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A modern Bodhisattva: How U Nu sees his life

Robert H. Taylor

Lecturer in Government , University of Sydney

Published online: 21 Sep 2007.

To cite this article: Robert H. Taylor (1978) A modern Bodhisattva: How U Nu sees his life, Politics, 13:1, 192-200
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00323267808401657

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So for King, it is with Hobbes as it is with Bodin;

certain empirical misconceptions distort and vitiate
the tenor of his argument. What both should have
seen is thatmostlysocieties do manage to generate
a degree of consensus expressed in customs, laws,
moral codes and so on that makes it unnecessary to
wish to believe that the will of a sovereign is needed
to keep men from a war of "all against all"; and
moreover, that the wish could not be father to a
social practice, because absolute sovereignty cannot
in fact operate against the settled beliefs of subjects,
and if it should operate with them it would be more
perversity to deem the ruler absolute. Still, men do
create deserts and speak of the peace there.

A MODERN BODHISATTVA: HOW U NU

SEES HIS LIFE
ROBERT H. TAYLOR
U NuSaturday's Son: The Memoirs of the Former
Prime Minister of Burma, by U Nu, translated by
U Law Yone, edited by U Kyaw Win. New Haven
and London: Yale University Press, 1975. 358 pp.,
illustrated, index, US$15.00. ISBN 0-300-01776-6.
For U Nu, the Prime Minister of Burma for most
of the years between 1947 and 1962, the purpose of
writing a volume of memoirs is a much nobler one
than merely locating his life and career in history.
When U Nu was .19 years old in 1926, he made a vow
to be a Bodhisattvaan Embryo Buddha.1 One of
the obligations of a Bodhisattva is to attempt to show
others how they can strive for enlightenment. Thus,
U NuSaturdays Son is written not just as the
memoirs of a politician and former nationalist leader.
The 'book is written as a morality tale to show how
U Nu has, despite his worldly career, sought to attain
his religious goal. His purpose is not to recount his
life. It is to edify us while earning merit for himself.2
In keeping with the religious purpose of the book,
U Nu has kept an injunction of the Buddha to
monastic authors that they write chronicles of state
affairs in a manner which will improve the world,
guide the reader in the ways of good government,
and encourage the development of the human
spirit.3 In the course of his memoirs, U Nu does
touch upon almost all the salient aspects of his life,
his .boyhood, education, teaching career, marriage,
entry into nationalist politics, writing and publishing,
wartime activities and some of the affairs of state and
politics which concerned him as Burma's first postindependence Prime Minister. But the attention given
to these subjects is often by way of illuminating his
moral development and is not to him more important
than such subjects as sex, astrology, and religious and
personal beliefs and practices. Consequently the
narrative wanders from period to period and event
to event not because of spatial or chronological relationships in themselves, but .because it illustrates a
moral point.
The religious and didactic purpose of U Nu

BOOK SECTION
Saturday's Son is apparent in the way the book has
been written as well as in its subject matter. The text
is remarkably flat and devoid of emotion. No doubt
this results partially from problems of translation, for
Burmese is a very difficult language to translate into
English in a way that retains .both the precise meaning
and the implicit nuances of the original.-* However,
there are other reasons for the book's lack of force.
One is that the book is written in the third person.
While in fact written by the former Prime Minister
himself, it is narrated by a persona, U Nu, an older
man who has been created as an associate of Maung
Nu's father, and who thus observed his life from
birth in 1907 to deposition from office in 1962.6 At
the very end of the volume there is an exchange of
letters between the author, U Nu, and the subject,
Maung Nu. Maung Nu in his letter thanking the
author for his efforts, effectively disclaims the
author's or anyone else's ability to "have a better insight into" his character than he himself. While discussing the author's contention that Maung Nu is too
"quick to 'believe others", he denies the validity of the
insight that the book provides into his personality and
motives. This device of writing in the third person
and then denying his own conclusions is a curious
way of avoiding responsibility for a final judgement
on one's own character.
Another reason for the book's flat tone is that U Nu
wishes to say only those things which are true and
beneficial to him or the reader. In Burmese culture
there is a widely held belief that there are four kinds
of speech: That which is true and beneficial; that
which is untrue and not beneficial; that which is true
but not beneficial; and that which is untrue but beneficial. The last three kinds of speech are evils to be
avoided while only the first is proper. Because of his
adherence to this belief, U Nu has had to avoid discussion of his enemies and adversaries. A politician
who avoids assessing his political opponents has little
left to write about except himself. For this reason the
book is almost totally free of invective or even criticism of British imperialists, Burmese Communist
leaders, or Bogyoke Ne Win and the Burmese Army
which removed him twice from power. Stalin and
Mr E. Bowker, a one-time British Ambassador,
nearly caused U Nu to violate this code of self-denial,
but by putting his anger in the past tense and forgiving his opponents, he has avoided the evil he might
have committed. Since it is impossible to write as dispassionately about his contemporary enemies, he
ignores them as much as he possibly can.
One of the other notable features of these memoirs
is their ahistorical character. U Nu as an educated,
cultured man, one who associated throughout his
adult life with the most advanced and sophisticated
circles of high Burmese culture, art and literature,
displays almost none of his extensive knowledge here.
The reader might almost conclude that U Nu knows
nothing of his country's history and civilisation. This
is the more remarkable because for U Nu as for most
Burmese nationalists, the attack on Burmese culture,

