Rishi Sunak, the current Prime Minister of the UK, had a grandfather named Ramdas Sunak. Ramdas Sunak was originally from Punjab and moved to Nairobi as a young man. He trained Kenyan fighters during the Mau Mau rebellion against the British rulers in the 1950s. Ramdas Sunak was employed by the colonial government and worked in the finance and justice departments in Kenya. He was also affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
The Mau Mau rebellion lasted for more than eight years and led to at least 25,000 deaths. The British government recently paid £20 million compensation to 5,000 elderly Kenyans who were subjected to abuse and war crimes during the uprising. Former US President Barack Obama’s grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, was also tortured by the Britishers during this time.
Ramdas Sunak became involved in the fight for Kenyan freedom through Makhan Singh, a childhood friend from India who became a prominent trade unionist in Kenya and a sympathizer of the Mau Mau rebels. Ramdas Sunak left Kenya when Indians were subjected to racism following its independence. He reached the UK in 1971 where his sons were already pursuing their higher studies in the university. He helped set up the Vedic Society Hindu Temple in Southampton during his final years.
Rishi Sunak was born in 1980, after Ramdas Sunak passed away. In 2019, when Rishi Sunak was the UK’s finance minister, a video of him making chapatis in the kitchen of the temple went viral when he campaigned for the UK PM and Conservative Party chief’s position.
