by Baker Chris
This new westernized monarchy became more public. In early Bangkok, pellet-archers still went ahead of royal processions to prevent people viewing the royal body. After an archer injured a woman late in the Third Reign, they were limited to ‘threatening persons showing disrespect’. Mongkut stopped the whole practice and welcomed spectators at his royal rituals and provincial tours. Chulalongkorn exposed the royal body and its image much more. He delighted in being photographed, painted, and sculpted. He allowed his image to be reproduced on coins, stamps, mementoes, and postcards. He rode around Bangkok in an open landau and later an automobile (Figure 4). From 1899, he mingled among a select crowd at an annual fair at Wat Benjamabophit. In 1908, a statue of Chulalongkorn astride a horse was unveiled in front of the new Italianate throne hall. Cast in Paris and portraying the king in western military attire, the image was the first use of statuary outside a religious context, and a massive statement of the royal presence in the capital.
Figure 4: King Chulalongkorn, modern and revealed. Probably in the Dusit quarter in the early 1900s.
In the latter part of the reign, this open and modern monarchy was presented to the public in grand spectacles. The city was remodelled around the turn of the century by two avenues inspired by the Champs Elysées and named Ratchadamnoen, the royal way. They were used for magnificent processions on the occasion of the king’s return from a second trip to Europe in 1907, and on the 40th anniversary of his reign a year later. Both these events were themed as celebrations of the ‘progress’ achieved during the reign. Government departments built ceremonial arches and parade floats to dramatize advances in agriculture, health, taxation, railways, telegraphy, and electricity generation. Three years later, Chulalongkorn’s son and successor, Vajiravudh, held a second coronation, attended by royalty from Britain, Russia, Greece, Sweden, Denmark, and Japan. The event lasted 13 days, accompanied by a popular fair, and used up 8 per cent of the national budget.
Several reforms were designed to secure and dramatize the continuity of the Chakri dynasty. Mongkut had stated that ‘the king is a human’ and that ‘attributing kingship to divine power detracts from the merit and capabilities of the man’. But the transmission of these capabilities, he insisted, was carried in the royal blood. A king was ‘someone of good birth based on former lives of excellence on both sides [that is, both maternal and paternal]’.31 Mongkut finessed the succession by giving his favoured son, Chulalongkorn, an unquestionably higher title than any rival, and rewarding Chuang Bunnag for overseeing the process. Chulalongkorn adapted western practice to ensure dynastic continuity. He abolished the concept of the Front Palace and introduced the idea of nominating an heir. He then rewrote the Palace Law, basing the succession on European-style primogeniture modified to accommodate polygamy. In 1916, his successor, Vajiravudh, further emphasized continuity by retrospectively renaming all the Chakri kings as Ramathibodi (usually shortened to Rama) in a numbered sequence – Rama I, II, III, and so on. Portraits were made of each, relying on memory for the early monarchs.
Chulalongkorn chose all his seven major wives from among half-sisters and cousins, thus restricting his descent within bloodlines extending from the Chakri founder. He rebased the calendar to begin from the foundation of Bangkok and the Chakri dynasty, and created public holidays celebrating the dynasty’s foundation and the king’s birthday. Over the last quarter of the 19th century, the monarchy gained financial security, dynastic continuity, and a dominant role in the new government. It made itself into a symbol of the ‘progress’ associated with the dominant west and the modern world. In the architecture and theatre of the new capital, the monarchy had a dominating presence. Adapting from the Code Napoleon, Chulalongkorn defined the absolute royal power as follows:
The king rules absolutely at his own royal desire. There is nothing greater than this. The king has absolute power as 1) ruler over the realm and refuge for the people; 2) the source of justice; 3) the source of rank and status; 4) commander of the armed forces who relieves the people’s suffering by waging war or conducting friendly relations with other countries. The king does no wrong. There is no power that can judge or punish him.32
Drama, architecture, and history
While displaying admiration for the west, the elite also felt that Siam needed a distinctive heritage as part of its qualification as a nation-state. Since the start of the Bangkok period, the court had put efforts into retrieving and sustaining the court culture of the late Ayutthaya era, especially drama performances based on stories from the Ramakian (an adaptation of the Indian Ramayana) and the Inao tales (originally from Indonesia). It was de rigueur for each monarch to compose dramas based on episodes from these works. During the reigns of Mongkut and Chulalongkorn, classical forms of performance, which had gone out of fashion since the fall of Ayutthaya, were self-consciously revived – especially the khon masked drama – and modernized by adding some western stagecraft. There was also revival of the Ayutthaya court fashion for composing verse in complex metres on mythological themes often drawn from Sanskrit literature. Mongkut and his successors liked to rename places with words from Sanskrit or Pali as these seemed more cultured, euphonious, and siwilai than the Thai or Lao of the common people.
