The Nationalist
Movement in Indo-China
Introduction
® Indo- China
is a peninsula which lie in south- east Asia.
® Indo-China
comprises the modern countries of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
Why the name Indo-China?
The
name has its origins as a combination of the names of “India” and “China”,
referring to the location of the territory between those two
countries, The countries of mainland Southeast Asia received cultural
influence from both India and China to varying degrees. Some cultures, such as
those of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand are influenced mainly by India
with a smaller influence from China. Others, such as Vietnam, are more heavily
influenced by Chinese culture
Early History of Vietnam
® Its early
history shows many different groups of people living in this area under the
shadow of the powerful empire of China.
® Even when
an independent country was established in what is now northern and central
Vietnam, its rulers continued to maintain the Chinese system of government as
well as Chinese culture.
® Vietnam was
also linked to the maritime silk route that brought in goods, people and ideas.
Other networks of trade connected it to the hinterlands where non-Vietnamese
people such as the Khmer Cambodians lived.
® In 1802 Nguyen Anh becomes emperor symbolizing the unification of the country
under the Nguyen dynasty.
The French Domination
® French
troops landed in Vietnam in 1858 and captured Saigon (Cochichina i.e South Vietnam in 1867).
® Vietnam
was a nominal Vassal (A person or country in
a subordinate position to another:
"a vassal state of the Chinese empire") of China.
® When French
attacked Annam (central Vietnam), Vietnamese called for Chinese military aid. Franco-Chinese war began.
In 1873 French soldiers were defeated by Black ForceChinese Guerrillas (so called because of the colors of their banners).Francis Garnier a French officer who led an attack on ruling
Nguyen dynasty in Vietnam was killed.
® French withdrew
from the region.
® Later in 1883
French again captured Tonkin and Annam in the absence of immediate Chinese help.
® China did not
helped as continued war for a vassal seemed too costly for China
In
1887, Cambodia was also taken over. Laos was added in 1893.
Thus
French Indo-China was formed.
Why
the French thought colonies necessary?
1.
Colonies were considered essential to supply natural resources and other
essential goods to mother country.
2.
Like other Western nations, France also thought it was the mission of the
‘advanced’ European countries to bring the benefits of civilisation to backward
peoples.
3.
To make profits.
Development
of colonies
(1)
Rice cultivation for international market:
® The French
began by building canals and draining lands in the Mekong delta to increase rice cultivation for international market.
® The area
under rice cultivation went up from 274,000 hectares in 1873 to 1.1 million
hectares in 1900 and 2.2 million in 1930. Vietnam exported two-thirds of its
rice production and by 1931 had become the third largest exporter of rice in
the world.
All
done with forced labour.
(2)
Development of infrastructure:
® Projects launched to help transport goods for trade,
Construction of a trans-Indo-China rail network that would link the northern
and southern parts of Vietnam and China was begun. It helped to move military garrisons and control the
entire region. The final link with Yunan
in China was completed by 1910.
® The second
line was also built, linking Vietnam to Siam (as Thailand was then called), via
the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh.
Paul Bernard
® An eminent
thinker, Paul Bernard, argued that the purpose of acquiring colonies was to
make profits. If the economy was developed and the standard of living of the
people improved, they would buy more goods. The market would consequently
expand, leading to better profits for French business.
® Barriers in economic growth of Vietnam
1. high population levels,
2.
low agricultural productivity and
3.
extensive indebtedness amongst the
peasants.
Solution
® To reduce
rural poverty and increase agricultural productivity it was necessary to carry
out land reforms and increase industrialisation as the Japanese had done in the
1890s.
® The colonial
economy in Vietnam was, however, primarily based on rice cultivation and rubber
plantations owned by the French and a small Vietnamese elite.
® The French
did little to industrialise the economy. In the rural areas landlordism spread
and the standard of living declined.
Cvilizing
Mission
® French
colonisation was also driven by the idea of a ‘civilising mission’. Like the
British in India, the French claimed that they were bringing modern
civilization to the Vietnamese.
® So it became
the duty of the Europeans to introduce these modern ideas to the colony even if
this meant destroying local cultures, religions and traditions, because these
were seen as outdated and prevented modern development.
