Ba Maw

(b. Maubin, 8 May 1893; d. Yangon, 1977) Burmese; premier (1937 – 9), head of state (1943 – 5) After an education at Rangoon College, Calcutta University, Grays Inn where he was called to the bar, and Bordeaux where he earned a doctorate in literature, Dr Ba Maw became one of the towering politicians of late colonial Burma. During the final years of British rule, before the Second World War, constitutional reforms had passed a significant degree of power to indigenous elected politicians and Ba Maw was one of the most astute at seizing the opportunities engendered.

He made his mark initially as a barrister, defending the leader of the 1931 peasant revolt, Hsaya Hsan. On the back of the fame achieved as a politician who stayed within colonial law while defending the downtrodden, his small Hsinyeitha (proletarian) Party was able to form the first coalition Cabinet under the Government of Burma Act (1935) in 1937. His government fell two years later in the face of opposition from students and workers who accused him of being pro-imperialist and of aiding foreign capitalists.

Out of office, Ba Maw joined with student leaders, including the subsequent national hero, General Aung San, and the future Prime Minister U Nu, in organizing a united front called the Freedom Bloc which opposed continued British rule as well as Burmese co-operation in Britain's war agianst Nazi Germany. Arrested by the British, he was released by the invading Japanese in August 1942. Recognizing Ba Maw's popularity and ability to work with the youthful nationalists of the country, the Japanese made him head of a newly proclaimed independent state. Taking the title of adipati ashin minkyi, a title with royalist pretensions, Ba Maw lead a government which was recognized by Japan and the Axis powers. His brother, Dr Ba Han, helped draft a detailed planning document for the future of Burma under his supervision.

At the end of the war, Ba Maw fled Burma with the retreating Japanese army. After his capture in Japan, he was held and then released after being considered for prosecution as a war criminal. Returning to Burma, he attempted to re-establish a political career but had lost out by that time to the former students who he had opposed and worked with in the previous decade. His waning influence was subsequently expressed through occasional newspaper articles.

His memoirs, Breakthrough in Burma (1968), give his version of a turbulent political career.

Ba Maw (1893-1977) was the first premier of independent Burma (now Myanmar) and the leader of the wartime government that ruled in cooperation with the occupying Japanese from 1942 to 1945.

Ba Maw was born in Maubin on February 8, 1893. His father was U Kye, who had been an official of the courts of former Burmese kings Mindon and Thibaw and who had actively opposed the establishment of British colonial rule. By far the most learned of the first generation of active nationalist agitators against the British imperial presence, Ba Maw was educated at Rangoon College and at Calcutta University in India. Like many other Burmese nationalists, Ba Maw turned first to teaching as a profession, becoming the first Burmese to be appointed to the faculty of British-run Rangoon College in 1917. He later studied at Cambridge University in England, qualified as a barrister-at-law at Gray's Inn, London, in 1924, and received a doctorate in philosophy from Bordeaux University in France. Upon his return to Burma in 1924, he entered the practice of law.

Nationalist Political Activities of the 1930s

Opposed to the detachment of Burma from British India because it might delay Burmese independence from Britain, Ba Maw was a leader of the faction of the divided General Council of Burmese Associations (GCBA, the country's first avowedly nationalist political organization) that became the Anti-Separation League. This wing of the GCBA won a majority in the 1932 elections. Two years later, Ba Maw became minister of education and public health in the government.

Ba Maw's advance in political prominence was partly the result of his defense of the nationalist Saya San, whose minor rebellion from 1930 to 1932 captured the popular imagination, though it did not inspire widespread participation. Ba Maw - highly Europeanized, Christian (in a Buddhist country), and partly Mon (a minority among the racially proud Burman majority) - courageously, if opportunistically, defended Saya San against a charge of seditious treason. Saya San was convicted and, after various appeals by Ba Maw, executed in 1937.

Ba Maw exploited the Saya San revolt and trial to augment his image as a nationalist and patriot. His defense of the rebel, whose unarmed followers had used "magic" and amulets to protect themselves against British bullets, was probably the main factor in his rise to the premiership.

In 1936, building on the popularity derived from his defense of Saya San, Ba Maw founded the Sinyetha Wunthanu (Poor Man's) party, the first Burmese political organization to appeal directly to the economic interests of the masses. Only 16 Sinyetha candidates were elected to the 132-seat legislature, but in 1937 Ba Maw nonetheless managed to emerge as the first Burmese premier after independence from India. He seemed to suffer a steady decline in popularity during his two-year premiership, which was far less radical in practice than it had been in electoral promises.

