This page depicts a work of fiction, while based on a real historical figure it does not accurately reflect the life and times of U Ba Pe or the history of Burma in the real world.
U Ba Pe is the second and current president of the Republic of Burma. He is the leader of the right-wing People's Party and its ideologically diverse parliamentary coalition, which is known as the Five Flowers Alliance.
Ba Pe has been de facto leader of the right-wing tendency of the Burmese independence movement since the late 1910s. After his narrow election victories against the then incumbent president Chit Hlaing in 1930, followed by a successful reelection in 1935, he was accused of voter intimidation and electoral rigging. U Ba Pe is widely seen as a xenophobic and authoritarian leader, with a political philosophy that is steeped in orthodox, traditionalist Buddhism and a belief in the cultural supremacy of the Bamar people, the ethnic majority of Burma.
Biography[]
Early life[]
U Ba Pe was born on April 16th, 1883 in the village of Gyobingauk, located in the Tharrawaddy region of British-controlled Burma. He was given the birth name Ba Gyi Ba Pe, but would shorten this to Ba Pe as an adult. His family were local landowners and merchants, with his father serving as village headman. The relative wealth that U Ba Pe was born into as well as the presence of Catholic missionary schools in Gyobingauk ensured that he was given a very good education at an early age. He moved up from the local mission school to Rangoon College, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in 1906.
Involvement in politics[]
A young U Ba Pe (centre) alongside his two colleagues "Shwe Kyin" U Pu (right) and U Tun Shein (left). "Shwe Kyin" U Pu would go on to serve as U Ba Pe's minister of commerce and industry, whilst U Tun Shein passed away from illness in 1920.
During his time at Rangoon College Ba Pe threw himself headfirst into Burmese nationalist politics, becoming a founding member of the Young Men's Buddhist Association, also known as the YMBA, in 1906. After graduating he worked as a teacher at St. Paul's High School in Rangoon, colloquially known as "Sein Pao", having previously rejected a job offer to be a clerk in the colonial civil service on the basis of national pride. During this time he used his family fortune and his higher education to start a nationalist newspaper dubbed Thurya (The Sun) in 1911. The paper not only served as a political organ for the nationalist movement, but it also helped Ba Pe build up a close circle of personal friends and allies who collaborated with him on funding the paper, as well as writing and publishing articles. The perception among the more radical Burmese nationalist movement was shifting towards the view that the YMBA was a stagnant organisation, with its de facto leader U May Aung being far too moderate and conservative. Many nationalists were eager to assert a degree of political self sufficiency from the YMBA and U May Aung's own newspaper, The Burman. U Ba Pe formed contacts with men like Hla Pe, Thakin Kodaw Hmaing, U Tun Shein, U Thein Maung, Tharrawaddy U Pu and U Maung Gyee which would lay the groundwork for his political career in the future and as a rising star in the nationalist movement.
The "Shoe Scandal"[]
"Shoe" Thein Maung maintained a lifelong friendship with U Ba Pe. In 1930 he was drafted to serve as his Vice President, a position he maintained after the 1935 election.
In July 1917 the political clique based around Thurya undertook their first major venture independent of the YMBA. An ongoing problem in Burma at the time was that the European colonizers would frequently disrespect native cultural and religious customs. One example of this was the cleanliness of Buddhist temples, who forbade visitors from wearing shoes while stepping inside. Europeans would frequently ignore this rule, quite literally "trampling over" Burmese heritage and tradition. The issue came to a head in 1917 when then Viceroy of India, Frederic Thesiger, visited the city of Prome and was seen entering the Shwesandaw Pagoda with his shoes on. YMBA member U Thein Maung, who was based out of Prome and serving as a member of the Shwesandaw Pagoda board of trustees, took up the fight to defend the temples, first by taking down signs that read "Europeans need not remove their shoes" in favour of signs explicitly forbidding shoes and then by collaborating with U Ba Pe and Thurya to issue a scathing denouncement of the European imperialists. A series of satirical cartoons were published, drawn by the resident Thurya cartoonist U Ba Galay aka Shwe Yon, with one of the most infamous caricatures showing an overweight European couple circumventing the rules against wearing shoes by ordering a pair of native Burmese servants to carry them on their backs through the temple.
