Royalist history paints 1932 as a coup by a self-interested clique which thwarted King Prajadhipok's wish to introduce a constitution and led Thailand to militarism and fascism. In 2017, the plaque commemorating 1932 was ripped out of the Royal Plaza -- symbolising the wish to cancel all memory of the event. Democratic history claims 1932 as a revolution which launched Thailand towards democracy and a modern society in which the majority can participate and benefit. In 2020 the youth activists reinstalled the plaque in cyberspace and called themselves the New People's Party. The event matters, one way or the other, down to today.
Arjun Subrahmanyan, who teaches Asian history in Australia, has here written the best book in English on 1932, not so much on its roots as on its consequences, both short-term and long. He summarises a lot of new research in Thai, and he has read deeply in the newspapers, books and government records of the 1930s and 1940s.
He argues that 1932 was certainly a revolution, but a compromised one. The People's Party, the small group who overthrew absolute monarchy in June 1932, was drawn from a new middle class of about 100,000 in a population of 12 million, and especially from the civilian and military bureaucracy. They believed in the bureaucracy and had risen in wealth and status by joining it. Many of them had links of kin and camaraderie to their conservative opponents. Many were rattled by the radicalism of Pridi Banomyong's economic plan. The fierce and sustained royalist reaction to 1932 made the People's Party leaders become tentative, then defensive, and then repressive. Plans to build a base of mass support were abandoned. The People's Party pushed an agenda of reform, but within limits, and with a strong streak of moral instruction. Subrahmanyan characterises this as "democratic paternalism".
In part this was a consequence of the extreme inequalities cultivated by absolutism. Enormous resources had been spent on the foreign education of a small elite, while most had no schooling at all. The People's Party aimed to provide at least half with primary education, but this was difficult because of the limited resources. In the rules set for new schools in the 1930s, a headmaster had to be at least 19 years old and have a teaching certificate and at least one year's experience. Many probably did not even meet these qualifications. The demand to overcome this deficit of learning was enormous. When Thammasat University opened in 1935, some 7,000 enrolled, almost 10 times the number at the only other university, Chulalongkorn. Similarly, 55,000 took new exams for monks in 1933.
Subrahmanyan calls the leaders of the People's Party the "insiders" of the revolution, and sees them as embattled by the royalist reaction and compromised by their own background and the limitations of their resources. In the most original part of the book, he argues that "the revolution ignited aspirations among common people for a greater say in government and a more egalitarian society", and inspired "outsiders" to push for a wide range of different reforms.
Young teachers pressed the government to remove older teachers from the absolutist regime, who were bad or negligent as educators, and who continued to promote conservative ideas. Journalists and activists took up the cause of urban labour and pressed for higher wages and better conditions for factory hands and rickshaw pullers. In the countryside, teachers and local officials complained about the government's lack of attention to agriculture, the mainstay of the majority of the population, and advocated promotion of co-operatives for greater social justice. Local activists pointed to the enormous gap between the capital and provinces, and demanded government invest more in infrastructure to connect the localities to the capital to open up economic opportunities.
A network of young monks came together to protest against certain abbots, but then broadened into a movement to reduce the dominant position of the royalist Thammayut sect over the sangha as a whole and increasingly over local temples as well. In 1941, their movement resulted in a new act governing the monkhood.
Especially after direct elections began in 1937, several new MPs used their platform in the Assembly to criticise the large budget devoted to the military, and to press for more spending on education, local government, agriculture and industrial development. They also criticised the domineering attitude of the government leaders, and argued for more democracy.
These activists fall into a pattern. Most came from modest backgrounds in the provinces; they did brilliantly in the new education; some attracted noble patronage, while others made a small living from boxing, and one self-taught by reading books belonging to customers at his father's opium den; they went to law school and later to Thammasat University; they got jobs as teachers, but were also employed as district officers and other posts because of the shortage of educated people in the provinces; they attracted a local following because of their brilliance, the cachet of their education, and their advocacy.
At the end of World War II, the royalists returned and brought the People's Party era to an end in a series of coups and assassinations. Several of Subrahmanyan's outsiders were killed, jailed or dispersed.
The impact of these outsiders' campaigns was mixed. Subrahmanyan's point is that 1932 should not be judged on the record of the People's Party alone, but also on what the revolution inspired in a wider swathe of the population, with consequences for the pro-democracy movement ever since.
This book is a great piece of history writing and also a polemic, a blow against "the amnesia of contemporary Thai politics, its lack of a sense of history".
The monarchy and the military dominate the histories of modern Thailand but, as Subrahmanyan notes: "Those who have tried to build democracy meanwhile remain much less well known. In a region where state-enforced amnesia is rife, Thailand has turned it into an art form."
Subrahmanyan shines a light on the history that the royalist interpretation aims to efface, like the plaque. He portrays the insiders warts and all, showing their achievements but also their limitations. He highlights the outsiders and their contribution to the pro-democracy movement which is too easily forgotten. This is a book for today.
