Orwell spent five years from 1922 to 1927 as a police officer in the Indian Imperial Police force in Burma (now Myanmar). The British had gradually annexed Burma in stages, and it was not until 1885, when they captured the royal capital of Mandalay, that Burma as a whole could be declared part of the British Empire. Migrant workers from India and China supplemented the native Burmese population. Although Burma was the wealthiest country in Southeast Asia under British rule, much of the wealth was in the hands of Europeans. As colony it was seen very much as a backwater.[4] Under the British administration, the people of Burma were at the bottom of social hierarchy, with Europeans at the top, Indians, Chinese, and Christianized minorities in the middle, and Buddhist Burmese at the bottom.[5]
The image which Britons were meant to uphold in these communities was a huge burden and the majority of them carried expectations all the way from Britain with the intention of maintaining their customs and rule. Among its exports, the country produced 75 per cent of the world's teak from up-country forests. When Orwell came to the Irrawaddy Delta in January 1924 to begin his career as an imperial policeman, the delta was Burma's leading exporting region, providing three million tons of rice annually, half the world's supply.[6]: 86 Orwell served in a number of locations in Burma. After a year of training in Mandalay and Maymyo, his postings included Myaungmya, Twante, Syriam, Moulmein, and Kathar. It also included Insein, situated north of Rangoon, the site of the colony's most secure prison, and now Burma's most notorious jail.[6]: 146
Burmese Days was several years in the writing. Orwell drafted it in Paris from 1928 to 1929. He revised it in 1932 at Southwold while doing up the family home during the summer holidays. By December 1933 he had typed the final version,[7] and in 1934 delivered it to his agent, Leonard Moore, who submitted it to Victor Gollancz, the publisher of Orwell's previous book. Gollancz, already fearing prosecution from having published another author's work, turned it down because he was worried about charges of libel.[7] Heinemann and Cape turned it down for the same reason. After demanding alterations, Harpers was prepared to publish it in the United States, where it appeared in 1934. In the spring of 1935, Gollancz declared that he was prepared to publish a British edition provided Orwell could demonstrate he had not named real people. To that end, extensive checks were made in colonial lists before Gollancz brought out the English version on 24 June 1935.[8] Nonetheless, many of the main European names appearing in the novel have since been identified in the Rangoon Gazette as belonging to real people, with the name "U Po Kyin" in particular belonging to a Burmese officer who was at the Police Training School in Mandalay with Orwell.[9]