As a consequence, U Ba Pe and U Thein Maung were detained and questioned by the police, leading to public outcry in Prome and Rangoon. U May Aung and the YMBA establishment were swift to distance themselves from the Thurya staff's actions, but both U Ba Pe and U Thein Maung became celebrated among the common people. U Thein Maung was thereafter given the nickname of "Shoe" Thein Maung for his deeds, while the popular support U Ba Pe gained was enough to allow him to be elected to be the annual president of the YMBA in 1918, though this was a somewhat hollow victory as U Ba Pe had at this point become more and more disillusioned in the YMBA after their tepid response to the Shoe Scandal. In 1919 U Ba Pe and several of his colleagues traveled to London to attend attend a British colonial commission and present their grievances. Shortly thereafter, wearing shoes inside of temples was declared to be outlawed, though the practice continued among many European elites visiting the temples.
The 1920 Students' Strike[]
U Chit Hlaing, the man who would emerge as U Ba Pe's principal ideological rival, both within colonial era politics and after the founding of the Burmese Republic
Perhaps U Ba Pe's most defining moment politically and one of the major incidents which shaped the Burmese political scene as a whole, was the 1920 students' strike. The British Empire had long prioritized that schools in their colonies should teach European subjects and instill Western, Christian values in the subject population. This was fiercely opposed by Burmese nationalists who saw their traditional identity being erased in favour of an British dominated culture. In 1918 the newly appointed Lieutenant-Governor Reginald Craddock appointed the English intellectual Mark Hunter to draft a bill for reforming the Burmese colonial educational system, with the hope of fostering the growth of the Anglo-Burmese upper and middle class. Rangoon College, then an associate college of the University of Calcutta, would become an independent university of its own, but in the process it would also become far more exclusive, with expensive entry fees and far smaller acceptance quotas, while the overall curriculum in both Rangoon College and Burma as a whole was to be heavily streamlined to emphasize Western education.
Prominent members of the YMBA, such as Chit Hlaing and U Ba Pe issued condemnations of the bill 1919, though much like during the shoe scandal the older leadership of the YMBA was almost uniformly silent on the matter. By December 1920, when the Bill had been submitted to the Governor's Legislative Council for deliberation, hundreds of students and teachers at Rangoon and Mandalay schools went on strike, refusing to attend or teach classes unless it was amended. To account for the large number of student drop outs, the striking teachers Ba Lwin and Pho Latt established the native run Myoma National School in downtown Rangoon, in open defiance of the colonial government's laws. It was during the strike that Chit Hlaing and U Ba Pe began their political rivalry, as Chit Hlaing wrote pamphlets and articles supporting a pluralistic university bill that would allow for both Buddhist, Secular and Christian education, as well as urging that provisions would be made to fund student housing and offer more funding to schools. U Ba Pe on the other hand wrote his own political declarations, prioritizing Buddhist education over secular or Christian education. His proposals for amending the bill and to resolve school funding was to push for shorter terms, expanding courses on Burmese history and literature, as well as increasing admittance numbers.
Eventually the Legislative Council and the Governor relented and a Committee of National Education was established, chaired by Joseph Augustus Maung Gyi and attended by many of loudest voices of the 1920 student strike, such as U Ba Pe, Chit Hlaing, Ba Lwin, Pho Latt and U Razak. The committee would prune the worst excesses of Western cultural chauvinism from the University Bill, allowing it to pass with less political pushback from the native Burmans. Among the amendments was the foundation of an intermediary college in Mandalay, as well as government recognition of native run schools such as the Myoma National School. In the aftermath of the strike, large portions of the YMBA split off to form the General Council of Burmese Association, or GCBA. These radicals, like U Ba Pe and Chit Hlaing, were dissatisfied with U May Aung and other older leaders of the YMBA's refusal to endorse the strike, ultimately deciding that the YMBA was no longer an effective platform for the Burmese independence movement. Beyond that, the strike would linger in the collective memory of Burma, as hundreds of students and teachers now had first-hand experience of voicing their desires in the political scene and utilizing direct action to enforce their demands. A whole generation of 1920s "student politicians" were brought up here, many of whom joined the GCBA, or went on to found their own political parties such as the Fabian Party or the Free Burma Party.
The Wunthanu movement and the Indian controversies[]
A printed photograph of U Ba Pe, taken in 1921.
