Palayil Pathazapurayil (P.P.) Narayanan was born in South India and grew up in Malaya. When the Japanese occupation interrupted his studies as an Electrical Engineer, he took a job as winch-man at a tin mine for a dollar a day.
ln 1946, when Whitehall tried to reimpose a colonial regime on Malaya, it succeeded only in uniting the whole country against Britain. There were 300 major strikes, mostly on the rubber estates. P.P. quit his job to begin a one-man struggle to organise his fellow workers. He wrote, 'Now is the time, with God's guidance, to free workers from the bondage of injustice and inhuman ill-treatment.' It was a grim struggle. At one point he had to pawn his wedding ring in order to pay for the telephone bill of the Union.
However when the Federation of Malaya was established in 1948, P.P. represented the unions on the 78-member Legislative Council. At the age of 27 he was elected President of the Malayan TUC and took part in the founding of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) in 1949.
When the formidable General Gerald Templer made his first speech as High Commissioner in 1952, P,P. criticised him for not mentioning the role of trade unions. Templer invited P.P. to dinner. The young secretary of the Plantation Workers was blunt. 'Instead of making speeches' he said, 'why don't you go and visit the worst areas?' A few days later Templer rang him: 'Can you guess which place I visited yesterday?' and added, 'You see, I do listen to people like you.’ Such visits were to prove a winning strategy for the High Commissioner. And his respect for P.P. led to unexpected progress in trade union legislation.
The following year, rubber prices fell and the wages of plantation workers were cut five times in twelve months. Templer got an official invitation for Narayanan to attend the Coronation in London. He then asked the Colonial Office to arrange for P.P. to meet with the top directors of the Malayan rubber and tin industries and advised P.P., 'TeIl them who are not cooperating with you.’ He did. The wage cuts were withdrawn until the trade unions had a chance to agree a fair settlement. Of that visit P.P. says ‘I was anti-British before l went to London, but when I met the London dockers I realised that it was less a matter of racial prejudice and more a case of the rich exploiting the less fortunate people who happened to work under them.
By 1960, Narayanan was President of the Asian Regional organisation of the ICFTU and in 1975 he became President of the world body, the first from a developing country. P.P. has brought to his office the qualities of a shrewd and experienced negotiator, His General Secretary, John Vanderveken, describes P.P.'S 'tough resolve to keep things moving. Many a gathering, short on time, would never have finished its business without P.P. to keep it under control. At the same time his tolerance, humour and big-heartedness have often preserved the unity on this heterogeneous organisation. His diplomatic skills, so necessary in the communal tensions of Malaysia, were largely responsible for the return of the AFL-CIO to the ICFTU after a 10-year absence.
Narayanan's struggle for democratic freedom has been appreciated at home and abroad. The University of Penang awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Law. He also received the Magsaysay Award for community service. And he may well be the only Hindu who has been received by four Popes.
P.P. combines the dynamism and realism of a man of action with a rich cultural life. He is a keen painter, writes poetry and short stories, reads philosophy and is fluent in four languages.
The depth of his moral and religious principles brings an unusual authority to his industrial leadership. He speaks with conviction and feeling. His care for his own family, for his plantation workers and for his world family of trade unions is all of a piece. Whether in the ILO at Geneva or in his own office in a peaceful suburb of Kuala Lumpur, he is unfailingly alert and cheerful, courteous and unassuming.
Dr Narayanan firmly believes that the world's trade unions, free from state control and rising above barriers of race and creed, have a major role in uniting the world. He is convinced that the mass of ordinary people, organised and united, can effectively claim a fair share of the wealth and work of the world. Hence his imaginative initiatives in First, Second and Third Worlds alike. In the past few months, he and his colleagues have conferred with Mr Gorbachev in Moscow and Mr Reagan in Washington.
Today the ICFTU represents the hope of a better future for some 87 million workers in 97 countries. Its motto is 'Bread, Peace and Freedom'. It is not surprising that a man who has experienced life without any of them – and won through, should be one of its most effective and respected leaders.
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