In this biography
Quick facts
- Born
- 25 May 1907
- Died
- 14 February 1995
- Birthplace
- Wakema, Myaungmya District, British Burma
- Country
- Myanmar
- Nationality
- Burmese
- Known for
- Leading parliamentary governments after independence and being overthrown in the 1962 coup
- First premiership
- 1948–1956
- Returned to office
- 1957–1958 and 1960–1962
- Political coalition
- Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League
- Removed
- Military coup · 2 March 1962
Why this life matters
U Nu’s governments faced civil war, economic reconstruction and arguments over religion and federalism before military rule ended parliamentary government.
Timeline
Key moments
Born in Wakema
Born in the Irrawaddy delta on 25 May.
Joined the student strike
Helped organise the Rangoon University protest alongside Aung San.
Became prime minister
Led the first government of the independent Union of Burma.
Transferred power to a caretaker cabinet
Accepted a temporary military administration under General Ne Win amid an AFPFL split.
Won a return to office
His Clean AFPFL faction won the February parliamentary election; he resumed office in April.
Overthrown and detained
Ne Win’s coup ended parliamentary government.
Claimed a parallel civilian government
Challenged military rule during the 1988 uprising, then spent several years under house arrest before release in April 1992.
From Wakema to the Rangoon student movement
Born in Wakema on 25 May 1907, Nu graduated from Rangoon University in 1929 and worked in teaching and journalism before returning to study law in 1934. University politics brought him together with Aung San: Nu headed the student union, while Aung San served as its secretary. Their involvement in the 1936 strike connected campus protest to Burma’s wider anticolonial movement.
Writing was another route into public life. Nu helped the Red Dragon Book Club circulate political literature in the late 1930s. His later plays, historical accounts and autobiography made him an author as well as a politician. The People Win Through addressed insurgency and political coercion; Saturday’s Son revisited the upheavals of his own life.
Taking office after Aung San’s assassination
Nu was president of the Constituent Assembly when Aung San and other leaders were assassinated on 19 July 1947. He took over the leadership preparing for independence and became prime minister on 4 January 1948. This was a head-of-government position, distinct from the presidency held by Sao Shwe Thaik.
Independence did not bring immediate security. A U.S. policy assessment written in 1950 described communist rebellion, disrupted communications and a fragile government struggling to rebuild administration. Nu’s civilian leadership developed amid armed conflict, not an uninterrupted peacetime parliamentary experiment. That early insecurity helps explain the enduring importance of relations between the cabinet and military command.
Neutral diplomacy and Buddhist public life
Nu sought room for independent diplomacy during the Cold War. Nehru’s minutes of a Bandung meeting on 25 April 1955 record Nu discussing Laos and Cambodia with the Indian and Chinese premiers. His suggestion that India help organise assistance rather than outside powers deploying personnel illustrates neutrality as practical regional diplomacy, not simply withdrawal from international affairs.
Buddhism was also central to his public identity. His government supported the Sixth Buddhist Council of 1954–1956, bringing religious scholarship into state-sponsored cultural life. His later effort to establish Buddhism as the state religion in 1961 intensified disputes over equal belonging in a union with Christian, Muslim and other communities. Religious patronage and parliamentary democracy were overlapping, sometimes conflicting parts of his programme.
The AFPFL split, caretaker rule and electoral return
Nu’s first period in office ended in 1956, when Ba Swe became prime minister; Nu returned in 1957. The AFPFL then split into the Clean faction led by Nu and Thakin Tin and the Stable faction associated with Ba Swe and Kyaw Nyein. Rival party organisations weakened the governing coalition and sharpened disputes over security.
In autumn 1958, Nu accepted a military-led caretaker administration under Ne Win. Historian Ian Brown describes pressure from senior officers behind the parliamentary handover. Elections in February 1960 gave Nu’s faction a decisive victory, and he returned in April. This temporary interruption must be distinguished from the coup of 1962, which detained him and removed the constitutional government.
