As the Secretary of Projects for the Prime Minister's office, Thant accompanied Nu on several official trips overseas.

[2][1]: 9  Remaining in New York, he became a Senior Fellow at the Adlai Stevenson Institute of International Affairs and was awarded the UN Peace Medal in 1972.

Commentator Raja Arumugam argues that the transition was simply a "change of garb", and that Ne Win and his senior commanders merely retired from the army and became civilian government leaders.

[4]: 41–42 Against the backdrop of these political developments, popular discontent against the government grew due to high prices and food shortages.

According to Burma scholar Andrew Selth: The public anger aroused by the savage response to these disturbances was soon aggravated by revelations that large quantities of undistributed food, clothing and medicines were rotting in government stockpiles.

In addition, widespread floods that August severely reduced the rice harvest, leading to further food shortages and price increases.

[1]: 1  Nevertheless, some historical accounts of the funeral crisis frame its causes in terms of political repression, economic failure, and as part of a broader struggle for democracy and freedom.

For instance, scholar Donald Seekins notes that the funeral crisis was a reawakening of student political activism which had been otherwise dormant since Ne Win shut down the People's Peace Committee in November 1963 and the way that the protests spread from students to the general population was "a pattern that would be apparent on a much larger scale during the unrest of 1988".

It was driven to the Kyaikkasan racetrack grounds past "increasing numbers of people" who had "lined the road 'in silent reverence and, one felt, abject humiliation'".

[1]: 12  A commonly cited reason that Ne Win's government refused to provide a state funeral to U Thant is that he held a grudge against for being a close ally of U Nu.

[1]: 10 [6]: 127  Some historians specifically point towards an incident in 1969 in which U Nu denounced the Ne Win regime at the United Nations in front of the press as further evidence for this.

[10]: 311 Thant Myint-U reports that Ne Win even sacked his deputy education minister for suggesting to the cabinet that the day of the funeral be made a holiday.

[10]: 312  Robert Taylor, however, posits that Ne Win's ire at U Thant had lessened over time, and that he had no role in the funeral arrangements.

The students leaders and the monks made a three-point proposal of building a mausoleum in Kandawmin Park (Cantonment Park) at the foot of the famed Shwedagon Pagoda upon the return of the coffin, holding a state funeral befitting U Thant's stature, and granting amnesty to all students and citizens involved in the demonstration.

[1]: 129–130  As Seekins describes: Ordinary citizens flocked to the university to give donations to the demonstrators (an estimated K200,000), and activist leaders delivered increasingly inflammatory speeches at the mausoleum that not only disclosed scandalous details about Ne Win's private life, but also called for the overthrow of his "fascist" regime.

They repeatedly pointed out the contrast between U Thant as a "man of peace" and the BSPP state as a government that ruled the country through the barrel of a gun.

Furthermore, it charged that the students had illegally used the government's construction materials and occupied the university site (on which to build their mausoleum) without authorisation.

Tear gas and baton charges dispersed the students, and despite some resistance, the security forces gained control of the campus by 3 a.m.[1]: 18–19  By 4 a.m., the officers broke open the mausoleum and retrieved the casket.

Angered by the authorities' treatment of the students, angry crowds attacked police stations, set vehicles ablaze, and damaged markets and cinemas.

An official government report states that "38 offices, 4 police stations, 11 cinemas, 65 cars, 4 motorcycles, a diesel train, and 15 traffic posts" were damaged.

Steinberg states that 13 were killed and 70 wounded, but also cites rumours of over 1000 dead, buried in an unmarked mass grave near the Mingaladon military cantonment area.

Whatever the exact figure, few could argue with a United States Embassy official who told international news agencies that 'The military has been very heavy-handed'.

[4]: 43  Selth argues that "outside the armed forces, the regime could not claim the allegiance of any significant social group and that the BSPP's urban cadre failed to enforce law and order as it had to rely on the army to stop the riots."

Moreover, he argues that the events showed a lack of "viable alternative leadership able to replace Ne Win and his supporters", and that even the monks had failed to use the protests to effectively challenge the government.

[1]: 24  Taylor similarly notes that the 1974 crisis was one of the last student-led political uprisings until the end of Ne Win's rule, except for protests during the 100th anniversary of nationalist Thakin Kodaw Hmaing in 1976.