In the morning hours of the next day, the military regime blew up the historic Rangoon University Students' Union (RUSU) building, which had been the symbol of the anti-colonial nationalism struggle since the 1920s.

[6] Students at varies schools even protested the passing of the University Act leading to the formation, in 1921, of the National College which unlike Rangoon included courses taught in Burmese.

[9][10][11] Rangoon University featured prominently as the centre of civil discontent in Burma during the colonial period with all three major strikes against British rule (1920, 1936 and 1938) starting there.

[13] Moreover, higher education proved crucial for elite formation, which was manifested, among other things, in Rangoon University producing some of the most influential political leaders of Burma.

The army arrested leading elites of the toppled regime, including "the president, the prime minister, members of the cabinet, and justices of the court"[17] as well as leaders of Burmese ethnic minority groups.

[17] Officially, General Ne Win justified the coup d’etat as an essential step to safeguard the unity of the county because of ongoing negotiations between the central government in Rangoon and leaders of the Shan State who threatened secession from the Union of Burma.

[17] Additionally, immediately after the coup d’etat, the military regime began to formulate a new ideological basis on which to ground the new state, already outlining the profound transformation Burmese society was about to experience.

[20] The socialist government's ideology reflected "the mainstream of modern Burmese thought – nationalism and socialism"[21] and strived after "a highly centralised path to official autarky [self-sufficiency] led by a single party and backed by a well-equipped and loyal military".

Whereas some students supported the new government because of its appealing commitment towards 'socialist democracy' or remained neutral for the time being, others expressed their intention to join the armed struggle of the Communist Party of Burma.

However, leading members of the RUSU, including President Ba Swe, continued to discuss the matter of hostel regulations and define a strategy for the protests.

[30] In the following minutes a special dynamic evolved which would reveal for the first time the military regime's new tough stance against anti-regime actors challenging the government's claim for absolute domination.

[10] Some authors put forward the argument the pronounced readiness of the government soldiers to shoot at the students can be attributed to a deeper, underlying ethnic and religious conflict.

[23] Shortly afterward, Ne Win addressed the nation in a five-minute radio speech portraying the incident as the work of a treacherous group of communist students.

[note 1] Although the student protest had already ended, the next morning the military regime nonetheless demolished the historic RUSU building with dynamite at 6:00 a.m. on 8 July 1962.

The RUSU building had been a symbol of Burmese nationalism ever since the anti-colonial nationalist struggle of the 1930s as it constituted the locus of the beginning of Burma's drive for independence.

In this respect, the building was also "closely associated with the martyred Aung San",[4] who is not only considered the Father of the Nation of modern independent Burma but was also a student leader in his youth.

The act of destroying the symbolic RUSU building was a tangible sign of a break with this nationalist tradition, where a large segment of the Burmese elite shared national aspirations across party lines.

[33] The brutal crackdown on the student protests by the military regime of General Ne Win stood in stark contrast to the largely peaceful seizure of power in March.

Instead, Burmese students shifted political activities underground openly contesting the military regime only sporadically, especially during the U Thant funeral crisis in 1974 and the 8888 Uprising in 1988.

[41] The new military regime of General Ne Win was faced with a particularly effective and expanding educational system in Burma, which was deemed one of the best in Asia in the 1930s and 1940s.

[41][13] Thus, the reaction of the new military regime towards the student protests marked the beginning of an important line of continuity shaping the following decades, where the main target of subsequent Burmese governments was control not quality of education.

[45] Furthermore, the Ne Win government introduced comprehensive institutional reforms of tertiary education in Burma intended to place the country's universities under strict official control and to profoundly hamstring cohesive student activism.

At that time private study groups dedicated to striving for independence met to learn from political literature to assist their anti-colonial struggle.

[40] Other student activists, however, "joined the armed Communist Party in the jungle"[40] and "participat[ed] in the guerrilla warfare conducted by rebel political and ethnic groups against the government".

[58] Scholars have stressed the importance of the 1962 Rangoon University protests as a formative event and focal point for later student activism against military rule in Burma.

[59] As a visible sign of the symbolic importance of the events as a reference point, "many Rangoon University students wore black or participated in furtive, nighttime demonstrations around campus"[41] on the anniversary of the 7 July incident.

[60] Furthermore, when Ne Win had to resign only a few weeks later because of the 8888 Uprising, he referred in his departure speech to the destruction of the RUSU building as "one of the key episodes"[4] during his time in power.

Moreover, Ne Win also explicitly denied any involvement in dynamiting of the Student Union building, stating that his deputy Brigadier Aung Gyi, who by that time had fallen out with Ne Win and been dismissed, had given the order without his approval and he had to take responsibility as a "revolutionary leader" by giving the sword with sword and spear with spear speech.

[2] Aung Gyi, in turn, "claimed that he merely delivered the order given by General Ne Win to the commander of the military company which eventually detonated the explosives that destroyed the union building.

"[61] However, the conviction has gained ground among academic scholars that Ne Win in fact bears the ultimate responsibility for the destruction of the RUSU building.