![Thakhin Chit and family](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Thakhin_Chit_and_family.jpg)
Thakin Chit Maung ( my, ချစ်မောင်; 1915 – 3 March 2005), also known as Widuya Thakin Chit Maung, was a veteran Burmese politician.
Political career
His political career in
Burma
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
(also called
Myanmar
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...
) began as a teenager in the early 1930s when he joined the nationalist organisation,
Dobama Asiayone
Dobama Asiayone ( my, တို့ဗမာအစည်းအရုံး, ''Dóbăma Ăsì-Ăyòun'', meaning ''We Burmans Association'', DAA), commonly known as the Thakhins ( my, သခင် ''sa.hkang'', lit. Lords), was a Burmese national ...
(We Burmans Association). He participated in the anti-British campaign led by General
Aung San
Aung San (, ; 13 February 191519 July 1947) was a Burmese politician, independence activist and revolutionary. He was instrumental in Myanmar's struggle for independence from British rule, but he was assassinated just six months before his go ...
(father of
Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi (; ; born 19 June 1945) is a Burmese politician, diplomat, author, and a 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as State Counsellor of Myanmar (equivalent to a prime minister) and Minister of Foreign Affairs from ...
) and fought against the
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
ese during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
In 1950, Chit Maung helped established the
Burma Workers and Peasants Party, nicknamed the "Red Socialists",.
As there is another Burmese politician Thakin Chit Maung of the same name and as both of them took the appellation '
Thakin
Dobama Asiayone ( my, တို့ဗမာအစည်းအရုံး, ''Dóbăma Ăsì-Ăyòun'', meaning ''We Burmans Association'', DAA), commonly known as the Thakhins ( my, သခင် ''sa.hkang'', lit. Lords), was a Burmese national ...
', 'Master' - this Thakin Chit Maung is known by the additional acronym mentioned usually before his name: 'Widura'. Hence Widura Thakin Chit Maung.
Widura Thakin Chit Maung earned this additional name around February 1959 after he gave a speech in the then Burmese Parliament. In his speech Thakin Chit Maung compared the travails of the Burmese people during the caretaker administration of General
Ne Win
Ne Win ( my, နေဝင်း ; 10 July 1910, or 14 or 24 May 1911 – 5 December 2002) was a Burmese politician and military commander who served as Prime Minister of Burma from 1958 to 1960 and 1962 to 1974, and also President of Burma ...
with the travails that the embryo ('would-be')
Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism.
According to Buddhist tradition, he was ...
had gone through in the Buddha's previous existence as the Minister Widura which were depicted in The
Jataka
The Jātakas (meaning "Birth Story", "related to a birth") are a voluminous body of literature native to India which mainly concern the previous births of Gautama Buddha in both human and animal form. According to Peter Skilling, this genre is ...
Tales.
Thakin Chit Maung's speech in Parliament was broadcast live on radio at that time and soon thereafter he gained the appellation or honorific of 'Widura Thakin Chit Maung'. Thakin Chit Maung who was then a member of Parliament representing the leftist
National United Front
The National United Front ( my, အမျိုးသား ညီညွတ်ရေး တပ်ပေါင်းစု) was a political alliance in Myanmar, Burma.
History
The alliance was formed in 1955 as a successor to the People's Democr ...
(not to be confused with
National Unity Party The National Unity Party, National United Party, Party of National Unity or National Unity Front may refer to:
* National United Party of Afghanistan (founded 2003)
* National Unity Party (Albania)
* National United Party (Armenia), defunct
* Natio ...
of the renamed
Burma Socialist Programme Party
The Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP), ; abbreviated , was Burma's ruling party from 1962 to 1988 and sole legal party from 1964 to 1988. Party chairman Ne Win overthrew the country's democratically elected government in a coup d'éta ...
formed in late September 1988) opposed the then proposed amendment to Section 116 of the 1947 Burmese Constitution which would allow General Ne Win to continue to serve as 'care taker Prime Minister' (Section 116 of the 1947 Burmese Constitution stated in effect that no person who is not a member of Parliament shall serve as a Minister or Prime Minister for more than six months. General Ne Win was not a member of Parliament and since by February 1959 he had served as Prime Minister for nearly six months there were moves to amend the Constitution in order for General Ne Win to continue to serve as caretaker Prime Minister. The Constitution was amended and General Ne Win's caretaker government
held multiparty elections in February 1960. The
Clean Faction of the
Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League
The Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL), ; abbreviated , ''hpa hsa pa la'' was the dominant political alliance in Burma from 1945 to 1958. It consisted of political parties and mass and class organizations.