Throughout the 1920s, the GCBA established a wide network of local branches, all across rural and urban Burma. A new trend of politics was evolving, dubbed the "Wunthanu" (Patriotic Citizen) movement, which came to be dominated by Chit Hlaing's faction of the GCBA andpolitically active Burmese monks. Known in Burma as "Pongyi", a word which literally just translated to "Monk" but had in this era earned a distinct connotation of politically active monks, these dissident ascetics arose from the Burmese monkshoods having lost their former political and economic patron, the Konbaung monarchy. As such, a younger generation of the Burmese Sangha (Buddhist Community) had turned to new tactics and forms of political organizing to maintain their influence, forming the General Council of Sangha Sameggi (General Council of the United Sangha) to assist in the GCBA's political ambitions. The Wunthanu movement they belonged t o espoused populist rhetoric that was steeped in Burmese mythology and Buddhist symbolism, utilizing the average citizen and peasants' familiarity with these topics to explain more complicated political concepts.
Conservative members of the GCBA led by U Ba Pe fought back against the Wunthanu movement as they came to view it as a corruption of Buddhist orthodoxy. In their eyes, this was a misuse of Buddhism as a tool to gin up popular unrest and the radical Pongyi were breaching their vows as monks by engaging in these kinds of public affairs. They also saw it as a very dangerous tactic, as Pongyi had been the leaders of many native insurrections against the British during the turn of the 20th century, utilizing very similar rhetoric to the Wunthanu movement. U Ba Pe and his followers believed that the GCBA was at best likening itself to a primitive rebel movement, rather than the modern, forward-looking nationalist party it had claimed to be, while at worst it was openly inviting British reprisals over their association with the Pongyi. Nevertheless, the Wunthanu movement spread all across Burma, with the new generation of Pongyi and their famed leader U Ottama at the tip of this political spear.
Around the same time, controversies erupted over the status of the Indian population in Burma, particularly the Indian business lobby. It was no secret that much of the GCBA was funded by Indian businesses and that Chit Hlaing was very close to them, having come from a mercantile family. He supported the idea that India was Burma's older brother in regards to political development, having a much older and much more organized nationalist movement in the form of the Indian National Congress. U Ba Pe's faction were outraged at this perceived subservience to Indian political and economic interests. Over a third of all arable land in Burma was owned by Indian landlords, known as Chettiyars, while Indian businessmen had huge stakes in the urban industries, such as mining and shipping. Even many leaders more moderate than U Ba Pe saw this Indian dominance as threatening Burma's economic sovereignty. The vast population of Indian immigrants, such as migrant workers along the Lower Burmese coast and the Bengali Muslims in Arakan also appeared to be growing exponentially, thanks to the British, leading to several condemnations by Tharrawaddy U Pu and U Ba Pe, who both claimed that with British assistance the Indians would eventually outbreed native Burmans and this would lead to the destruction of the Burmese national identity and the degeneration of the "Burmese race".
These ideological disagreements and xenophobic currents simmered in the background, eventually coming to a head in late 1920 following the preparatory meeting for the next year's annual GCBA conference. A proposal was put forward by U Ba Pe calling for reforms to the organization’s political structure and its economic management. Most radical among these demands was a condition to make the presidency of the GCBA elective, with a one year term, like it had been in the YMBA. This directly threatened president U Chit Hlaing, who was trying to secure a lifetime position. The rest of U Ba Pe’s demands for monetary and political changes caused conflict with other leading members' positions within the GCBA, and so his proposals were uniformly rejected. Though U Ba Pe and his followers stomached the 1921 conference, they chose to lead a walkout the following year in 1922 and were joined by a number of sympathetic members, most notably Tharrawaddy U Pu. Tharrawaddy U Pu had remained at odds with the nationalist leader because of disputes about Buddhist theology and racial issues. Eventually, the two men came to bond over their mutual fear of Indian commercial influence in Burma, and the racial fear that the Indian population of the British Raj would strive to dominate Burma. This issue of anti-Indianism finally split the Burmese nationalist movement, leading to the creation of yet another new political faction inside the country, the Nationalist Party.
The Nationalist Party and the Burmese Revolt[]
A photograph of an older U Ba Pe, in the lead up to the 1930 election, shortly after founding the People's Party.
