On April 29, 1960, Prime Minister U Nu assigned a five-member State Advisory Committee—headed by former President Dr. Ba U—to provide counsel to the government regarding the establishment of Mon and Arakan States.
Concerning the formation of Mon State, the Advisory Committee began consulting Mon leaders from May 14 onwards to understand their positions and perspectives.
During a meeting with the Advisory Committee, Mon Bhoe Cho expressed that among all democratic rights lost, the most painful was the loss of ethnic identity.
He emphasized that the Mon people, who once populated 32 townships in Bassein (Pathein), 32 in Bago (Hanthawaddy), and 32 in Mottama (Martaban), were now facing cultural assimilation and loss. He stated that only in the Martaban region were the Mon language and script still in use, and warned that if this decline continued, the Mon people could disappear just as the Pyu ethnic group had vanished from history.
(Source: Burmese Political History, Vol. III, 1958–1962, Rangoon University Press, 1991, pp. 258–332)