The 1962 coup and the end of his government
On 2 March 1962, Ne Win seized power and arrested Nu. A contemporaneous U.S. intelligence memorandum contrasted this action with the earlier caretaker arrangement: the 1958 transfer had Nu’s approval, whereas the new takeover did not. The memorandum also identified military hostility to proposed federal restructuring as a factor, an outside assessment rather than proof that military intervention was necessary.
Nu’s elected government was replaced by a Revolutionary Council. He remained detained until 1966 and later organised opposition from exile. His removal therefore ended more than a personal premiership: it closed the parliamentary order through which parties and regional leaders had contested the future of the union.
Exile, the 1988 challenge and his final years
Nu helped form the Parliamentary Democracy Party in 1969 and sought to restore civilian government through opposition based abroad. The campaign did not return him to power. After years in exile, he returned to Burma under a 1980 amnesty.
During the 1988 uprising he claimed leadership of a parallel government, arguing that the elected authority displaced in 1962 remained legitimate. House arrest followed in December 1988; he was released in April 1992 and died at home in Yangon on 14 February 1995. His later claim was an opposition challenge, not another period of control over the state. His legacy combines independence leadership and electoral politics with unresolved tensions over religion, federalism and military power.
Sources for this section: [8]
Quick answers
Frequently asked questions about U Nu
- Who was U Nu?
- U Nu was a first prime minister of independent Burma. U Nu’s governments faced civil war, economic reconstruction and arguments over religion and federalism before military rule ended parliamentary government.
- What is U Nu best known for?
- U Nu is best known for leading parliamentary governments after independence and being overthrown in the 1962 coup.
- When and where was U Nu born?
- U Nu was born on 25 May 1907 in Wakema, Myaungmya District, British Burma.
- When did U Nu die?
- U Nu died on 14 February 1995.
Keep exploring
Lives connected to this story
- Aung San
The independence leader whose assassination placed Nu at the head of the transition to sovereignty.
- Ba Swe
Prime minister during Nu’s 1956–1957 interruption and a leader of the rival Stable AFPFL faction.
- Ne Win
The military commander who led the caretaker cabinet and later overthrew Nu’s elected government.
Sources and further reading
Explore the evidence
These references support the biography and offer further reading. Official records, first-person accounts and independent reporting provide different perspectives; image records document attribution and licensing.
- 1. Encyclopedia.comU Nu: Encyclopedia of World Biography entry
The page contains separate reference entries with conflicting birth years. The World Biography entry gives 25 May 1907; the Religion entry’s 1905 year is not adopted.
- 2. Wiley, The Encyclopedia of EmpireNu, U: student leadership and political career
- 3. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of StateU.S. policy assessment of Burma, 1950
- 4. Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru / The Nehru ArchiveBandung talks with Chou En-lai and U Nu, 25 April 1955
- 5. Stephen McCarthy, City University of Hong Kong SEARCReligion and political legitimacy in Burma
- 6. American University Foreign Area Studies / ERICArea Handbook for Burma: parliamentary and caretaker governments
- 7. Ian Brown, Cambridge University PressIn pursuit of socialism: the 1958 political rupture
Parliamentary transfer under military pressure in 1958 is distinguished from the non-consensual 1962 coup. Election in February 1960 and resumption of office in April are separate milestones.
- 8. Reuters / Online Burma Library archiveU Nu obituary, Reuters, 14 February 1995
The 1995 Reuters obituary supplies exile, house-arrest and final-years chronology. Nu’s 1988 parallel-government claim is not counted as an effective premiership.
- 9. Encyclopaedia BritannicaU Nu
- 10. U.S. Department of State archiveBackground Note: Burma
- 11. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of StateThe 1962 coup in Burma
The FRUS memoranda are contemporaneous U.S. assessments, not neutral findings that a coup was inevitable. Nehru’s minutes likewise record one participant’s account of the Bandung discussion.
- 12. Wikimedia Commons1955 photograph and public-domain record
