History and Impact of Burma's Separation from British India in 1937

5/3/2017 Thant MyintU Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thant_MyintU 1/3
Thant MyintU
Native name သန့်မြင့်ဦး
Born 31 January 1966
New York City, New York, U.S.
Alma mater Harvard University
Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced
International Studies
Johns Hopkins University
University of Cambridge
Occupation Historian
Spouse(s) Sofia Busch
Parent(s) Tyn MyintU
Aye Aye Thant
Relatives U Thant (grandfather)
Khin Lei MyintU (sister)
Aye Thi MyintU (sister)
Aye Myint MyintU (sister)
Awards Fukuoka Grand Prize
Thant MyintU
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thant MyintU (Burmese: သန့်ြမင့် ဦး [θa̰ ɴ mjɪ̰ɴ ʔú]; born
31 January 1966) is a historian, a past Fellow of Trinity
College, Cambridge, an adviser to the President of
Myanmar, and the founder and chairman of the Yangon
Heritage Trust.[1] He authored two bestselling[2][3] and
critically acclaimed books, The River of Lost Footsteps: A
Personal History of Burma[4] and Where China Meets
India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia[5]
He was named by the Foreign Policy Magazine as one of
the "100 Leading Global Thinkers" of 2013 and by
Prospect Magazine as one of 50 "World Thinkers" of
2014.[6][7] He was voted 15th in Prospect Magazine's
subsequent poll of "World's Leading Thinkers"[8]
Contents
1 Early life and education
2 Career
3 Literary works
4 References
Early life and education
Thant MyintU was born in New York City to Burmese parents and is the grandson of former Secretary
General of the United Nations U Thant. He has three sisters.[9] According to him, he has always been a
Myanmar national.[10]
He was educated at Harvard University, the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies ,
Johns Hopkins University and the University of Cambridge. He received his PhD in History from
Cambridge University in 1996, MA in International Relations and International Economics from Johns
Hopkins University and BSc in Government and Economics from Harvard University . From 199499 he
was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge,[11] where he taught Asian and British imperial history. He
lectured extensively, including at Stanford, University of California at Berkeley, Johns Hopkins,
Columbia, Yale, Harvard, Cambridge, London University, and the Australian National University.
Career
He has served in three UN peacekeeping operations. He first worked with the UN from 19923, as a

He has served in three UN peacekeeping operations. He first worked with the UN from 19923, as a
Human Rights Officer in the UN Transitional Authority for Cambodia in Phnom Penh. In 1994 he was the
Chief Spokesman for the UN Protection Force in the former Yugoslavia, based in Sarajevo, and in 1996
was a Political Advisor in the Office of the UN's Special Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina.[12]
In 2000 he joined the UN Secretariat in New York, working first in the Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs and then in the United Nations Department of Political Affairs, becoming in 2004
Chief of the Policy Planning Unit in that department.[13]
During this time he was a member of the secretariat of the SecretaryGeneral's Panel on Threats,
Challenges and Change (High Level Threat Panel) which produced "A More Secure World: Our Shared
Responsibility".[14] In late 2005 and early 2006 he was briefly a Senior Officer in the Executive Office of
the SecretaryGeneral coordinating the establishment of the new Peacebuilding Commission,
Peacebuilding Support Office, and the Mediation Support Unit, and other related reforms.
Aside from being Chairman of the Yangon Heritage Trust, he is currently a member of the (President of
Myanmar's) National Economic and Social Advisory Council,[15] a Special Advisor to the Myanmar
government at the Myanmar Peace Centre, a Senior Research Fellow of the Myanmar Development
Resources Institute, a member of the Fund Board of the (Myanmar) Livelihoods and Food Security Trust
Fund.,[16] and the Vice Chairman of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council for South East
Asia. He has held visiting fellowships at Harvard University, the International Peace Institute in New
York,[17] and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, was for many years a Research
Associate of the Cambridge Centre for History and Economics, and is a Research Associate of the
Cambridge Centre for South Asian Studies.
Literary works
In addition to The River of Lost Footsteps and Where China Meets India: Burma and the New
Crossroads of Asia, he is also the author of The Making of Modern Burma (Cambridge University Press
2000) and The UN Secretariat: A Brief History (Lynne Rienner 2007).[18] He has written for The New
York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times[19] the International Herald Tribune, The
London Review of Books,[20] the New Statesman, the Far Eastern Economic Review, Time magazine[21]
and The Times Literary Supplement. He was awarded the "Asia Pacific Awards" (Asian Affairs Research
Council and Mainichi Newspapers) "Special Prize" in November 2014 for "Where China Meets India".
References
1. "Historic Yangon cityscape thrown a lifeline". Mmtimes.com. Retrieved 2 July 2015.
2. "Reader favourites this week: Thant MyintU and Doris Lessing". Monsters and Critics. 25 October 2007.
Retrieved 2 July 2015.
3. "Thant MyintU, Amish Tripathi rule book charts The Times of India". The Times of India.
4. See for example John Lancaster, "Walled Off: Can Burma Escape Its History?", The New Yorker, 11
December 2006
Nicholas Shakespeare, "Burma: A Poisoned Shangrila", The Sunday Telegraph, 11 March 2007
Su Lin Lewis, "Meteoric Fall", Times Literary Supplement, 13 April 2007.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thant_MyintU&oldid=774155985"
Categories: Harvard University alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni
American people of Burmese descent Burmese historians 1966 births Living people
Burmese writers
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registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit organization.
5. Siddhartha Deb, "Where China Meets India", The Guardian, 19 August 2011
6. Profile (https://foreignpolicy.com/2013_global_thinkers/public), foreignpolicy.com; accessed 2 July 2015.
7. Profile (http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/worldthinkers/thantmyintu), prospectmagazine.co.uk;
accessed 2 July 2015.
8. "World's Leading Thinkers" (http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/worldthinkers2014theresults),
prospectmagazine.co.uk; accessed 2 July 2015.
9. MyintU, Thant. The River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma (preface).
10. "Amazon.com: Thant MyintU: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle". www.amazon.com. Retrieved
20160321.
11. Profile (https://trinwebtest.trin.cam.ac.uk/402), trinwebtest.trin.cam.ac.uk; accessed 2 July 2015.
12. Thant MyintU and Elizabeth Sellwood, "Knowledge and Multilateral Interventions: The UN's Experiences and
Cambodia and BosniaHercegovina", Royal Institute of International Affairs (2000)
13. United Nations Department of Political Affairs website (http://www.nupi.no/content/download/549/7678/versi
on/8/file/Aforkintheroador....pdf); accessed 2 July 2015.
14. "Report of the SecretaryGeneral's Highlevel Panel". Un.org. Retrieved 11 August 2012.
15. "New govt advisory body takes shape". Mmtimes.com. Retrieved 11 August 2012.
16. "Livelihoods and Food Security Trust Fund". Liftfund.net. Retrieved 11 August 2012.
17. Profile (http://www.ipacademy.org/media/ipiinthenews), ipacademy.org; accessed 2 July 2015.
18. "Lynne Rienner Publishers". Rienner.com. Retrieved 2 July 2015.
19. MyintU, Thant (14 October 2007). "Saving Burma the right way". Los Angeles Times.
20. "Thant MyintU · What to do about Burma: Are we getting it wrong?". Lrb.co.uk. Retrieved 2 July 2015.
21. MyintU, Thant (30 August 2007). "From Bad to Worse". Time.