The
Dilemma of Colonial Education:
® Education
was seen as one way to civilise the ‘native’. But in order to educate them, the
French had to resolve a dilemma.
® This dilemma
was about the extent to which the Vietnamese needed to be educated.
Reasons for dilemma:
1.
Once educated, the Vietnamese may begin to question colonial domination.
2. Moreover, French citizens living in Vietnam
(called colons) began fearing that they might lose their jobs to the educated
Vietnamese.
Steps taken to solve dilemma:
® The French
systematically dismantled the traditional educational system and established
French schools for the Vietnamese.
® Some
policymakers suggested that Vietnamese be taught in lower classes and French in
the higher classes. The few who learnt French and acquired French culture were
to be rewarded with French citizenship.
® However,
only the Vietnamese elite – comprising a small fraction of the population –
could enroll in the schools, and only a few among those admitted ultimately
passed the school-leaving examination.
Reason:
® This
was largely because of a deliberate policy of failing students, particularly in
the final year, so that they could not qualify for the better-paid jobs.
Usually, as many as two-thirds of the students failed. In 1925, in a population
of 17 million, there were less than 400 who passed the examination.
® School
textbooks glorified the French and justified colonial rule. The Vietnamese were
represented as primitive and backward, capable of manual labour but not of
intellectual reflection; they could work in the fields but not rule themselves;
they were ‘skilled copyists’ but not creative.
Tonkin
Free School
® The Tonkin
Free School was started in 1907 to provide a Western style education. This
education included classes in science, hygiene and French (these classes were
held in the evening and had to be paid for separately).
® It was not
enough to learn science and Western ideas: to be modern the Vietnamese had to
also look modern.
® The school
encouraged the adoption of Western styles such as having a short haircut. For
the Vietnamese this meant a major break with their own identity since they
traditionally kept long hair.
Resistance
in Schools:
(1) Teachers and students did not
blindly follow the curriculum. As the numbers of Vietnamese teachers increased
in the lower classes, it became difficult to control what was actually taught.
While teaching, Vietnamese teachers quietly modified the text and criticised
what was stated.
(2) Elsewhere, students fought against
the colonial government’s efforts to prevent the Vietnamese from qualifying for
white-collar jobs. By the 1920s, students were forming various political
parties, such as the Party of Young Annan, and publishing nationalist journals
such as the Annanese Student. Schools thus became an important place for
political and cultural battles.
(3) Incident of Saigon Native Girls
School: In 1926 a major protest erupted in the
Saigon Native Girls School. A Vietnamese girl sitting in one of the front seats
was asked to move to the back of the
class and allow a local French student to occupy the front bench.
She refused. The principal, also a colon (French people in the colonies),
expelled her. When angry students
protested, they too were expelled, leading to a further spread of open protests. Seeing the situation
getting out of control, the government forced the school to take the students back.
Hygiene,
Disease and Everyday Resistance
® In 1903, the
modern part of Hanoi which was constructed by French was struck by bubonic
plague.
® The French
part of Hanoi was built as a beautiful and clean city with wide avenues and a
well-laid-out sewer system, while the ‘native quarter’ was not provided with
any modern facilities.
® The refuse
from the old city drained straight out into the river or, during heavy rains or
floods, overflowed into the streets. Thus what was installed to create a
hygienic environment in the French city became the cause of the plague. The
large sewers in the modern part of the city, a symbol of modernity, were an
ideal and protected breeding ground for rats. The sewers also served as a great
transport system, allowing the rats to move around the city without any
problem. And rats began to enter the well-cared-for homes of the French through
the sewage pipes.
The
Rat Hunt
® To stem this
invasion, a rat hunt was started.
® Bounty given
to Vietnamese when a tail was given as proof that a rat had been killed
® Vietnamese discovered
innovative ways to profit from this situation. So the rat-catchers took to just
clipping the tails and releasing the rats, so that the process could be
repeated, over and over again. Some people, in fact, began raising rats to earn
a bounty.
® Defeated by
the resistance of the weak, the French were forced to scrap the bounty programme.