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193

especially Buddhism, posed by colonial rule was as with none of his nicknames.
great a motivating force in anti-imperialist activities
Few would believe that U Nu is not an honest and
as the regaining of his country's sovereignty. sincere man, and to an outside observer he does not
Buddhism was the one element that unified Burmese appear to be a schemer.9 In an earlier volume of
culture and to many Burmese the deposition of the memoirs written before he became Prime Minister,
Buddhist Burman king in 1885 by the Christian U Nu said that he was not tough enough to be a
British was an attack on personal identity as much as politician or revolutionary. He considered himself too
on Burma itself.6 It must be that this historical and indecisive and faint-hearted.10
cultural feeling is so much a part of U Nu's thinking
From his self-portrayal in V NuSaturday's Son
that he felt no need to state it here.
and in other accounts of his personality, U Nu seems
One of the tasks of the reader of these memoirs is a relatively open man. When he acted without informto read into them the anger and humiliation that a ing his family or associates, it was usually because he
man of culture and dignity such as U Nu felt while believed they would object to the wisdom of his
the British governed his country. Beyond that, the action, not to his purpose. One very highly placed
reader must also attempt to understand why U Nu former Minister in U Nu's Cabinet and later a politifelt an equally strong hatred of Communism which cal opponent told this reviewer that U Nu never once
he saw as another kind of alien threat to the values lied to him. Rather than prevaricating, U Nu would
of Burmese culture. In contrast to the men who took just refuse to discuss a subject further, thus making
power in Vietnam after their revolution, many of the it clear he was not free to say more truthfully. His
ruling nationalists in Burma espoused not a secular colleagues, perhaps because of their great respect for
ideology of social change and economic transforma- him, seemed to accept this without complaint. U Nu's
tion, but rather a fundamentally religious and cultural popularity with the Burmese people stemmed from
ideology expressing a will to rejuvenate pre-British his patent sincerity. In a personal meeting with him,
Burma. While influenced by Marxism-Leninism, U Nu this writer felt he displayed great humility and charm
and some of his non-Communist colleagues thought that made one forget his lofty position but reminded
of such foreign ideology as merely an explanation for one of his personal power.
their own nation's cultural and political denigration,
But U Nu is also an extraordinarily vain man.
not as a system which should effectively restructure Even as a young boy he must have been convinced
the values of Burmese culture.
that he was somehow special and different from the
What kind of a man is U Nu? He says himself people around him. U Nu's father was a prosperous
that as a boy he led a degenerate life of drinking, landowner and merchant selling cloth and Buddhist
swearing and illicit sex from an early age until he paraphernalia in Wakema, a Deltatown. As the eldest
was about 19. In dedicating the book to his five son of an influential family he was known and
children, he says he "was a revolting character who tolerated by other townsfolk despite his errant bethrough stringent efforts made a man of himself". He haviour. As a student leader at Rangoon University
also says he is a man who is given to impulse, one he was highly respected, perhaps almost venerated,
whose heart rules over his head, causing him to rush as a nationalist figure and devout Buddhist. Being
in and act to right an injustice, and often feeling slightly older than most of his colleagues at the Unigreat remorse for the foolishness of his actions later. versity in the 1930s, he was referred to as Kogyi Nu,
He contends that "in his life he was guilty of much Elder Brother Nu.
wrong but also credited with some good". Tine perPolitics and religion, the two themes that dominated
sonal morality tale of these memoirs is how he his life, worked to enhance his vanity. As U Nu reeventually overcame the evil in his character to be peatedly points out in his memoirs, he sought to avoid
able to do some good.
politics for most of his life until after he became
U Nu was a first born child on Saturday (hence, Prime Minister. But at crucial points in the nationalist
the book's title), and his parents, 'believing an old movement his colleagues and elders would insist that
Burmese proverb, were fearful that such a child he join them in positions of importance. Whether as
"stirs up woe like a fire".7 To counteract his in- an officer of the Rangoon University Students' Union
auspicious birth, they named him Nu, meaning in or as Foreign Minister of the government of Burma
Burmese tender or delicate. By calling the boy the during the Japanese occupation, he had to be coaxed,
opposite of what they feared he might be, his parents cajoled or threatened into taking office. These conhoped to encourage his growth in a better direction. stant appeals, implying that he was indispensable to
Despite this he soon earned the nickname tartay or Burmese politics, could not help but make him vain.
scoundrel from the adults who knew him. As an It is also apparent that once he accepted offices of
adult he earned other nicknames which reveal the responsibility, U Nu enjoyed his role even if it later
changes in his behaviour. His wife, poking fun at him caused him humiliation or pain.
because of his religious devotion, called him names
The inordinate strength of his ego was apparent
such as "the great spiritualist and diviner", and during before embarking on his political career. Buddhism
the civil war after independence he was called "Karen holds open the promise of enlightenment to all its
Nu" by Burmans because of his efforts to end Karen- believers, but relatively few have sufficient hubris to
Burman animosities.8 He intimates that he was pleased accept this challenge or opportunity. U Nu in making

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194
a wish in 1926 to be a Bodhisattva indicated that he
was no ordinary man, but rather one with a very
strong sense of his special character.
In addition to politics and Buddhism, U Nu was
almost obsessed by two other subjects. One was
literature. U Nu read Shakespeare and other major
English writers as a student and attempted to emulate them. He spent many hours writing plays and
sonnets. George Bernard Shaw had an especially
strong influence on him. As a student he submitted
entries to British literary contests but was never a
successful competitor. Later he abandoned writing in
English to write novels, plays and non-fiction such as
What is Marxism? in Burmese. One of his religious
books is still widely available in Rangoon bookshops. 11 Despite his interest in literature and his wide
popularity as a Burmese writer, after his student days
he read very little, and he notes in U NuSaturday's
Son how uninformed he was about the world. Every
time he abandoned nationalist politics in the 1930s
and 1940s, it was to devote himself to a career in
literature, and each time he re-entered politics it was
with a feeling of loss for his first love, literature.
Sex was U Nu's other obsession. Nearly one-fifth
of these memoirs is given over to a discussion of sex,
love affairs, courting and his marriage. As part of the
story of his degenerate youth, U Nu recounts his introduction to sex by a family servant, his trips to
Rangoon whore-houses, his infatuation with a prostitute, and his contracting venereal disease. He then
tells how he was able to control his sexual urges, as
well as his desire for liquor, through Buddhist ethics.
Ultimately he took a vow of total celibacy after practicing sexual abstinence for long periods throughout
his life. His vow of celibacy, he recounts, nearly
killed his wife but even that would not make him
abandon it.12 While many urbane Burmese may not
have believed that their Prime Minister was as monklike as he appeared, many rural villagers apparently
did, claiming that U Nu was a saint because of his
sexual asceticism.13
One story of his overwhelming interest in sex is
not retold in U NuSaturday's Son. While detained
in prison for making anti-war, nationalist speeches in
1940 by the British government, U Nu gave sex education and hygiene lectures to fellow prisoners. While
other nationalist leaders were lecturing on Burmese
history, Marxism and political organisation, U Nu had
packed audiences on Saturday mornings for his sex
education talks. His advice on sexual desire and
masturbation by means of a gourd earned him a nickname not recalled in these memoirs.14
Beyond the insights into U Nu's personality and
motives, what does he reveal about Burmese politics
and society in these memoirs? Since outsiders know
so little of Burmese politics in the 1940s and 1950s,
these memoirs should provide new and much needed
data for students of Burmese domestic and international politics, for what man has been better placed
to know them until 1962 than U Nu? Unfortunately,
U Nu is not as revealing about his political life as he

