U Nu (otherwise known as Thakin Nu; May 25, 1907 - February 14, 1995) was a Burmese nationalist and political figure. He served as the head of government of Burma between 1947 and 1948. He was the first prime minister of Burma between 1948 and 1956, again from 1957 to 1958, and finally between 1960 and 1962.

His political life started as a university student when he became president of the Rangoon University Students Union (RUSU) with Aung San as its secretary. They were both expelled from university on account of an article that appeared in the union magazine, and their expulsion sparked off the second university students' strike in history of 1936. Both became members of the nationalist Do Bama Asi-ayone (We Burmans Association) which had been formed in 1930 and henceforth gained the prefix Thakin, proclaiming they were the true masters of their own land. In 1937 he co-founded with Thakin Than Tun the Nagani (Red Dragon) Book Club which for the first time widely circulated Burmese-language translations of the Marxist classics. He also became a leader and co-founder of the People's Revolutionary Party (PRP), which later became the Socialist Party, and the umbrella organisation the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL), which advocated Burmese independence from both Japanese and British occupation during the 1940s. He was detained by the colonial government in 1940 along with Thakins Soe and Than Tun, Kyaw Nyein and Dr Ba Maw. After the assassination of its political and military leader Aung San along with his cabinet ministers in 1947, U Nu led the AFPFL and signed an independent agreement ( the Nu-Atlee Treaty) with the British Premier Clement Atlee.

After Burma declared independence from Britain on January 4, 1948, U Nu became Prime Minister of independent Burma. Nu immediately had to deal with armed rebellion from various ethnic groups, the Karen in particular, and communist factions, including certain regiments in the Army. Yet another challenge was the exiled Kuomintang (KMT), chased out of China by the victorious Communists. They had established bases in eastern Burma and it took several years in the early 1950s to drive them out of Burma. A democratic system was instituted, however, and parliamentary elections were held several times. He was replaced in 1956 by another AFPFL member U Ba Swe for one year. In 1958 he asked the Army Chief of Staff General Ne Win to take over as a "Care-Taker Government". In the 1960 general election, U Nu's "Clean" faction of the AFPFL won in a landslide victory over the "Stable" faction led by U Ba Swe and U Kyaw Nyein and returned to power forming the Pyidaungzu (Union) government. Two years later, on March 2, 1962, Nu was overthrown by a coup d'etat led by Ne Win.

After the 1962 coup, Nu was put under house arrest and was not released until 1966. He left Burma two years later under the pretext of a pilgrimage to India and went into exile in order to form the Parliamentary Democracy Party (PDP) and lead an armed resistance group that attempted to overthrow General Ne Win from the Thai border. When it failed Nu accepted an offer of amnesty granted by Ne Win and returned to Burma in 1980. He was again politically active during the 8888 Uprising forming the first new political party, the League for Democracy and Peace (LDP). His invitation to Aung San Suu Kyi to form an interim government was rejected, and he was again arrested following the September 18,1988 coup led by General Saw Maung. In 1989 he was convicted for attempting to set up a rival government, and was sentenced to house arrest. He was released in 1992.

A devout Buddhist, U Nu was long the popular spiritual leader of his country. He had the Kaba Aye (World Peace) pagoda and the Maha Pasana Guha (great cave) built in 1952 in preparation for the Sixth Buddhist Synod that he convened and hosted in 1954-56 as prime minister. He declared Buddhism as the official state religion, which alienated the Christian ethnic minorities such as the Kachin, and cow slaughtering was officially banned; beef became known as todo tha (lit. hush hush meat). When General Ne Win became Premier, one of his first acts was to repeal the ban on cow slaughtering, which perhaps was symbolic of a personality clash between Nu and Ne Win.

U Nu authored several books. Among his works are The People Win Through (1951), Burma under the Japanese (1954), An Asian Speaks (1955), and Burma Looks Ahead, (1951). His autobiography (1907-1962) Ta-Tei Sanei Tha ("Ta-Tei - Saturday Son") was published in India by Irrawaddy Publishing, U Maw Thiri in 1975. Before he became Prime Minister, he had translated Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People (Lu Paw Lu Zaw Louk Nee in Burmese) which became a pescribed text in schools in the 1950s.

U Thant had been Secretary to the Prime Minister U Nu before he was appointed Burmese Ambassador to the United Nations in 1957. Later in 1961, U Thant became the UN's third Secretary-General.

Nu died on 14 February 1995 in Yangon at the age of 87. He was survived by his wife Daw Mya Yi and five children, San San (daughter), Thaung Htaik (son), Maung Aung (son), Than Than and Cho Cho (daughters).

Novelist and Playwright

Besides serving as Prime Minister U Nu was also an accomplished novelist and playwright.

In a work from the colonial period It's Just Cruel (also entitled "Man, the Wolf of Man") U Nu describes how during the colonial period rich landlords were able to get away with just about any crime they wished to perpetrate.

The play The Sound of the People Victorious that U Nu wrote while he was Prime Minister is about the havoc that communist ideologies can wreak in a family. Strangely enough the first production of the play seems to have been in Pasadena, California. It later became a popular comic book in Burma, was translated into English, and made into a feature film at the height of the cold war 1950s. Some people in Burma can even remember having studied the play in school when they were children.

In the play Thaka Ala, published just before the 1962 coup, U Nu paints an extremely ugly picture of corrupt politics both among the high ranking politicians in power at the time as well as among the communist leaders who were gaining ascendancy. This is a play in the vernacular, a genre that hardly exists in Burmese literature. A translation into English was published in installments in the Guardian Newspaper. The play is critical of the current state of politics in Burma at the time (around 1960) and in this critical stance it resembles Thein Pei Myint's The Modern Monk. Like The Modern Monk it deals with scandalous sexual liaisons not much in keeping with traditional modes of Burmese behavior. This time the scandalous sexual liaisons are among politicians both of the left and the right.

References

• U Nu of Burma, Richard Butwell (1963, repr. 1969)
• The Union of Burma, Hugh Tinker
• A History of Modern Burma, John F. Cady
• Burma - Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity, Martin Smith (1991), Zed Books
• U Nu Dies

External links

• Time Magazine Cover
• The Columbia Encyclopedia
• Encyclopædia Britannica Article
• Burma Looks Ahead
• Thaka-Ala, a political satire by U Nu

1907 births | 1995 deaths | Burmese politicians | Burmese literature

U Nu | או נו | У Ну