ABSTRACT
After the conquest of the Konbaung kingdom of the Burmese Empire, British Burma was governed as an integral province of the British Indian Empire. Burma did not become a self-standing colony in its own right until 1 April 1937 when the Government of India and Government of Burma Acts of 1935 came into effect. Prior to that time, the British Indian army was responsible for the external and internal defence of the colony. Even after the separation of Burma from India, when defence became the responsibility of the Governor of Burma, in terms of imperial defence Burma was always seen as a satellite of India. It was the inability of the British to use the Indian army on the eve of Indian independence to put down a potential nationalist uprising in Burma following the Second World War that ensured that the colony received independence as early as January 1948.