BOOK SECTION
is about his personal life. Perhaps because he wrote
while under arrest, between 1962 and 1967, presumably without the aid of files and notes, he could not
tell more. More likely, however, U Nu felt the details
of politics less important than the moral to be drawn
from them. None the less, he reveals new information, especially concerning the break with the
Burmese Communists before independence and his
own role during the civil war following independence.
He reveals very little of the activities of his government, particularly in regard to economic policy,
agrarian policy, foreign policy or political organisation. This may indicate U Nu's own disregard and/or
ignorance of these subjects.
U Nu does, however, deal with some of the salient
issues of modern Burmese politicsCommunism and
the civil war, national unity and the indigenous
minorities, nationalisation, economic planning and
the welfare state, party factionalism, civil-military
relations, foreign affairs, and finally Buddhism and
the state. In this review it seems worthwhile to suggest what U Nu perceived to be the major problems
and how his perceptions shaped his actions.
The splits which developed within the Burmese
national front, the Anti-Fascist Peoples' Freedom
League (AFPFL), between the Communist and nonCommunist leaders, are one of the least studied and
most speculated upon aspects of modern Burmese
politics.15 These splits were perhaps the most important developments beyond independence itself in
shaping the conditions of Burma's post-war politics.
In August, 1944, the leaders of the Burmese Communist Party, the Peoples' Revolutionary Party
(Socialists), and the Japanese sponsored Burma
Defence Army formed the AFPFL as an anti-Fascist
Japan, anti-imperialist front. The key men involved
were Thakin Soe and Thakin Than Tun, both Communists, and Bogyoke Aung San. U Nu was not concerned with the League until after the British returned
and Bogyoke Aung San had become the deputy chairman of the Governor's Executive Council in 1946,
but he had known and worked closely with all of the
AFPFL leaders in student and nationalist politics in
the 1930s and during the Japanese era. Less than two
years after the AFPFL had been founded, it began to
disintegrate as a national front and to become the
major non-Communist political organisation in
Burma. It was still a front organisation but after the
exclusion of the radical left of Burmese politics, the
Socialists under U Kyaw Nyein and various older
"independent" politicians, as well as U Nu, dominated
the AFPFL.
U Nu tells us nothing about the first rupture of the
AFPFL in early 1946 when Thakin Soe and the Red
Flag Communists were expelled from the front's
leadership. Another writer, U Thein Pe Myint, explains that Thakin Soe's leadership of the nationalist
movement and of the major Burmese Communist
faction began to wane when Thakin Soe took a lesser
wife in 1945, greatly upsetting the puritanical
morality of the young nationalist leaders.1^ Un-

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doirbtedly issues of strategy and tactics in dealing
with the British played a part in this first rift, too.
The second rupture in the AFPFL began to develop
in mid-1946 when Thakin Than Tun, the other major
Communist leader who had served as Minister for
Agriculture in the Japanese era government, began to
organise demonstrations against the leadership of the
AFPFL by Bogyoke Aung San. The Communists
began at this time to refer to Bogyoke Aung San as
Burma's Chiang Kai-shek. U Nu says that the Thakin
Than Tun-Bogyoke Aung San rift developed out of
unstated policy disputes as well as from a "clash of
temperaments". In mid-October, 1946, the AFPFL
Executive Committee expelled Thakin Than Tun and
the White Flag Communist Party from the national
front because they would not cease their continual
criticism of Bodyoke Aung San and the AFPFL
dominated government. In late September Bogyoke
Aung San and the non-Communist elements in the
AFPFL had accepted an invitation to enter the British
Governor's Executive Council or Cabinet before they
had received a promise of independence from the
British government.
At this point U Nu admits to taking a major role
in political developments for the first time since at
least early 1945. He tells of a conversation he had in
November, 1946, with the Socialist Party leader and
subsequent Deputy Prime Minister U Kyaw Nyein
who had succeeded Thakin Than Tun as General
Secretary of the AFPFL. U Nu told U Kyaw Nyein
that they must get the AFPFL to adopt a resolution
calling for the AFPFL Ministers to resign from the
Governor's Executive Council if the British government did not promise independence within one year
from 31 January, 1947; in addition to the Ministers
resigning, the AFPFL would organise a civil disobedience campaign as Gandhi had in India in 1942.
U Nu said to U Kyaw Nyein:
. . . if we decide to fight for independence, we
must strike now. The Burmese public is extremely
fickle, and, if we delay, the political leadership
now in the hands of the AFPFL can pass to the
Communists. In this I am not exaggerating. I have
been in politics a long time and I can gauge the
temper of the people, so tell the general [Aung
San] I am not saying this in jest but in all seriousness. For myself I want an independence secured
by the AFPFLnot one granted by the Communists.i?
The next day the AFPFL Executive Committee
adopted the proposals of U Nu, and soon the British
invited a delegation led by Bogyoke Aung San to
come to London to negotiate Burma's independence.
Thus U Nu's proposal allowed Burma to gain independence without a revolution and without the
Burmese Communists having a chance to take power.
Thakin Than Tun and his Communist supporters
went underground two months after independence.
U Nu attempted to persuade Thakin Than Tun that
the Communists could take power under the parlia-