This mix of revivalism and westernization appeared in architecture. The Royal Pages School (later Vajiravudh College) was built in 1910 on the model of an English public school, but self-consciously Thai in the buildings’ style and decoration. Wat Benjamabophit, the most prominent wat built in this era, was an idealized rendering of traditional Thai architecture, with touches of European inspiration in the walls of Carrera marble and the stained-glass windows of Gothic inspiration. The murals were designed by a Thai prince on traditional lines, then executed by an Italian in Renaissance style.
The court also adopted new cultural practice in the spirit of the age, especially social science that reflected the belief in humanity’s ability to change the world. Apart from the interest in anthropology noted above, the most popular and important genre was history. Mongkut understood the importance of history in this era fascinated by the idea of progress. He travelled to historical sites, collected historical sources, and compiled a tentative Short History of Siam. Chulalongkorn included a celebration of Siamese history as part of the festivals that marked the climax of his reign. The event was staged in 1907 in the ruins of the old capital of Ayutthaya. Chulalongkorn had just returned from his second tour of Europe’s historic capitals. In his speech at this event, he noted that well-established countries ‘uphold that the history of one’s nation and country is an important matter to be known clearly and accurately through study and teaching. It is a discipline for evaluating ideas and actions as right or wrong, good or bad, as a means to inculcate love of one’s nation and land’.33 He found that established countries had compiled their histories back at least a thousand years, and he announced the foundation of an Antiquarian Society dedicated to compiling such a history for Siam. The following year, his son Vajiravudh visited Sukhothai, carrying the text of an inscription found by Mongkut and dated to 1292. He matched monuments mentioned in the text with ruins found on the ground (Figure 5). He published his account of the visit ‘to make the Thai more aware that our Thai race is deep-rooted and is not a race of jungle-folk or, as the English say, uncivilized’.34 Vajiravudh and Damrong established Sukhothai as ‘the first capital of the Thai’, and the beginning of an unbroken sequence down though Ayutthaya to Thonburi/Bangkok.
Figure 5: Monarchy mobilizing history. Prince Vajiravudh examines archaeological finds in 1907.
In 1915, Damrong squabbled with Vajiravudh and quit the Interior Ministry. He was already engaged in historical research and thereafter it would engage all his energy. After helping to create the nation as an administrative unit, he now gave it a history. Over the next two decades he produced over 50 studies, including texts, travelogues, and anthropological studies, but overwhelmingly historical works. In 1920, he published the book best known as Thai rop Pham
a (The Thai Wars with the Burmese). It was an immediate success and remains Thailand’s most famous history book. It portrays the Burmese as the ever-hostile Other who give definition to Siam as a nation. It pushes the nation back into the past in a series of wars lasting over 400 years. It places the king at the centre of the story, and highlights Naresuan and Yotfa as the heroic defenders of national independence. It lingers on the two sackings of Ayutthaya in 1569 and 1767 as the great national disasters brought about by national disunity, especially within the nobility. It introduces ordinary people into the national story in the tale of Bang Rajan, a village that fought bravely and hopelessly against the Burmese in 1767, with no help from the capital yet inspired by a natural loyalty and marshalled by a solitary Buddhist monk.
Damrong defined the national character of the Thai as seen through history as ‘devoted to national freedom, non-violent, and skilled in compromising different interests’.35 Because of these qualities, people of many races had become ‘Siamese’ by showing loyalty to the king and adopting the Thai language.
Commoner intellectuals
The court dominated the opportunities for modern education, overseas contact, and illustrious careers. But it could not totally monopolize them. A small number of talented commoners were able to participate. They were also fascinated by the western concept of progress, but took away rather different inspiration compared to the leaders of the court. Although their numbers were few, through the new medium of printing they gained an audience. Missionaries had introduced Thai printing in the 1830s. Initially, it was monopolized by church and court, but by the 1870s was available to others.
Kulap Kritsananon was the son of a Siam-born Chinese married to the daughter of a minor official. He was educated at wat schools and then, because his talent attracted attention and patronage, by tutors on the fringes of the court. He worked for 15 years in farang companies, travelling around Asia, acquiring western languages, and falling in love with books. He settled back in Bangkok in the 1880s and was one of the first to start an independent press. He made good enough contacts at court to borrow manuscripts from the palace libraries and had them surreptitiously copied and later printed. He started a journal (Sayam Praphet), which gained a circulation of 1500, for articles on history and culture, which he conjured out of his purloined texts and his own essays on recent historical events. Eventually he was prosecuted, ostensibly for adding his own amendments and inventions into the original texts, but equally for his effrontery in publishing knowledge, which was formerly the secret property of the palace.
Thianwan Wannapho also attracted the court’s anger. His parents were commoners with a remote claim to noble ancestry. Like Kulap he was educated in the wat and on the fringes of the court. He started trading on the Chao Phraya River, and later ranged further afield to Singapore, but returned to study English and law. He made a reputation as a lawyer for defending the poor, and for openly criticizing the exploitation and corruption of the ruling elite. He was cautioned against such outspokenness, and then jailed for life in 1882 for a technical infringement of legal practice. He was released after 16 years and walked from the jail with a sheaf of writings. He began a journal that railed against forced labour, polygamy, the government’s patronage of gambling, and the lack of political representation. Most of all, he questioned why politics was the exclusive preserve of the court. He was fascinated by Japan’s success in not only resisting colonialism but also in emulating the western pursuit of ‘progress’. He argued that Japan was successful because its self-strengthening was truly a national movement, whereas in Siam the court elite was deliberately exclusive.
