Routes in Upper Burma: Including the Chin Hills and Shan States

To most of Indians, Burma (a country lying on east coast of Bay of Bengal and bordered by India on the northwest) remains a land of Mystic aura. But to the civil administration, particularly in India, has been a land of forbidding routes and, enigmatic paths and lanes, crisscrossed by endless mountain woods made unpassable by dense humid afforestation. Burma’s political history has been one of turmoil and conflict since the British first annexed the Upper Burma in 1886 into their over lordship. Upper Burma, bisected by the main course of Irrawaddy River, is still considered the heartland of the country, unlike the coastal area of Lower Burma and Siam. Shan States, a region of northeast Burma, is also a hilly plateau inhabited by primitive tribes. For annexing the hilly tribals inhabiting the Upper Burma. Shan States, Chin Hill s and plain people of Lower Burma and Siam, the British had to fight three big wars between 1824 to 1885 from the Indian mainland. Afterwards, the British Military Intelligence made an intensive survey of these regions for their administrative and political purposes. All the routes, existing and possible, leading from one village to another, from the plains of Lower Burma and Siam into the hilly district s of Upper Burma, Shan States and Chin Hills, were compiled in a book form with the object of having a geographical and military work of reference for the purposes of the Empire. First published in 1894, this book is divided in 7 parts, regionwise. All the area of Upper Burma, Chin Hill s, Shan States, Lower Burma and Siam has been divided territory wise in seven Divisionseach part dealing with one Division. For convenience, the book has now been bound in two volumes. Parts 1 to 5 has been taken in Volume I while parts 6 to 7 in Volume 2. This work takes extensively from the Survey Report s from the earliest available dates, maps and notes, records of travelers and standard works on the area. It is these sources aided by personal investigations that has made this reference work indispensable f or those interested in or connected with this area, academically or administratively.