195
mentary democracy the new constitution of Burma
established, but Thakin Than Tun obviously did not
believe this was possible. The consequence was the
Burmese civil war of 1948 to the early 1950s.
U Nu, however, does not believe that the Burmese
Communists took up arms against his government
just because the AFPFL had gained Burma's independence and had frozen the Communists out of
power. He contends that Thakin Than Tun's White
Flag Communist Party turned to armed rebellion because of Soviet instigation and the new Cominform
line enunciated in September, 1947, in Poland by
Andrei Zhdanov. This new line was in turn passed on
to Thakin Than Tun and his party's chief theoretician,
Comrade Ghoshal, a Burma-born Bengali who also
used the name Thakin Ba Tin. It is U Nu's belief that
Stalin was responsible for the Burmese civil war. His
bitter denunciation of the Russians at that time is one
of the few earthily invective quotations of himself he
allows in his memoirs:
Mother-fornicating Russians. They give the order
and our miserable Communists obey. Our Communists think Stalin loves them. Speaking about
love for the Burmese, Stalin comes nowhere near
General Aung San, even when the latter is baring
his penis and pulling the foreskin back.18
When U Nu visited the Soviet Union in October,
1955, he saw Stalin's preserved corpse and reports he
felt great remorse for the torment Stalin must now be
suffering as a result of his many evil deeds in his last
existence. To help alleviate Stalin's suffering, U Nu
said prayers and recited verses to defuse some of his
merit to Stalin.*9
U Nu's contention that the Communists were solely
responsible for the Burmese civil war (the AFPFL
was merely the victim of their cunning) has led him
to make some quite extraordinary observations.20
First, a rightist political enemy is labelled a Communist. A note in the text claims that U Saw, a rightwing nationalist who in the post-war period is believed
to have been collaborating with some British individuals opposed to the AFPFL, 21 was the secretary of
the Burmese Communist Party in 1947 when he conspired the assassination of Bogyoke Aung San and
the other members of the Governor's Executive
Council. It was this assassination which catapulted
U Nu into the Prime Ministership. Second, U Nu
argues that while the Chinese Communists were
correct in rejecting Stalin's advice not to push south
of the Yangtze against Chiang Kai-shek's troops, the
Burmese Communists should have rejected Stalin's
reputed advice not to accept the AFPFL written constitution. U Nu's strong dislike of the Burmese Communist movement and his relative approval of the
Chinese Communists despite the prevailing antiChinese quality of much of Burma's politics leads him
to these illogical conclusions.
Despite the egalitarianism of Burmese society, an
egalitarianism thought desirable by almost all postindependence politicians, governing politicians such as

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U Nu have been markedly anti-Communist.22 What
is the root of U Nu's anti-Communism? It stems from
several sources. First, as suggested above, U Nu sees
any foreign ideology or system of thought as
anathema to the rejuvenation of Burmese culture.
Second, as a devoted Buddhist he is adamantly
opposed to violence and feels that Stalin and the
Burmese Communists are responsible for starting the
long travail of bloodshed which Burma went through
from 1948 to the early 1950s. As a politician who
relied on Buddhist support,23 U Nu was of course
aware that the Burmese Communists posed the only
long term threat to the AFPFL dominated government
except for the Army. Finally, U Nu is a strong believer in Westminster style democracy. His acceptance
of some alien political ideals but not others may be
understood because parliamentary democracy attempts
to separate politics and government from other aspects
of social and economic life. To remain consistent with
Buddhist beliefs, he should be an advocate of
monarchy,24 as indeed some Burmese nationalists
were up to the time of independence.
U Nu is obviously proud of his government's ability
to withstand the attacks upon it during the civil war.
His own personal popularity was an important reason
for this, he contends. U NuSaturday's Son is the
most graphic account available in English of his many
trips throughout the country to bolster the morals of
the government's few ill-equipped troops. His account
reveals the reliance of his government on outside
sources of assistance against the Communists and
later the ethnic minority rebels. Help came from a
British Services Mission, for which he has little praise.
Arms and finance were also provided by the governments of India and Pakistan. U Nu has special praise
for an American pilot who flew him about the
country in perilous circumstances.25
Insurgency on the part of indigenous minorities is
the second major problem that has plagued the
Burmese government since independence. U Nu suggests the problem of the national minorities was ultimately the excuse used by the Army for his ouster
in March, 1962. But 15 years before his government
had to face insurrections from Mujahids, Burmese
Moslems in Arakan Province, who sought to be included in Pakistan, and later and more dangerously,
Karens in Lower Burma. Major insurgencies among
other nationalities did not develop until later in the
1950s and early 1960s. U Nu's perception of BurmanKaren relations suggests something of the cause of
the Karen revolt for even he, as a man of goodwill
toward the Karen minority, could not see the reason
for the mistrust they felt toward the Burman majority.
U Nu tells how "there had never been such a thing
as a Karen-Burman problem in this country". He recounts how his father had Karen tenants on some of
his land who invited young Maung Nu into their
homes and treated him as an honoured guest. They
would never enter his home, however, when they
visited Wakema. The Karen feeling of Burman
domination, and a sense of their own inferior status

