He was a satirist, popular speaker and Central Executive Committee member of the National League for Democracy (NLD) of Burma.
He was involved in a shipwreck while serving as the commanding officer on a coast guard cutter patrolling the south-eastern coastline of Burma.
Maung Thaw Ka wrote a gripping book about the harrowing time he and his mates spent under a searing sun on the small life raft, which carried only boiled sweets and water sufficient to keep 10 men alive for three days.
[6] He was a close associate of the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and had been instrumental in persuading her to appear in public during the pro-democracy uprising in August the year before.
After the coup d'état, when the military government allowed the formation of political parties, he continued to be the CEC member in the NLD and also act as the Sagaing Division's Chief Organizer.
"They (Maung Thaw Ka's articles) made people laugh and at the same time fill us with anger and pain," a Burmese from Rangoon[who?]
He was severely tortured and beaten during his interrogation – he was also locked up in a small cell, according to his friend and fellow writer, Maung Sin Kye.
When students in jail staged a hunger strike in 1991, Maung Thaw Ka gave his full support.
For that, he was badly beaten, tortured and locked in small cell without food when Slorc sent soldiers to crush the "prison insurrection".
[7] At the time he entered Insein Jail, Maung Thaw Ka was already suffering from a chronic disease that was laying his muscles to waste.
His movements were stiff and jerky, and everyday matters, such as bathing, dressing or eating, involved for him a series of difficult manoeuvres which could barely be completed without assistance.