Ganga Nayar

Ganga Nayar
Member of the Selangor State Legislative Assembly for Serendah
In office 1969–1974
Preceded by	Lim Cy Howe
Succeeded by	Constituency abolished
Founder of Malaysian Workers' Party
Personal details
Born	1924 (1924) British Malaya
Died	(2009-04-03)April 3, 2009
Political party	Labour Party of Malaya Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia (Gerakan) Democratic Action Party (DAP) Malaysian Workers' Party (since 1978)
Spouse	C.V Nayar.
Children	8
Occupation	Politician

Ganga Nayar (born 1924) is a Malaysian politician of Indian descent who founded the Malaysian Workers' Party. She is famously known as the first women to lead a political party in Malaysia. She is also the first Indian woman to be elected to a legislature in Malaysia.

Political career

She began joining the Labour Party of Malaya in 1958 at the age of 34 with her principle, "Serving with politics and serving without politics is different. When in politics, you can serve with power, more aggressively. Without politics, you serve passively. That's the main reason I went into politics." She then crossed over to the Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia, the first of many crossovers in her political career. She rose to become the first chief for the party's women's section. In the 1969 general elections, she stood on a Gerakan ticket for the State seat of Serendah with an electorate of nearly 14,000. Although she was the chairman of Gerakan branch in Sentul, she was pushed to contest in Serendah after the negotiation between Gerakan and DAP.

After another misunderstanding with the Gerakan, she crossed over to the DAP in 1974. She lost her first bid for parliamentary seat in Setapak, the Barisan Nasional strongholds seats. The following year, as she was the chairman of DAP's Damansara branch, she quit the DAP. In January 1978, she became the first president of the Workers' Party (nicknamed the Women's Party) which she had founded. The party had its lone candidate for the 1978 general election in the Sungei Besi parliamentary constituency and the Sungei Way state constituency. She lost her deposits in both contests.

She was retired from being active in politics but still concerned with everyday issues and daily lives of lower group of people. She once said "I serve individuals, but people keep telling me that this way, I cannot get any titles or any money if I do not join any party and that is a problem with politics today. Politicians no longer serve the people, they serve the party, I am convinced that where there is money politics, not only will the politician fall, the party too will fall."

Personal life

Ganga's father worked as an assistant registrar with the supreme court. He also famously known as the leader for the Ceylonese Community in Malaya. Her mother serve as teacher. She married to freelancer journalist, C.V Nayar and has 8 children.

See also

• List of Malaysian politicians of Indian origin