5 - The Thai State and Ethnic Minorities: From Assimilation to Selective Integration

Summary

The Expansion of the Thai State

The hill tribe people in the northern Thai highlands are now facing an uncertain future due to a drastic change in the state's policy of national integration. Such uncertainty reflects the dilemma of nation building, between national integration and ethnic pluralism.

The kingdom of Siam, as it was called until 1939 when the revolution ended absolute monarchy, grew over a period of some 300 years, from the rise of the Ayuthaya kingdom in the late 15th century to the early Bangkok period in the mid-19th century. During this period, the Thai state extended its military power over the principalities in the north and northeast, as well as the sultanates in the Malay peninsular, making them vassal states. By about 1851, the majority of Thai people lived within the bounds of the Siamese empire. Although it had a relatively small population — between one to two million people in the early 19th century — the kingdom included several ethnic minorities, some of whom were indigenous inhabitants, along with prisoners of war, slaves, refugees, foreign merchants, mercenaries, and so forth. Even in the Ayutthaya period, from the mid 14th century to its fall in 1767, Siam was ethnically diverse. However, the majority of the population spoke the ethnic Thai language.

It was not until the period of Western colonialism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with all the implications it brought for the country's sovereignty, that the efforts at national integration began. With the incorporation of vassal states, a unified kingdom emerged. A demarcation of the boundaries, after much competition and bargaining, led to legitimate borders recognized by both the British and the French colonial powers. Identification was also necessary to determine who actually belonged in the kingdom's realm. Many ethnic groups living within this entity, who were differentiated from the Siamese by language and culture, were nevertheless identified as “Thai” people. The “Yuan” in the north and the Muslims in the south, for instance were included as members of the emerging state. Similarly, other non-Thai ethnic minorities and even indigenous peoples, such as the Karen and Lua in the north, the Kui and Khmer in the lower northeast, and the Mon in the western region, were incorporated and, to varying extents, assimilated.