https://www.facebook.com/thantmyintu/photos/a.275102029210454.77779.268215723232418/13
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Thant Myint-U-·
80 years ago: Burma was separated from India.
This was arguably the most important single development in 20th century Burmese history. Independence
from Britain would almost certainly have taken place one way or another after WW2. But if Burma had not
been separated from India in 1937, the politics around independence in the late 1940s or 1950s would have
been very different, and intertwined with questions regarding the creation of Pakistan.
The relatively easy partition of 1937 also led London and Delhi civil servants later to assume that the 1947
partition would also not be too difficult, influencing debates on the desireability of Pakistan.
Burma was a province of British India and part of the Bengal Presidency. During the days of the 'dyarchy'
constitution in the 1920s the idea of Burma's separation from India was first mooted. In 1930 the Simon
Commission (a British parliamentary commission on the future of India) recommended separation.
The British argued that Burma was a separate nation that had "by accident of history" been attached to
India "for administrative convenience". The Governor of Burma (1927-32) Sir Charles Innes had written:
that Burma was "a small land wedged between the two great countries of China and India" and asked "Will
the Burman be able to maintain their individuality as a nation and their distinctive characters of
civilisation"?
This was something which also worried emerging Burmese public opinion. Anti-Indian and anti-immigrant
sentiment was also on the rise, something which would be hugely exacerbated by the economic downturn
during the Great Depression. The first anti-Indian riots broke out in 1930, leading to perhaps hundreds
killed and thousands injured.
But rising class of Burmese politicians generally opposed separation. They thought it was a British trick.
They knew that the anti-colonial movement in India was picking up steam and were anxious not to be left
behind. The 1935 India Act would give India increased powers of self-government and many thought
separation meant permanent British rule. Some in Rangoon believed a Burma separate from India would
quickly become a dumping ground for unemployed Englishmen of the worst sort and increased
exploitation by UK companies.
Many of the Burmese delegates at the Burma Round Table in London in 1931-2 opposed separation.
And the Burma general elections of 1932 proved a decisive win for the anti-Separation parties headed by U
Chit Hlaing and Dr Ba Maw.
But the British went ahead anyway and separated Burma from India as part of the India and Burma Act of
1935. Fresh elections were held in 1936 and a new government was appointed under Dr Ba Maw as the
first "Premier of Burma" on 1 April 1937.
The images are of Dr Ba Maw and his wife Daw Kinmama Maw in May 1937 at the coronation of King
Edward VIII, a commemorative stamp marking separation, and a map showing the two partitions of what
had been the British Indian Empire.

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Thant Myint-U- April 29 2017·
Exactly 75 years ago today: Lashio is destroyed as the big powers fight for control of the Shan states.
On 29 April 1942 the 56th Division of the Japanese imperial army defeated forces of the Kuomintang's
"Chinese Expeditionary Force (Burma)" and seized Lashio. Lashio was burned to the ground during a
devastating five hour battle.
The Japanese victory effectively cut the "Burma Road, the motorway linking Lashio to Kunming which
had been built in 1939 as China's main lifeline to the Allies.
The Japanese invasion of Burma had begun four months before. Washington and London asked for help
from the Chinese government of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, who responded immediately by sending
his best armies including one of his few mechanised divisions - the 200th Division - as part of the Chinese

Expeditionary Force (Burma). Rangoon fell in early March.
Chinese forces first fought the Japanese at Toungoo from 24-30 March in fierce house-to-house fighting
that left the beautiful railway town in ruins. On 11-19 April, the Chinese, together with the (British) 7th
Armoured Brigade, rescued 7,000 British and Indian soldiers who had been surrounded at the battle of
Yenangyaung.
Chiang Kai-shek wanted to make a stand at Mandalay and hold a defensive west to east line from India to
Yunnan. But the Japanese were pressing hard with the 18th and 56th divisions arriving to reinforce the
33rd, moving north in three columns, along the Irrawaddy valley, up the Rangoon to Mandalay road and
rail line, and in the Shan states, from Taunggyi to Lashio, everywhere outflanking and encircling their
enemies.
On 24 April, Lt. General Sir Harold Alexander, C-in-C of Allied Land Forces in Burma made the decision
to withdraw all men to India. A chaotic retreat followed. 600,000 civilians attempted to walk from Burma
to India. 80,000 died. (The exodus included the Burma government led by Sir Paw Tun, but that's another
story).
After the fall of Lashio the Japanese pushed north and northeast, to Mogok and Myitkyina, and across the
present Sino-Myanmar border, before finally stopping at the Salween River in Yunnan, near Baoshan.
Their 1,400 kilometer advance over two months was the longest advance by any land force in WW2
(longer than the 1,200 kilometer German advance from Poland to Moscow). The Chinese would not be
able to successfully counter-attack until January 1945.
China's involvement in Burma in WW2 is not very well known (especially in Myanmar). But it had a
decisive effect. The Chinese armies that fought the Japanese undoubtedly prevented a full invasion of
Yunnan; the fall of Yunnan may well have precipitated a collapse of the Kuomintang government at
Chungking. Instead, fighting in China over the next 3 years pinned down 40 Japanese divisions , Japanese
divisions that would not be available elsewhere (e.g. to fight the Americans in the Pacific).
Some of Chiang Kai-shek's best divisions were decimated in the Burma fighting. It might be argued that
without the losses sustained on the Burma front 1942-5, the Kuomintang might not have been defeated in
1949 by the People's Liberation Army of Mao Zedong.
The Burma campaign changed global history. But it is barely taught (outside a very narrow nationalist
narrative) and little known in Myanmar itself.

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Thant Myint-U· April 13 2017·
Mandalay 1888: An Englishman discovers Thingyan.
(From the Illustrated London News, April 1888)
For anyone wondering why "New Year" is celebrated in mid-April:
1. "Thingyan" (spelled "Saṁkran" in Burmese) is derived from the Sanskrit "Saṁkrānti". It is the same
word as "Songkran" in Thai.
2. "Saṁkrānti" means the day the sun moves from one "rashi" or constellation of the zodiac to another.
There are actually 12 "thingyans" in a year!
3. The "new year" marks the movement of the sun from the last constellation (Pisces or Mina in Sanskrit,
"Mein" in Burmese) to the first (Aries or Mesa in Sanskrit, "Meittha" in Burmese).
4. The zodiac originated in ancient Babylon (approximately 2,600 years ago. The start of the zodiac (with
the first day of Pisces) in ancient Babylonian times marked the vernal equinox (the start of spring).
5. Because of axial precession (the slow change in the earth's rotation over millennia), the vernal equinox

now occurs about a month earlier (21 March), rather than during Thingyan.
Happy Thingyan!
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Thant Myint-U · April 6 2017·
75 years ago this week: Mandalay is destroyed.
On the night of 3 April 1942 Japanese Mitsubishi bombers attacked the old royal city with incendiary
bombs, creating a gigantic firestorm.
Two-thirds of all the buildings in Mandalay were destroyed. At least 2,000 - 8,000 people died. More were
injured. (Out of a population of about 150,000). Blackened and rotting bodies filled the moat. Everywhere
in the scorching heat was the smell of death.
The city emptied. My father, then ten years old, fled with his family on horse-cart to a village near
Mingun, where he spent the rest of the war as a novice in a local monastery.
By 5 April almost no one was left. Clare Booth Luce, wife of Time and Life magazine publisher Henry
Luce was there that evening and saw everywhere only stinking corpses and ruined buildings. She wrote:
"tonight, there is no Mandalay".
The Japanese 15th Army was approaching from Prome and would seize the city 3 weeks later. Chinese

