Mr S Rajaratnam

Sinnathamby Rajaratnam , known as S.Rajaratnam, was born in 25Feb1915 and deceased in 22Feb 2006.He is regarded as one of the founding fathers of independent Singapore as it achieved self-governemnt in 1959 and later independence in 1965.

LIFE

Mr Rajaratnam was born in Sri Lanka. His father wanted him to be born there for auspicious reasons after the premature death of his older brother. He was three months old when he was brought back to Seremban , malaysia where his father worked as a supervisor at a rubber plantation.

Rajaratnam attented the Convent of Holy infant Jesus for six months and was transferred to St paul’s institution. At this stage, he became an avid reader due to his uncle, who brought him many books. He then continued his studies at Victoria Institution in Kuala Lumpur and finally Raffles institution in Singapore.

In 1937, he went to King’s college , London to study law, however, he was unable to receive funding from his family to continue his studies due to world war 2. Hence , Rajaratnam turned to journalism to earn a living. He then met his wife , Piroska Feher , a Hungarian teacher at London in 1941 and stayed in London for several years. Rajaratnam returned to Singapore in 1948 when he worked as a journalist in the Malayan Tribune and left to join the Singapore Standard and he was bold in writing the way Singapore was governed by the British. This incurred the displeasure of the colonial government.

Achievements

In 1954, Rajaratnam cofounded the People ‘s Action Party together with Lee Kuan Yew , Goh keng Swee and others. He became popular among his supporters as he was able to understand his people and he thought of making MultiRacial Singapore to become a “global city”. Rajaratnam was also involved in organizing major political campaigns against Singaporean groups on the far left .

During his years in parliament , Rajaratnam contributed a lot. He served as Minister for Culture in 1959 , Minister for foreign affairs from 1965 to 1980, minister for labour from 1968 to 1971, second deputy prime minister from 1980 to 1985. Lastly, Rajaratnam was later appointed as senior minister until his retirement in 1988.He also made a big contribution to Singapore by writing the Singapore pledge.