None of this prevented the bubonic plague, which swept through the area in 1903
and in subsequent years. In a way, the rat menace marks the limits of French
power and the contradictions in their ‘civilising mission’. And the actions of
the rat-catchers tell us of the numerous small ways in which colonialism was
fought in everyday life.
Religion
and Anti-colonialism
® Vietnam’s
religious beliefs were a mixture of Buddhism, Confucianism (A system of
philosophical and ethical teachings founded by Confucius a Chinese philosopher.
In Confucianism man is the center of the universe: man cannot live alone, but
with other human beings. For human beings, the ultimate goal is individual
happiness. The necessary condition to achieve happiness is through peace)
and local practices.
® Christianity,
introduced by French missionaries, they started Vietnamese to convert into
Christianity.
Resistance:
Scholars Revolt 1868: An early movement
against French control and the spread of Christianity was the Scholars Revolt
in 1868. This revolt was led by officials at the imperial court angered by the
spread of Catholicism and French power. In Ngu
An and Ha Tien provinces over a thousand Catholics were killed. The French
crushed the movement but this uprising served to inspire other patriots to rise
up against them.
Hoa Hao Movement: It began in 1939 and gained great popularity
in the fertile Mekong delta area The
founder of Hoa Hao was a man called Huynh
Phu So. He performed miracles and helped the poor. His criticism against
useless expenditure had a wide appeal. He also opposed the sale of child
brides, gambling and the use of alcohol and opium.
The
French declared him mad, called him the Mad
Bonze, (Bonze- Japanese or Chinese Buddhist religious teacher) and put him
in a mental asylum. Interestingly, the doctor who had to prove him insane
became his follower, and finally in 1941, even the French doctors declared that
he was sane. The French authorities exiled him to Laos and sent many of his
followers to concentration camps.
The
vision of modernization
Two
visions (Vision- the ability to think about or plan the future with imagination
or wisdom)
(1) Phan Boi Chau:
® Educated in
the Confucian tradition, Phan Boi Chau (1867-1940) was one such nationalist. He
became a major figure in the anti-colonial resistance from the time he formed
the Revolutionary Society (Duy Tan Hoi) in 1903, with Prince Cuong De as the
head. Phan Boi Chau met the Chinese reformer Liang Qichao (1873-1929) in
Yokohama in 1905. Phan’s most influential book ‘The History of the Loss of
Vietnam ‘ was written under the strong influence and advice of Qichao.
® He wanted
resistance against the French with the help of monarchy.
(2) Phan Chu Trinh:
® Phan Chu
Trinh strongly differed with Phan Boi Chau (1871-1926). He was intensely
hostile to the monarchy and opposed to the idea of resisting the French with
the help of the court. His desire was to establish a democratic republic. He
accepted the French revolutionary ideal of liberty but charged the French for
not abiding by the ideal. He demanded that the French set up legal and
educational institutions, and develop agriculture and industries.
Influence
of Japan and China
(1) Go-East Movement:
In
the first decade of the twentieth century a ‘go east movement’ became popular.
In 1907-08 some 300 Vietnamese students
went to Japan to acquire modern education. For many of them the primary
objective was to drive out the French from Vietnam, overthrow the puppet
emperor and re-establish the Nguyen dynasty that had been deposed by the
French. These nationalists looked for foreign arms and help. They appealed to
the Japanese as fellow Asians. Japan had modernised itself and had resisted
colonisation by the West. Besides, its victory
over Russia in 1907 proved its military capabilities. Vietnamese students
established a branch of the Restoration Society in Tokyo but after 1908, the
Japanese Ministry of Interior clamped down on them. Many, including Phan Boi Chau, were deported and forced
to seek exile in China and Thailand.
(2) Developments in China:
In 1911, the long
established monarchy in China was overthrown by a popular movement under Sun Yat-sen, and a Republic was set up.
Inspired by these developments, Vietnamese students organised the Association for the Restoration of Vietnam
(Viet-Nam Quan Phuc Hoi). Now the nature of the anti-French independence
movement changed. The objective was no longer to set up a constitutional
monarchy but a democratic republic.
