Rumblings in Rangoon: Labor, Race, and Nationalism in the Dockworker Riot of May 1930

Abstract: For five days in late May 1930, urban life ground to a halt as Rangoon was engulfed by the largest riots in living memory. Beginning as a localized complaint over employment in the docks between Indian and Burmese laborers, violence rapidly spiraled out of control and spread over the whole city, pitting Burmese against Indian, with the British authorities either powerless or reluctant to intervene. In English-language works, the story of this riot and its significance to wider Burmese history has received little attention and is often referred to only in passing. Sitting at a crossroads in modern Burmese history, the riot is of paramount importance. Beginning as a localized conflict over employment opportunities on the Rangoon docks, over its course it came to embody the crisis in perceived economic, political, and cultural competition between Burmese and Indian immigrants in Burma’s urban centers. Moreover, drawing largely on this, the way that this riot was used and interpreted also marked a shift in Burmese nationalism, moving toward a view of Burmese identity that combined cultural homogeneity with anti-Indian economic nationalism. In the short run, the riot reinforced contemporary struggles for separation from India; in the long run, it helped crystallize a new conception of the Burmese nation that was to pervade well into the latter half of the twentieth century.