In support of an armed struggle against British colonial rule, he built an underground organization while Aung San went abroad seeking help from the Japanese.
A close adviser to Aung San in the final struggle for independence and during the negotiations with the Attlee government in London, he was appointed as Minister of Home Affairs in the Governor's Executive Council.
His last public political role was the participation in an advisory committee on constitutional reforms, where he and other veteran politicians of the democratic era recommended to reinstate parliamentary democracy, an advice that went unheeded.
Recognized as one of the founding fathers of modern Burma, a skilled diplomat, socialist theoretician and one of the most dynamic and brainy politicians in the country’s democratic era, he drew criticism for his law and order policies as home minister at the height of the insurgencies.
Kyaw Nyein was born January 19, 1913,[1][2] in Pyinmana, British Burma as third child to Daw Thon and Po Toke, a lawyer and leader of the General Council of Burmese Associations.
After passing the Intermediate exam in 1933, Kyaw Nyein and Thein Pe Myint transferred from Mandalay College to Rangoon University, where he joined the English Honors program.
In early 1941, the PRP leadership embraced Aung San's plan for an armed uprising supported by the Japanese intelligence unit Minami Kikan (ja).
[11] In February 1942, he recruited over 200 Burmese soldiers of the Burma Rifles and took them in pilfered trucks to Tharrawaddy where they were supposed to foment a local rebellion together with Ne Win and Bo Yan Aung of the Thirty Comrades before the Japanese troops arrived.
[24] Ne Win had entered a cabinet meeting alleging that he had struck a deal with the communists who were ready to join the government under the condition that all socialist ministers resigned.
[31] Louis Walinsky, an American economic consultant to the U Nu-government, who was highly critical of Burma's focus on import substitution industrialization and advocated greater investments in the agricultural sector, described Kyaw Nyein as one of the outstanding ministers in the administration.
[35][36] The ASC proposed the formation of a 'Third Force' in world politics and adopted a resolution that called for support of democracy, condemning capitalism, communism and imperialism.
Subsequent to the visit, the two countries exchanged embassies, and Burma, after securing in Yugoslavia a major arms supplier, terminated the contract with the British Services Mission.
In 1955, President Tito visited India and Burma, a trip that was considered one of the most consequential and significant for Yugoslav foreign policy as it put the country on the trajectory to the helm of the Non-Alignment Movement.
Following his visit, Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett attended the Asian Socialist Conference in Rangoon in 1953, and diplomatic relations were established between the two countries with David Hacohen appointed first Israeli ambassador to Burma.
[43] He signed a reparation agreement on 25 September with foreign minister Katsuo Okazaki that set the pattern for later settlements with the Philippines and Indonesia whose negotiations with Japan had been in a deadlock holding up the normalization of diplomatic relations.
[47] Helped by votes from the faction of "legal" communists in the parliament, Nu defeated a motion of no confidence tabled against his minority government by Ba Swe and Kyaw Nyein.
[48] The rift within the ruling party destabilized the government and ultimately led to a military caretaker regime by the chief of staff of the armed forces, Ne Win.
After eighteen months, the caretaker government held general elections in which Nu's party defeated the Stable-AFPFL, and Kyaw Nyein lost his parliament seat.
[49] After the coup d'état in March 1962, the Revolutionary Council led by General Ne Win dissolved all political parties and other institutions of parliamentary democracy.
[50] In the same year, he and other veteran politicians among them U Nu and U Ba Swe were invited by General Ne Win to advise the Revolutionary Council on drafting a national constitution and "ways of improving the country's stability and prosperity.