The
Communist Movement and Vietnamese Nationalism
The Great Depression of the 1930s had a
profound impact on Vietnam. The prices of rubber and rice fell, leading to
rising rural debts, unemployment and rural uprisings, such as in the provinces
of Ngu An and Ha Tinh. These
provinces were among the poorest, had an old radical tradition, and have been
called the ‘electrical fuses’ of Vietnam – when the system was under pressure
they were the first to blow. The French put these uprisings down with great
severity, even using planes to bomb demonstrators.
In
February 1930, Ho Chi Minh brought
together competing nationalist groups to establish the Vietnamese Communist (Vietnam Cong San Dang) Party, later renamed
the Indo-Chinese Communist Party. He was inspired by the militant
demonstrations of the European communist parties.
In 1940 Japan occupied Vietnam, as part
of its imperial drive to control Southeast Asia. So nationalists now had to
fight against the Japanese as well as the French. The League for the Independence of Vietnam (Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh),
which came to be known as the Vietminh, fought the Japanese occupation and
recaptured Hanoi in September 1945. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam was
formed and Ho Chi Minh became Chairman.
Partition
of Vietnam
The
new republic faced a number of challenges. The French tried to regain control
by using the emperor, Bao Dai, as
their puppet. Faced with the French offensive, the Vietminh were forced to
retreat to the hills. After eight years of fighting, the French were defeated
in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu.
The
Supreme French Commander of the French armies, General Henry Navarre had declared confidently in 1953 that they
would soon be victorious. But on 7 May 1954, the Vietminh annihilated and
captured more than 16,000 soldiers of the French Expeditionary Corps. The
entire commanding staff, including a general, 16 colonels and 1,749 officers,
were taken prisoner.
Result:
In
the peace negotiations in Geneva
that followed the French defeat, the Vietnamese were persuaded to accept the
division of the country. North and south were split: Ho Chi Minh and the
communists took power in the north while Bao Dai’s regime was put in power in
the south.
The Bao Dai regime was soon overthrown by a
coup led by Ngo Dinh Diem.
Diem
built a repressive and authoritarian government. Anyone who opposed him was
called a communist and was jailed and killed. Diem retained Ordinance 10, a
French law that permitted Christianity but outlawed Buddhism. His dictatorial
rule came to be opposed by a broad opposition united under the banner of the National Liberation Front (NLF). With
the help of the Ho Chi Minh government in the north, the NLF fought for the
unification of the country.
The
Entry of the US into the War
Reason:
The
alliance between Ho Chi Minh and NLF was watched with fear by US. United States
was worried that communist will gain power in Indo-China.
US
entry into the war marked a new phase that proved costly to the Vietnamese as
well as to the Americans. From 1965 to 1972, over 3,403,100 US services
personnel served in Vietnam (7,484 were women). Even though the US had advanced
technology and good medical supplies, casualties were high. About 47,244 died
in battle and 303,704 were wounded. (Of those wounded, 23,014 were listed by
the Veterans Administration to be 100 per cent disabled.) This phase of
struggle with the US was brutal. Thousands of US troops arrived equipped with
heavy weapons and tanks and backed by the most powerful bombers of the time –
B52s. The wide spread attacks and use of chemical weapons- Napalm, Agent
Orange, and Phosphorous bombs destroyed many villages and decimated jungles. Civilians
died in large numbers.
Ho
Chi Minh Trail
The
story of the Ho Chi Minh trail is one way of understanding the nature of the
war that the Vietnamese fought against the US. It symbolises how the Vietnamese
used their limited resources to great advantage. The trail, an immense network
of footpaths and roads, was used to transport men and materials from the north
to the south. The trail was improved from the late 1950s, and from 1967 about
20,000 North Vietnamese troops came south each month on this trail. The trail
had support bases and hospitals along the way. In some parts supplies were
transported in trucks, but mostly they were carried by porters, who were mainly
women. These porters carried about 25 kilos on their backs, or about 70 kilos
on their bicycles. Most of the trail was outside Vietnam in neighbouring Laos
and Cambodia with branch lines extending into South Vietnam. The US regularly
bombed this trail trying to disrupt supplies, but efforts to destroy this
important supply line by intensive bombing failed because they were rebuilt
very quickly.
