Desigar Ramanujam (17 July 1907 – 4 June 1968) was a Ceylonese trade unionist and politician. Desigar Ramanujam was born in

Ramanathapuram Ramanathapuram (), also known as Ramnad, is a city Municipal Corporation in Ramanathapuram district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is the administrative headquarters of Ramanathapuram district and the second largest town (by population) ...

, India on 17 July 1907. Upon completing his higher studies, he commenced a career in journalism. In the late 1920s, Ramanujam, an accomplished writer, came to Sri Lanka to join the editorial staff of Tamil newspaper ''Desa Bakthan''. In 1934, he joined the teaching staff at

Dharmaraja College Dharmaraja College (), founded in 1887, is a boys' school in Kandy, Sri Lanka. It is a Buddhist school with around 300+ teaching staff and over 4,000+ students. A land area of is owned by the school spreading over half of the Dharmaraja hill ...

in Kandy. He went on to form an association, Bose Sangam, to safeguard the rights of the Indian workers. The association's membership encompassed the villages of

Mahaiyawa Mahaiyawa is a village in Sri Lanka. It is located within Central Province. See also *List of towns in Central Province, Sri Lanka Central Province, Sri Lanka, Central Province is a Provinces of Sri Lanka, province of Sri Lanka, containing the ...

and Asgiriya. This association was subsequently dissolved following the formation of the

Ceylon Indian Congress The Ceylon Workers' Congress (CWC) (; ''Lanka Kamkaru Kongrasaya'') is a political party in Sri Lanka that has traditionally represented Sri Lanka Tamils (Indian origin), Sri Lankan Tamils of Indian origin working in the plantation sector of th ...

in 1950, of which Ramanujam was a founding member. He was elected to the

Kandy Municipal Council The Kandy Municipal Council is the local council for Kandy, the second largest city of Sri Lanka. The council was formed under the Municipalities Ordinance of 1865 and first met in 1866. The municipal council is the second oldest and largest lo ...

in 1943, representing the Asgiriya ward. In 1946, he became the first person of recent Indian origin to be appointed the Deputy Mayor of Kandy. Ramanujam was elected at the 1st parliamentary election, held between 23 August 1947 and 20 September 1947, representing the Ceylon India Congress in the Alutnuwara electorate, securing 46.6% of the total vote, 1,437 votes ahead of his nearest rival. Ramanujam was one of seven CIC members elected to parliament in 1947. In 1961,

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

Sirimavo Bandaranaike Sirima Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike (; ; ; 17 April 1916 – 10 October 2000), commonly known as Sirimavo Bandaranaike, was a Sri Lankan politician. She was the List of elected and appointed female heads of state and government, world's first fe ...

offered Ramanujam an appointed seat in

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

. Still, he declined it in favour of the President of the Ceylon Workers Congress,

Savumiamoorthy Thondaman Savumiamoorthy Thondaman (30 August 1913 – 30 October 1999; also spelled ''Saumyamurthy Thondaman'' or ''Saumiyamoorthy Thondaman'') was a Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known his ...

. In 1962, the

International Confederation of Free Trade Unions The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) was an international trade union. It came into being on 7 December 1949 following a split within the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), and was dissolved on 31 October 2006 whe ...

(ICFTU) invited him to join their organisation, where he was given the task of organising the sugar plantation workers trade union movement in

Mauritius Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, about off the southeastern coast of East Africa, east of Madagascar. It includes the main island (also called Mauritius), as well as Rodrigues, Ag ...

. He was subsequently sent to Ethiopia to establish trade unions there. In 1965, the ICFTU appointed Ramanujam as its Special Representative in Singapore and later as the organization's Regional Director in South East Asia. In June 1968, the ICFTU appointed Ramanujam the Director of the Asian Regional Office, based in India. However, he died suddenly on 4 June 1968, at the age of 60, before he could take up that posting.

References

1907 births 1968 deaths Ceylon Workers' Congress politicians Tamil politicians Indian Tamils of Sri Lanka Sri Lankan teachers Indian Tamil trade unionists of Sri Lanka Members of the 1st Parliament of Ceylon Sri Lankan municipal councillors {{SabaragamuwaLK-politician-stub