In the years that followed, the Nationalist Party would still maintain relatively cordial relations with the GCBA, owing to their common enemy in the form of the British. Despite his anti-Indianism, U Ba Pe also held a begrudging respect for the Indian revolutionaries who had taken up arms after the Amritsar Massacre, particularly the Bengali, and he was not opposed to a limited degree of cooperation with them. Nevertheless, his principle priority was to protect Burma's national identity, its "race", and its economic sovereignty, so the Nationalist Party platform called for outlawing Indians from owning any land in Burma as well as the total end of Indian immigration into the country. Debates also raged over what the future status of the Muslim Chinese (locally known as Cathay) and Malay immigrants brought over by the British as cheap labour would be, as these groups were subject to similar discrimination as the Indians. A small faction of the Nationalist Party thus became open to cooperating with the British, if talks could be held over stemming the flood of immigrants, but any hope of such an alliance broke due to Lieutenant-Governor Reginald Craddock's increasingly brutal policies following the implementation of martial law in India and Burma.
Whilst the Nationalist Party gained a small, dedicated following, a lot of its ideas were simply considered too extreme and reactionary to attract wider popularity. Additionally, it was a party centered around the urban intelligentsia, finding some support from the 1920s student politicians, but with little to no popular outreach among the rural peasantry or the monks, thanks to U Ba Pe disavowing Wunthanu style populist policies as well as refusing to cooperate with the Pongyi. It was becoming increasingly clear to U Ba Pe that if he was to maintain any political relevance, he would have to accept some compromise with using populist rhetoric. After U Ottama was assassinated and the Burmese Revolt broke out in 1924, U Ba Pe was finally given the chance to return to the political stage. With Chit Hlaing putting together a National Coalition Group to set up a provisional independent government, U Ba Pe was approached to fill a position in the cabinet. This cooperation would not last long however, as he once again began to object to Chit Hlaing's pro-Indian policies, and what he saw as the Azad Hind government overreaching and seeking to control Burma as a mere satellite of the Indian Republic.
The inability of the Chit Hlaing administration to reform capitation and Thatthameda land taxes also helped U Ba Pe secure a significant boost in popularity, and with the peasantry growing disillusioned with Chit Hlaing's lofty promises U Ba Pe's condemnation of Indian landlords now fell upon eager ears. The last nail in the coffin came in 1926 after Chit Hlaing announced his decision to remain in power for a whole five year term, instead of dissolving the provisional government and holding the first Burmese elections as had initially been promised. U Ba Pe left his cabinet in protest, turning the Nationalist Party into the leader of opposition in the legislature. The advent of the 36th Siamese-Burmese War marked a difficult time for the Nationalist Party to utilize this newfound momentum though, as much of the political scene returned to rallying behind Chit Hlaing in defence of the nation. U Ba Pe's fortunes turned once again though, as the humiliating Treaty of Moulmein and the generally poor management of the war saw the Chit Hlaing administration dealt a death blow in popular approval. Seizing the momentum, U Ba Pe finally began to embrace a semblance of populist rhetoric by reforming the Nationalist Party into the much more ideologically-diverse People's Party.
The People's Party and the Pe-Gyee-Thein Coalition[]
U So Thein, who served as U Ba Pe's first prime minister between 1930 and 1935, before being demoted to minister of planning and finance.
Whilst it did not pursue Wunthanu policies, the People's Party still adopted a populist agenda, seeking support outside of the Nationalist Party's limited scope. By opening the doors to cooperation with more moderate right-wing groups and the nascent student societies that had sprung up around the end of the 1920s, U Ba Pe won the hearts and minds of the people. His call for a "Burma for the Burmans" appealed not only to a sense of national pride that had been severely wounded by the Siamese invasion, but also a sense of political unity and purpose. The prominent scholar and author Kodaw Hmaing joined the People's Party for the latter reason, seeing it as the best chance to reform Burma and rise above the failures of the Chit Hlaing administration. A natural consequence of dissolving the old party structure that favoured yes-men and personal loyalists was that new factions emerged in the party and gained a voice to rival U Ba Pe’s own. More extreme xenophobes rallied under Tharrawaddy U Pu whilst younger student activists flocked to the more moderate Kodaw Hmaing's reformist platform.
