Martyr’s Day is celebrated in Myanmar as a national holiday every year on July 19, and marks a gruesome event in Burmese history.
The day has been celebrated since 1948, and has been selected to commemorate the day in 1947 when members of Myanmar’s top independence leaders were assassinated.
Since Myanmar has gained its independence, the day was regarded as a highly important event and immortalised as a national holiday.
The day is commemorated down to the minute, and has large significant in Burmese culture.
What is the meaning behind the Burmese Martyrs Day?
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Martyr’s day is rooted in history, and marks the day in 1947 that Prime Minister and General Aung San, Thakin Mya, Dedoke U Ba Cho, Abdul Razak, U Ba Win, Mahn Ba Khaing, and Saopha of Mong Pawng were assassinated.
At the time, the independence leaders were holding a cabinet meeting at The Secretariat in downtown Yangon.
The secretariat, an important seat of colonial rulers, was later used as the seat of the first independent Burmese government.
The Burmese independence leaders were slaughtered at 10.37 BST approximately in a planned rival political attack at the hands of mastermind U Saw.
Those who carried out the assassinations were later tried and convicted by U Kyaw Myint and other Barristers.
The perpetrators were later sentenced to death, and appeals to the High Court were rejected.
There was also widespread belief that British officials were involved in the event, as two British officers were arrested at the time.
One of the two was convicted of for supplying an agent of mastermind U Saw with both arms and munitions.
How is Martyr’s Day celebrated?
Martyr’s Day is celebrated in Myanmar as a bank holiday, and Burmese people use the event as a day of rest – choosing to do with it what they will.
While there aren’t any national directives for celebrating those fallen during the assassination, people may visit the martyrs mausoleum in Yangon.
The mausoleum is dedicated to Aung San and those fallen in the assassination, and many take Martyr’s Day as an opportunity to pay respect to it.
High-ranking government officials make it customary to visit the mausoleum on the 19th to pay their respects.
The national holiday also a place in literature, with poems created to mark the life and times of those slain.
The main poem for martyr’s day is as follows:
Aung San Zarni
Born on 13 February was he
Born in 1915, son of Lawyer U Hpa
Of Natmauk, in Magwe District
Mother’s name was Daw Suu
The year 1947 died he
On 19 July everyone wept
He is the cause of our Independence
He is the father of this nation.
The blessings he had given us, the words he had uttered …
How can we ever take
those out of our minds …