Chitchat [Sinkie Lost History] Obituary of Kathry Nair (sister of Devan)

Karthy Nair obituary
[FONT=&amp]Karthy Nair was a lifelong member of Liberty, CND and the Peace Pledge Union[/FONT]

[FONT=&amp]Dhevdhas Nair
[FONT=&amp]Tuesday 4 April 2017 16.25 BSTLast modified on Tuesday 4 April 2017 16.27 BST[/FONT]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]My mother, Karthy Nair, who has died aged 90, was one of the founder members in 1954 of the People’s Action party of Singapore, which after independence from British rule became and remains the governing party.

Karthy was fiercely critical of the party leader and future prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, whom she regarded as a British placeman, and she left Singapore in 1956 to settle in the UK. Karthy’s brother, Devan Nair, became a union leader and eventually president of Singapore, later falling from favour and suffering exile in Canada.

In 1960s London, Karthy mixed with writers, artists and musicians. A lifelong member of Liberty, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Peace Pledge Union, she had a horror of nuclear war, and joined the protesters at Greenham Common. When I was a young man, our home in London was a safe rest house for women who needed a break from the camp.

She was born in Malacca, Malaysia, one of nine children of Sridevi and Karunakaran Nair, both from royal families of Kerala, south India. Her father willingly gave up his title and lands when India became independent, being persuaded of the justness of socialism. Karthy’s school studies were interrupted by the second world war.

Her family took refuge from the Japanese invasion of Singapore on the rubber estate that her father managed in Malaya. She had wanted to study to be a doctor, but instead went to teacher training college. In the UK she had to requalify, and noted with surprise that the training she received in London was inferior to that which she had completed in Singapore. Later, she was awarded a BA by the Open University.

She was a popular and inspiring teacher, first in secondary schools, where she gained the trust and respect of girls involved in street gangs around Ladbroke Grove, and then at Highbury Quadrant and Canonbury junior schools in north London.

A lover of poetry and theatre, and a fiercely independent thinker, after leaving Singapore she refused to join any political party because she would not be told what to think – relenting in the last two years and joining the Labour party in order to support Jeremy Corbyn, her local MP.

Despite her strong political beliefs, and a predilection for robust argument, friendship and loyalty were more important to her and she often exclaimed: “I can’t help it if some of my best friends are Tories!”

She is survived by two sons, Sagar, who was adopted, and me, from a relationship that did not endure.
[/FONT]

Re: [SG History] Obituary of Kathry Nair (sister of Devan)

[FONT=&amp]Progressive educator who always made herself heard
[/FONT] [FONT=&amp]
Karthy Nair, who lived in the same Highbury house for 50 years after leaving Singapore, was a passionate activist and freethinker
12 May, 2017 — By Emily Finch
[/FONT][FONT=&amp]
KARTHY Nair, a respected anti-colonial activist, teacher and campaigner who worked to improve the lives of those around her, has died aged 90.

Along with her brother, Devan Nair, she was one of the founding members of Singapore’s People’s Action Party in 1954. The party helped overthrow British colonial rule in Singapore and remains the dominant political party to this day.

Her brother would eventually become the country’s president, following a long career in the trade union movement.

Born in Malacca, Malaysia, to Sridevi and Karunakaran Nair in 1926, Ms Nair sought to right injustices she witnessed from a young age. At 14, she stole the keys to her mother’s storeroom and distributed bananas and tinned milk to hungry labourers working on a rubber estate.

From Singapore, Ms Nair left for Britain in 1956, where she faced racial and sexist discrimination as a young unmarried mother to two boys. She moved homes many times because of the abuse but eventually settled in Highbury where she lived in the same house for 50 years.

Although she was a qualified teacher in Singapore, she had to retrain once in Britain. In schools across London, including Canonbury Junior School and Highbury Quadrant, she instilled in her students a love of literature.

Reading and writing was a life-long passion for Ms Nair and she loved the works of John Donne, TS Eliot, John Pilger and Terry Eagleton. She would even attend the same parties as TS Eliot and Kingsley Amis in 1960s London and her home would host various writers and musicians.

Not only was she a trusted, popular and inspiring educator but a campaigner for the rights of fellow teachers and students. She advocated new methods of teaching which included giving children more respect and the freedom to learn.

