Ramasamy was born on May 10, 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 and at master's degree in McGill University, Canada then obtained a PhD at University of Malaya in 1991. He served as a lecturer from 1981 to 2005 at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia in Political Science.
Career
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 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 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 August 5, 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. 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 is 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 is responsible for state economic planning, education and human resources, science, technology and innovation.
Controversies
Zakir Naik
On 10 April 2016, P Ramasamy, called prominent Islamic preacher Dr. Zakir Naik as "satan", he wrote in his Facebook post “Let us get ‘satan’ Zakir Naik out of this country!”. After severe backlash he removed his posting, apologized and said sorry for causing uneasiness and unhappiness among Muslims in Malaysia.
During October 2019, on the event of military lock-down of Kashmir, P Ramasamy criticized Mahathir's call for UN to restore human rights in Kashmir. During December 2019, despite global condemnation by countries and human right organizations on India's citizenship amendment act, detention camp deaths and killing in protests; P Ramasamy had series of articles and TV appearances criticizing Mahathir for commenting on India's citizenship amendment and the deaths caused.
