What Happened To The Last Royal Family Of Myanmar | Burma's Lost Royals | Absolute History

[Music] um [Music] i first came to burma a decade ago to study its history it's a story in which my country britain is in many ways the villain so it was surprising when after decades in the shadows burma's royal family decided to share their story with an english [Music] now my name is uso wing i'm the great grandson of king people the last king of burma my great grandfather lost his kingdom and was exiled with his family to india 100 years after he died he is still entombed in india british government refused permission for him to be transported home [Applause] i'm nyama i want to walk only for mama this country was giving us a present to queen victoria as a new year present we just imagine this is a country not a thing to give us a present now we are gaining some dignity what we have lost before [Applause] right left left right i first met so win in 2014 when he was managing the national under-19s football team after decades as a civil servant he seemed almost defined by national duty and as i got to know more about him it wasn't hard to see why if history had taken a different course so win would be the king of burma today [Music] this is golden palace this is where our great grandfather was exiled this is the story very good beginning not a very good end we call it golden palace but actually this is reconstructed not the original ones original ones were destroyed in second world war do you think they've done a good job i'm not happy to be around but then i try to accommodate and try to help you but i personally i do not want to be here since 1885 the palace grounds have been used as a military base first by the occupying british and now by the country's armed forces when i came in i have to give my uh identity and i'm very disappointed yes next i will not come again next time were you ever worried that they wouldn't let you in no no no no i'm very confident they cannot do that but you'd prefer that they didn't ask for your id on the door no my wife said don't say anything i was about to why why not no no no they they don't understand the other soldiers if i say something then they're surprised hey are you joking hey are you actor or see this is not a place to joke you will not believe it and they would they will not believe i am great grandson of the king and and who nobody will see like this only the those who are not with the uh so this is the situation so wynn lives by the railway in the country's largest city yangon thousands pass by his house every day unaware of the royal in their midst my classmates they're always joking me hey when am i going to take back the palace they encourage me hey you have to fight for it they are telling in front of others hey he's a great grandson of king divor and everybody's looking and see everybody you know this mustache man he's a great grandson of think divorce and he's going to take back the riot palace this is true very embarrassing for me what was interesting was that a lot of people had no idea what had happened to their royal family i was intrigued that the king had been exiled uh not too far away from where i live and that i knew nothing about it i know that the third generation from king d-ball is still alive not all of them but a couple of them i think a lot of ordinary people don't even know that descendants and members of the immediate royal family are are still around but again this was something that was very submerged and very hidden for for quite a long time over the late 20th century there were just so many stories stories within stories the incredible twists and turns their lives took was i mean really stranger than any credible work of fiction that one could have written the position of the monarchy was all pervading i mean they were regarded as demigods ruler of the land and sea lord of the rising sun king of all the umbrella bearing chiefs master of many white elephants everything they ate was out of gold bowls gold spoons even the spittoon they spat into was made of solid gold it was an institution that had lasted for so many centuries so it was in the psyche of the people it was a militant aggressive in many ways expansionist power that dominated the entire landscape from bhutan to malaya until they realized that there was another regional power the british east india company which was expanding fast in india the third angle of burmese war last year only a couple of weeks but the pacification of the country lasted many years and cost thousands of lives in the displacements of tens of thousands of other people so it's a violent transition this is a cartoon from punch magazine made in 1885 of the british soldier booting out a drunken tibor with his brandy bottle falling off as he's booted out sad thing is king thibaut never drank he was just portrayed as a drunken to justify england's reason for throwing out a incapable king in the morning they were told that the british forces had arrived in mandalay that night probably nobody slept in the palace i think it was a huge shock to them when they realized that the british was not accepting their armistice you know request i don't think the british had imagined that they would depose the king so quickly so no preparation had been made for his exile where would he be sent where would the long term stay be no house had been prepared so they said we want king thibaut in a place where he's going to be safe well looked after and completely forgotten [Music] those days the only access to ratnagiri was by ship and four months of the year it was totally cut off because of the monsoons as one of the british officers put it only the most intrepid traveller would go to ratnagiri to see the king [Music] he died of a broken heart i feel the queen wanted to carry him back to burma but the british didn't want that so they decided that he had to be entombed in a permanent tomb in ratnagiri and they selected the site and they insisted that he be entombed before she left the shores of india queen sapialit was entombed in rangoon and i think the family still feels that it's not a final entombment [Music] this is the tomb where the last queen was buried hardly anyone knows that she came back at all let alone that she's been buried in the heart of yangon for more than 90 years but sowwyn's cousin devi is the queen's great-granddaughter and she's grown up next door are the royals but that royal blood is for people and for our country we have a duty to do because that blood is running in our body i want to talk freely as princess but for me alone i have to create my own space you