Ba Maw

Ba Maw ( Burmese ဘ မော် ; born February 8, 1893 in Ma-ubin , † May 29, 1977 in Rangoon ) was a politician from Burma, now Myanmar , who was Prime Minister of Burma at the time of the Second World War .

Beginnings

Ba Maw 1937

Ba Maw was born on February 8, 1893 in the city of Ma-ubin . His father was an official of the last Burmese kings Mindon Min and Thibaw Min , both of whom campaigned for Burma's independence from the British crown . During the first rebellion against colonial rule by Great Britain, Ba Maw studied at Rangoon College and at the university in Calcutta, India . After graduating, he worked as a teacher at Rangoon College. In 1917 he went to England to study at Cambridge University. In 1924 he received a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Bordeaux in France . In the same year he returned to Burma, where he established himself as a practicing lawyer .

Political career before World War II

As a result, Ba Maw rose to become the leader of the Burmese party, which was the first nationalist political organization in the country to revolt against the colonial policy of Great Britain. She won a majority in the parliamentary elections in 1932, making Ba Maw Minister of Education and Public Health . A major reason for its popularity in Burma was its proximity to Saya San , a nationalist politician who led a failed rebellion against the British from 1930 to 1932 . Because of his capacity as a lawyer, Ba Maw assisted many of Saya San's followers in the subsequent legal process. Saya San was arrested in 1932 and executed five years later for treason .

In 1936, Ba Maw founded his own party, the Buddhist-Democratic Sinyetha Party (Poor Man's Party). This had some socialist echoes and was supported in the cities, especially by dockers and oil workers, while in the country it was mainly supported by conservative landowners and important personalities who benefited from Ba Maw's patronage. Although this failed in the parliamentary elections in 1936, Ba Maw nevertheless became the first Burmese prime minister since the separation from India in 1937 . During this time, his popularity with the population saw a significant decline as he failed to keep most of his election promises.

Second World War

At the beginning of the Second World War , the British arrested Ba Maw in 1940 after he had announced that he would no longer support Great Britain in what had been a purely European war. He was released from prison after the Japanese invaded Burma in 1942. In the same year he was appointed head of the provisional administrative committee by the Japanese. On August 1, 1943, Burma was formally declared independent. Ba Maw became prime minister. His cabinet included Aung San as Minister of War, the communist Than Tun and the socialist leaders U Nu and Bo Mya . However, Burma remained de facto under Japanese control and was economically exploited. It quickly became clear that the Japanese promises of independence were not meant seriously. Aung San started negotiations with the leaders of the communists, Than Tun and U Soe, as well as the socialists Ba Swe and Kyaw Nein , in order to organize the resistance against the Japanese. In August 1944 the Communist Party, the People's Revolutionary Party and the Burma National Army (BNA) founded the “Anti-Fascist Organization” (AFO) at a secret meeting in Bago .

There were informal contacts between the AFO and the Allies in 1944 and 1945 through British Force 136 , the Southeast Asian division of the Special Operations Executive . On March 27, 1945, the BNA organized a nationwide uprising against the Japanese to support the Allied advance - March 27 was later celebrated as "Day of Resistance".

After the war

By May 1945 most areas of Burma had been liberated from the Japanese and Ba Maw had to resign as Prime Minister. He fled with Japanese troops, got to Tokyo and hid in a monastery there. There he surrendered to the British occupation forces only months later, by whom he was put in prison. Since then he has never played an important role in his country's politics again. Nevertheless, he remained in public at all times as a political observer of the respective governments in today's Myanmar. In 1966 he was arrested by the then military dictator General Ne Win for alleged cooperation with rebels. After his release in 1968 he lived in seclusion in Rangoon , where he died on May 29, 1977 at the age of 84.

memoirs

• Breakthrough in Burma. Memoirs of a Revolution, 1939–1946 : Yale University Press, New Haven and London 1968.

Web links

• Information (English)
• Biography (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Christopher Bayly, Tim Harper: Forgotten Armies. Britain's Asian Empire & the War with Japan, Penguin Books, London 2005, pp. 98–99.
2. ↑ Christopher Bayly, Tim Harper: Forgotten Armies. Britain's Asian Empire & the War with Japan, Penguin Books, London 2005, p. 436.