Devan Nair

Devan Nair BBM
ദേവൻ നായർ ചെങ്ങറ വീട്ടിൽ
3rd President of Singapore
In office 23 October 1981 – 28 March 1985
Prime Minister	Lee Kuan Yew
Preceded by	Benjamin Sheares
Succeeded by	Wee Kim Wee
Senior positions Secretary-General of the National Trades Union Congress In office 1970–1979 Preceded by Seah Mui Kok Succeeded by Lim Chee Onn In office 1961–1965 Succeeded by Steve Nayagan 1st Secretary-General of the Democratic Action Party In office 11 October 1965 – 30 July 1967 Preceded by Position established Succeeded by Goh Hock Guan Secretary-General of the People's Action Party of Malaysia In office 14 August 1965 – 9 September 1965 Preceded by Lee Kuan Yew Succeeded by Position abolished
Parliamentary offices Member of the Singapore Parliament for Anson In office 10 February 1979 – 13 October 1981 Preceded by P. Govindaswamy Succeeded by J. B. Jeyaretnam Member of the Malaysian Parliament for Bungsar In office 18 May 1964 – 20 March 1969 Preceded by V. David Succeeded by Goh Hock Guan
Personal details
Born	Devan Nair Chengara Veetil (1923-08-05)5 August 1923 Malacca, Straits Settlements
Died	6 December 2005(2005-12-06) (aged 82) Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Cause of death	Dementia
Resting place	Hamilton, Ontario
Political party	Independent (1981–1985)
Other political affiliations	People's Action Party (1957–1965, 1979–1981) Democratic Action Party (1965–1967) Malayan Communist Party (until 1950)
Spouse	Avadai Dhanam Lakshimi
Children	4
Alma mater	Victoria School
Occupation	Politician trade unionist

Devan Nair Chengara Veetil BBM (Malayalam: ദേവൻ നായർ ചെങ്ങറ വീട്ടിൽ; 5 August 1923 – 6 December 2005), also known as C. V. Devan Nair, was a Malayan-born Singaporean politician and union leader who served as the third president of Singapore between 1981 and 1985.

Nair was elected by the Parliament to replace Benjamin Sheares as President of Singapore after Sheares' death in office. Nair was sworn on 23 October 1981. On 28 March 1985, Nair resigned in unclear circumstances.

Nair was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Anson between 1979 and 1981, and Bungsar, Selangor between 1964 and 1969.

Prior to his presidency, Nair was Secretary-General of the People's Action Party in Malaysia for a short period in 1965, Secretary-General of the Democratic Action Pary between 1965 and 1967, and Secretary-General of the National Trade Union Congress between 1970 and 1979.

Nair died on 6 December 2005 at Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Early life and education

Born on 5 August 1923 in Malacca, Nair was the son of a rubber plantation clerk, Illathu Veettil Karunakaran Nair, who was originally from Thalassery, Kerala, India.

Nair and his family migrated to Singapore when he was ten years old and he received his primary education at Rangoon Road Primary School before enrolling into Victoria School for his secondary education where he passed his Senior Cambridge examination in 1940.

His disdain for colonial rule was apparent in those days, as he changed the lyrics of Rule Britannia to anti-British ones in a school choir performance before a British guest-of-honour.

Career

After the Second World War, Nair became a teacher at St Joseph's Institution and later, at St Andrew's School. In 1949, he became General-Secretary of the Singapore Teachers' Union.

Initially, a member of the Communist Anti-British League, he joined Lee Kuan Yew's People's Action Party (PAP) in 1954. Nair had been detained in 1951 by the British for anti-colonial activities. In 1955, Nair contested the 1955 Singaporean general election but lost—becoming the only PAP candidate who did not get elected. In 1956, he was detained again under the Preservation of Public Security Ordinance Act together with trade unionists Lim Chin Siong and James Puthucheary as suspected communist subversives after the Chinese middle schools riots. Nair was released in 1959 when the PAP won the 1959 Singaporean general election in a landslide victory. He was subsequently appointed political secretary to the Minister for Education. He returned to teaching after a year. In 1960, he became Chairman of the Prisons Inquiry Commission and launched the Adult Education Board.

