Thai cultural mandates

Thai poster from the cultural mandate era demonstrating prohibited dress on the left and proper dress on the right.
Field Marshal Plaek Pibulsonggram inspecting students.
Plaek Pibulsonggram giving encouraging speech to support agricultural activities.

The cultural mandates or state decrees (Thai: รัฐนิยม, pronounced [rát.tʰā.ní.jōm]; RTGS: ratthaniyom; literally "state fashion" or "state customs") were a series of twelve edicts issued between 1939 and 1942 by the government of Field Marshal Plaek Pibulsonggram during his first term as prime minister and military dictator of Thailand.[1] The mandates aimed to create a uniform and "civilized" Thai culture at the time when the country was one of the Axis powers. Many of the mandates' practices were a result of Thailand entering World War II, and they remain in effect.[1]

  1. ^ a b Numnonda, Thamsook (September 1978). "Pibulsongkram's Thai Nation-Building Programme during the Japanese Military Presence, 1941-1945". Journal of Southeast Asian Studies. 9 (2): 234–247. doi:10.1017/S0022463400009760. JSTOR 20062726. S2CID 162373204.