- Saturday, March 01, 2025
Ramdas is believed to have become involved in the struggle for Kenyan’s independence through Makhan Singh, a childhood friend from India who later became a prominent trade unionist in the African nation,
By: Shubham Ghosh
In an ironic revelation, it has been said that UK prime minister Rishi Sunak’s grandfather had reportedly helped freedom fighters in Kenya organise a revolt against British rule in the 1950s.
The Mail on Sunday (28) reported citing family sources that did not want to be identified that the senior Sunak, who had moved from Punjab in undivided India to Nairobi, Kenya, as a young man, was involved in equipping Mau Mau militants in guerilla techniques.
It also said that Ramdas’s activities continued despite him being on the British colonial payroll. Ramdas was a trained accountant who was employed as a clerk and then a senior administrative official in departments such as finance and justice.
According to the Mail report, the revelations came as the current Tory administration of the UK has paid a compensation worth £20 million to 5,000 elderly Kenyans who faced abuse at the hands of the British rulers during the Mau Mau uprising (1952-60).
Ramdas is believed to have become involved in the struggle for Kenya’s independence through Makhan Singh, a childhood friend from India who later became a prominent trade unionist in the African nation and a supporter of the Mau Mau fighters, the Mail report added.
Ramdas, however, played a different role when he decided to move countries after life in post-independence Kenya became unpleasant for Indians, many of whom faced racist abuses.
In the early 1970s, he left for Britain, where two of his adult sons had already reached for higher study.
Later, Ramdas helped in setting up the Vedic Society Hindu Temple in Southampton but he passed away in 1980, the year Rishi was born, before it opened its doors to devotees.
Rishi became the UK’s first prime minister of Indian origin in October last year, succeeding Liz Truss.