The league evolved out of t ...
(AFPFL) led by
U Nu
Nu ( my, ဦးနု; ; 25 May 1907 – 14 February 1995), commonly known as U Nu also known by the honorific name Thakin Nu, was a leading Burmese statesman and nationalist politician. He was the first Prime Minister of Burma under the pr ...
won the 1960 elections by a landslide and General Ne Win handed back power to U Nu.)
The other Burmese politician Thakin Chit Maung is known by the name of his home town
Myanaung
Myanaung is a town in the Ayeyarwady Division of south-west Burma. It is the seat of the Myanaung Township in the Hinthada District
Hinthada District ( my, ဟင်္သာတခရိုင်; formerly Henzada District) is a district of ...
and hence Thakin Chit Maung (
Myanaung
Myanaung is a town in the Ayeyarwady Division of south-west Burma. It is the seat of the Myanaung Township in the Hinthada District
Hinthada District ( my, ဟင်္သာတခရိုင်; formerly Henzada District) is a district of ...
). Both Thakin Chit Maung (Widura) and Thakin Chit Maung (Myanaung) were members of the Internal Unity Advisory Board (IUAB) informally known as the 'Thirty-three' since there were 33 members in the Board. The late General
Ne Win
Ne Win ( my, နေဝင်း ; 10 July 1910, or 14 or 24 May 1911 – 5 December 2002) was a Burmese politician and military commander who served as Prime Minister of Burma from 1958 to 1960 and 1962 to 1974, and also President of Burma ...
, then Chairman of the
Union Revolutionary Council
The Union Revolutionary Council ( my, နိုင်ငံတော်တော်လှန်ရေးကောင်စီ), officially the Revolutionary Council of the Union of Burma ( my, ပြည်ထောင်စုမြန်မာန ...
(also known as
RC) that has taken over power through a
military coup
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such ...
on 2 March 1962 formed the IUAB on 2 December 1968 and the Board was to report its suggestions to the
RC by 31 May 1969 to enhance 'national unity'.
Thakin Chit Maung also formed the Democratic Front for National Reconstruction in the 1980s and joined the Veteran Politicians Group in the late 1980s. The Veteran Politicians Group later sent open letters to Burma's then military ruler, Senior General
Than Shwe
Than Shwe ( my, သန်းရွှေ, ; born 2 February 1933 or 3 May 1935) is a Burmese strongman politician who was the head of state of Myanmar from 1992 to 2011 as Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).
During this ...
, urging the release of
Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi (; ; born 19 June 1945) is a Burmese politician, diplomat, author, and a 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as State Counsellor of Myanmar (equivalent to a prime minister) and Minister of Foreign Affairs from ...
and for national reconciliation talks to take place between the
State Peace and Development Council
The State Peace and Development Council ( my, နိုင်ငံတော် အေးချမ်းသာယာရေး နှင့် ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေး ကောင်စီ ; abbreviated SPDC or , ) was the offi ...
(SPDC), the
National League for Democracy
The National League for Democracy ( my, အမျိုးသား ဒီမိုကရေစီ အဖွဲ့ချုပ်, ; Abbreviation, abbr. NLD; Burmese abbr. ဒီချုပ်) is a liberal democratic political party in Myanm ...
(NLD) and the various ethnic groups throughout the country.
Thakin Chit Maung died at the age of 90 in
Rangoon
Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...
on 3 March 2005.
External links
*Democratic Voice of Burm
*National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chit Maung, Thakin
1915 births, Maung, Thakhin Chit
Maung, Thakhin Chit
Burma Workers Party politicians