BOOK SECTION
in this situation, never became apparent to U Nu. 26
With the other minorities as well, U Nu does not
appear to have been able to see any foundation to
their fears about Burman majority domination. If
knowledgeable, sophisticated men like the Prime
Minister could not empathise with the minorities, it is
not surprising there was then little understanding of
the problem by Burmans generally.27
For U Nu and his government, the minority
question was a political double bind. His proposed
solution to minority fears was greater political
autonomy for them, including the creation of new
states for minorities denied them when the constitution was first drafted. Ultimately, however, political
power was still to rest with the Burman dominated
central government. At the same time, the appearance
of granting special political favours and powers to the
hated and mistrusted minorities brought only criticism of the government from the Burman majority.28
The AFPFL government under U Nu professed to
being a socialist government, one which sought to
build a welfare state or Pyidawtha (happy royal
country). The Pyidawtha concept appealed to the
Socialist Party leaders U Kyaw Nyein, U Ba Swe,
Thakin Tin and others, because it provided an
alternative to both Communism and capitalism. They
sought what can be described as soft socialism on the
model of the British Labor Party.M Through economic planning and the nationalisation of the major
foreign owned enterprises, there would be adequate
wealth to distribute to all the people. U Nu supported
the Pyidawtha idea for these reasons, too. As early as
the 1930s he had seen capitalism as a social evil,
chiefly because it was destructive of Buddhism.
Pyidawtha ideas have appealed to U Nu for religious
reasons, because he believes that people cannot concern themselves with their future existences if they
are exploited and degraded in their present lives.30
On balance one would have to argue that the
Pyidawtha plans of the AFPFL government failed.
They failed according to U Nu because the people
who were to administer them were either corrupt or
ill-equipped for their responsibilities. As Prime
Minister, U Nu had some success in speeding up the
training of doctors, health assistants and primary
school teachers in the face of resistance to change
coming from the indigenous professional doctors,
educators and civil servants the government inherited
from the British. The administrative system independent Burma received was not designed to conduct
a welfare state, but rather to administer law and
order, collect taxes and keep the country's export
trades functioning smoothly. The Japanese era and
the civil war period, coupled with the meddling by
AFPFL politicians in administrative decisions and
civil servant placements, had turned the mythical
steel frame of the India and Burma Civil Services into
a wobbly bamboo hut. 31
After independence the U Nu government nationalised the major foreign firms involved in water
transport, rice shipping and sales, teak extraction,

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mineral extraction and the like. Unlike China where
the Communist government kept on the indigenous
owners of nationalised firms as managers, the
Burmese government had to replace the Indian,
Chinese and European managers with relatively untrained and inexperienced Burmese. There were
almost no Bunnan managers of trade and industry at
the time of independence. The results were predictably a fair degree of economic chaos. As the new
system of state boards and enterprises became established, the civil servants who managed them worked
out various devices for skimming off the profits into
their own and their collaborators' pockets. U Nu
established the Bureau of Special Investigation (BSI)
as part of the Prime Minister's office to hunt out and
prosecute corrupt officials and politicians. As U Nu
points out, the BSI's investigations ranged widely,
reaching all the way into the government Cabinet and
perhaps perilously close to his own home.32 However,
the investigations and occasional prosecutions did not
much diminish bribery and corruption.
As a result, U Nu "became disenchanted with
nationalisation".33 He intended to separate the
economy from politicians and the civil service, but
he did not trust businessmen either. U Nu was caught
in another impossible dilemma. He liked neither
nationalisation nor private ownership because both
corrupted men, and they in turn corrupted society.
But by 1962, before the coup that removed him from
power, U Nu had decided "to uproot the entire system of nationalisation".34 It is not clear what he
would have replaced it with other than with homilies
on businessmen staying out of politics and politicians
staying out of business. It is apparent from the scant
discussion he gives to economic matters, U Nu as
Prime Minister of a welfare state knew very little
about economic growth or development.
What U Nu obviously knows a great deal about is
political management but he is reticent to tell the
readers of V NuSaturday's Son much of what he
knows. What kind of political organisation was the
AFPFL? The chapter on the AFPFL he titles "His
Life, His League". Unfortunately he tells little of the
structure of the League and how its organisation
worked. He provides no description of an election
campaign or a party rally; nor does he discuss such
mundane matters as party finance or the selection of
League-endorsed election candidates. We learn nothing
about who the League's supporters were or why he
thinks they voted for his ticket.
The one aspect of the League's development which
concerns U Nu is the disintegration of it into two
factions in 1958, the "Clean" faction of U Nu and
Thakin Tin and the "Stable" faction of U Kyaw
Nyein and U Ba Swe. This rupture of the League's
leadership provided the Burmese Army with its first
opportunity to take political power in its own name.
The 1958 split of the AFPFL U Nu attributes to a
series of personal misunderstandings going back to
1954 between himself as President of the League, and
U Kyaw Nyein, its General Secretary, U Nu describes

197
U Kyaw Nyein as a very wary and cautious man,
just the opposite of his impetuous self. U Kyaw
Nyein charged that U Nu was arrogant and presumptive, an intolerable leader who acted without
consulting his colleagues in either the Cabinet or the
League.35 One has the impression from U Nu's
memoirs that he is still unable to admit even partial
truth to U Kyaw Nyein's allegations, and indeed is
still offended by them. On balance it would appear
that U Kyaw Nyein's attack on U Nu's prince-like
behaviour was essentially correct, as indicated by
U Nu's own behaviour when challenged for power in
1957.
In mid-1956 U Nu had resigned the Prime Ministership in favour of U Ba Swe and retired to the AFPFL
to work to strengthen and rebuild the party organisation which had been seriously challenged by the
above ground Communists in the previous election.
At the same time he indicated his intention to retire
from politics completely in 1957 despite protests from
his AFPFL colleagues. However, in late December,
1956, U Nu was told by Bogyoke Ne Win, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, that it would be best
if U Nu remained as President of the AFPFL but did
not attempt to become again Prime Minister. The
Socialists within the AFPFL supported the Bogyoke
in this "request". It had been his intention not to return to government office, U Nu contends, but the
pressure on him from the Army stirred his arrogance
and anger. The result was that he insisted on forming
a new government in 1957. He remained Prime
Minister for about a year when the AFPFL finally
split over a dispute about discriminatory arrests of
factional supporters for corrupt practices. Rather
than have this internal AFPFL feud aired in the parliament, U Nu refused to call it into session and
passed the budget under emergency powers. The
"Stable" AFPFL faction then complained of U Nu's
dictatorial behaviour and rather than allow the
political situation to deteriorate further, the Army,
particularly Brigadiers Aung Gyi and Maung .Maung,
forced U Nu to abandon office to Bogyoke Ne Win
in a "constitutional coup d'etat".
The role of the Army in Burma's politics is rarely
mentioned by U Nu but its determining power at
crucial points is thinly veiled. Most likely U Nu feels
he can say nothing edifying about Bogyoke Ne Win,
the man he appointed Commander-in-Chief in 1948
under pressure from the Socialists,36 and so says
little about him. Nowhere is there a sustained discussion of the Army's activities in the memoirs. There
is no account of its economic role which grew rapidly
in the 1950s nor of its internal politics. There is no
hint that U Nu ever felt threatened by a military coup
until 1958. For a political leader who admits he had
no political base like the other AFPFL leaders had,
this is most extraordinary. Even during the 2 March,
1962, coup, U Nu believed that Bogyoke Ne Win
would come to his defence until he was told otherwise that afternoon by the President of the nation.
One finds nothing in V NuSaturday's Son about