Nationalist armies (the "China Expeditionary Force Burma") had been defeated at Toungoo (on 3 March)
and would soon be forced from Lashio (29 April); British and Indian forces were retreating towards
Maymyo and Myitkyina before crossing into Assam.
The photo shows Burmese firefighters and Burma Army soldiers attempting to put out fires the morning of
4 April in Mandalay town.
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Thant Myint-U- March 10 2017 ·
RIP Professor U Hla Myint, one the premier development economists of the 20th century, who passed
away yesterday, aged 97.
Below the post I wrote on Professor Hla Myint in October 2014 after meeting him in Bangkok:
Privileged to see Professor Hla Myint this morning in Bangkok, together with Professor Ronald Findlay,
Dr U Myint, and U Tin Htut Oo.
Professor Hla Myint (born 1920)is one of the world's pioneering development and welfare economists and
an early advocate of export-led growth. He was Rector of Rangoon University in the late 1950s and taught
for many years at Oxford and the London School of Economics.
One of the country's (many) tragedies is that the advice and assistance of scholars of global standing such
as Professor Hla Myint and Professor Ronald Findlay (also formerly of Rangoon University, then

Columbia University where he remains Professor of Economics) were cast aside for many decades after
1962.
Professor Hla Myint prescribed an outward looking model of economic development; Burma's rulers opted
for the opposite.
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Thant Myint-U- March 9 2017·
Also for International Women's Day:
My great-grandmother Daw Nan Thaung (born 1883 in the southern Shan states). The photograph was
taken in the 1970s when she was in her 90s.
Her husband, U Po Hnit, was a landowner and businessman in Pantanaw. She had four children: U Thant,
U Khant, U Thaung, and U Tin Maung. She became a widow when her husband died of a sudden illness;
her kids were then aged 4 to 14 and she was left to raise them alone and without much money (as her late
husband's uncle seized most of the family property and savings). Two of her sons became senior civil
servants, one a Member of Parliament, and the eldest the third UN Secretary-General.
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Thant Myint-U-March 9 2017·

Before International Women's Day:
More than 100 Burmese women led by Daw Mya Sein and Daw San (leader of the Burmese Women's
Association) protest in front of Ripon Hall (Town Hall, now the site of City Hall), February 1927. They
were demanding the end to legal restrictions which barred women from becoming Members of the
Legislative Council (MPs) or Ministers.
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Thant Myint-U- March 7 2017
Exactly 75 years ago today - Rangoon falls to the Japanese 15th Army. Burma/Myanmar has not known a
year of peace ever since.(photo of troops of the Japanese 15th Army at Government House, Rangoon)
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Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · March 4 · Edited ·
87 years ago: Sir Joseph Augustus Maung Gyi was appointed (Acting) Governor of Burma by the then
Viceroy the Earl of Halifax.
He was the only Burmese to ever serve as Governor of British Burma. He was born in Moulmein and was,
I believe, an ethnic Mon by descent.
He was 'acting' governor during the tenure of Sir Charles Innes, who was away for several months in 1930-
1 on sick leave in the UK. He has the misfortune of being governor during the outbreak of the
Saya San rebellion (1930-2).
Sir Joseph (1871-1955) was an Oxford educated barrister and leading political figure in the
1920s and 1930s, a Minister and later Home Member in the dyarchy government, a judge of the

High Court, and the leader of the conservative Independent Party.
The Independent Party was also known as the "Golden Valley Party" as all their leaders lived in
Golden Valley. The party contested elections in 1922, 1925, 1928, 1932, and 1936.
(His salary as Home Member in the dyarchy government of 5,000 kyats a month was considered
astronomical by many, hence the moniker ၅ေထာင္စား). 5,000 kyats was then equal to about US
$4,000; the average daily wage was one kyat).
The party sided with the British in the early 1930s in calling for the separation of Burma from
India. They never enjoyed the popularity of the more nationalist parties led by U Ba Pe, U Chit
Hlaing, and others.
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Thant Myint-U- March 2 2017 ·
55 years ago today.(Photo credit: Renaud Egreteau @R_Egreta)

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Thant Myint-U- February 27 2017 ·
Rangoon style 1895.

The jacket is a Manchu "Ma Gua" (馬褂, literally "horse-jacket" for riding), fur lined. It is a
precursor of today's "taik-pon" (တိုက်ပုံ). The "Ma Gua" had been worn by the Manchu (Qing) men
in China since the 1640s.
Thant Myint-U-February 21 2017
Exactly 75 years ago: Australia changed Burmese history.
On 23 December 1941 the Japanese began aerial bombing of Rangoon, then crossed the border from
Thailand, seizing Moulmein at the end of January. On 15 February, Singapore, Britain's "impregnable"
fortress in the Far East, fell and 80,000 Allied troops were captured. On 19 February, the Australian town
of Darwin was attacked by the Japanese.
By late February, the Japanese 15th Army were fast approaching Rangoon, defeating the 17th Indian
Division, and crossing the Sittang River in strength on 23 February. The Allies had a single division in the
Shan states and Rangoon was virtually unprotected.
At the same time, two Divisions of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) - the Australian 6th and 7th
Divisions - were sailing east after successful operations against the Germans in North Africa and Syria.
Winston Churchill, with the support of President Roosevelt, ordered the lead 7th Division (under General
A.S. "Tubby" Allen) with 17,000 men to divert to Burma and urgently reinforce the defence of Rangoon.
Over an exchange of angry cables from 19 to 22 February, Australian Prime Minister John Curtin refused,

believing the troops might be needed to defend Australia itself.
The British 7th Armoured Brigade (the "Desert Rats") did arrive in Rangoon later in February but it was
too late. The Japanese took Pegu on 7 March, Rangoon was evacuated the same day.
The refusal of the Churchill's order was a defining moment in Australian history. It was also a critical
juncture in Burmese history.
What would have happened if the 7th Division had landed in Rangoon (or both the 6th and 7th Divisions,
as Churchill first proposed) and, moreover, what if the Japanese had been repelled?
There would have been no Japanese occupation and the course of later Burmese history would have been
entirely different.
(The photo is of Burmese kids with Australian soldiers later in the war. Several hundred Australians served
in the Burma campaign 1943-5).
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Thant Myint-U- February 17 · 2017
Rangoon style 1910.
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Thant Myint-U- February 13 ·2017
As it should be.
("No parking" Rangoon 1961)
More parking spaces means more cars and more traffic jams, narrower pavements for walking and street
life, and a downtown that no one will want to visit or live in.
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Thant Myint-U-February 11 2017
A strange coincidence.
U Thant at the Ministry of Information c. 1951. The Ministry was located at 22/4 Phayre Street (now
Pansodan).
U Thant (centre in white jacket) was then the Ministry's Permanent Secretary.
In 2013 the Ministry of Information kindly allowed the Yangon Heritage Trust to renovate and rent a floor
of 22/4 Pansodan to be our new office. We had learned that there was a floor there not being used and
asked to rent it.
I had no idea then that the same building had been my grandfather's office 60 years before. I found out
only months after we had moved in.