Around the same time, U Ba Pe began to negotiate a closer political alliance with the likeminded U Maung Gyee, a veteran of the 1920 student strike and leader of the Free Burma Party who had helped found the nationalist "Ye Tat" militia prior to the Burmese Revolt. U Maung Gyee's support for U Ba Pe helped to builder a stronger electoral coalition for the People's Party, though it was not yet a formal political block. Ahead of the 1930 election, the GCBA had also begun to undergo several political schisms, with a large faction leaving under the leadership of U So Thein. U Ba Pe struck up negotiations with this U So Thein group, mediated by U Maung Gyee, securing yet another informal coalition partner. When the election of 1930 came in March of that year, U Chit Hlaing lost the popular vote to U Ba Pe, even if it was closer than most expected. The legislature remained fiercely divided, until a government formed between the People's Party, the Free Burma Party and the U So Thein faction of the GCBA was officially put on paper, leading to U So Thein being appointed as prime minister. Through his turn towards populism and his new political alliances, U Ba Pe had successfully won control of both the executive office and wrestled the legislature into obedience. This subsequent alliance between the three men and their respective parties entered into popular consciousness as the "Pe-Gyee-Thein Coalition".
The first U Ba Pe Presidency and the 1935 Election[]
U Maung Gyee, the present prime minister of Burma as of 1935, head of the Free Burma Party and "General" of the Ye Tat.
The first term of U Ba Pe's administration was marked by a fierce series of reforms meant to rid Burma of its political dependency on India. The various advisors that the Azad Hind had dispatched to influence Burma were gradually sent back, starting with the political and economic consultants. A vast amount of land that had been owned by the Indian Chettiyars was nationalized and steadily redistributed to local villages. Despite these reforms, the overall system of Thatthameda land tax remained almost unchanged, and even with the influx of arable land the countryside still stagnated in comparison to the booming cities. U Ba Pe also went a long way to reform the Burmese military. After successful negotiations were held with the Chinese general Tang Jiyao's neighbouring Yunnan Clique over the status the Sino-Burmese border, a group Burmese cadets were dispatched to the Kunming Academy as a sign of goodwill. A short while later, an officer exchange program was opened up with the Empire of Japan, in the hopes of forming a new, modern military staff for Burma.
Diplomatic relations with the Azad Hind government steadily declined, as despite the more moderate political policies that had won him the presidential mandate, U Ba Pe still sought to implement some of the extreme measures he had demanded during the Nationalist Party's brief time in the spotlight, such as implementing anti-miscegenation laws and banning all Indian immigration. In one Hluttaw session, a fierce U Ba Pe took to the floor to describe his fears over Indian immigration: "We are sure to be swamped in a few years' time. The peaceful penetration of India into Burma is at present not treated seriously, though it is really great. If this state of affairs is allowed to go on forever, the Burmese nation will slowly and surely disappear off the earth". The speech drew the ire of most of the chamber, not helped by the speech given immediately afterwards by Tharrawaddy U Pu. Whereas U Ba Pe had at least taken the consideration to cloak his intentions with great charisma and a bit of restraint, Tharrawaddy U Pu peppered his speech with racial slurs and canards, stating: "I do not want the English, and I do not want the Kala. Our mothers and sisters are almost all taken. Our Burmese nation is about to vanish". The government-proposed bill to end Indian immigration only passed after being watered down with numerous amendments, as even the ostensibly neutral Independent Party rallied against the government, intensifying the conflicts between the executive and legislative branches. A provisional set of anti-miscegenation laws against Indians also passed, due to unexpected support from some ethnic minority representatives to the Hluttaw who shared U Ba Pe's distaste for the Indians.