Allying himself with such younger and more radical Thakin (Our Masters) nationalists as Aung San and U Nu, Ba Maw was the chief founder in 1939 of the Freedom Bloc, which sought to establish contacts with the expanding Japanese to assist in ousting the colonial British from Burma. Jailed by the British in August 1940, he escaped from Mogok jail in April 1942, when the Japanese advanced into the country.

Heads Provisional Government under Japanese Occupation

The same year Ba Maw was appointed head of the Provisional Administrative Committee by the Japanese, and in 1943 he assumed leadership of the Independence Preparatory Commission. When "independence" was granted by Japan on August 1, 1943, Ba Maw was named adipati (pseudo-royalist head of state) as well as premier.

Publicly Ba Maw seemed to revel in his new high status despite the restrictions inherent in the Japanese presence. Vanity had been one of his hallmarks, and he clearly enjoyed the privileges of his role as a pseudo-monarch. However, he was too wise and patriotic to be taken in by the Japanese or to feel no compassion for the material and psychological hardships of his countrymen, who had swapped a benevolent colonial ruler for a comparatively harsh one. Accordingly, he played a major role in mitigating the effects of the Japanese presence on his countrymen from 1942 to 1945.

Jailed by the Allies in Sugamo Prison, Japan, after the war, Ba Maw returned to Burma in 1946 but never again played a major political role. As a highly articulate critic, however, he persisted in challenging his country's younger rulers. He was jailed by military dictator Gen. Ne Win in 1966 for contact with proclaimed rebels against the regime. Following his release with other political detainees in 1968, Ba Maw returned to the private practice of law. He died on May 28, 1977.

Further Reading

Ba Maw's own perceptive account of the important years 1939-1946 can be read in his Breakthrough in Burma: Memoirs of a Revolution (1968). The same period is also treated by U Nu in Burma under the Japanese: Pictures and Portraits (1945; trans. 1954). A broader perspective is provided in, John F. Cady, A History of Modern Burma (1958). Also recommended is Frank N. Trager, Burma: From Kingdom to Republic: A Historical and Political Analysis (1966). A brief obituary appears in the New York Times (May 31, 1977).

Ba Maw
Premier of the British Crown Colony of Burma
In office 1937 – 1939
Preceded by	None - direct rule under British Raj of British India
Succeeded by	U Saw
Born	February 8, 1893(1893-02-08) Maubin
Died	May 29, 1977 (aged 84) Rangoon
Religion	Christianity (Roman Catholic)[1][2]

Dr. Ba Maw (8 February 1893 – 29 May 1977) was a Burmese political leader, active during the interwar and World War II period.

Contents 1 Early life and education 2 Politics 3 Notes 4 References

Early life and education

Ba Maw was born in Maubin, Burma (sometimes Myanmar). Ba Maw came from a distinguished family of mixed Mon-Burmese parentage^[3] (and possibly Armenian ancestry),^[4] which bred many scholars and lawyers. One of his elder brothers, Dr Ba Han (1890-1969), was a lawyer as well as a lexicographer and legal scholar.

In 1924 Ba Maw obtained his doctoral degree from the University of Bordeaux, France. Ba Maw wrote his doctoral thesis in the French language on aspects of Buddhism in Burma. (Ba Maw's elder brother Dr Ba Han, who devoted into Christianity also obtained his doctorate, from a UK university, and Ba Han's doctoral thesis was entitled 'The Mysticism of William Blake').

Politics

From the 1920s onwards Ba Maw practised law and dabbled in colonial-era Burmese politics. He achieved prominence in 1931 when he defended the rebel leader, Saya San. Saya San had started a tax revolt in Burma in December 1930 which quickly grew into a national rebellion against British rule. Saya San was captured, tried, convicted and hanged. Ba Maw was among the top lawyers who defended Saya San. One of the presiding judges that tried Saya San was another Burmese lawyer Ba U.

Ba Maw in 1937.

Starting from the early 1930s Ba Maw became an outspoken advocate for Burmese self-rule. He at first opposed Burma's colonial separation from British India, but later supported it. After a period as education minister, he served as the first Prime Minister (or perhaps more appropriately Premier of Burma (during the British colonial period) from 1937 to February 1939, after first being elected as a member of hsin-yè-tha, the Poor Man's Party, to the Legislative Assembly. He opposed the participation of Great Britain, and by extension Burma, in World War II. He resigned from the Legislative Assembly and was arrested for sedition on 6 August 1940. Ba Maw spent over a year in jail as a political prisoner. He was incarcerated for most of the time in Mogok jail, situated in a hill station in eastern Burma.