see as an environmentalist like her cousin so win not being on a throne hasn't dampened debbie's sense of duty i shall be called green princess we are the human beings so we must look after our home this is the earth planet [Music] [Music] our royal family is living with poverty you see few generations they don't know they don't know there is a queen toons here you see and what's the last king of burma named also in thailand they love their king and in england in japan all the monarchies countries they mentioned but that is a history we are born with the history it's right or wrong we have to accept [Music] so win has made it his life's mission to bring the last king of burma home at first i could see why it felt like the natural thing to do but i soon found out things weren't that simple one day it had to be moved maybe next generation or maybe my my grandson's generation but they have to be moved it's our duty we are the only living memories of the last game if we didn't who will do that it's not the right time my first cousin also he came along and said we're going to put this issue on the parliament i said no brother we can't do even the union in our in our country you discussed this with david thompson that's why i think you got the answer so you got to answer so but before that we discuss and she said don't do that i said i will it's my duty it's not the time if all is completely peace then he should his body should come along but not in this time we have so many problems [Music] it's important for the people here to know their history you have so many kids today and young people in their 20s and 30s who know almost nothing about the history of this country beyond a few lines that they might remember from school [Music] where is [Music] it's deeply unhelpful the way in which history is taught history has been so devalued and so linked to political agenda in this country people's connection to their past is lost it's important in any country but in a country where people are really trying to think about what their options are what they want to see 20 30 years down the road in terms of the way in which their country and society evolves i think it's it's it's uh indispensable thing for people to have a more nuanced and complex sense of their history the emotional power of the royal family was always a threat to the country's rulers and those in charge worked hard to keep them out of the spotlight but the government was finally relaxing its grip and they've given the family permission to gather publicly in the old royal capital of mandalay it was a rare outing for the king's only surviving granddaughter 94 year old auntie sue life is a very complicated my grandparents were the king and the queen of burma and then the annexation came my parents were in trouble the japanese came they were in trouble and the people were short and slapped and these things you know and seeing this all this miserable life i just took life as a game i didn't i didn't sort of repent on anything this is the first time that we have the opportunity to do this the other years we were not permitted to do it nobody is trying to re-erect the monarchism we don't want any more trouble in the country especially from the royal fans [Music] [Laughter] even after the british left in 1948 burma's royals learned that spending time together attracted unwelcome government attention auntie sue and her 93 year old brother torpiah have spent most of their lives living far apart so they had a bit of catching up to do [Music] my name is the royalty man are still mad about their kings to go anywhere in alabama and us people still go and pay their respect to the throne you see all the happy faces see all our relatives descendants and this is my very first time to be with them you're sat here at the front which makes you quite special yes because we are the only surviving direct descendant we don't know when we're going to pop up i told you my sister and pastor while sleeping that's why i tell you let me go where i want to go before i die foreign stand straight there she's straightened it no she must sit straight [Music] this is only the beginning i believe before this kind of occasion is not much recognized by the authorities it was a rare day in the spotlight for the family watching them it struck me how even now 130 years after the annexation this country was still dealing with the legacy of a british act of war that almost no one in my country even knew about in 1948 after over a century of interfering in burma britain rapidly withdrew leaving a nation divided and traumatized the constituent assembly representing the people of burma have decided that burma's future as an independent country should lie outside the british commonwealth we're sorry to think burma's new leaders faced the enormous task of uniting the many ethnic and religious groups the country quickly descended into civil war and in 1962 a young general emerged promising to restore order and unite the nation the bureaucracy he built dominated politics for half a century but it failed to put an end to the fighting which still rages today ah he was a real despot took everything and do his hands i knew him as a colonel he was i mean more liberal than but then he he had the taste of power and power corrupts at the core of modern burmese politics has been this negative reaction to the way in which people felt the country was pulled into the 20th century there was a desire to go back to something that people thought was authentic and pre-colonial the military regime that took over 1962 really though is an extreme sort of version of that it did reflect this kind of wider sentiment of wanting to put the burmese back in charge of the country we live nearly 60 years in the dark days there is no trust there is no light we can't do anything so now the road to democratic country we have to build in 2015 burma held its first credible election in more than 50 years the country was pinning its hopes on veteran democracy activist ang san tsuchi to lead her party to power after almost two decades under house arrest [Applause] people across the country seized their chance to have a say in how their country was run already [Applause] the election was a big step forward but while fighting across the country goes on the military will continue to hold the balance of power in a system known as disciplined democracy and the voice of the commander-in-chief of the armed forces general min online still carries despite reservations the election ushered in a level of freedom and opportunity the burmese hadn't known in decades [Applause] for so wind that meant one