U Nu

Nu (ဦးနု; ; 25 May 1907 – 14 February 1995), commonly known as U Nu and also by the honorific name Thakin Nu, was a leading Burmese statesman and nationalist politician.

He attended Myoma High School in Yangon, and received a B.A. from Rangoon University in 1929.

Aung San and Nu became members of the nationalist Dobama Asiayone (Our Burma Association) which had been formed in 1930 and henceforth gained the prefix Thakin ('Master'), proclaiming they were the true masters of their own land.

In 1935 he married Mya Yi while studying for a Bachelor of Laws.

Nu's political life started as president of the Rangoon University Students Union (RUSU) with M. A. Rashid as vice-president and U Thi Han as the general secretary.

Aung San was editor and publicity officer.

Nu and Aung San were both expelled from the university after an article, Hell Hound At Large, appeared in the union magazine, which was obviously about the rector.

Their expulsion sparked off the second university students' strike in February 1936.

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 control during the 1940s.

He was detained by the colonial government in 1940 along with Thakin Soe, Thakin Than Tun, Kyaw Nyein, U Măd, and Ba Maw.

The prison holding Nu was largely abandoned by the British in the course of the rapid Japanese advance.

He was one of the leaders of the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL) from 1942 to 1963.

From August 1943, when the Japanese declared nominal independence for Burma under a regime led by Ba Maw, Nu was appointed foreign minister.

In 1944 he was appointed minister of information until the open rebellion by the AFPFL against the Japanese military in March 1945.

Though aware of the resistance and in contact with its leaders, Nu did not actively participate in the underground activities of the AFPFL up to the rebellion, and unlike its leading figure Aung San, did not join the rebellion and move to areas under Allied control.

Instead, Nu retreated with the Japanese and Ba Maw in late April, 1945.

Nu was nearly killed on August 12, 1945, when Allied pilots strafed and destroyed the house Ba Maw had been given by the retreating Japanese, but both escaped the residence during the attack.

Following Japanese surrender, Nu retired from politics for a time, writing his memoirs of the war years, Burma Under the Japanese and tracts on Marxism.

As a popular figure with early connections to Aung San and other nationalists from their student days, however, Nu was drawn back into the politics of the AFPFL where he initially struggled to keep its Communist contingent within the party.

After the assassination of its political and military leader Aung San along with his cabinet ministers on 19 July 1947, U Nu led the AFPFL and signed an independence agreement (the Nu-Attlee Treaty) with the British Premier Clement Attlee in October 1947.

He was the first Prime Minister of Burma under the provisions of the 1947 Constitution of the Union of Burma, from 4 January 1948 to 12 June 1956, again from 28 February 1957 to 28 October 1958, and finally from 4 April 1960 to 2 March 1962.

Nu was born to U San Tun and Daw Saw Khin of Wakema, Myaungmya District, British Burma.

For a few years after independence in 1948 Nu retained the prefix 'Thakin', but around 1952 he announced that since Burma was already independent the prefix of 'Thakin' was no longer needed and henceforth he would be known as U ('Mr') Nu.

Burma gained independence from Britain on 4 January 1948.

U Nu became the chairman of the Old Myoma Students Association in Yangon.

He became the first Prime Minister of independent Burma, and he had to deal with armed rebellion.

The rebels included various ethnic groups, White Flag and Red Flag communist factions, and some regiments in the Army.

Yet another challenge was the exiled Kuomintang (KMT).

After being chased out of (Mainland) 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.

A democratic system was instituted and parliamentary elections were held several times.

Throughout the 1950s, U Nu oversaw the implementation of the Pyidawtha Plan, a national economic development plan to establish an industrial welfare state in Burma.

In 1955, the University of Belgrade (Yugoslavia) awarded him an honorary doctorate.

He voluntarily relinquished the Prime Ministerial position in 1956.

AFPFL member Ba Swe served as Prime Minister from June 1956 to June 1957.

U Thant had been Secretary to the Prime Minister U Nu before he was appointed Burmese Ambassador to the United Nations in 1957.

On 26 September 1958, he asked the Army Chief of Staff General Ne Win to take over as a "caretaker government", and Ne Win was sworn in as Prime Minister on 27 October 1958.

In the February 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 Kyaw Nyein.

U Nu returned to power forming the Pyidaungzu (Union) government on 4 April 1960.

The Clean AFPFL was subsequently renamed the Union Party.