Ludu U Hla - Post-War Ludu

Post-War Ludu

During the period of post-war austerity, U Hla continued to publish using any kind of paper that he could get hold of including coloured matchbox packing paper and used office paper with printing on one side. He would also still manage to send his new books as gifts, about 200 on each occasion, to all his friends in Rangoon at a time when communication lines and road and rail transportation had all but broken down. It was in 1945 that he launched the fortnightly Ludu (The People) Journal with his wife as assistant editor. The following year saw the launch of the Ludu Daily newspaper and subsequently the couple came to be known as Ludu U Hla and Ludu Daw Amar. Their incisive political commentaries and analyses made a significant contribution to the country's yearning for independence and unified struggle against colonial rule. Their publications had never carried advertisements for alcohol, drugs to enhance sexual performance or gambling, nor racing tips, salacious affairs and gossip. U Hla had to be persuaded to make an exception of film advertisements for the survival of the paper.

One morning in 1948, soon after Burma gained her independence from the British, however, the Kyipwa Yay Press in Mandalay was dynamited to rubble by government troops who were angry that the Ludu couple appeared to be sympathetic to the Communists. This was a time when regime change happened quite often with the city falling into the hands, in turn, of the Karen rebels, Communists and the new nationalist government under U Nu. The entire family, including two pregnant women, was thrown out into the street, lined up and was about to be gunned down when a number of monks and locals successfully intervened to save their lives. Although only an ardent reformist, if left-leaning, and recognised as such from the early days by his friends and colleagues, the accusing finger of being a Communist by successive governments was never to leave him, even when many in the ruling party of the day, including Ne Win, knew him personally. Hardline leftists, on the other hand, regarded him as weak and indecisive, lacking in revolutionary commitment.

U Hla was an active founding member of the Writers Association of Burma and chaired the Upper Burma section. In 1952 he attended, with Thakin Kodaw Hmaing, Zawana, Shwe U Daung, Dagon Ta-ya and U Ohn Lwin, the Conference for Peace in the Asia Pacific Region in Peking. In October 1953 the AFPFL government imprisoned U Hla under Section 5 for sedition as a political prisoner which spawned a whole genre of life stories of his fellow inmates among others that he published after his release in January 1957:

1. Lei hnint a tu (လေးနှင့်အတူ) - Along with the Wind, translated into Japanese
2. Htaung hnint lutha (ထောင်နှင့်လူသား) - Prison and Man, winner of the Sapei Beikman Award in 1957
3. Hlaungyaing dwin hma hnget nge mya (လှောင်ချိုင့်တွင်မှာငှက်ငယ်များ) - Young Birds in a Cage, translated into English under the title The Caged Ones and winner of the UNESCO award for literature in 1958.
4. Ah lone kaung gya yè lah (အားလုံးကောင်းကြရဲ့လာ) - Are You All All Right?
5. Yèbaw hnint maung gyi hnama (ရဲဘော်နှင့်မောင်းကြီးနှမ) - Soldier and Maiden
6. Sit achit hnint htaung (စစ်အချစ်နှင့်ထောင်) - War, Love and Prison 1960, translated into English under the title The Victim.
7. Za-nee hnint tha thami mya tho htaung dwin hma payza mya (ဇနီးနှင့်သားသမီးများသို့ထောင်တွင်မှာပေးစာများ) - Letters from Prison to Wife and Children
8. Sit peeza htaung daga (စစ်ပြီးစထောင်တံခါး) - Post-War Prison Gates
9. Ma-nee dè bawa hka-yee (မနီးတဲ့ဘဝခရီး) - Life is a Long Journey

Whilst inside U Hla remained active organising sporting and literary events for inmates and invited friends from the world of sport, arts and literature to these special events as a bridge between the outside world and those inside. He formed a football team and took up golf. His fellow political prisoners remembered him as having the most visitors, and that he was anxious to share all the news and the food from outside. U Hla was an accomplished public speaker with a ready smile and great sense of humour but without pride or prejudice. He was friendly and polite and concerned with the health and well-being of everyone and soon he would become U-lay Hla (Uncle Hla) to the younger inmates. He would not forget to visit them in prison after his release bringing food, books and even a radio on one occasion.