As the 1935 election drew near, U Ba Pe began to rely more and more on his coalition partner U Maung Gyee and his right wing paramilitary, the Ye Tat militia. During the election season, accusations were lobbied that the Ye Tat had vandalized polling places, stolen ballots, and intimidated voters, charges that U Ba Pe denied with outrage. When the day of decision came in March, he won a slim majority of the vote in the presidential election, but the People's Party lost several seats in the Hluttaw, threatening to deadlock the legislature in favour of Chit Hlaing's "Democratic Opposition". At the behest of U Maung Gyee, U Ba Pe once more reached out to several likeminded right-wing parties, such as U Saw's Patriots Party and the Yadanabon Association of Mandalay, expanding the Pe-Gyee-Thein Coalition into the new "Five Flowers Alliance" to maintain legislative control. As a reward for his role in the negotiations U Maung Gyee was promoted to replace U So Thein, becoming the new prime minister, ushering in an age of even closer cooperation between the Ye Tat and the People's Party. Fearing that U Ba Pe was leading Burma towards a one-party state controlled through paramilitary shock troops, several reformist elements in the People's Party led by Kodaw Hmaing spoke out against the president, but were swiftly silenced with a carrot-and-stick approach. Kodaw Hmaing accepted a promotion to become foreign minister, with the unspoken assumption that he would reduce his association with the People's Party dissidents. Following the outbreak of anti-Muslim riots in July and August of 1935, partly motivated by strife in the Rakhine region, the U Ba Pe government officially passed the "National Union" laws through the Hluttaw. These reinforced the already existing anti-Indian and anti-Muslims provisions, overturning prior amendments and concessions in what would become the first major test of loyalty for the Five Flowers Alliance. This put further pressure on ethnic minority groups to conform to the President's idea of a Bamar-led, Buddhist nation. Following a supportive article in the "New Light of Burma" newspaper by Sayadaw U Paduma, entitled "Bama Thway" or "Burmese Blood", the 1935 provisions soon became nicknamed the "Burmese Blood Laws" by both supporters and opponents of U Ba Pe.
Political thought[]
The exact tenets of U Ba Pe's political beliefs have been rather flexible over the years and are difficult to describe from an outside perspective. They can broadly be categorized into views on civics and jurisprudence, ethnocentrism and racism, and lastly economics and consumption. Various terms of approximation have been used by western press to describe the Burmese President's rather odd mixture of styles in governing his country, but native Burmese thinkers and U Ba Pe himself has often described his ideology as being a representation of the Buddhist concept of "āṇācakka", translating roughly to "Wheel of the State".
Civics and jurisprudence - Buddhism versus politics[]
U Ba Pe has emphasized a great need to pursue Buddhist virtues with zeal, especially among politicians and civil servants, but has notably shied away from using Buddhism as a populist rhetorical tool. To him, religion is something that is above politics, and while it may influence the moral character and virtue of any given politician or voter, religion in and of itself should not be used by the government or by demagogues to sway members of the Hluttaw or the common voter. This does not hinder U Ba Pe from nonetheless wanting the government to promote Buddhist ideals, education and virtues, even if he does not want it to use these policies to rouse any rabbles. In his eyes, any sufficiently well-educated and pious voter will naturally recognize the inherent Buddhist virtue of a candidate, and thus vote for them out of their own volition, not by convincing, which he claims will help uphold a just and stable society. The question of whether or not U Ba Pe desires to overturn a decade of precedence and enforce Buddhism as a state religion thus far remains unanswered. His unwillingness to commit to such a policy likely stems from pragmatism, and fear that it would further empower the Burmese Sangha in the political sphere. After the 1935 election, some of the foreign journalists in Burma compared the recently re-elected president to the grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire, Mustafa Kemal, and also drove comparisons between U Ba Pe's governing ideals and the French political concept of Laicism. Among the East Asian press, some comparisons were drawn to nationalist politicians in China who had sought to distinguish a broader sense of Chinese nationalism from a superstitious devotion to the recently reinstalled Emperor Puyi.
As contradictory as U Ba Pe's ideas may seem, they have their grounding in a long standing conflict which permeates Burmese society, dating back to the era of the YMBA and the radicalised Pongyi. The YMBA's biggest purpose was to preserve Burma's distinct Buddhist identity, and thus to utilize Buddhism as a tool within politics was seen as antithetical to that purpose, as it would either dilute the meaning of what it was to be Buddhist, or potentially cause reprisals from the British targeting Buddhist institutions and values. The radical Pongyi directly fanned the flames of this conflict, acting out of line of what was to be expected of a monk, but what was nonetheless very respected among the common people. This saw them criticized by members of the political intelligentsia such as U Ba Pe, who remained steadfast to a cultural preservation of Buddhist ideals that should not be polluted or misappropriated by radical politics. These Pongyi also had their roots in popular rebellions launched by Dhammarajas and Minlaungs, a type of rebel leader active around the turn of the 20th century who made as.irations to declare themselves spiritually favoured monarchs To U Ba Pe, the concept of politically active Pongyi was inextricable linked to violent revolts and a breach of Buddhist vows. For this reason U Ba Pe has floated the idea of creating a committee dubbed the "Burma for the Burmans League", who's purpose would be to ensure secular governance and root out subversive Pongyi influence. The president also personally expressed his views that the inherent corruption and debasement of political activism is antithetic to Buddhist purity, noting in a debate where he condemned U Chit Hlaing that, "Politics is such very dirty work".