thing it was time to go to india and start work on bringing his great grandfather home at last how are you feeling about going to ratnagiri oh i think i think uh not notification are they it's a kind of a never-ending story that we wishes to end not in a tragic way to make everybody happy emma indian british also yeah it's my favorite sixth time i think checking rechecking this is a never-ending mission i can believe of course the more you are involved the more you have to do lions never eat grass they will rather die if there is nothing to eat so this is the kind of spirit in our family so and his family made this journey once before in the darkest days of military rule the government swore them to secrecy and these family tapes remained hidden until now in 1993 we performed the last rides that was not performed when my great grandfather passed away the big trees coming out from the tombs it was in an imaginable stage that is about to be demolished or [Music] disappeared this belongs to our history in our history also these are the floor plans of the royal residence to which king thibaut moved it's quite a grand building it was on 27 acres of land there were 16 spacious rooms the king by then had been so beaten into submission that he called it the palace i feel at home because these settings are very familiar with me you see that these uh chairs these are the original ones oh yes yeah sit down for a while yeah just to post okay see you see this this is in the way that like this very majestic seats the last king of burma is buried in a run-down corner of ratnagiri next to his tomb stands an empty shell intended for his eldest daughter who died here leaving a new indian branch of the royal family behind her ashes were last seen in the local tax office and the family are still searching for them ordinarily i do not want to be a royal though become a rail means have lots of responsibilities but i cannot see deny that because blood inside me is reminded me just now i got the feeling your majesty let us leave from here we will be here again very soon to follow up your return back home [Music] every year the family holds a secret ceremony in yangon to mark padamu the day when king thibault was sent into exile and burma was changed forever our last king and queen had been sent to virginia british government that's called but december 2016 marked 100 years since the king died in india and in this centenary year so win was granted permission to hold a special ceremony at the golden palace in mandalay the place where the exile story began it was a bit of a change from having to show his id at the door just two years earlier this is the place where the country belongs we lost everything since 1885 because they came here and took the country by force you can call it the boring british tomorrow is the 131st paramoo day we never held this kind of paramour ceremony before in this place this will be the very first time [Music] foreign your dad seems to be really enjoying himself yes yes yes he's very excited um [Music] asking permission of course it's never going to happen but nowadays there are many changes this was a historic milestone for the royal family but watching so win i was starting to wonder how the rest of the family felt about the direction he was taking going forward at the step by step of course my dad's ambition is a long-term division steve duncan and my father right now you probably seem since they are divergent but in a way when times comes i think they were i mean literally walked away inspired by the success of the day sowwyn decided to take the whole family to india to mark the exact day of the last king's death and at the same time dozens of senior monks informed him they were coming too and so was the head of the armed forces now i've been coming bigger and bigger i just met one of senior monk who is accompanying us that's why we are late this is the history for our country for the [Music] centenary while so winds celebrated in mandalay devi stayed in yangon to oversee the pardamus ceremony as she always had but try as she might she couldn't avoid the excitement that was building please [Music] the day before the family left for india they got together at sowwyn's house devi had to pull out of the trip on the last minute on health grounds but she'd come to say her farewells it was the first time she'd spoken to so win since her announcement on padamu day my mother so are we ready any last-minute worries no more before oh my from morning till evening many worries because i am very worried you take your worries on your own brother no no no no you know why because these worries are very important if if i cannot solve anything will happen this is the way we have to do it well what is for the country no not for me for my country for my country you know this royal family is for the fun for the country not for me there's nothing for me we have to for the right time brother it's not yet no no it's my time you know why i'm on i'm already 70. i cannot walk not another two or three years so you you told that you are something so you are doing for yourself not for the country majority wants to bring back majority ones who bring no brother if you want peace for the whole world you can't carry back our great-grandfather's body here because you see my point of view is very different from everyone you must first of all you have to make your country wealthy and rich then we then we are 100 years over day death no no not for us for our next next next year i don't know we are not fully democratic country yet we are only sunny everybody's saying democracy but they this very uh fancy word i actually i do not understand what democracy is really i do not understand why because i was in states i know the american system of how their government are running in america and also in the in your place also in all over the world i do not like party politics really because party is for the power so what you're going to substitute to develop our countries with which system with the monarch you must choose it because okay i think of that and you have any idea what you got any idea yes i've got the idea of my own so you can you explain a brief on that yes kindly and i will answer based on humans you see buddhists or islam or christians or black or white or leftist or righteous i don't care i base it on human oh you're too high oh but why are you high no we are all humans why that's you called too high you might you might be a saint we want this country to be strong to have our own system to value ourselves we need to work together very closely among our myanmar people because