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198

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the principles and purposes of Burma's neutralist attempt to balance his karma45 for the evil deeds he
foreign policy. Whereas Burma was for many foreign had to commit as a politician. For example, he went
observers in the 1950s and 1960s the most consistent to extraordinary lengths to preserve insect life, avoidrepresentative of third world neutralism, there is ing using a toilet in a Hanoi guest house so as not to
nothing in these memoirs to suggest that U Nu had drown a. nest of ants and spending time in Indonesia
given the subject much thought The chapter titled after the Bogor and Bandung conferences freeing in"Travel and Diplomacy" might have 'better been titled sects from plants which consumed them. He often
"Travel and Interesting People I Met". 37
bought and released chickens and other animals to
U Nu finds little that is edifying or beneficial in keep them from being slaughtered for food. He
discussing the mundane matters of politics and state- banned the slaughter of cattle. He felt that his concraft. By the time he came to write U NuSaturday's vening of the Sixth Buddhist Synod and its work,
Son, U Nu was primarily concerned with Buddhism, plus the publication of the Encyclopedia Burmanica
46
and his own spiritual development. By 1958 he had under his patronage, would earn him useful merit.
renounced his earlier belief in the compatability of
U Nu concludes his memoirs on the afternoon of
Marxism and Buddhism and turned increasingly to 2 March, '1962, and so does not tell us of his time in
purely religious solutions to political problems. His prison during which he wrote most of this volume nor
fissure with the Socialists at this time further removed of his subsequent political and religious activities in
him from essentially secular influences.38 However, Thailand and the United States. After being allowed
specific discussion of Buddhism and the state, a sub- out of Burma in 1967 for health reasons, U Nu
ject of great speculation in the limited English- worked with other anti-Ne Win exiles to organise a
language literature on Burma,39 is confined to about united front against the Burmest government from
13 pages.40 They are devoted to Bogyoke Aung San's Thailand. This effort proved to be a failure. He then
intention that Burma be a secular state, and U Nu's travelled to the United States to lecture on Buddhims.
growing desire for Buddhism to be made the state U Nu is reported now to be living in India near a
religion while insisting that all other religions be Buddhist monastery.
treated equally. U Nu's wishes here caught him in ' It is not likely Burma or the world will ever see
another dilemma between the demands of Burman another politician like U Nu. In our culture poliBuddhists, particularly influential monks, who wanted ticians who talk about religion and claim to act on
Buddhism to dominate the nation's religious and cul- its principles are normally considered hypocrites at
tural life, and leaders of the non-Buddhist communi- best. Politicians in most of the world today who offer
ties, particularly Indian Moslems and Christian religious, other worldly rewards for their followers
leaders of several of the national minorities, who
receive little attention. In Burma in the 1930s, 40s
sought to protect their religious freedom.
and 50s, a man like U Nu of deep religious feelings
Under U Nu the Burmese government undertook
could strike a strong response in the minds of
extensive activities to promote and rejuvenate Burmese leaders and masses who felt that their culBuddhism. Often referred to as the "Buddhist re- ture and their indentities had been denigrated by alien
vival", these activities included education and
rulers and alien cultures. The moral authority that
examination systems for monks and laymen in
Buddhism lends to the existing social and political
Buddhist literature, translation and missionary work, . order gave U Nu an advantage he willingly used in
repairing and building pagodas, the establishment of
his political conflicts with those, especially the
a Meditation Centre in Rangoon and the holding of
Burmese Communists, who wanted to restructure
the Sixth Buddhist Synod of monks from Sri Lanka, Burmese values.47
Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos to ensure the
But understanding U Nu is not this simple. He is
correctness of the Buddha's teachings, the Tripitaka.41 a man who knows and appreciates aspects of alien
To those who criticised U Nu's support for Buddhism, cultures and alien ideas. As a student and politician
saying that the state should not involve itself in re- he read and discussed and wrote about Marxism and
ligious matters, he retorted that as the head of an liberalism. In his later life, U Nu rejected these creeds
elected government he had an obligation to provide totally for the older and less materialistic and less
the people with benefits. "Religion was a beneficial violent creed of Buddhism. Most of his socialist and
institution and those who would gainsay it were Communist friends and enemies did not. U Nu's
wrong." 42 The culmination of his goal to revive memoirs do not enlighten us on the most subtle
Buddhism was the 1961 constitutional amendment question of modem Burmese political thought and
making Buddhism the state religion.43
actionhow Buddhism and Marxism have mingled
Being the head of a government that "had to and influenced each other. This absence must be exarrest, imprison, and even kill human beings" caused plained by his present complete absorption in BuddU Nu personal anxiety as a devout Buddhist,44 but he hism and in his efforts to fulfil his vow to become a
took steps while Prime Minister to earn merit to Bodhisattva.
I wish to thank Dr Craig J. Reynold, Prof. R. N. Spann
and Joan L. Taylor for their assistance in improving this
essay. I, of course, remain responsible for all errors of

fact and interpretation.

