In this Indian name, the name Palanisamy is a patronymic, and the person should be referred to by the given name, Ramasamy. The abbreviation "s/o" or "d/o", if used, means "son of" or "daughter of" respectively.
Ramasamy was elected to the Malaysian Parliament and Penang State Legislative Assembly in the 2008 election, defeating former Penang Chief MinisterKoh Tsu Koon.[2] He became Deputy Chief Minister of Penang after the election, serving under the new Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, making him the first person of Indian origin to hold the post of deputy chief minister in any Malaysian state.[3]
Before entering politics, Ramasamy was a professor at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), from which he officially retired in May 2005. He later took up teaching positions in Germany and Singapore.[3]
Ramasamy was born on 10 May 1949. His father Palaniyammal Palanichany and his mother worked in the fields of Malaya in 1920 and migrated from Tamil Nadu. He has six siblings. Ramasamy attended the Anglo-China Primary School in the late 1950s.
He earned his early education in Teluk Intan, Perak, then obtained a First Degree in Journalism in New Zealand then continued his studies in Political Science at Indian University United States (1977) and at master's degree in McGill University, Canada (1980) then obtained a PhD at University of Malaya in 1991. He served as a lecturer from 1981 to 2005 at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) in Political Science.
He has served as the University of Singapore's Visiting Professor in Southeast Asian Political Education. From the beginning, he has been involved as an activist working on issues of labor beginning in the 1980s through INSAN (Institute of Social Analysis) Kuala Lumpur.
He has had 25 years of experience as a political science lecturer, who has served as a counselor and security consultant to several international peace efforts such as Acheh, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Colombia. Ramasamy served as an advisor to the Global Labor University International Labour Organization (ILO) 2004.
Political career
Ramasamy is active as an activist who fights for the fate of minorities in Sri Lanka and Acheh Merdeka. The two parties involved in Acheh finally agreed to sign a peace agreement on 5 August 2005. On 26 August 2005, he was fired from UKM for no reason. Afterwards he taught in Germany and Singapore and began to engage in DAP activities.[citation needed]
Started joining DAP officially in September 2005. Writing several books and many articles in local and international journals. He defeated former Chief Minister of Penang Tan Sri Koh Tsu Koon for the Batu Kawan parliamentary constituency in the 2008 general election. He was also Penang State Assemblyman N16 Perai. In 2008, the BN government fell to PR as DAP had won 19 seats, PKR 9 seats and PAS only 1 seat. He was appointed Deputy Chief Minister II of Penang and was the first Indian to be elected to the post.
In the exco of the Penang government, he was responsible for state economic planning, education and human resources, science, technology and innovation.[citation needed]
After being dropped as candidate to defend his Perai seat for the 2023 Penang state election, Ramasamy quit DAP on 10 August 2023, citing the actions of certain party leaders as the reason of his party resignation.[5][6]
Controversies
Zakir Naik
On 10 April 2016, P Ramasamy, called prominent Islamic hate preacher Dr. Zakir Naik as "satan", he wrote in his Facebook post "Let us get ‘satan’ Zakir Naik out of this country!"..[7]
On 2 November 2023, the High Court has ordered P Ramasamy to pay RM 1.5 Million in libel to Zakir Naik as the judgement for the same case.[8]
India's Hindu Nationalism policies under Narendra Modi
During December 2019, despite global condemnation by many leaders and human rights organizations on India's Citizenship Amendment Act (designed for addressing the bordering Muslim majority countries only), the detention camp deaths due to NRC[13][14] and the deaths during the protests against the Act; P Ramasamy had a series of articles defending the requirement of the Act[15][16] and had TV appearances in Indian media criticizing Mahathir for commenting on the India's Citizenship Amendment Act and the deaths caused (during protests and in detention camp for lack of ancestral documents[13][14]). Hafiz Hassan, had questioned "Is P Ramasamy a state assembly person from Malaysia or an official from India's External Affairs Ministry?" on why he is so apologetic of the citizenship policy of India, despite Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in India would be affected as well.[17]