Thant Myint-U-February 9 2017 ·
The Rangoon waterfront 1938.
I hope this entire waterfront will soon be open to the public. Great public spaces make a great city.
Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · February 5 · Edited ·
Before UMFCCI:
Burmese business delegation in London, boarding a Handley Page W8 biplane airliner of the British Home

Air Service for a flight to Birmingham, 1 August 1923.
This was at the very start of the period of "Dyarchy" government, when Burma was still a province of
India, but when it also began to take some very small moves towards representative government, with its
first elections (1922), first legislature (in the old Secretariat), and first Burmese ministers.
Business in the 1920s was good, a golden era for the economy, with big profits from rice and teak,
Rangoon a modern cosmopolitan port, and immigration (from India) at its peak (1928) - until it all came
crashing down, with the Great Depression and the precipitous fall in global commodity prices (1930),
skyrocketing unemployment, bankruptcies, land alienation, then communal riots (1938 in Rangoon), the
rise of fascism and communism, and finally war (1941) and independence (1948)
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Thant Myint-U-February 4 2017·
This week in 1942: Bren gun carriers patrol downtown Rangoon.
The city was in near chaos, with hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the heavily bombed downtown
and dockyards, electricity lines severely damaged, and food supplies running short.
The Japanese 15th Army were advancing north from Moulmein. The 17th India Division had hoped to halt
the advance at the Sittang River but would instead soon meet with disaster.
The entire rest of the country was defended by only one other division: the 1st Burma Division
(headquartered at Toungoo, with two brigades of Burma Rifles and one brigade of mainly Punjabi and
Rajput infantry).
The 7th Armoured Brigade (the "Desert Rats", who had been battling the Italians in North Africa) would
soon arrive to protect the city and then cover the British retreat north.

The British retreat from Rangoon to India over the next four months would be the longest in UK history.
Tens of thousands would die and most of Burma's modern infrastructure destroyed.
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Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · February 2 · Edited ·
1889: The Burmese "dacoit" leader Maung Hmone who surrendered that year to the British (and it seems
also started wearing English clothes).
The drawing is from an 1889 issue of the Illustrated London News.
1889 was more or less the last year of the bloody "Pacification" of Upper Burma by the new British
occupying power. 40,000 British and Indian soldiers had been deployed to crush the multi-headed, at times
chaotic, and often fierce resistance. Tens of thousands of Burmese lost their lives as a result of the fighting,
forced displacement and the resulting near famine conditions in parts of the Irrawaddy valley.
I'm not sure who Maung Hmone was, but most 'dacoit' leaders were myothugyis or others from noble or
gentry backgrounds.

Thant Myint-U- February 3 2017 ·
Today is the birthday of the Kinwun Mingyi (3 February 1822 to 30 June 1908).
The Kinwun Mingyi (U Kaung) was Burma (Myanmar)'s leading reformer in the 1870s and early 1880s.
He was a scholar, diplomat, and the author of numerous works of literature, history, and jurisprudence.
He led the kingdom's first embassy to Europe in 1871, spending many weeks in the UK, France, and Italy
and came back with a much better appreciation of Burma's situation in the world, its weakness against the
newly industrialising powers of the West, and the need to modernise quickly.
At the death of King Mindon in 1878, the Kinwun Mingyi and his allies were able to push through a series
of sweeping reforms, aimed at nothing less than the complete overhaul of the existing system of
government and rapid economic development. The government of 1878 - which included several who had
studied in Europe - was one of the best educated in Burmese history.
The conservative pushback of 1880, worsening economic conditions, instability in the Kachin Hills and
along the China border, British support for dissident factions, and factionalism within the government all
weakened and finally doomed the reform programme.
The end of the reforms gave way to the fall of the kingdom in 1885.
(edited repost from 2015)

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Thant Myint-U-January 31 · 2017
Meeting my grandfather almost 51 years ago.
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Thant Myint-U- January 29 2017 ·
75 years ago this week: The Battle for Moulmein.
On 26 January 1942, the Japanese 15h Army under General Shojiro Iida attacked Moulmein,
The main attack was led by the 55th Division (under Lt. General Hiroshi Takeuchi), which advanced on
the city from the east via Kawkareik and Kyondo. The 33rd Division approached from the northeast from
Pa-an.
Tavoy had already fallen on 19 January to a battalion group of the 55th Division.
Defending the city was 16 Brigade of the India Army's 17th Division ("The Black Cat"), under Brigadier
Sir John Smyth, Bt., VC. The Brigade was comprised primarily of units from Gurkha and Baluch
regiments.
Moulmein fell on 31 January after after sustained aerial bombardment and fighting along the city's western
perimeter.
Fierce fighting then followed over the next two weeks as British-Indian forces retreated across the Salween
River.
By mid-February the British had decided to evacuate Rangoon, which fell to the Japanese on 8 March
1942.

Thant Myint-U- January 26 2017·
When Rangoon had proper taxi companies (1957).
(Photo credit Renaud Egretau)

Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · January 19 · Edited ·
Exactly 70 years ago - the moment of Burma's rebirth and the beginnings of its tragedy.
I'm a little surprised (or perhaps not) that there has been almost no discussion (in the media or elsewhere)
of the 70th anniversary these two weeks of the negotiations for Burma's independence.
Between 13 and 27 January 1947 discussions took place in London between the UK government of Prime
Minister Clement Attlee and the visiting Burmese delegation led by U Aung San. These discussions led to
the "Aung San - Attlee Agreement".
(It was the coldest winter in the UK in 300 years - with night time temperatures falling to minus 20 degrees
centigrade, and widespread coal shortages leading to hours of power cuts a day).
The "Aung San - Attlee Agreement" stated as the "common objective" of its signatories "a free and
independent Burma whether within or without the British Commonwealth Nations".
The Agreement further called for elections to a Constituent Assembly "as soon as possible" and laid out
many and various transitional provisions.

The Labour government of Clement Attlee had by November 1946 already decided to grant Burma quick
independence. The question for the British was what do with the "Frontier Areas" (essentially the Chin,
Kachin and Karen hills and the Shan, Wa, and Karenni states). Promises had been made during the war (in
particular to the Karen and Kachin who had fought with the Allies against the Japanese) and many on the
British side were not keen on forcing the Frontier Areas to join an independent Burma.
The result was a fudge. The agreement stated that there should be "the early unification of the Frontier
Areas and Ministerial Burma" (eg Burma proper) but "with the free consent of the inhabitants of those
areas". The Panglong conference and the Frontier Enquiry Commission would soon follow. (More on that
soon)
The image was published in the 11 October 1948 issue of LIFE magazine. It shows clearly that this
moment of victory of Burma's anti-colonial struggle was also the moment where Burma's descent into
violent factionalism and civil war began.
The delegation was led by U Aung San and included both AFPFL and non-AFPFL members of the
Governor's Executive Council. Veteran politicians Thakin Ba Sein (founder of Dobama) and U Saw (Prime
Minister 1940-42) refused to sign the agreement and denounced U Aung San on return to Rangoon. Thakin
Than Tun (also in London but not marked in the photo) would lead the communist insurrection a little
more than a year later.
Within 18 months U Aung San, Thakin Mya had been assasinated, U Saw was hanged, U Tin Tut was
killed by a car bomb, and Thakin Than Tun (U Aung San's brother-in-law) was leading an insurgency. U
Ba Pe (a London signatory and founder of the YMBA) would later be arrested for high treason. Karen
leaders led by Saw Ba U Gyi, within a month of the "Aung San - Attlee Agreement", formed the Karen
National Union, and would soon be in rebellion as well.
Intense and usually violent factionalism has been a big part of the Burmese political scene since the birth
of modern politics in Burma a hundred years ago.
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Rangoon Chinatown 1964
(photo credit: UC Irvine)
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Stylish Burmese delegation.
Foreign Minister Dr E. Maung arriving at Delhi airport in September 1949, seen here together with
Burma's ambassador to India Sir M.A. Maung Gyi and other Burmese and Indian officials.
You don't see VIP arrivals smoking cigars on the runway very much any more.
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Thant Myint-U- January 11 2017
Barr Street c. 1970. When Rangoon was a walkable city.