Another commoner intellectual, Thim Sukkhayang, came from a family of raft traders. He was educated in the wat and gained the patronage of a high-ranking official. In 1878, he published a nirat about a military expedition to the northeastern frontier region. The poem charged Chuang Bunnag, who had planned the expedition, with incompetence resulting in military failure and high loss of life. It portrayed ordinary people as victims of the incompetence and corruption of the noble elite. The court ruled that ‘the content of the poem was too much for a nirat’,36 and after a summary trial Thim was jailed and the book destroyed.
Kulap, Thianwan, and Thim came from ordinary backgrounds. Their education came from traditional wat schools, patronage at the fringes of the court, and contact with farang through involvement in the trading economy. With the foundation of new schools from the 1880s onwards, more commoners wormed their way into elite education. Despite the court’s wish to restrict education to the high born, their need for educated people to staff the new administration was greater. Many royal and noble children found the new schooling demeaning or too difficult. Chulalongkorn constantly hectored and threatened them to participate, but with mixed results. Prosperous Chinese and other commoner families, however, welcomed the new opportunities. The law, military, and civil service schools soon had large proportions of commoners whose parents were ready to pay the discriminatory fees. While some commoner recruits ascended quickly in their careers, more often they were leapfrogged by those with higher birth and better connections. Especially in the military, no commoners ascended to the highest ranks, but they dominated the middle officer cadre.
Both Thianwan and Kulap farangized their names by adding initials (T. S. R. Wannapho, K. S. R. Kulap). Like the court intellectuals, they were fascinated by the idea of people making history, by the concept of the nation-state, and by ‘progress’. But where the court thinkers distilled from these ideas a new concept of absolute kingship defending the integrity of the nation and leading the way to progress, the commoner intellectuals were inspired by the ideal of a nation in which hierarchies and exclusions were abolished so that all the citizens could contribute to its progress. Their ideas became the inspiration for a following generation who found that entering a service career was an education in modern knowledge and traditional hierarchy – a potent combination.
The limits of siwilai
Within the elite, there was debate on what reforms were needed to manage the west. In 1884, as the French took Indochina and the British fought their way into Upper Burma, Chulalongkorn asked Prisdang, his cousin at the head of the Paris legation, how Siam’s independence could be preserved. Three other half-brothers of Chulalongkorn in Europe at the time were among the 11 signatories of the reply in January 1885. The danger to Siam, they argued, arose from the west’s belief in its own mission to ‘bring progress and civilization so mankind everywhere is equally content’. A western power would justify seizing a country that failed to provide progress, justice, free trade, and protection for foreign nationals – ‘in sum, the ability to govern and develop the country’. They advised:
To resolve this problem, Siam must be accepted and respected by the Western powers as a civilized nation…According to European belief, in order for a government to maintain justice it must be based on popular consensus…No nation in Europe can believe that Siam maintains justice since everything is decided by the king.37
The memorial recommended cabinet government, paid bureaucracy based on merit, equality before the law, an end to corruption, and freedom of speech. Most of all, it proposed a constitution, ‘so that people, feeling that repression and injustice is at an end, will love the country, and realize that Siam belongs to its citizens’. The memorialists’ model was Japan, the Asian country that had begun to emulate the west.
The memorial defined the point where Chulalongkorn’s admiration of Europe ended. In his replies, the king argued that Siam’s political tradition was different. European monarchs had practised absolutism, triggering efforts to control them with parliaments and constitutions. But the Siamese king ruled according to Buddhist morality. Hence:
In Siam there has never been such a political event where the people were against the king. Contrary to what happened in Europe, Siamese kings have led the people so that both they and the country might be prosperous and happy…the people would never be pleased to have
Western institutions. They have more faith in the king than in any members of parliament, because they believe that the king more than anybody else practises justice and loves the people.38
Chulalongkorn stressed that he had only just won power from ‘conservative ministers’, that there were ‘no suitable and able people’ to man a parliament, and that ‘reform’ required undivided authority.
Courtiers reinforced this argument by reviving old royal theory and restating it in the new language of nation and state. Phraya Phatsakorawong, a Bunnag and one of the two non-royals among the senior ministers, restated the idea prevalent from at least Borommakot’s time that the original king was chosen spontaneously by the people for his moral goodness: ‘our ancestors came together to form a chat. This gathering chose from one family a capable man to be the leader of the chat…This had not been brought about by the opinion of the majority; rather it had been through the leader’s own authority’. Another western-educated official portrayed resistance against the French as the defence of Buddhism and urged: ‘We must be united to struggle against the royal foe in order to repay our gratitude to the king; we must defend Buddhism from being trampled by the impious; we must…preserve the freedom and independence of chat Thai’.39