1. For a discussion of the concept of the Bodhisattva
in Mahayana Buddhism, see Ananda K. Coomarawamy,

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Review articles
Buddha and the Gospel of Buddhism (New York: Harper
Torchbooks, 1964), pp. 225-237, or Christmas Humphreys,
Buddhism (Penguin, 3rd ed. 1962), pp. 158-160. In Burma,
as in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos,
Theravada Buddhism is the form followed, but the
Bqdhisattva ideal is retained in Theravada folk belief. In
this essay when the word Buddhism is used, it implies
Theravada Buddhism. For a discussion of the notion of
the Bodhisattva in Buddhist ideals of kingship see
Chapter VII of E. Sarkisyanz, Buddhist Backgrounds of
the Burmese Revolution (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,
1965), pp. 41-48.
2. Merit, kutho in Burmese, is accumulated by acts of
charity, morality and meditation. The balance of one's
kutho and akutho, demerits, determines one's karma
(kan in Burmese) which is the sum total of one's moral
balance of good and evil which results from one's actions
in this and in previous existences. One's ken determines
whether one's destiny in life will be good or bad. See
Manning Nash, The Golden Road to Modernity (New
York: Wiley, 1965), pp. 105-106, and Melford E. Spiro,
Buddhism and Society (New York: Harper and Row,
1972), pp. 92-113, for a fuller discussion.
3. U Tet Htoot, "The Nature of the Burmese
Chronicles", in G. D. E. Hall (ed.), Historians of South
East Asia (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), p.
50.
4. The translator, U (Ed) Law Yone, was the editor
of a major English language Rangoon daily, The Nation,
to 1964. His paper was widely believed to be the recipient
of CIA or other US government funds. U Law Yone
himself was known to be close to the United States Embassy in Rangoon. See U NuSaturday's Son, pp. 267268. The editor, U Kyaw Win, is the editor and publisher
of a rightist, anti-President U Ne Win, pro-U Nu newsletter, The Burma Bulletin, in Costa Mesa, California.
5. Burmese titles can be confusing to the uninitiated.
U is the title of honour for an older man. Maung is the
title for a younger man, implying humbler social status
and is often used for oneself. Ko implies the status of
equals or near equals. Thakin (master or lord) was the
term which Englishmen expected to be referred to by
Burmese in the colonial period, much as sahib was used
in India. Burmese nationalist youth took the title for
themselves in the 1930s to indicate they were the masters
of Burma. Bogyoke is Burmese for General.
6. U Nu wrote in 1944 that a " . . . vital difficulty that
faces the would-be delineator of Burmese culture lies in
the lack of continuity and the sudden inrush of alien
influences swamping the original standards and values,
that happened with the domination of the Burmese by the
British. Burmese culture, in its purity, in its impetus and
in its manifestations, practically came to a halt towards
the end of the last century. The fifty or sixty years that
elapsed between then and the present time have been a
hiatus, a break in the continuity of our culture. During
that hiatus we experienced an upheaval of values, social
economic and cultural. We were in danger of losing our
traditions". Thakin U, "Burmese Culture", Burma, Vol. 1,
No. 1, September, 1944, p. 33. After independence the
government of Burma made extensive plans and programmes to revive Burmese culture. See for example "Towards the Renaissance of Burmese Culture", in Burma,
Vol. IV, No. 2, January, 1954, pp. 32-34 and accompanying photographs. The most thorough study of the Buddhist
revival of the 1950s as an aspect of the cultural revival is
found in E. Michael Mendelson, Sangha and State in
Burma, edited by John P. Ferguson (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975), pp. 262 ff.
7. U NuSaturday's Son, p. 3.
8. Ibid., p. 96 and p. 172.
9. However, several who knew U Nu in political life
contend that he is an honest man but cannot be trusted
in political rivalry because of his ability to scheme. See
the discussion in Richard Butwell, U Nu of Burma
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, new ed., 1969), p.
64.
10. Thakin Nu, Burma Under the Japanese, edited and

199
translated by J. S. Fumivall (London: MacMillan, 1954),
pp. 107-108. This volume was written in Burmese in 1945.
The same story is recounted in U NuSaturday's Son,
pp. 111-112. Chapter 4, pp. 102-113, of the volume under
review is taken in places verbatim from Burma Under the
Japanese.
11. This is a volume of five lectures by U Nu on Buddhism, published in Mandalay in 1968 and reprinted in
1969, with printings of 10,000 copies each. To my
knowledge there is no complete list of U Nu's works
available. The bibliography in Butwell's U Nu of Burma,
pp. 303-306, has a lengthy list of U Nu's political speeches
and reports, most in translation. U Nu also translated
books from English into Burmese including Dale
Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People.
12. U NuSaturday's Son, pp. 10-54, 293-295.
13. Spiro, Buddhism and Society, p. 296, fn. 20 and p.
406, fn. 8.
14. Thakin Tin Mya, Boun Bawa Hma
Hypin
(Rangoon: Ta Thet Ta Sa Pei The, 1974), pp. 111-112,
123-124. U Nu is reputed to have translated from English
the only sex manual in Burmese, but I have not seen a
copy.
15. The most recent analyses of this period appear in
John H. Badgley's studies which are in crucial points imprecise and inadequately documented. See his "The Communist Parties of Burma", in Robert A. Scalapino (ed.),
The Communist Revolution in Asia (Englewood Cliffs,
N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 2nd ed., 1969), pp. 309-328 and
"Burmese Communist Schisms", in John Wilson Lewis
(ed.), Peasant Rebellion and Communist Revolution in
Asia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974), pp. 151168.
16. Thein Pe Myint, Sit Atwin Hkayi The (Rangoon:
Hkyin Twin, 1966), pp. 382-383.
17. U Nu-Saturday's
Son, p. 121. A very slightly
different version of this episode is given in Ba Maw,
Breakthrough in Burma (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1968), p. 317.
18. U NuSaturday's Son, p. 141.
19. Ibid., pp. 277-278.
20. U Nu's contentions about Soviet instigation of the
White Flag Communist rebellion are clearly wide of the
facts. As the former Communist Party Secretary-General,
Thein Pe Myint, makes clear, the Burmese Communists,
through the Communist Party of India, had been aware
long before 1947 or 1948 of the changing Communist
attitudes toward "united front from above" strategies and
in 1945 had given consideration to the necessity of violent
revolution in Burma. These views first came to the attention of the Burmese Communists from a thesis by a
French Communist writer passed on to Thein Pe Myint
by two Indian Communist Party members and several
American Communists in the Army in India in July,
1945. He in turn sent them on to Thakin Soe and Thakin
Than Tun in Burma. From then on a debate continued
among Burmese Communists over Browderism or a policy
of evolutionary development through negotiations with
the British Labour Party versus the need for armed revolution. Thakin Soe's disaffection with the "orthodox"
Thakin Than Tun wing of the Party must have stemmed
from this dispute. See Thein Pe Myint, Sit Atwin Hkayi
The, pp. 386-378. Thein Pe Myint's account supports the
thesis of Ruth T. McVey in her The Calcutta Conference
and the Southeast Asian Uprisings (Ithaca: Cornell University Modern Indonesia Project, 1958), pp. 20-21.
21. F. S. V. Donnison, Burma (New York: Praeger,
1970), p. 138.
22. While Burmese now in exile, usually supporters ot
U Nu, claim the present U Ne Win-Burma Socialist Programme Party government is dominated by Communists,
supporters of the current government contend they will
have to flee if or when the Communists take power.
23. Among the politically active anti-Communist groups
in Burma in the 1950s were various monks' organisations
not all of whom supported U Nu. The Socialists, as U Nu
notes (U NuSaturday's Son, p. 201) were particularly
close to the anti-Communist monks' organisations. These

