Malayapuram Singaravelu Chettiar

Malayapuram Singaravelu, also known as M. Singaravelu and Singaravelar, was a pioneer in more than one field in India. In 1918, he founded the first trade union in India. On 1 May 1923 he organised the first ever celebration of May Day in the country. Singaravelar was a major leader of the Indian independence movement, initially under the leadership of Gandhi, but later, joining the budding communist movement. In 1925, he became one of the founding fathers of the Communist Party of India, and chaired its inaugural convention in Kanpur. Though the British Government arrested him along with other leaders on charges of conspiring to wage war against the Crown, he was set free soon after, on account of his failing health. Singaravelar was also a path-breaking social reformer who in his early life took to Buddhism, seeing it as a weapon against the evil of untouchability, which was particularly severe in the 19th-century India. He was also at the forefront of Self-Respect Movement, in the Madras Presidency that fought for equal rights for backward castes. Though in his advanced years, he withdrew from active politics, Singaravelar remained a staunch advocate of the causes he had pioneered till his death at the age of 85.