Ba Maw (1893-1977) was the first premier of independent Burma (now Myanmar) and the leader of the wartime government that ruled in cooperation with the occupying Japanese from 1942 to 1945.

Ba Maw was born in Maubin on February 8, 1893. His father was U Kye, who had been an official of the courts of former Burmese kings Mindon and Thibaw and who had actively opposed the establishment of British colonial rule. By far the most learned of the first generation of active nationalist agitators against the British imperial presence, Ba Maw was educated at Rangoon College and at Calcutta University in India. Like many other Burmese nationalists, Ba Maw turned first to teaching as a profession, becoming the first Burmese to be appointed to the faculty of British-run Rangoon College in 1917. He later studied at Cambridge University in England, qualified as a barrister-at-law at Gray's Inn, London, in 1924, and received a...