Thant Myint-U· January 9 2017·
Hopong, Shan states, August 1948.
(photo by Henri Cartier-Bresson)

Thant Myint-U- January 7 2017 · Edited ·
Downtown Mandalay 1986

Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · January 4 · Edited ·
Happy Independence Day!
(photo: Shwedagon Pagoda 1948 by Henri Cartier-Bresson)
On this day in 1948, at 4:20am, Burma became an independent republic outside the British
Commonwealth. The Union Jack was lowered for the final time at Government House in Rangoon and the
last Governor Sir Hubert Rance formally handed over power to the Union of Burma's first president the
Yawnghwe Sawbwa Sao Shwe Thaike. (U Thant was at Government House that morning too, escorting an
elderly J.S. Furnivall).

There is a myth that Burma at independence had all the attributes of a country fated for prosperity. Burma
in January 1948 was actually in ruins after five years of war between the Allies and the Empire of Japan.
Every port, airport, oil refinery, railway line and station, bridge, and factory had been destroyed or severely
damaged. Entire towns including Mandalay had been razed to the ground. A generation of children had
missed years of school, seeing only war all around them, and hundreds of thousands of IDPs were camped
in makeshift homes. The countryside was awash in weapons and within months would become a
patchwork of insurgencies and militia. The Mujahideen would soon take control of northern Arakan and a
communist uprising sweep urban centres throughout Burma. Within a year, fighting between the Burma
Army and the Karen National Union reached Insein on the outskirts of Rangoon.
The government was young (average cabinet member in his 30s), well-meaning, and energetic, but lacking
in any administrative experience. There were several distinguished civil servants, barristers, judges,
scholars, and soldiers - but far too few for a country of Burma's size and population. The British had
expected to stay another 5-10 years and so had not really prepared a proper transition.
And this was a time of rising international tensions. The Cold War was in full swing with preparations
underway for a new North Atlantic alliance against the Soviet east. Korea was about to be divided between
North and South. Israel was created in May 1948 leading almost immediately to the first Arab-Israeli war.
On 30 January 1948 Mahatma Gandhi was assasinated, just months after India's partition and first war
between India and the new Pakistan.
China's civil war was in its closing chapter and by late 1949 the communists would seize Peking and
declare a new People's Republic. Around the same time, remnants of the defeated Chinese nationalists
would cross into the Shan states, igniting a new round of violent conflict. American Cold Warriors for
years supported the Chinese nationalists, who aimed to attack now communist Yunnan from Burma. The
uplands of Burma have not known a real peace since.
Overcoming this myth of a lost golden age and appreciating Myanmar's ever changing international
context are, I think, important in facing more clearly the scale of the challenges ahead.

Thant Myint-U- December 31, 2016 ·
The grand home of the former Ngwegunmhu of Bawzaing (Mawson), once surrounded by a moat, one of
the dozens of heritage sites in the Kalaw area.

Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · December 25, 2016 · Edited ·
Christmas 1875.
This is a very rare photograph of the Kinwun Mingyi (U Kaung) taken during his visit to Calcutta in late
December 1875.
The visit was turning-point in Anglo-Burmese relations. The ostensible reason for the trip was to meet the
Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII) who was then on a tour of the Indian Empire. But his trip
was also a last ditch attempt to repair rapidly deteriorating relations with the British.
By 1875, British interference in Burmese internal politics was growing by the day: British spies were
encouraging dissent in court circles, British territory was being used to exiles plot King Mindon's
overthrow, and British arms being secretly sent to rebels in the north. And British imposed commercial
treaties had crippled the treasury.
The King had already given up hope of a treaty of friendship with London and this diplomatic effort by the
Kinwun to negotiate with the Viceroy Lord Lytton led nowhere.
Within three years the British would be planning a full-scale invasion of Upper Burma.

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75 years ago today: war comes to Burma.
On 23 December and Christmas Day 1941 the Japanese Empire attacked Rangoon for the first time. Over
80 Mitsubishi bombers supported by Nakajima fighters flew from bases in Thailand and Indochina.
They were resisted by the Tomahawks and Buffaloes of the (UK) Royal Air Force and the (American)
"Flying Tigers", but still managed to inflict very heavy damage.
High-explosive and incendiary bombs destroyed Mingaladon airfield and large parts of downtown.
Approximately 2,000 people were killed and many more injured (out of a total population of around
400,000)
The land invasion would begin two weeks later. Rangoon fell to the Japanese Fifteenth Army of Lt.
General Shōjirō Iida on March 1942.
The photograph shows the bombing of the area south of Government House, around St. John's College and
Lady Dufferin Hospital.

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Thant Myint-U
Downtown Mandalay 1905.
The elegant Zegyo market was built in 1903 by the Italian Count Calderari (then Municipal Engineer). It
was demolished in the early 1990s.
The electric tramway, also completed in 1903 and one of the first in Asia, connected passengers from the
Clock Tower south to the Arakan Pagoda, west to the Irrawaddy and east to the Court House
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Thant Myint-U · December 6, 2016 ··
46 years ago today: Myanmar switches to right lane drive. (But the cars stay the same).
(Photo credit: Renaud Egreteau)
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Thant Myint-U-· December 6, 2016 ·
Pagoda Road 1863.
This is a watercolour painted by traveling German artist Eduard Hildebrandt just ten years after the Second
Anglo-Burmese War.

Thant Myint-U
H.R.H. the Princess of Natmauk and Naungmon (Natmauk Naungmon Minthami), daughter of HM King
Mindon and HM the Tharazin Myoza Minbura. Raised to the title Thiri Padma Devi. Born at the palace in
Mandalay in 1859, died during the British occupation.

Thant Myint-U· December 4, 2016 ·
Before Centrepoint: Sule Pagoda Road (Fytche Square) c. 1920

Downtown Rangoon 1953

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Hledan before Hledan Center.

Thant Myint-U- November 30, 2016 ·
A group of Burmese men, Mandalay 1868
(photograph by J. Jackson)
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Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · November 29, 2016 · Edited ·
Exactly 131 years ago today - 29 November 1885: King Thibaw formally surrendered his kingdom to Sir
Harry Prendergast from the verandah of his summer house in Mandalay.
The British government and its Secretary of State for India Lord Randolph Churchill were certain they
wanted to end Burmese independence once and for all. But they were far from certain exactly what they
wanted to do with their new possession.
The aim was to end French intrigue, stabilize the countryside (which was then partly in rebellion), open a
back door to Chinese markets, exploit Burma's fabled ruby mines, forests and oil fields, and protect India's
eastern flank.
The original intent was to establish a protectorate, with a new "Prince of Upper Burma" as ruler and with
the Hluttaw (Council fo State) and local ruling families (myothugyis and sawbwas) intact.
But the British quickly found themselves facing fierce and unexpected resistance, led in part by the
aristocracy. The invasion and overthrow of the monarchy was easy, the pacification would take years, and
40,000 extra troops. Leaders of the resistance were executed by the dozen, villages were razed, and a man-
made famine led to the deaths of tens of thousands of others. Only by 1890 did the British fully control
whole of Upper Burma.
By then, ideas of a protectorate were put aside, all traditional institutions of government abolished (other
than in the hills), and Burma was annexed to the empire as a province of India. All new military-
bureaucratic institutions were imported from Calcutta. The rest as they say is history.

