Sivarasa a/l Rasiah ( ta, சிவராசா ராசையா, Civarācā rācaiyā; born 8 December 1956), or also known as R. Sivarasa is a

Malaysian Malaysian may refer to: * Something from or related to Malaysia, a country in Southeast Asia * Malaysian Malay, a dialect of Malay language spoken mainly in Malaysia * Malaysian people, people who are identified with the country of Malaysia regard ...

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking ...

, lawyer and

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

activist of Ceylonese and Sri Lankan descent who served as the Deputy Minister of Rural Development in the

Pakatan Harapan The Alliance of Hope ( ms, Pakatan Harapan; abbrev: PH; stylized as HARAPAN) is a Malaysian political coalition consisting of centre-left political parties which was formed in 2015 to succeed the Pakatan Rakyat coalition. It has been the ...

(PH) administration under former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and former Minister

Rina Harun Rina binti Mohd Harun ( Jawi: رينا بنت محمد هارون) is a Malaysian politician who served as Minister of Women, Family and Community Development for the second term in the Barisan Nasional (BN) administration under former Prime M ...

from July 2018 to the collapse of the PH administration in February 2020. He served as the

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

(MP) for

Sungai Buloh Sungai Buloh, or Sungei Buloh, is a town, a mukim (commune) and a parliamentary constituency in the northern part of Petaling District, Selangor, Malaysia. The name itself means ''bamboo river'' in the Malay language. It is located 16 km NW ...

from May 2018 to November 2022 and for

Subang Subang may refer to: Indonesia * Subang, Kuningan, a town and district in Kuningan Regency, West Java * Subang Regency, a regency of West Java ** Subang, Subang, a town and district in Subang Regency, West Java Malaysia *Subang (federal constitue ...

from March 2008 to May 2018. He is a member and former Vice-President of the

People's Justice Party The People's Justice Party ( ms, Parti Keadilan Rakyat , often known simply as KEADILAN or PKR) is a reformist political party in Malaysia, formed in 2003 by a merger of the National Justice Party and the older Malaysian People's Party. The ...

(PKR), a component party of the PH opposition coalition. He is co-founder of the Suara Rakyat Malaysia (SUARAM), a human rights

non-governmental organisation A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in ...

(NGO).

Early life

Though today he may be one of the top and prominent lawyers in

Kuala Lumpur , anthem = ''Maju dan Sejahtera'' , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Malaysia#Southeast Asia#Asia , pushpin_map_caption = , coordinates = , sub ...

, however, his first degree was actually in

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...

. Reminiscing on his early days in an interview with the New Straits Times, Siva said, "I was trying to get into medicine after high school in

Victoria Institution The Victoria Institution is the oldest secondary school in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It is a memorial school, so-called because it was partly funded by public subscription intended for the erection of a permanent memorial to commemorate the Golden ...

but didn't make the grade. Form Five was great but I guess in Form Six, there were many distractions. So instead I went into genetics in

Universiti Malaya The University of Malaya ( ms, Universiti Malaya, UM; abbreviated as UM or informally the Malayan University) is a public university, public research university located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It is the oldest and highest ranking Malaysian i ...

and graduated with first class honours. Six months into my Master's I realised that this was not my cup of tea and was already looking at other options.” He then applied for a Rhodes scholarship to pursue law at

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

. After completing his law degree and the Bar in Britain, Siva took a year off and went to Germany where he spent most of his time in libraries there reading. He worked for a bit after that in London before returning to

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

on his 30th birthday.

Activism and politics

MP of Sungai Buloh Community Service Center

It was while he was in the United Kingdom that he got interested in human rights and "became involved with union workers and stuff like that there". His first involvement with an NGO was in 1997 when he got involved with a women's group called Citizens Against Rape. Siva got arrested twice during the 1998 Reformasi period but shrugs it off as part and parcel of the job. He later joined PKR. In the 2008 general election, Sivarasa was elected as the Member of Parliament for

, defeating his opponent by a 6,000 vote majority; he went on to keep the seat in the 2013 general election. In the 2018 general election, Sivarasa was reelected for his parliamentary seat which was renamed as Sungai Buloh in an earlier redelineation exercise. Sivarasa was appointed Deputy Minister of Rural Development of Malaysia and sworn in on 2 July 2018 in the presence of His Majesty the Yang di Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.

Personal life

He is married to Ann James, a personality in the Malaysian theatre scene. He met his wife at a demonstration as well. "It was during '' Operasi Lalang'' and she was there too. We were kind of thrown together and that's when it all happened. After a long courtship, we finally got married in 1993", he revealed in the NST interview. Although Sivarasa has had brushes with the police, both his father and his older brother were members of the force; his father was the registrar of the police force and his older brother was a senior police officer. This lawyer-cum-politician is a cancer survivor who lost his voice for almost a year due to

thyroid cancer Thyroid cancer is cancer that develops from the tissues of the thyroid gland. It is a disease in which cells grow abnormally and have the potential to spread to other parts of the body. Symptoms can include swelling or a lump in the neck. C ...

which damaged a nerve on his

vocal cords In humans, vocal cords, also known as vocal folds or voice reeds, are folds of throat tissues that are key in creating sounds through vocalization. The size of vocal cords affects the pitch of voice. Open when breathing and vibrating for speec ...

. He had to speak with a little boom box and a speaker for a while due to this. He has regained his voice but he says, "I can't sing or shout, but at least I still can talk.” He is also an avid guitar player.

Election results

See all

* Subang (federal constituency) *

Sungai Buloh (federal constituency) Sungai Buloh is a federal constituency in Gombak District, Petaling District and Kuala Selangor District, Selangor, Malaysia, that has been represented in the Dewan Rakyat The Dewan Rakyat (English: 'House of Representatives'; ) is the lowe ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rasiah, Sivarasa Living people 1956 births People from Selangor Malaysian politicians of Indian descent Malaysian politicians of Tamil descent Malaysian people of Sri Lankan Tamil descent Malaysian Hindus Malaysian people of Indian descent 20th-century Malaysian lawyers Malaysian human rights activists People's Justice Party (Malaysia) politicians Members of the Dewan Rakyat University of Malaya alumni Alumni of the University of Oxford 21st-century Malaysian politicians