Burma and Ceylon: Two Different Exits

Britain's withdrawal from India was quickly followed by independence for two neighbors, which took very different paths. In Burma, nationalist leader Aung San had first allied with Japan and then switched to the Allies in 1945. He negotiated independence with Attlee in January 1947, but in July 1947 he and several cabinet colleagues were assassinated by a political rival. Burma became independent on 4 January 1948 and chose to leave the Commonwealth. It soon faced communist and ethnic insurgencies, notably from the Karen.

Ceylon (Sri Lanka) had a smoother transition: it already had universal suffrage from 1931 and a cabinet of local ministers, and it became independent on 4 February 1948 within the Commonwealth. Yet its 1948 Citizenship Act excluded most Tamils of Indian origin, who had worked on the tea estates, a step that fed later ethnic tension. The two cases show that a peaceful handover did not guarantee a stable future.