myanmar has many nationalities why fighting each other you know who started this did then british sorry sorry but they have to they have to mention many stories i think no no no no no no no no no polite watching you two have very different opinions you're still in the family you still talk to each other yeah why not this is the natural we are the cousin only first cousin from same family there's a different ways of ideas thinking this is called unity and diversity because we have we have to be united but we have diversity we are thinking what would you say that you agree on to better men of this country yeah yes on our own ways because he is the internationalist i'm yamato i want to work only for myanmar see really very big difference yes you know this is a very different big platform you know why working from myanmar so what will you choose only for the little myanma for the whole world after we gained independence there was one very big movement to bring back the remains of the king divorce even the prime minister who knew decided to donate fifty thousand charts i think for the donation for that cause you know what happened the then british ambassador informed the then prime minister who knew you know what the phrase he used the british ambassador let the sleeping dog lie after a lifetime of anonymity so wind flew into a military airstrip with the most powerful man in the country general min online accompanied by dozens of the country's top soldiers politicians and holy men all there to mark the centenary of his great grandfather's death in one way i think to see the repatriation of king evolves remains to have a proper burial if for no other reason than to see a royal funeral and to see the ritual and the imagery that would go with that would be very interesting i don't think it would necessarily be an unwelcome thing whether it would be the best thing i think is a different question senior general wishes to bring back hope vice president and senior general he said why not bring this back home yes we are trying for many years okay let's do it the day of the centenary had finally arrived and the town was buzzing with press and police all keen to hear what sowwyn had to say so my question is to mr sobin in the morning we met one of the visitors who said that they are planning to take the remains of the raja to man mark are there any plans like that as a personal i like to take it back from the very beginning they are not wanted to come here but they were being forced to this is a kind of a human situation we lost everything i'd like to make you another question to you if you were in my place what will you [Music] say it was exactly a hundred years ago that the last king of burma died here thousands of miles from home when i first started following the story of the burmese royal family i thought it would be a story about the past but now i realize this wasn't history at all britain's legacy in this corner of the world is still raw and the next chapter of our shared story was being written right in front of me the impact of the exile of the king was huge on burma having a king on the throne was a sense of security a sense of who they were it led to a lot of unrest a lot of loss of identity their religion being violated institutions that had existed for generations suddenly everything disappeared [Music] [Music] the foreign the royal period in a way reminds them of the failure of the country to stand up against colonial aggression yet there's almost nothing else to go back to if one is looking for a sort of non-colonial model of what the country can be when you have a foreign country coming and occupying a country it creates a break with the past that's unnatural i think because burma's colonial experience was in some ways so traumatic so you see this much more severe reactions to colonialism than than one sees in almost any other part of the x-british empire foreign this is the place where my great grandfather used to see the arabian sea from this point for the rest of his life the place of no return i don't want to walk internationally or to human beings or it's too too far or too high or it's very simple if the country's future is bright we all will be bright also we are part of the country we are part of the citizen we are just a simple family we can say before we are the lost trial not anymore now [Music] [Music] now in 21st centuries we must understand each other we doesn't hate myself will mostly can hate british but not the british peoples only the one group who is earned for the power those days not the british people people are saying would you like to bring back the monarchy no it's not the time it's the 21st century but the new generations must learn the histories the countries the kings and queens you must not forget i don't want to be a king nobody is asking me to be a king yet but if i do not want to go if i if so there's no way of going to the level of if i don't want to restore monarchy because our country has suffered a lot [Music] there's never been an inclusive identity that has been allowed to emerge in this country if that is not corrected in some way you may see an end to the armed conflicts but i think you will still not have the kind of society that will be able to cope with a lot of the problems to come awareness of the royal family in burma would help people understand their past it's a reclamation of history which is possible now which was not possible under many years of military rule do you have any any message for the british no wisdom that's all i know we always wanted the kings and the queen's body to be brought back now what to do times have changed things have changed people's outlook have changed so let let them lie in peace i always wear flowers in my hair especially jasmine my mother told me if you don't have jasmine at least wear a flower one flower in your hair you will look more royalty so i always have not because i want to be a royalty but because i want to be pretty

Channel: Absolute History

Views: 1,087,208

Keywords: history documentaries, quirky history, world history, ridiculous history, burma's lost royals, royal family of burma, history of the world, we were kings, burma, british history, history of royal families

Id: PQgk6H2e62k

Length: 54min 26sec (3266 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 17 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

This is my main problem with colonialism: It deposes the monarchs and leaves republics in its wake (and exceptionally terrible ones at that).

[u/[deleted]]

Damn, I assume before the end of the Monarchy the land was at peace? Prospering perhaps?