On a theological level, U Ba Pe has justified his policies through the "Two-Wheels Theory", which refers to the dhammacakka and the āṇācakka, a pair of Pali words respectively translating to the "Wheel of Dharma" and the "Wheel of the State". This is an ancient motif within Buddhism, used to explain the difference between spiritual and temporal authority. The Wheel of Dharma represents the realm of spirituality, enlightenment and religious doctrine, led by the monkshoods and by great teachers such as the Buddha. The Wheel of the State on the other hand represents the domain of governments and rulers in the mundane world. Throughout history, many feudal and modern Buddhist rulers have sought to mainly follow the dhammacakka, modelling their ideas and policies after fulfilling the spiritual needs of themselves, their people and their government as "Dhammarajas", or rulers of states whose governance is justified by their piety and divine favour within the realm of the spiritual, not by mortal merits. Others have focused on the āṇācakka, the needs of the mundane world. The "Two-Wheel Theory" reinforces the original teachings of the Buddha and those laid out by his contemporary follower, King Ajatashatru. Namely, that it is a state's ruler's responsibility as part of the āṇācakka to solely govern the mundane world, so that lay people and monks in the sangha, the Buddhist community, can reach their own spiritual enlightenment through the dhammacakka. According to this theory, a state's ruler should not involve himself in the realm of the spiritual by proclaiming himself as Dhammaraja, but should nevertheless still adhere to the laws of Buddhism. This theological doctrine perfectly embodies U Ba Pe's quasi-secular vision of Buddhism, transplanting a millenia old pre-colonial idea onto the modern Presidency of Burma and proclaiming that its holder should rule as a part of the āṇācakka, avoiding directly involving himself in religious affairs, but nevertheless heeding Buddhist ethics and morals.
Ethnocentrism and racism - Burma for the Burmans[]
U Ba Pe has throughout his life always favoured a strongly ethnocentric view of Burmese history and nationalism, one that crosses into explicit racism and cultural chauvinism. Whilst the old Burmese monarchies were states held together through ethnic pluralism and a shared delegation of duties, U Ba Pe envisions that the future of Burma must be one that prioritizes the dominant Bamar people above all else. Most notably, it must be one which prioritizes the Buddhist Bamar, but the strictly racial aspects of his political policies transcend religious differences. In U Ba Pe's eyes, there is a distinct Burmese "race", that has degenerated due to being subjugated by foreign powers such as Indians, Thai and Anglos. These foreign powers have not only crushed Burmese sovereignty, but even sought to destroy the very "Burmese race" itself through miscegenation. To many, these kinds of policies would be seen as fringe or even unthinkable a few decades ago. Under colonial rule and the nascent republic, ethnic minorities held a significant amount of politically sway, particularly through the efforts of Shan princes and Arakanese bankers who formed a cornerstone of the GCBA. Few had expected that U Ba Pe could form a political machine that almost wholly circumvented these established political blocs and garner such a great deal of support from the ethnically Bamar population. As much of the Burmese labour force has also been made up of Indian, Chinese and Malay migrant workers, many of whom have had to settle in the nation after its independence, this has only exacerbated issues.
U Ba Pe was already a known xenophobe before he took power, but the inability to repatriate these migrant labourers to their homelands has cemented his dedication towards a racially pure Burma. The fear of many groups, such as the United Nationalities League, is that if this kind of politics is allowed to continue then the voices of minorities will be drowned out by a growing Bamar voter base, a majority that will care little for the minority's will or opinions but instead take out their anger on perceived enemies. In such an event, the only choice would be rebellion or assimilation into Bamar culture. The latter is a policy U Ba Pe has greatly encouraged, hoping to shape a political consciousness and create a culturally uniform Burma. It is worth noting however that U Ba Pe does not hold the same degree of xenophobic views that some of his compatriots, such as "Tharrawaddy" U Pu, do. He has noticeably distanced himself from "Tharrawaddy" U Pu's more extreme pronouncements and has been at least accommodating towards native minorities, but nevertheless believes that a "peaceful penetration" of the foreign groups such as Indians, Chinese and Malaysians into the Burmese nation would eventually mark its "slow and sure disappearance from the earth".