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Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · November 24, 2016 ·

National Day at the National School in Pantanaw, 1929.
Schoolteachers U Nu and U Thant are standing at the far right and third from right respectively.
National Day marks the student boycott of 1920 against the Rangoon University Act of that year.
The Rangoon University Act was intended to establish a very exclusive Cambridge-Oxford style
residential university in Rangoon. Student protests against this was also more generally a protest against
the colonial education policies. The protests led to the establishment of a "National College" (which did
not last) and "National Schools" such as the one at Pantanaw.
This was at time of fast rising Burmese nationalism, quickened by developments in Ireland and especially
India. The General Council of Burmese Associations had just been formed and the GCBA in 1921 decided
to mark the first anniversary of the student protests as the first "National Day.
Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · November 23, 2016 · Edited ·
This week in 1922: Burma held its first ever general elections.

On 21 November 1922 elections to the new Legislative Council were held across "Ministerial Burma"
(approximately the same as today's Regions plus Rakhine State).
Out of 103 seats, 21 were directly appointed by the Governor and 24 were 'reserved' for minorities:
Karens, Indians, Europeans and Anglo-Indians/Burmans and for business groups. The rest were elected in
'general' constituencies.
The main political organization of the time, the General Council of Burmese Associations (GCBA),
headed by the extremely popular U Chit Hlaing (the 'thamada' or 'uncrowned king' of Burma') boycotted
the elections
The elections were won by the "21 Party", a breakaway faction of the GCBA led by U Ba Pe (the Sun), U
Pu, MA U Maung Gyee, U Thein Maung, and U Maung Gyi (New Light of Burma).
The elections were held as part of the new 'dyarchy' system. As part of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms,
the Government of India Act of 1919 established dual forms of government ('dyarchy') in every province
(Burma was then of course a province of India) as well as an Imperial Legislative Council in New Delhi
(the new capital).
Under the new constitution, meant as a step towards 'responsible government', power was divided between
the Governor and the elected members of the Council. 'Reserved' subjects (finance and revenue, police,
and justice) were still controlled by the Governor's Executive Council: . 'Transferred' subjects (eg health,
education, forests, agriculture) were under Ministers appointed from and responsible to the Legislative
Council.
Dyarchy was extremely controversial in Burma. Many politicians rejected it from the start and never
compromised, others chose to work within it. The Dyarchy constitution was replaced in 1937 by the
Burma Act of 1935, which separated Burma from India and was meant to take the country a step closer to
'Home Rule'.
The politics of constitutional change dominated Burma through the 1920s and 1930s. There was very little
discussion on economic development or the future of the economy.
The Shan and Karenni States, and the Chin, Kachin, and Karen Hills were all 'excluded' from these
constitutional developments. No elections were held in those areas. These 'excluded' or 'scheduled' areas
experienced a very different colonial history.
The photograph is of the Governor, Executive Council and Ministers in 1923.
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Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · November 22, 2016 ·
Repost:
A mysterious Burmese prince?
I wonder if any could shed light on the person in this photograph. The photograph is from the (UK)
National Portrait Gallery, one of only a handful of Burmese portraits there. He is listed as "Prince Maung
Maung Gyi" a great-grandson of King Mindon.
Elsewhere, he is listed as a grandson of Thibaw (which is impossible). His father is listed as "Prince
Maung Maung U", but the name of his grandfather (Mindon's son) is listed as "unknown".
He was born in 1902 and in 1922 seems to have been embroiled in a small scandal. He was an engineering
student in London at the time and engaged to a "Sylvia Charlotte Helen Forde of Wimbledon". The
Singapore Straits Times of 6 September 1922 though reports that the Registrar-General (of the UK) had
acted to stop the marriage. There was another article saying the prince was under 21 and did not have his
parents consent.
After that, the trail goes cold, except for this photograph in the National Portrait Gallery.
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Thant Myint-U November 17, 2016
75 years ago: the "Flying Tigers" arrive at Mingaladon to defend Rangoon from the Japanese.
The 1st American Volunteer Group also known as the "Flying Tigers" were US airmen authorized by
President Roosevelt to support China and protect the Burma Road. As the US was not yet at war with
Tokyo, this was a clandestine operation. The Flying Tigers were under the command of retired General
Claire Chennault and ultimately at least in theory Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek.
There were three squadrons of the Flying Tigers. The squadron at Mingaladon were the 3rd Squadron - the
"Hell's Angels". Its airmen were drawn from the US army, navy, and marines. In the evenings, many -
including their senior officer "Scarsdale Jack" Newkirk could be found at their favourite watering hole, the
'Silver Grill" on Barr Street.
The British were not really prepared for the Japanese bombing of Rangoon in December 1941 (when over
2,000 civilians were killed in downtown Rangoon) or for the land invasion that followed. Much of what
limited air defense that was was provided by the "Flying Tigers". This was at the height of Axis power,
with the 2 million men of Germany's Army Group Centre approaching Moscow and a mighty Japanese
fleet of 33 warships including 6 aircraft carriers heading to Pearl Harbor.
Few expected Burma to be draw into the fighting. But the war would soon destroy the country.
Burma/Myanmar has not known a single year of peace (with the possible exception of 1946) since
November 1941.
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Thant Myint-U- November 3, 2016 ·
Scholarship boys at school 1920

Myint Zan There is a typo in the 2nd line of the heading, It should read '27 February 1948' not '27 February
1940'

Thant Myint-U· October 21, 2016·
Visiting the reclining Buddha at Pegu c. 1906.

Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · October 22, 2016 · Edited ·
Today in 1885 the United Kingdom issued the ultimatum that led to war with Kingdom of Burma. (repost).
On 22 October 1885 Lord Dufferin the Viceroy of India issued an ultimatum calling on the government of
King Thibaw to place its foreign relations under the permanent control of the British Indian Empire.
Resolution of a dispute with the Bombay-Burmah Trading Company was was the formal aim of the
ultimatum but the real intent was to permanently end Burmese sovereignty. The British were increasingly
worried about prospect of closer Franco-Burmese relations and attracted to the idea of Burma as a 'back
door' to China. An independent Burmese kingdom was increasingly seen as an unnecessary nuisance. The
deadline was 10 November.
Contrary to British propaganda, the Burmese government at the time under King Thibaw had been
working hard to modernize to the country, undertaking major constitutional, administrative, fiscal and
other reforms. Rebellions against increased taxes had, however, severely weakened the administration.
The man pushing hardest for the annexation of Burma was Lord Randolph Churchill (father of Winston),
then Secretary of State for India. The UK was about to hold elections and Churchill, a Conservative
politician, hoped the overthrow of King Thibaw and the annexation of Burma would prove a decisive vote-
winner.
The Burmese immediately began emergency discussions on how to respond. The British in Calcutta,
Madras and Rangoon began preparing for war.
The photographs are of King Thibaw and Queen Supalayat, Lord Randolph Churchill, the Kinwun Mingyi
(then Chief Minister), and Lord Dufferin (Viceroy of India, after the war to be made the Marquess of
"Dufferin and Ava".