A younger Karthy Nair

She spread her progressive vision by working closely with the teachers at Islington’s William Tyndale School in the 1970s. Ms Nair was not afraid to criticise bad management in schools, or teaching unions when she felt they were failing their members.

Her son, the musician Dhevdhas Nair, said: “On any issue that came up that needed addressing, she was quite strong about it, she would go to union meetings and get her voice heard. They didn’t quite expect to get what they got, a very small Indian woman who told them where to get off.”

Ms Nair was fiercest in her campaign for nuclear disarmament and peace. Her interest in the anti-nuclear movement was kindled when she visited her teenage son at a peace camp near an American air base in Lakenheath, Suffolk. She joined in with protesters blocking the gates to the base on Hiroshima Day – a day to remember the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan and the devastating effects of nuclear weapons. A fierce confrontation between the police and protesters at the blockade led to Ms Nair proudly brandishing her torn sheep-skin coat.

“I would be dancing around, saying to the police, ‘careful, careful she’s 60 years old’,” said her son.

Although she was a lifelong member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament she refused to join a political party after leaving Singapore, until the last two years of her life.

She was a freethinker who didn’t want to be told what to do. She felt let down by the politics of Lee Kuan Yew, the prime minister of Singapore between 1959 and 1990, whom she regarded as an authoritarian leader and a British figurehead.

Ms Nair joined the Labour Party to vote for Jeremy Corbyn in the leadership election of 2015. She saw him as trustworthy and someone whose views and principles reflected her own.

She died on January 21, and a ceremony was held at a crematorium in East Finchley. She leaves behind her two sons, Sagar, 67, and Dhevdhas, 60.


[/FONT]

Re: [SG History] Obituary of Kathry Nair (sister of Devan)

she's right. old fart was known among the retired intell community in the uk as their british agent, or "placeman". unfortunately, after ww2, they didn't inform the u.s. oss about it, right up past the time when the cia replaced the oss. he switched from working with the japs to working with british intell near end of ww2 when he was first to interpret allied morse code radio intercepts into discernible english transcripts for the japs. he could tell from late intercepts that the war was lost (on the jap side) and decided to bail and join the winning side. nevertheless, intell and propaganda assets of japs in south east asia were repurposed by british intell to stay in operation and undercover to aid anti-commie activities after the war. the top agent in malaya outlived, outsurvived, and outsurpassed his british handlers and became his own man, and the rest is history.

Re: [SG History] Obituary of Kathry Nair (sister of Devan)

The obituary first appeared in the Guardian in the UK. The claim that her parents (Devan's parents) were members of the Royal family in the state of Kerala in India who voluntarily gave up their royal titles and land is false. Devan's father was a clerk in a rubber plantation in Jasin, Malacca owned by a British firm. The father did not manage the plantation, it was run by a Briton. The father in fact lost his job and it was Dominic Puthucheary's (PAP MP) grandparents who took the Nair family in for couple of months and they moved to Muar for this.

When she left for UK in 1956, it was the British and Lim Yew Hock's government who threw her brother in detention in St Johns' Island. Old man and PAP had not got into power yet. I am not sure what drove her to UK who was responsible for her brother's incarceration. Sounds like revisionist history. She had a sister who also married a British guy who worked for Radio Malaya and they used to go back on UK on home leave. They were part of a group that included Dennis Bloodworth and his Chinese wife, Hedwig Anuar etc with Island country club as their base. However they were certainly tied to the leftist and the sisters would visit Devan at St John Island as he was the one who brought all the sisters to Singapore and put them in schools.

Thanks eatshit and scroobal for your insights. It's a tragedy that more and more protagonists are dying without leaving behind their sides of the story.

I too am of royal descent, thought you should know. Best regards.

sad to know Singapore could have been a communist country.

im curious,this woman she is so highly critical of Lee Kuan Yew as being a british placemat,yet she is so chummy with the "wingardium leviosums" and the potters and the weasleys,what with her rubbing shoulders with TS fucking elliot and gang and enjoying the damp miserable weather in london and sipping a cuppa of brown joy.

oi vey,human beings they are so contradictory and cognitive dissonant.

now when i say earl grey,u say yes please.earl grey,yes please.earl grey,yes please.
when i say assam,u say lovely.assam,lovely.assam,lovely.