Economics and consumption - A spokesman for business interests[]
Much like his erstwhile rival, Chit Hlaing, U Ba Pe came from a merchant family and has always been very in touch with his middle class roots. What he lacked in charisma compared to histrionic characters such as Chit Hlaing and Ba Maw, he has made up for in his fruitful connections to indigenous business interests. Where Chit Hlaing took the bribes of and the bent the ears of Indian businessmen and Arakanese bankers, U Ba Pe did much the same with the Bamar middle class. Though this urban bourgeoise was initially dependent on the colonial administration for support, the Burmese Revolt saw it grow to become a wholly self-dependent entity. He was an early supporter of the Rangoon Corporation and the Burmese Chamber of Commerce, as well as a close friend of the Burmese business tycoons Ohn Khine and Baganset U Thaw. His economic politics are thus loosely aligned with free market liberalism, prioritizing foreign investments and maintaining a stable domestic market. U Ba Pe has been notably opposed to most forms of monopolies, and not just out of racial prejudice. While he made his bones criticizing the British control over Burma's natural resources and the Indian Chettiyar landlords, he has also been a vocal critic of the demands for a native-run Burmese state to adopt a planned economic policy.
When both the radical right wing and left wing of the independence movement criticized President Chit Hlaing's decision to privatize expropriated British businesses, U Ba Pe actually stood by him and defended the action, arguing that the Burmese nation possessed neither the technology to manufacture, nor the consumer demand to consume, any advanced goods that could be made from its natural resources. It is only as of late, with the influx of German and Japanese capital, as well as a gradual modernization program, that these resources have found a domestic use. For example, it is only ten years after the revolution that Burmese-owned rubber and oil is now being turned to tires or fuel for Burmese-owned cars. U Ba Pe is nevertheless still opposed to complete free market economics, favouring a degree of state intervention for some natural resources and manufacturing of goods that he sees as integral to the Burmese way of life. Land for rice farming or the manufacturing of textiles are some examples but early in his life he also criticized the overcommercialization of Burmese forest products, such as teak, arguing that the forests should both be owned by and worked by the Burmese people collectively. His government opted to maintain the contentious Burma Forest Act of 1925 promulgated by the Chit Hlaing, with some amendments, trying to strike a balance between the traditional Burmese villages who live and die by the teak woods, and the increased demands of modern logging and manufacturing.
Personal life[]
A photograph of U Ba Pe and his wife Daw Phwar Myin.
U Ba Pe is currently married to Daw Phwar Myin. The couple have no children, although U Ba Pe has several nieces and nephews, both from his own extended family and from his wife's.
A copy of "The Collected Articles of the Political Preacher"
A copy of "On Politics"
Even after assuming the presidency, he has maintained ties to his old newspaper Thurya. He remains a shareholder in its ownership and has contributed several articles that have acted as political manifestos for his government policies. In the run up to the 1935 election, Ba Pe published The Collected Articles of the Political Preacher which was a collection of all his contributions to Thurya.
Beyond Thurya, U Ba Pe has been hard at work on a second major book that is to act as a manifesto for his government, tentatively entitled On Politics and accredited to "Gaungzaunggyi (Great Leader) U Ba Pe".
U Tin, minister of public works and the one of the minds behind U Ba Pe's beloved style of "neoclassical" Burmese architecture.
U Ba Pe has long remained passionate about traditional Burmese architecture; in the early 20th century he was one of the leading voices who called for remodeling the YMBA headquarters in line with older architectural styles, in contrast to a faction which wanted to maintain a modern civic architecture. In response, U Ba Pe stated, "No civic architecture in the world can be found that is not founded on either ecclesiastical, monumental or other religious architecture". This has been treated as something of a motto for the grand architectural projects that have distinguished his presidency, orchestrated jointly by the president and his minister of public works, U Tin, especially in regards to the recent renovation of the Rangoon City Hall and the ongoing repairs of the Ministers' Building.