One week ago, Maitrii Aung-Thwin visited City University of Hong Kong to give a terrific presentation on the Saya San revolt. His actual title was “In the shadow of the king: rural resistance and special rebellion law in colonial Burma”. It was fascinating to learn more about an uprising fomented in Tharrawaddy District (three and a half hours northwest of Rangoon) in the closing days of 1930, quickly focused on the person of “Galon King” Saya San, and rapidly infecting many parts of lowland Burma. Still more interesting, though, was Maitrii’s argument about the historiography of this important episode. Not wanting to declare martial law and thereby cede control to military forces, British colonial officials issued special rebellion ordinances (and eventually acts) on the basis of which special rebellion tribunals were created. Saya San’s trial proceeded in this manner, and resulted in his execution at the end of October 1931. Significantly, this trial then became the template for all subsequent judicial action, imposing a perhaps spurious coherence on the revolt. Moreover, the story was ultimately written up in Britain’s official (Blue Book) report of 1934, “The Origin and Causes of the Burma Rebellion (1930-32)”. Effectively, it was set in stone at this point, generating, as Maitrii argued, a possibly too neat historical narrative. What may in fact have been a rather disparate and atomized set of peasant outbursts thereby came down to history as a unified revolt.