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200
organisations were the recipients of financial and material
support from the Asia Foundation. See Spiro, Buddhism
and Society, pp. 387-389, and Mendelson, Sangha and
State in Burma, pp. 310-311, 324-326 and 333. The proportion of monks who lent themselves to these political
purposes was small and some supported the Communists
as well (ibid., p. 339-340).
24. Spiro, Buddhism and Society, pp. 440, fn. I.
25. U NuSaturday's Son, pp. 146-195.
26. Ibid., pp. 163-164. In this essay the term Burmese
has been used to refer to all the citizens of Burma and
Burman to the majority ethnic group.
27. The most insightful studies in English of the indigenous minorities problem in Burma are F. K. Lehman,
"Ethnic Categories in Burma and the Theory of Social
Systems", and Maran La Raw. "Toward a Basis of Understanding the Minorities in Burma: The Kachin Example",
both in Peter Kunstadter (ed.), Southeast Asian Tribes,
Minorities and Nations (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1967), Vol. 1, pp. 93-124 and 125-146.
28. Because Burman nationalists never had to rely on
the national minorities as the Vietnamese Communists had,
they never came to appreciate them in the same way.
Beyond that, the minorities saw the end of British rule
as threatening to the independent areas of influence and
authority that the British had provided them.
29. A small but influential party among students in
Burma in the 1930s and 1940s was the Fabian League of
Deedok U Ba Choe, publisher of the weekly Deedok
newspaper for whom U Nu, Thein Pe Myint and others
worked in the 1930s.
30. For a further discussion see Spiro, Buddhism and
Society, pp. 429-430, and Sarkisyanz, Buddhist Backgrounds of the Burmese Revolution, pp. 210-228, esp. 220.
31. V NuSaturday's Son, pp. 135-136.
32. Ibid., pp. 215-220.
33. Ibid., p. 218.
34. Ibid., p. 219.
35. Ibid., pp. 313-329.
36. Ibid., pp. 151-159.
37. Students of Asian international relations will, however, find Chapter 9 of U NuSaturday's Son worthy of
examination. Especially important are his discussion of
his efforts to improve Sino-American relations in the mid-

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1950s, pp. 239-241 and 250-251, and the Sino-Burmese
border agreement, pp. 234, 237 and 252-268.
38. Mendelson, Sangha and State in Burma, pp. 262263, discusses this point, noting the suggestion that Pandit
Nehru proposed the Buddhist revival idea to U Nu in
1949 as an alternative to secular leftist unity. U Nu and
Nehru were close friends but U Nu suggests that he had
to convince Nehru of the value of religion rather than
the other way around. U NuSaturday's Son, pp. 225-236.
39. See Donald Eugene Smith, Religion and Politics in
Burma (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965);
Mendelson, Sangha and State in Burma; Spiro, Buddhism
and Society, pp. 378-392; and Sarkisyanz, Buddhist Backgrounds of the Burmese Revolution.
40. U NuSaturday's Son, pp. 128-129, 196-206.
41. See Mendelson, Sangha and State in Burma, Chapters 5 and 6, pp. 236-355; Spiro, Buddhism and Society,
pp. 385-386; and Winston L. King, A Thousand Lives
Away (Oxford: Bruno Cassirer, 1964), especially for its
discussion of the urban Burmese interest in meditation in
the 1950s. U Nu was also involved in sponsoring a revival
of nat or spirit worship and practised nat worship himself
even when travelling outside Burma. Spiro, Buddhism and
Society, p. 386, fn. 6, and V NuSaturday's Son, pp.
310-312. The most complete recent study of nat worship
in Burma is Melford E. Spiro, Burmese Supernaturalism
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967).
42. U NuSaturday's Son, pp. 198-199.
43. This amendment was soon followed by another'protecting the rights of other faiths. See Mendelson, Sangha
and State in Burma, pp. 347-354.
44. U NuSaturday's Son, pp. 305-306. The Buddha
is said to have stated that "In certain cases a Bodhisattva
may destroy life, take what is not given him, commit
adultery, drink strong drink, but he may not tell a lie,
attended by deception that violates the reality of things".
E. B. Cowell (ed.), The Jataka (London: Luzac and Co.,
1957), No. 431, quoted in Spiro, Buddhism and Society,
p. 100, fn. 9.
45. See fn. 2 above.
46. U NuSaturday's Son, pp. 244-246 and 304-306.
47. See the stimulating comments of Spiro, Buddhism
and Society, pp. 438-451.