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Thant Myint-U October 18, 2016·
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is in New Delhi today, almost exactly 70 years after U Aung San's historic
meeting there with Pandit Nehru. The AFPFL leader was en route to London to discuss Burmese
independence with Prime Minister Clement Attlee.
Pandit Nehru helped U Aung San by having his tailor make for him a new set of warm clothes, including a
greatcoat for the London winter. The winter of 1946-7 was to be the coldest in England in three centuries,
with temperatures falling to -21 degrees Celsius and fuel shortages leading to widespread power cuts.
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Thant Myint-U· October 17, 2016 ·
Dalhousie Street the day before military rule: 1 March 1962.
(photo credit: W Robert Moore, National Geographic)
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Thant Myint-U
October 14, 2016·

The late King Bhumipol Adulyadej of Thailand and Queen Sirikit with U Thant in New York June 1967
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Thant Myint-U- September 26, 2016 ·
Sule Pagoda Road (corner of Fraser Street) c. 1935.
Good public transport (electric trams), wide tree-lined pavements for walking: there were big problems
with colonial rule, but traffic management wasn't one of them.
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Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · September 21, 2016 · Edited ·
State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will address the UN General Assembly this morning in New
York alongside many presidents and prime ministers.
This is a photograph of U Nu at the UN in June 1956. I'm not sure where he spoke, perhaps at the
Economic and Social Council. It wasn't during General Assembly high level debate (which is always in
September). To his left are James Barrington (Permanent Secretary, Foreign Office), U Thant (Permanent
Secretary, PM's Office) and Dr Htin Aung (Rector, Rangoon University).
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Young women with cheroots, Mandalay December 1885.
Photograph by Willoughby Wallace Hooper, Provost Marshall, Burma Expeditionary Force.
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Thant Myint-U· September 18, 2016 ·
ေွှေတိဂုံဘုွား ၁၈၅၅ shwedagon-1855

Prome Road traffic jam c. 1975.

Thant Myint-U- September 11, 2016·
Strand Road (corner of Barr Street) c. 1900.

Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · August 15, 2016 ·
For Indian Independence Day today: Mahatma Gandhi wearing a hat just given to him by soon to be Prime
Minister U Nu (4 December 1947 at Birla House in Delhi).
The struggle against British colonialism is a shared history of Burma and India.
Mahatama Gandhi visited Burma several times from 1905-1935 and wrote about how these trips
influenced his thinking, on colonialism, on the role of women. His close friend and patron since student
days in London was Dr Mehta who lived on Mughal Street and later Shwedagon Pagoda Road.
Burma's own independence movement was deeply influenced by India. The 'boycott' and the 'general
strike' were Indian imports. The pace of Burmese constitutional change closely followed India's in 1922
and 1935.
And the underlying reason the Labour government of Clement Attlee decided in 1946 to quit Burma was
that the country, with India's coming independence, would no longer hold any real strategic importance.
British calculations would otherwise have been very different.

Thant Myint-U· August 9, 2016
"I don't like to be disturbed at home; I tell the cable office not to call me before 6:30 AM, unless there's a
war." - U Thant

Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · August 1, 2016 · Edited ·
Burmese at the UN 1955.
From left to right: unidentified; Aunty Dora Than E; Dr Htin Aung; U Thant; Daw Mya Yee; Mrs. James
Barrington; U (Jimmy) Paw Htin; Colonel Lwin; Uncle Richard Paw Oo.
I think this was during U Nu's visit to the US in June-July 1955.
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Thant Myint-U-· July 18, 2016 ·
The Secretariat, Martyr's Day 19 July 1949: civil war raging, economy in ruins, Burma government
promises "peace within a year".
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Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · July 14, 2016 · Edited ·
For Bastille Day today (France's National Day): The first Burmese (Myanmar) embassy to France, led by
the Kinwun Mingyi (1872-3).
Seated from left to right: Royal Secretary Naymyo Mindin Thurayn Maung Cheint; the Pangyet Wundauk
Maha Minkyaw Raza Maung Shwe O (educated in Paris); Chief Minister the Kinwun Mingyi (leading the
embassy); the Pandee Wundauk Maha Minhla Kyawhtin Maung Shwe Pin (educated in Calcutta). Standing
in back: Major A.R. McMahon, British Agent at Mandalay (I think) and Edmund Jones, Burmese Consul
at Rangoon (both fluent in Burmese).
At the National Library in Paris, the Kinwun was shocked see an old map and realize that Europeans had
known of Burma since the time of Marco Polo.
The Burmese and French governments signed a commercial treaty. The Kinwun was hoping that strong
relationship with France would deter further British aggression. At a time when the British refused to enter

into direct bilateral relations (insisting only on relations via British India), the Kinwun wanted to expand
Mandalay's diplomatic ties around the world, including to France, Germany, Italy, and the United States.
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Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · July 10, 2016 ·
Rangoon from the river c. 1890.
The Shwedagon Pagoda on Singuttara hill in the background, the Holy Trinity Church, District Courts and
Public Offices, and the Sule Pagoda in the foreground.
Photograph by Philip Adolphe Klier of Signal Pagoda Road.
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Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · July 9, 2016 ·
Burmese silversmiths c. 1885.
Master silversmiths Maung Yin Maung (sitting left) and Maung Po Thit (sitting centre) and others in
Rangoon.Their clothes are a mix of late Konbaung and colonial era men's dress.
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Thant Myint-U-July 8, 2016 ·
Merchant Street near the corner of Barr Street c. 1905.
The Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank (HSBC), part of which had been a Roman Catholic church, is on the
left.

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Thant Myint-U· June 29, 2016 ·
Wingaba Road, Rangoon c. 1905
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Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · June 28, 2016 · Edited ·
Corner of Merchant and Phayre Streets c. 1961, Rander House in the immediate background. This was the
centre of the city's financial district.
Burma's financial system was then one of the most advanced in Asia, with dozens of local and
international banks, including Lloyds Bank and Standard and Chartered Bank (just further down the street
on the right), HSBC, and Grindlays, as well as insurance firms such as Prudential (all within a block of this
intersection).
Hard to think of a more important priority for the government than strengthening Myanmar's financial
services sector and radically improving financial inclusion.
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Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · May 22, 2016 · Edited ·
The first US Secretary of State to visit Burma was John Foster Dulles, the archetypal Cold Warrior, who
came in 1955 with the hope to persuading the U Nu government to join the newly formed SEATO (South
East Asian Treaty Organization).
Relations with the US were not particularly close at the time. The two countries were not very familiar
with one another and the Americans worried that the AFPFL would soon turn further to the left or that the
country would come under Communist rule.
The Burmese were extremely upset with US support for the KMT army of General Li Mi who had invaded
the Shan states and seized considerable territory east of the Salween. By 1955 the US had reduced support
but Burmese suspicions of American intentions remained.
The February 1955 Dulles visit was soon followed by U Nu's two weeks visit to the United States that
summer. US-Burma ties improved over the late 1950s and until the 1962 coup.
The photo is of John Foster Dulles with President Dr Ba U at Government House.
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Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · May 19, 2016 ·

The rainy season begins.
(photo credit: Wim Dussel, Rangoon 1954)
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Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · April 12, 2016 ·
For those interested in the UN:
My paper - just published by NYU/CIC - on what will be the next UN Secretary General's first and perhaps
most important challenge: choosing her or his new top team - and getting powerful governments to agree.
http://cic.nyu.edu/…/next-secretary-general-secretariat-ref….
The photograph is of U Thant in 1961 during a Security Council debate on the Congo with two of his top
officials: General I.J. Rikhye of India (Military Adviser to the Secretary-General) and Mr. Ralph J. Bunche
(UN Under-Secretary for Special Political Affairs).
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Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · April 10, 2016 · Edited ·
Thingyan in Rangoon 1960 with Prime Minister U Nu.
For anyone wondering why "New Year" is celebrated in mid-April:
1. "Thingyan" (spelled "Saṁkran in Burmese) is derived from the Sanskrit "Saṁkrānti". It is the same
word as "Songkran in Thai.
2. "Saṁkrānti" means the day the sun moves from one "rashi" or constellation of the zodiac to another.
3. The "new year" marks the movement of the sun from the last constellation (Pisces or Mina in Sanskrit,
Tabaung in Burmese) to the first (Aries or Mesa in Sanskrit, Tagu in Burmese).
4. The zodiac originated in ancient Babylon (approximately 2,600 years ago. The start of the zodiac (with
the first day of Pisces) in ancient Babylonian times marked the vernal equinox (the start of spring).
5. Because of axial precession (the slow change in the earth's rotation over millennia), the vernal equinox
now occurs about a month earlier (21 March), rather than during Thingyan.

