Field Marshal P. Pibulsongkram, The third Prime Minister of Siam, was formerly named Plaek Khitasangka. He finished high school from Wat Khemaphitaram School, Nonthaburi Province. He then entered the Royal Military Academy, The Artillery School, and graduated in the 10th class from the Command and General Staff College. In 1924 he furthered his education in France and returned to Siam to receive the position of Chief of the Weather Checkup for Experiment, Department of Artillery Inspector General and was given the rank and name Luang Pibulsongkram and Major Luang Pibulsongkram respectively. Besides his major duty, he was a lecturer at the Command and General Staff College and the Artillery School. He also wrote many essays on Artillery works for Military Journals.
In 1926, while he was in France, he, along with 7 other Thai Students in Europe, founded the Khanarasadon (Peoples Alliance) a movement to change the administrative system from Absolute Monarchy to Democracy which succeeded in 1932.
After the 1932 transition, Mr. P. held may positions along with his military duties. He was a member of the peoples committee in the Administration Commissions together with commanding the army with the rank of Deputy Commanding General of the Arsenal Department. He was Minister without Portfolio under Praya Manupakorn Nittithadas Government and Minister of Defense in Colonel Phraya Phahol Pholpayuhasenas Government. The highest rank in his political career was Prime Minister for three times, during 1938-1944 and 1948-1957, a total of 15 years. Thus he was the Prime Minister who stayed in this position the longest.
On September 16, 1957 Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat, Commander in Chief and Minister of Defense at the time, led a coup détat causing Field Marshal P. Pibulsongkram and his family to seek asylum in Cambodia and Japan.
The Field Marshal passed away in Japan on June 11, 1964.
His best known accomplishment was his creation of the Thai National Identity during his first term as Prime Minster, although this attempt lasted for only 6 years and some policies were eliminated after his position ended. However, some of the ideas remain the Thai intellectual structure and culture, for example, the clothing, lifestyle, language and literature.
The policies were implemented in the form of State Conventions, the National Culture Council, The Cabinet Announcements and Peoples Development Projects by the Prime Minister. One motto that clearly projects the Field Marshals policy was Believe in the Leader and the Nation Will Survive. The Thai national identity policies were as follows:
State Conventions The State Conventions served as the commandment from the Government for all people to observe. During the 6 years, the government passed 12 conventions such as the change of the countrys name from Siam to Thailand to go along with the nationality of the people. The Thais had to learn to respect the National Flag, the National Anthem and the Sansern Phra Barami or the Thai Royal Anthem. Regulations were passed to identify the specific occasions each of the three principles must be paid respect to as well as how to dress during certain occasions.
The Cultural Council The importance of promoting the nations culture was seen so the Cultural Council was established after the National Culture Act, 1941 to be responsible for 5 types of work:
1. The mental culture institution The institute for example, announced a Labor Act to provide jobs to the jobless in September 1941, and announced a policy for wellbeing by instructing the people to consume pork, duck, poultry, beef, vegetables and eggs instead of dieting on only rice and chili paste or creatures that arent proper foods.
2. Creating a nation through customs and traditions, for example, declaring June 24 of each year to be the National Day. Changing the New Years day from the 13th of April or Songkran to January 1. Another policy was to cancel all social rankings of Chao Phraya, Phraya, Phra, Luang, Khun starting from May 15, 1942. There was also a Ministry of Interior Announcement for all Thais to dress according to the regulations in order to show how civilized our nation was. For example, men had to wear hats, shoes, socks, dress suits and trousers. As for women, hats, skirts, jackets and cut shoes or sling back shoes were recommended.
3. Creating a nation through art such as passing the 1942 Royal Decree on the national culture, article 9 stating that Thais must encourage art development. In 1943, Silpakorn University was established along with the invention of the standard Thai dance or Ramwong Matrathan and the performance was encouraged by allowing all government officials to practice the dance on Wednesday afternoons instead of their normal duty as a way of creating cultural unity.
4. Creating a nation through literature The Government considered that for a nation to become civilized the people must have the ability to read. An adult education program was promoted along with an improvement of the Thai alphabet making it simpler to learn and read by reducing the repetitive vowels and eliminating the characters that dont look good. The ใ, ฤ, ฤๅ, ฦ, ฦๅ vowels and ฃ, ฅ, ฌ, ฎ, ฎ, ฐ, ฑ, ฒ, ณ, ศ, ษ, and ฬ characters were eliminated, for example. Other linguistic rules were invented like using the word Chan (I) for the first person pronoun and Than (you) for the second person pronoun.
5. Creating a nation through women The government set a goal to raise the position of women to equal that of men. A womens battalion was set up along with a Military Academy and a Non-Commissioned Officer School for women. An announcement on Husband and Wife Culture was issued as well. Chiang Mai established a Sri Lanna Womens Culture Promotion Association in accordance with the governments womens policy.
The governments policies were very effective as was the assistance of the press and media in widely publishing these ideas. Even though Field Marshal P. Pibulsongkram had left his position and the new government cancelled all the Nation Creation policies, some customs remain until today.
References
Charnvit Kasetsiri (editor). (2001). Chom Phon Po. Pibulsongkram Kap Kan Mueang Sa Mai Mai (Field Marshal P. Pibulsongkram and modern politics). (in Thai). Bangkok: The Humanities and
Social Science Text Book Foundation.
Thaemsuk Noomnont. (1976, June-September). Kan mueang Thai yuk chuea phunam (Thai Politics during the Believe the Leader era).
(in Thai). Thammasart Journal 6(1).
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