Volta
Politics1930 (We Burmans Association founded) – 4 January 1948 (independence)

Thakin Movement in Burma

Also called: Dobama Asiayone, We Burmans Association

Young Burmese founded the We Burmans Association (the Thakins) to resist Britain, calling themselves "masters" (thakin) to assert that the Burmese were the masters of their own country.

Aung San in the Burma Independence Army, 1942
Aung San in the Burma Independence Army, 1942

Unknown author · Public domain · Source

In Burma, then governed as a province of British India, the We Burmans Association (Dobama Asiayone) was founded in 1930. Its members put "Thakin" (master), the term used in addressing the British, before their names. The 1936 Rangoon University student strike produced young leaders such as Aung San and U Nu, and in 1937 Burma was separated from India as a distinct British colony. Aung San allied with Japan and then rose against it in 1945; in 1947 he reached agreement with Britain on independence but was assassinated that July. Burma became independent on 4 January 1948.

Show on the map

The map in 1930

Open the full map

OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles © OpenStreetMap contributors

States at the time
British Raj · ruling power
British Burma
Myanmar · independence

People

  • Aung San1915 – 1947

    leader · Leader of the Burmese independence movement, active in the Thakin movement, assassinated in 1947 on the eve of independence

Themes that include this event

  • National Movements in Asia and Africa1915 – 1948

    From the Hussein–McMahon correspondence to the founding of Israel — three decades in which India, West Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa, swept up in the tide of self-determination after the First World War, pressed toward independence and modernization