Effect
on US
Many
were critical of the US government for getting involved in a war that they saw
as indefensible.
Role of Media: The US media and
films played a major role in both supporting as well as criticising the war.
Hollywood made films in support of the war, such as John Wayne’s Green Berets (1968). John Ford
Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979) reflected
the moral confusion that the war had caused in the US.
Policy Blunder by US: The war grew
out of a fear among US policy-planners that the victory of the Ho Chi Minh
government would start a domino effect – communist governments would be
established in other countries in the area. They underestimated the power of
nationalism to move people to action, inspire them to sacrifice their home and
family, live under horrific conditions, and fight for independence. They
underestimated the power of a small country to fight the most technologically
advanced country in the world.
The
Nation and Its Heroes:
Heroes of Past Times:
Rebel
women of the past were similarly celebrated. In 1913, the nationalist Phan Boi Chau wrote a play based on the
lives of the Trung sisters who had
fought against Chinese domination in 39-43 CE. In this play he depicted these
sisters as patriots fighting to save the Vietnamese nation from the Chinese.
The actual reasons for the revolt are a matter of debate among scholars, but
after Phan’s play the Trung sisters came to be idealised and glorified. They
were depicted in paintings, plays and novels as representing the indomitable
will and the intense patriotism of the Vietnamese. We are told that they
gathered a force of over 30,000, resisted the Chinese for two years, and when
ultimately defeated, they committed suicide, instead of surrendering to the
enemy.
Other
women rebels of the past were part of the popular nationalist lore. One of the
most venerated was Trieu Au who
lived in the third century CE. Orphaned in childhood, she lived with her
brother. On growing up she left home, went into the jungles, organised a large
army and resisted Chinese rule. Finally, when her army was crushed, she drowned
herself. She became a sacred figure, not just a martyr who fought for the
honour of the country. Nationalists popularised her image to inspire people to
action.
Women as Warriors
In
the 1960s, photographs in magazines and journals showed women as brave
fighters. There were pictures of women militia shooting down planes. They were
portrayed as young, brave and dedicated. Stories were written to show how happy
they felt when they joined the army and could carry a rifle. Some stories spoke
of their incredible bravery in single-handedly killing the enemy – Nguyen Thi Xuan, for instance, was
reputed to have shot down a jet with just twenty bullets.
Women
were represented not only as warriors but also as workers: they were shown with
a rifle in one hand and a hammer in the other. Whether young or old, women
began to be depicted as selflessly working and fighting to save the country. As
casualties in the war increased in the 1960s, women were urged to join the
struggle in larger numbers. Many women responded and joined the resistance
movement. They helped in nursing the wounded, constructing underground rooms
and tunnels and fighting the enemy.
Along
the Ho Chi Minh trail young volunteers kept open 2,195 km of strategic roads
and guarded 2,500 key points. They built six airstrips, neutralized tens of
thousands of bombs, transported tens of thousands of kilograms of cargo,
weapons and food and shot down fifteen planes. Between 1965 and 1975, of the
17,000 youth who worked on the trail, 70 to 80 per cent were women. One
military historian argues that there were 1.5 million women in the regular
army, the militia, the local forces and professional teams.
End
of US Occupation
The
prolongation of the war created strong reactions even within the US. It was
clear that the US had failed to achieve its objectives: the Vietnamese
resistance had not been crushed; the support of the Vietnamese people for US
action had not been won. In the meantime, thousands of young US soldiers had
lost their lives, and countless Vietnamese civilians had been killed.
This
was a war that has been called the first
television war. Battle scenes were shown on the daily news programmes. Many
became disillusioned with what the US was doing and writers such as Mary McCarthy, and actors like Jane Fonda even visited North Vietnam
and praised their heroic defence of the country. The scholar Noam Chomsky
called the war ‘the greatest threat to peace, to national self-determination,
and to international cooperation’.
The
widespread questioning of government policy strengthened moves to negotiate an
end to the war. A peace settlement was signed in Paris in January 1974. This ended conflict with the US but fighting
between the Saigon regime and the NLF continued. The NLF occupied the
presidential palace in Saigon on 30 April 1975 and unified Vietnam.