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Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · April 3, 2016 · Edited ·
Shan chiefs at the 1903 Delhi Durbar. The Saophas of Mongpawn and Yawnghwe are to the left.
The Durbar marked the accession of King Edward and Queen Alexandra as the Emperor and Empress of
India).
The Mongpawn Saopha Hkun Ti had been a prime mover behind the Limbin Confederacy (which had
rebelled against King Thibaw). He was the father of Sao Sam Htun (Counselor for the Frontier Areas,
assasinated July 1947). The Yawnghwe Saopha Sir Saw Maung was a very long serving Shan ruler and
uncle of Sao Shwe Thaik, the first President of Burma.
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Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · March 30, 2016 ·
President Mahn Win Maung in 1961: Until today Myanmar's last president without a military background.
Not sure the debonair style will make a comeback.

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Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · March 20, 2016 · Edited ·
An earlier version of the national flag.
The current tricolour was first adopted in the 1930s by Dobama Asiayone (the ultra-nationalist "We
Burmans" association). It was inspired by the 1919 flag of the Irish Republic (more on Burma and Ireland
later this week).
The "State of Burma" (1943-45) adapted the Dobama flag by placing the traditional peacock symbol at the
centre (rather than the star used now).
The image is from a painting of the August 1943 'independence' ceremony of the "State of Burma" at
Government House, Rangoon.

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Thant Myint-U
60 years ago - the heyday of Burmese diplomacy: Prime Minister U Nu at the Bandung Conference with
Justice U Myint Thein (left) and U Thant (back).
Burma was one of the organizers of the Bandung Conference of newly independent Asian and African
states, together with India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Ceylon. The conference was a big step towards the
creation of the Non-Aligned Movement.
Video here: http://www.gettyimages.no/detail/video/representatives-of-thirty-nations-from-african-and-
asia-news-footage/116591383
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Thant Myint-U
Rangoon 1915.
A fascinating map showing Rangoon's social landscape a hundred years ago.
According to the map, the 'well to do all races' tended to live south of Government House and around
Halpin Road and the Pegu Club down to St John's College and Keighley Street; the Golden Valley estate
(the Windermere estate was not yet built) and north of the Royal Lake.
The residential areas for "Anglo-Indians and the professional classes, Burmese, Indian, etc" were clustered
around York Road and near the Secretariat and east towards Thompson Road.
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Thant Myint-U
Merchant Street 1959 (near Barr Street looking north towards the park and Sule Pagoda).
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Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · February 27, 2016 · Edited ·
Sao Hom Hpa, the Sawbwa of Hsenwi, in London for the Burma Round Table Conference 1931-2.
The Burma Roundtable Conference paved the way for Burma's separation from India, the 1935
constitution, and the semi-elected governments of 1937-42.
The Sawbwa of Hsenwi was there in an advisory role to the the Sawbwas of Hsipaw and Yawnghwe.
The Burma delegation included about two dozen other prominent political figures, including U Chit
Hlaing, U Tun Aung Gyaw, U Maung Gyee, Dr Thein Maung, Saw Sydney Loo-Nee, and Miss May Oung
(Daw Mya Sein).

(This is a repost. In an earlier post I had not identified him and thought the photograph was from King
George's coronation of 1911. I am grateful to Seng Sirikit Sao for the clarification).
— with Seng Sirikit Sao.
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Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · February 6, 2016 · Edited ·
Sule Pagoda Road (corner of Fraser Street) c. 1940.
Then considered one of the nicest boulevards in Asia, with many world-class cinemas, restaurants, hotels

and shops, clean, excellent for walking, with good lighting and public transportation.
Yangon in a few year's time could be just as nice - if we get rid of 90% of the cars, re-widen the
pavements, and build the best possible public transit (preferably underground) throughout the historic city
(from Ady Road south to the river).
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Thant Myint-U
Page Liked · December 18, 2015 ·

70 years ago: an aerial view of post-war Strand Road at the intersections of Phayre Street and Barr Street.
The main buildings are from left to right the New Law Courts, the Customs House, the Accountant
General's Office, the Standard Chartered Bank (the white building at the top), and the Port Authority.
The northern wing of the Accountant General's Office was heavily damaged by Allied bombing in early
'45 and subsequently collapsed or was pulled down. The building has never since been repaired.

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Writer, historian, and chairman of the Yangon Heritage
Trust
Biography
I was born 31 January 1966 in New York City and was
educated at Harvard (AB'87 in Government and
Economics), the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced
International Studies (MA'91 in International Relations and
International Economics) and Cambridge University
(PhD'96 in History).

I have served on three United Nations peacekeeping
operations, in Cambodia (19923) and in the former
Yugoslavia (19945 and 1996), including as the UN's senior
spokesman in Sarajevo during the Bosnian War.

From 19961999 I taught Asian and British imperial history
as a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. I was also a
Research Associate of the Cambridge Centre for History
and Economics.

From 20002007 I worked at the UN Secretariat in New
York. I worked first for the Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs and then in Department of Political
Affairs and the Executive Office of the SecretaryGeneral.
From 20057 I was the Chief of the Policy Planning Unit in
the Department of Political Affairs. I was also the Senior
Officer attached to the SecretaryGeneral's HighLevel
Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change, formed in the
aftermath of the Iraq War, whose recommendations led to
the 2005 World Summit.

Since 2007 I have held visiting fellowships at Harvard, the
International Peace Institute in New York, and the Institute
for Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. I am also a
Research Associate of the Cambridge Centre for South
Asian Studies.

I have written three books: The Making of Modern Burma
(2000), the River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of
Burma (2006), and Where China Meets India: Burma and
the New Crossroads of Asia (2011 and shortlisted for the
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Writer
Asia Society's Bernard Schwartz Prize).

I have also written several book chapters and monographs,
as well as articles for the New York Times, the Washington
Post, the LA Times, the Financial Times, the Guardian, the
Daily Telegraph, Time Magazine, the London Review of
Books, the Times Literary Supplement, and many other
publications.

I am currently the Chairman of the Yangon Heritage Trust.
From 20112015 I was a member of the National Economic
and Social Advisory Council and from 20122015 a Special
Adviser at the Myanmar Peace Centre. I am also Political
Advisor to the (Myanmar) Livelihoods and Food Security
Trust Fund, the Vice Chairman of the World Economic
Forum's South East Asia Council, and coChairman of the
U Thant House Trust.
Awards
In December 2013 I was named by Foreign Policy
magazine as one of the "100 Leading Global Thinkers" for
the year, and in April 2014 was voted 15th in an online poll
from Prospect Magazine's list of 50 "World Thinkers".

I was also selected in June 2015 for the annual Fukuoka
"Grand Prize", Japan's leading cultural award.
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History and Impact of Burma's Separation from British India in 1937

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