He was the only PAP member contested in the 1964 Malaysian general election and won Bangsar, near Kuala Lumpur. This contrasted with his 1955 election defeat. He stayed in Malaysia after the separation, forming the Democratic Action Party (DAP), but returned to Singapore to lead the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), the labour union movement which he helped to established in 1961. Nair and P. P. Narayanan were advocates for the concerns of developing countries and voiced their concerns at the ICFTU as they saw economic and social policy documents that were biased towards industrialized nations. They wanted greater attention paid to extreme poverty, unemployment and underdevelopment of their countries. These proposals were accepted and later reflected in the work of ICFTU's Economic and Social Committee.

He entered the Parliament of Singapore in 1979 by winning the Anson seat in a by-elections and retained the seat in the 1980 general election, but resigned the seat in 1981 to accept the largely ceremonial office of President. This resulted in a by-elections of the Anson seat which was then won by opposition leader J. B. Jeyaretnam, the first time in Singapore since 1963 when an opposition party candidate won a parliamentary seat.

During his imprisonment in the 1950s, he read the writings of Sri Aurobindo, particularly the Life Divine and became his lifelong admirer and disciple. He visited Pondicherry and nearby Auroville a number of times and wrote and spoke on Sri Aurobindo's vision in the United States, Canada and other countries.

Resignation

On 28 March 1985, Nair resigned in unclear circumstances. Deputy Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong stated in Parliament that Nair resigned to get treatment for alcoholism, a charge Nair hotly denied. According to Nair's counterclaim, he resigned under pressure when their political views came into conflict and Goh threatened him during a game of chess to oust him as president. Nair also alleged that he was fed drugs to make him appear disoriented and that rumours were spread about his personal life in an attempt to discredit him. In 1999, an article about the case in the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail resulted in a libel suit by Goh. Some claimed that the suit was thrown out of court after Nair's counterclaim. However, in a letter to The New York Times, it is said that Goh agreed to discontinue the suit only when two of Nair's sons issued a statement, reported in The Globe and Mail on 1 July 2004, maintaining that Nair was no longer mentally competent to give evidence in court. The Globe and Mail statement concluded that "having reviewed the records, and on the basis of the family's knowledge of the circumstances leading to Mr. Nair's resignation as President of Singapore in March 1985, we can declare that there is no basis for this allegation (of Mr Nair being drugged)."

Post-presidency, death and legacy

After his resignation as president, Nair and his wife migrated first to the United States in 1988 where they settled in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Then later they moved to Bloomington, Indiana. The couple later moved to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, where they lived for the rest of their lives. His wife, Avadai Dhanam Lakshimi, died on 18 April 2005 in Hamilton, whilst Nair, who had developed severe dementia, died on 6 December of the same year as his wife in Hamilton, Canada.

The Devan Nair Institute for Employment and Employability located in Jurong East was opened on 1 May 2014 by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to recognise his contributions to the labour movement when he was Secretary General of National Trades Union Congress.

Family

Nair is survived by his daughter, three sons, and five grandchildren. His eldest son, Janadas Devan, was a senior editor with the Singapore newspaper The Straits Times and is currently the Chief of Government Communications at the Ministry of Communications and Information of Singapore and also a director at the public policy think-tank Institute of Policy Studies (IPS). Janadas Devan is married to literary scholar Geraldine Heng. His second son, Janamitra Devan, was the former Vice-President of the International Finance Corporation, and the World Bank. His third son, Janaprakash Devan died in 2009. His only daughter, Vijaya Kumari Devan continues to reside in Hamilton, Ontario.

References

• Dodsworth & Brown Funeral Home (Robinson Chapel)
• "AROUND THE WORLD – AROUND THE WORLD – Singapore President Out – Drinking Problem Cited – NYTimes.com". query.nytimes.com. 29 March 1985. Retrieved 18 November 2010.