During the early stages of World War II, from January – May 1942, Imperial Japanese Army quickly overran Burma, and after the capture of Rangoon, freed Baw Maw from prison. During the Japanese occupation of Burma, Ba Maw was asked by the Japanese to head a provisional civilian administration to manage day-to-day administrative activities subordinate to the Japanese military administration. This Burmese Executive Administration was established on August 1, 1942.

As the war situation gradually turned against the Japanese, the Japanese government advanced its previously vague promised to grant Burma independence after the end of the war. The Japanese felt that this would give the Burmese a real stake in an Axis victory in the Second World War, creating resistance against possible re-colonization by the western powers, and increased military and economic support from Burma for the Japanese war effort. A Burma Independence Preparatory Committee chaired by Ba Maw was formed May 8, 1943 and the nominally independent State of Burma was proclaimed on August 1, 1943 with Ba Maw as "Naingandaw Adipadi" (head of state) as well as prime minister. The new state quickly declared war on the United Kingdom and the United States, and concluded a Treaty of Alliance with the Empire of Japan. Baw Maw attended the Greater East Asia Conference in Tokyo in November 1943. However, the new state failed to secure popular support or diplomatic recognition due to the continued presence and activities of the Imperial Japanese Army, and after their collaborationist allies, the Burma National Army defected to the Allies side, the government collapsed.

Ba Maw fled just ahead of invading British troops via Thailand to Japan, where he was captured later that year by the American occupation authorities and was held in Sugamo Prison until 1946. He then was allowed to return to Burma, after Burma became independent of Great Britain and he remained active in politics. He was jailed briefly during 1947, for suspicion of involvement in the assassination of Aung San, but was soon released.

After General Ne Win (1910-2002) took over power in 1963 Ba Maw was again imprisoned (like many of the Burmese luminaries of the period who were detained during the time of Ne Win regime, from the 1960s to the 1980s, his imprisonment was without charge or trial) from about 1965 or 1966 to February 1968. During the period of his imprisonment Ba Maw managed to smuggle out a manuscript of his memoirs of the War years less than two of which (from August 1, 1943 to March 1945) he was Head of State (in Burmese naing-ngan-daw-adipadi) (literal translation 'paramount ruler of the State').

He never again held political office. His book Breakthrough in Burma: Memoirs of a Revolution 1939-1946, an account of his role during the war years, was published by Yale University Press (New Haven) in 1968. In the post-war period he founded the Mahabama (Greater Burma) Party. He died in Rangoon.

Notes

1. ^ A History of Modern Burma (1958), pg 318
2. ^ A History of Modern Burma (1958), pg 464; Although a Catholic, Ba Maw identified himself publicly with the Buddhist faith during his tenure as the Adipadi. As Adipadi, Dr. Ba Maw completely identified himself with the Buddhist faith. He took the oath of refuge in the Three Jewels (Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha), and pledged himself to "defend the Buddhist faith like the royal defenders of the old." He fed the monks at...
3. ^ A History of Modern Burma (1958), pg 317
4. ^ The Burma we love (1945), In a school catering especially for Anglo-Burman boys, it was considered superior not to be of full native blood. It was rumoured that he had some Armenian or European blood. This rumour was strengthened by the fact that one Thaddeus, an Armenian, occasionally visited the two boys in school on behalf of the mother who was living Maubin; colour was also lent to this rumour by the fair complexion of the two boys, a complexion much fairer than that of most of the Anglo-Burman boys in the school. It seems, however, that both their parents were of pure Talaing blood. Ba Maw took English Honours in his BA Examination. In those days there was no University in Burma and the Rangoon College was an affiliated college of the...

References

• A History of Modern Burma, by John Frank Cady, Cornell University Press, 1958
• The Burma we love, by Kyaw Min, India Book House, 1945
• Allen, Louis (1986). Burma: the Longest War 1941-45. J.M. Dent and Sons. ISBN 0460024744. 

Preceded by None	Prime Minister of Burma 1937–1939	Succeeded by Maung Pu
Preceded by Tun Oke	Prime Minister of Burma 1942–1945	Succeeded by Aung San

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