese information of the British was crude … as crude, in truth as British information of the Burmese”.[24]
The British and Burmese had been sparring with one another for years earlier than warfare truly broke out, and this inevitably included the conduct of intelligence operations. Based on Maung Htin Aung, the East India Firm (EIC) relied closely on spies to maintain knowledgeable of developments within the Burmese capital. For instance, the Italian Consul in Mandalay had a really efficient “intelligence service” that stored the British and French governments updated with machinations contained in the palace.[25] The British additionally took benefit of different contacts with the Burmese to collect helpful data. After its institution in 1826, the British Residency in Mandalay was justifiably regarded by the Burmese as “a spying company”, accumulating intelligence about inner affairs, together with in areas exterior the capital.[26] When King Bagyidaw despatched a diplomatic mission to Calcutta in 1830, the British army escort was charged with rigorously noting the small print of the overland route taken in case it was wanted for future operations. The British presence in India and Ceylon (recognized since 1972 as Sri Lanka) was the goal of a number of Burmese intelligence assortment missions.
Given the febrile environment, the abundance of informers and inevitable rumours, the Burmese court docket was satisfied that it was surrounded by spies. They took countermeasures, however had been unable to cease the British and different foreigners within the nation from accumulating invaluable intelligence. This helps clarify Burmese suspicions of the Europeans dwelling in Mandalay on the outbreak of the First Anglo-Burmese Warfare in 1824. All had been rounded up and imprisoned. These caught up within the sweep included the Anglican missionary John Marks, and two American Baptist missionaries, Adoniram Judson and Jonathan Value. Whereas likely ready to share their information with their fellow countrymen, they had been hardly spies. Additionally incarcerated on the time, nevertheless, was the British service provider Henry Gouger, who was accused of getting made maps of the nation for the EIC and even of working brokers in opposition to the Burmese. In his defence, Gouger claimed that the British had no want for spies to offer data, as they didn’t want to assault Burma. Not surprisingly, “The invasion of the nation … was thought to be plain proof on the contrary”.[27]
Trying again on the lengthy report of surveillance and espionage beneath the Burmese kings, it’s attention-grabbing to notice that the British colonial administration (1824–1948) additionally established a robust intelligence system, based mostly on its civil police power.[28] After Burma regained its independence in 1948, Common Ne Win wished to create a Central Intelligence Organisation. He was not profitable, however he achieved one thing comparable after over-throwing U Nu’s democratic authorities in 1962. His Navy Intelligence Service and its successor organisations dominated the nation’s intelligence equipment, together with the police power’s Particular Department.
After the abortive 1988 pro-democracy rebellion, the then Directorate of Defence Companies Intelligence (DDSI) grew to become in impact an “invisible authorities”.[29] Regardless of its spectacular collapse in 2004, DDSI’s substitute has as soon as once more grown into a robust instrument of the generals, in a position to prop up the newest army regime and oppress the civilian inhabitants. [30] Myanmar has all the time been an intelligence state.
[1] Nilanthan Niruthan, “The Indic Roots of Espionage: Classes for Worldwide Safety”, SAIS Overview of Worldwide Affairs, 21 August 2019, at
[2] Kautilya, TheArthashastra (Haryana: Penguin, 1992), pp.463ff.
[3] Solar Tzu, The Artwork of Warfare (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1981), p.94.
[4] Than Tun (ed), The Royal Orders of Burma AD 1598-1885, 10 vols. (Kyoto: Centre for Southeast Asian Research, Kyoto College, 1998), vol.8, p.76.
[5] The Glass Palace Chronicle of the Kings of Burma (London: Oxford College Press, 1921), p.xv.
[6] U Tin (ed), The Royal Administration of Burma (Bangkok: Ava Home, 2001), pp.93-4.
[7] Tin, The Royal Administration of Burma, p.94.
[8] Many are described in a Burmese language e-book by San Pwint titled Intelligence within the Period of Burmese Kings. Some date again to the Pagan period (849-1297). See Aung Zaw, “Behind the Palace Partitions”, The Irrawaddy, October 2004, at
[9] Victor Lieberman, Burmese Administrative Cycles: Anarchy and Conquest, c.1580-1760 (Princeton: Princeton College Press, 1984), p.81.
[10] Aung Zaw, “Behind the Palace Partitions”.
[11] There are few dependable sources in English for Sayagyi U Nu’s life. See, nevertheless, “Saya Gyi U Nu”, San Oo Aung’s Weblog, 10 February 2010, at
[12] C.A. Bayly, Empire and Info: Intelligence gathering and social communication in India, 1780-1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge College Press, 1996), p.117.
[13] John Crawfurd, Journal of an Embassy to the Courtroom of Ava within the 12 months 1827 (London: Henry Colburn, 1829), p.178 and p.402.
[14] Lieberman, Burmese Administrative Cycles, p.74.
[15] Lieberman, Burmese Administrative Cycles, p.116.
[16] John Nisbet, Burma Beneath British Rule – And Earlier than, 2 vols (London: Archibald Constable, 1901), vol.1, p.161.
[17] Waseem Rashid, “The Establishments of Intelligence and Info beneath Mughals (1526-1707)”, Journal of Analysis in Humanities and Social Science, Vol.10, No.6, 2022, pp.57-69, at
[18] See, for instance, W.F.B. Laurie, Our Burmese Wars and Relations with Burma (London: W.H. Allen and Co., 1885), p.166; and Crawfurd, Journal of an Embassy to the Courtroom of Ava within the 12 months 1827, p.178.
[19] Thant Myint U, The Making of Fashionable Burma (Cambridge: Cambridge College Press, 2001), p.17.
[20] Thant Myint U, The Making of Fashionable Burma, p.67.
[21] L.E. Bagshawe (ed), The Kinwun Min-Gyi’s London Diary: The First Mission of a Burmese Minister to Britain, 1872 (Bangkok: Orchid Press, 2006).
[22] Joseph E. Schwartzberg, “A Nineteenth Century Burmese Map Referring to French Colonial Growth in Southeast Asia”, Imago Mundi, Vol.46, 1994, p.117.
[23] Solar Tzu, The Artwork of Warfare, p.90; and Thant Myint U, The Making of Fashionable Burma, p.67.
[24] Bayly, Empire and Info, p.114.
[25] E.C.V. Foucar, They Reigned in Mandalay (London: Dennis Dobson Ltd., 1946), p.114.
[26] John F. Cady, A Historical past of Fashionable Burma (Cornell College Press, 1958), p.77.
[27] Henry Gouger, Private Narrative of Two Years Imprisonment in Burma (London: John Murray, 1860), pp.133-4.
[28] Andrew Selth, Coercion and Management in Colonial Burma: The Beginning of an Intelligence State, Analysis Paper (Brisbane: Griffith Asia Institute, 2023).
[29] Andrew Selth, Secrets and techniques and Energy in Myanmar: Intelligence and the Fall of Common Khin Nyunt (Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2019). A second, revised and expanded, version of this e-book is at present in preparation.
[30] Andrew Selth, Intelligence and Intelligence Companies in Myanmar For the reason that 2021 Coup, Analysis Paper (Brisbane: Griffith Asia Institute, 2023).
